MIDDLE EAST
'Peace offensive' masks war on Palestinian rights
By
Richard Becker
On July 19, new Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak met with
President Bill Clinton in Washington. The same day, Israel
announced that it would buy 50 new F-16E fighter-bombers, at a
cost of $2.5 billion, from Lockheed-Martin Corp., with an
option to purchase 60 more of the high-tech warplanes for an
additional $2 billion.
The New York Times called it the biggest arms purchase in
Israel's history. While that might be technically true, the
reality is that the "purchase" will actually be made with
recycled U.S. tax dollars, 90 percent of which are collected
from working people.
Israel receives $1.86 billion in military aid annually from
the United States.
Barak's visit and his new "peace offensive" was the lead
story, while the F-16 deal was relegated to page 6. But the
latter reveals far more about the real relationship between the
United States and Israel than does the former.
The main focus of news coverage is on the Barak government's
decision to simulta ne ously commence peace talks with Syria,
Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority, and to seek a
comprehensive "peace" within 15 months.
The outlines of the proposals are known, although many of
the critical details are not. Israel would withdraw from most
or all of the Syrian Golan Heights and southern Lebanon. Some
kind of demilitarized or United Nations-patrolled zone would be
set up.
Israel's security would be "guaranteed" by the Syrian
government, which has major influence in Lebanon. Syria
enforcing an end to armed resistance against Israel from
Lebanon would presumably achieve this.
Additionally, both the Middle Eastern and Western media have
reported that Syria has informed several Damascus-based
Palestinian resistance organizations that their offices may be
shut down as the "peace process" moves forward. These include
the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the
Democratic Front and other organizations that have opposed the
Oslo peace accords as falling short of achieving real
self-determination for the Palestinian people.
The Palestinian movement has been divided over the 1995 Oslo
accords for several years. Palestinian Authority leader Yasir
Arafat and his supporters argue that the U.S.-brokered
agreement is the best possible under the circumstances, and
that it will eventually lead to establishing a Palestinian
state, perhaps by the year 2000.
The Islamic organization Hamas, the PFLP and others see the
Oslo process as making many unacceptable concessions while
leading to a Palestinian entity so small and fragmented that it
cannot constitute a truly independent state.
The Barak government says that it will get peace with the
Palestinians "back on track," after four years of backpedaling
by the recently ousted government of Binya min Netanyahu.
Netanyahu continually sought to block or reverse the
provisions of the 1995 agreement. Under heavy pressure from the
United States, he finally agreed to the Wye River Accord in
October 1998. The Wye accord called for Israel to withdraw its
military forces from 13.1 percent of the occupied West Bank
over three months and transfer 14 percent from Israeli to joint
control--that is, Palestinian civil administration, Israeli
security.
This would have given the Palestinians complete control over
about 20 percent of the West Bank and civil authority over
another 20 percent. The Palestinian Authority also controls
about 60 percent of the much smaller Gaza.
The Israeli withdrawals provided for in the Wye accord were
not carried out.
Under the 1995 Oslo agreement, far more territory--generally
understood to be 70 percent to 80 percent of the West Bank, as
well as most of Gaza--was to have been turned over to the
Palestinian Authority in three stages ending in June 1998.
Then, final status talks were to have begun, to be completed by
May 4, 1999.
Now, Barak is promising to carry out the terms of the Wye
accord, but despite PA objections he wants to fold any further
withdrawals into final status talks. At the same time, he vows
to keep all of Jerusalem as Israel's capital and to hold on to
all the major settlement areas in the West Bank.
Palestinian East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, along
with the Golan Heights, were conquered by Israel in 1967.
This is the old "hard-cop/soft-cop" routine. Four years of
Netanyahu have shifted the whole framework so far to the right
as to make Barak appear "moderate" by comparison--even though
what he is offering much less than the inadequate Oslo
deal.
The peace of the F-16
The U.S. ruling class wants "stability" in the oil-rich
Middle East--a stability that protects Chevron's and Exxon's
and Citibank's systematic exploitation of the region's
resources and labor.
The United States began to promote the Oslo peace process in
the early 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the
defeat of Iraq in the Gulf War. Washington's sudden eagerness
to make peace was based on a change in the global relationship
of forces to the detriment of the Arab people.
The U.S. national security apparatus under both the
Republican Bush and the Democrat Clinton saw this as a new
opportunity to liquidate the national-liberation movements and
impose an imperialist peace on the region. That has been the
strategy ever since.
Through a half-century of truly heroic struggle, the
Palestinians have shown that they could not be crushed. The
same is true of the Lebanese resistance movement. It was clear
to the policy makers in Washington that some concessions would
have to be made, in the interests of dividing the movement and
strengthening the more "moderate"--i.e. bourgeois--leaders.
Barak is, according to the capitalist media, very much in
tune with Clinton on this tactical approach. Netanyahu wasn't.
But the much-discussed friction between the Clintonites and the
more rightist Netanyahu never cost Israel a dime in U.S.
aid.
Every year, Israel receives more than $3 billion in official
U.S. military and economic aid, and billions of dollars more
through U.S.-based fund appeals. U.S. aid has been critical to
Israel's development and its very survival. Over the past three
decades U.S. imperialism has granted outright hundreds of
billions of dollars to Israel, something that no other country
in the world has received.
What explains such "generosity," especially on the part of
the U.S. government, which has relentlessly engaged in denying
its "own" poorer residents food, housing, health care, etc?
The F-16 deal points to the answer: Israel is an integral
part of the U.S. imperial system and has a special and
irreplaceable military role within that system.
Israel already has what is considered the world's fifth or
sixth most powerful air force, outgunning even such NATO powers
as Germany and Italy. And Israel's population is barely 7
million.
Israel has been given the ability to produce a great deal of
high-tech weaponry itself, including nuclear weapons. Today it
possesses an estimated 200 nuclear warheads.
From the point of view of the Pentagon planners, Israel is a
garrison state protecting vital U.S. economic and geopolitical
interests in the Middle East and beyond. In past decades, when
it was politically unacceptable for the United States to openly
supply and train its murderous allies and clients from South
Africa to Chile, from Guatemala to Indonesia, the Israelis were
only too happy to step in.
Israeli leaders have made it clear that they gladly accepted
this role from the earliest days of the Israeli state.
But it is in the Middle East, which holds two-thirds of the
world's petroleum reserves, that Israel's role is most critical
from Washington and Wall Street's perspective. Israel's new
F-16Es, the New York Times notes, will have "a longer flight
range than their predecessors. That will put Iran and Iraq well
within strike range."
In exchange for playing the role of U.S. security cop,
Israel is generously compensated. Living standards for the
average Israeli are much higher than in surrounding countries
and far more extravagant than would be the case if Israel were
on its own. Two-bedroom apartments in modern Israeli
settlements like Maale Adumim sell for $140,000.
Of course, class distinctions have not been eliminated.
Attacks on the Israeli working class and social programs have
been on the rise. But the anti-Arab racism that so pervades
Israeli society is heavily reinforced by economic
privilege.
Its relationship with the United States has made Israel an
extension of imperialism, an oppressor state. As Sam Marcy, the
late chairperson of Workers World Party often pointed out, this
gives Israel a different status and importance than, say,
Egypt. No matter how cooperative or compliant a Sadat or
Mubarak (Egypt's former and present leaders) may be, they still
preside over an oppressed nation, and are therefore less
reliable agents of imperialism than is Israel.
All the talk about "peace" emanating from Washington and Tel
Aviv is propaganda for mass consumption. What the U.S. ruling
class wants is the peace of imperialist domination, the peace
of the F-16.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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