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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 13, 1997
issue of Workers World newspaper
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The Hebron agreement and the Palestinian struggle

By Richard Becker

On Jan. 15 an agreement was reached for the Israeli military to withdraw from 80 percent of Hebron, the biggest city in the Israeli-occupied West Bank of Palestine. A few days later tens of thousands welcomed Palestinian Authority President Yasir Arafat to the city.

The Hebron pact was part of a broader agreement designed to revive the Oslo Accords. The Accords' implementation had been stalled for nearly a year, threatening to bring the "peace process" to a halt.

U.S. special envoy Dennis Ross heavily pressured Palestinian and Israeli negotiators to sign the agreement. Ross extracted new concessions from the Palestinians, enlisting the pro-U.S. leaders King Hussein of Jordan and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to add weight.

U.S. goals in Mideast

Ross called the Hebron agreement a "road map for the future." But the big question-whether this road will lead to the creation of an independent Palestinian state-remains to be answered.

The Oslo Accords, signed in 1993 and 1995 in Washington, called for establishing Palestinian autonomy, rather than a fully independent state, in parts of the West Bank and Gaza.

In exchange, the Palestine Liberation Organization led by Yasir Arafat agreed to recognize the Israeli state, which had expelled Palestinians from their land in 1948. This meant, in effect, renouncing Palestinian claims to territory inside the 1948 borders.

Most Palestinians live in exile, and were not granted the right to return to their homeland.

Palestinian supporters of the accords, led by Arafat, argued that they would eventually lead to a full-fledged state. Left organizations like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Democratic Front, along with Islamic groups like Hamas, opposed the accords as falling far short of true statehood.

The U.S. government promoted the Oslo agreement after the collapse of the Soviet Union and and defeat of Iraq in the 1991 Gulf war had weakened the Palestinian bargaining position.

The major U.S. objective has long been to "stabilize" the oil-rich Middle East region by destroying revolutionary movements. Washington has used various means to bring about an imperialist-imposed "peace" in the region. Such a peace would give U.S.-based banks and oil companies a free hand to exploit.

The Pentagon and the CIA have worked overtime to crush popular organizations and independent governments in the Middle East-from the bloody restoration of the shah in Iran in 1953 to the destruction of much of Iraq by bombing and sanctions in the 1990s.

Washington particularly hates the tenacious struggle of the Palestinian people, because the Palestinian cause is central to people's movements throughout the Mideast. The genocidal expulsion of the Palestinians from their homeland nearly a half-century ago remains a burning issue throughout the region.

The dominant view in Washington has been that any Palestinian state, even a very small one, would become a center of revolution throughout the entire Mideast.

But by the early 1990s, despite hundreds of billions of dollars of U.S. military and economic support, Israel had been unable to crush the Palestinian Intifada, a permanent state of uprising that began in late 1987.

In the changed conditions of 1991, the Bush administration-and later Clinton-decided to seek a negotiated solution. They hoped that would neutralize the Palestinian struggle.

Renegotiating Oslo Accords

The latest round of intense talks leading to the Hebron agreement was, in many respects, a renegotiation of the Oslo Accords.

After the 1993 agreement, the Israelis withdrew from about 60 percent of Gaza and the West Bank town of Jericho. As the first step in implementing the 1995 agreement, Israel was supposed to withdraw from eight West Bank cities including Hebron by March 1996.

In September 1996, the Israelis were to begin a three-stage pull-out from most rural areas in the West Bank.

All Palestinian women political prisoners were also supposed to be released from Israeli jails. A schedule was created for releasing men prisoners. A route of passage between the geographically separated West Bank and Gaza was to be set up, and a number of other steps implemented.

With the Israeli election coming up, the Hebron evacuation did not take place. When the Likud Bloc headed by Benjamin Netanyahu was elected in May 1996, the Israeli government began to renege on the entire Oslo Accords.

Instead of withdrawing from Hebron or the rural areas, Netanyahu announced plans to launch a massive new Israeli settlement drive in the West Bank, and began seizing more Palestinian lands. Palestinian institutions and rights in Jerusalem came under new attack from the Israeli authorities.

Palestinian anger exploded in September, turning into armed struggle between the Israeli army and Palestinian Authority police for the first time. The clashes took a heavy toll among Palestinians, with 60 killed and over a thousand wounded. But dozens of Israeli soldiers were casualties too.

The U.S.-sought stability was turning into its opposite. Not only in occupied Palestine but in the neighboring Arab countries, anti-U.S. and anti-Israel sentiment rose sharply.

Struggle continues

In recent months, the media under even the most pro-U.S. regimes like Jordan and Egypt have increasingly focused on the threat of a new war posed by heightened Israeli belligerence.

This rising level of tension caused Washington to weigh in heavily. Special envoy Ross was sent several times to restart negotiations and keep them going until there were results.

Netanyahu and the Likud party have long sought to create a "Greater Israel," which annexes the occupied territories and other Arab lands. They have frequently announced their opposition to any concessions to the Palestinians.

But they are as dependent, in the final analysis, on U.S. support as was the misnamed Labor Party government that preceded them in office. U.S. aid, official and unofficial, amounts to well over $5 billion per year, keeps the Israeli economy afloat, and makes its military one of the world's most powerful.

So in the end, the Netanyahu government had to give some ground.

At the same time, Washington teamed with the Israelis in exacting new concessions from the Palestinians. Only 80 percent of Hebron was turned over to the PA.

The 20 percent of the city that remains under Israeli occupation includes the Arab marketplace and the Mosque of Ibrahim/Tomb of the Patriarchs, a site holy to Moslems, Jews and Christians. It is home to 15,000 Palestinians and 450 extreme right-wing Israeli settlers.

The rural withdrawal has been rescheduled. It is now set to be completed in mid-1998. But ambiguities in how much land is to be turned over remain.

The Palestinians hope to receive 80 percent to 90 percent of the countryside, while the Israelis talk of continuing to occupy as much as half of the rural area. A letter from Secretary of State Warren Christopher stated the U.S. position that it is solely up to Israel to decide this issue.

Immediately after the new agreement was signed, Israeli police began evicting Palestinians from areas of the West Bank to further expand settlements.

International press reports reflected the mixed feelings among Palestinians about the latest agreement. The celebration in Hebron was reported to have been more subdued than those that accompanied earlier Israeli withdrawals.

A Hebron resident, Idris Zahadi, told one reporter: "Of course I'm happy to see President Arafat. But I am not happy because the road to my house is closed [by Israeli troops]. Much of the city is still under occupation."

The Hebron agreement is not a real resolution of the conflict. In the coming months and years, the Palestinian struggle for self-determination and statehood will continue.

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