* Agustín
Velloso
es profesor de la Facultad de Educación en la Universidad
Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED). Correo electrónico:
avelloso@edu.uned.es
All against Hamas? No, all against
the Palestinians
Agustín Velloso
CSCAweb, 8 de mayo, 2006
Traducción
de Ernesto Páramo corregida por Nancy Almendras (miembros
de Tlaxcala, red de traductores por la diversidad lingüística)
1. Sequence
of the most important events relating to Palestine in 2006
- Hamas triumph in the elections
in the Occupied Territories, January.
- Kadima win the elections
in Israel, March.
- The United States carry on
forking out more than 3.000 million dollars in annual assistance
to Israel (in addition to other large amounts paid out by several
private and public entities), the European Union maintain its
support for Israel by continuing with its preferential commercial,
scientific and political treatment.
- The European Union, the principal
donor to the Palestinians, cuts its assistance of 600 million
dollars a year to the Hamas government. The United States does
the same.
- Israel stops the payment
of more than 50 million dollars in customs' taxes that are collected
and must be delivered to the Palestinian government.
- The United Nations declare
that 65 per cent of the inhabitants of Gaza and 48 per cent of
those in the West Bank live under the poverty level.
- The United States and the
European Union isolate politically the legitimate Palestinian
government. Other countries and the United Nations follow this
policy.
2. Other
very important events for the same period
- Between the 7 and 9 April
the Israeli army of occupation killed 14 Palestinians civilians
and injured 30 more.
- Israel carries on constructing
the wall of annexation in Palestinian occupied land totally ignoring
the International Court of Justice rulings, which declared it
illegal in 2004.
- Israel closes the Karni border
post and increases the penury of the Palestinians.
3. Description
of the current situation of the conflict
The United States and the
European Union demand from the Palestinian government that they
should recognize Israel, desist from any kind of violent resistance
and accept the peace agreements signed by the previous government.
These demands are illegal:
a) The resistance to the occupation
is an inalienable human right.
b) The agreements are contrary
to the United Nations resolutions, which demand that the Israelis
withdraw from the occupied territories without conditions.
c) Israel should fulfil the
conditions of its acceptance to the United Nations before it
can demand recognition by other countries.
However, nothing is demanded
of Israel.
As soon as the occupation is finished and the Palestinian State
is established there will not be any need, either for endless
negotiations nor for absurd conditions that do not contribute
anything to a just solution to the conflict and which exclude,
in this way, peace as an option. We need to bear in mind the
following facts:
a) Israel is the aggressor
and the belligerent force of occupation; the Palestinian people
are the victims.
b) Israel is a nuclear power
and it has the most powerful army in the Middle East. The Palestinians
have a few poorly armed and ineffective militias to attack Israel
and to defend themselves from the army of occupation. Also, the
economic power of Israel is exponentially greater than that of
the Palestinians.
c) Israel has much more to
win by using force than by following the rule of law (as Ben
Gurion demonstrated). It does not have any need to negotiate
(except to pull the wool over the international community's eyes),
or even the wish to comply with international law, since it would
mean that they would have to retreat from the occupied territories,
allow the return of the refugees and pay compensations to the
victims of their policies since 1947.
d) The Israeli non-compliance
with the peace agreements to which everyone demand the Palestinians
to adhere, is minor compared to its violations of international
laws and agreements But the fact that that matter is not even
mentioned is a clear sign of implied superiority, scorn for the
Palestinian people and the mockery that Israel and its supporters
make of UN resolutions and International humanitarian Law.
4. Summary
of the most significant events since October, 2000 (last Intifada)
All the previous facts have
not taken place in a vacuum; they have been preceded by almost
six years of intensification of the conflict. About 4000 Palestinians
have been murdered in attacks by the Israeli army of occupation
(and the illegal settlers). Israel has also taken approximately
9.000 prisoners, has destroyed approximately 8.000 houses, has
illegally confiscated 250.000 dunams (a dunam is equivalent to
thousand square meters) of Palestinian land and has uprooted
more than one million citrus and olive trees. Cities and towns
have been attacked by the Israeli army of occupation. Israel
has prevented or made extremely difficult the access of medical
teams and the Red Cross, as well as the mass media, to beleaguered
populations. Israel has prevented international missions from
investigating its attack on Jenin refugee camp in 2002. Israel
has murdered the main Palestinian leaders and has bombarded the
main buildings of the Palestinian government, where they kept
Arafat as a prisoner until he died. Israel has destroyed or damaged
the fragile Palestinian infrastructure and its incipient economic
resources, which together with their blockades, trade restrictions
and repressive policies, have left most of the population dependent
on international aid to survive.
Approximately 1000 Israelis
have been killed by Palestinians during this period. However,
no Israeli has been arrested, no Israeli city has been besieged,
put under curfew or bombarded, not one Israeli house has been
demolished, and none of its land or trees has been confiscated
or up-rooted by the Palestinians. No Israeli has been deprived
of medical assistance. Neither the Prime Minister of Israel nor
the seat of government has suffered any attack by the Palestinians.
The powerful Israeli infrastructure has not been damaged, nor
have its economic resources been blocked by the Palestinians.
5. What
happens in the different camps and what should we expect
The Palestinian government
has been three months in power and the militias have, so far,
enforced a truce that has lasted 20 months, however, the West
has, yet again, imposed new conditions on them rather than demanding
an end to the occupation. The UN agrees to all this in the same
way as it agreed to the aggression against Iraq and the governments
of the Arab countries are far more afraid of the United States
and Israel than they are of the anger of their people, who support
the Palestinian cause.
The Hamas government is not
responsible for the conflict in Palestine. It is the result of
almost forty years of Israeli occupation and fifteen years of
negotiations that have produced nothing but thousands of dead,
injured and imprisoned civilians as well as unbearable repression,
misery and hardship for the Palestinians.
The refusal of the Palestinians
to accept this situation anymore has not been matched by the
previous Palestinian Fatah governments, which in the last ten
years have actually abandoned in reality, if not in their political
discourse, the essence of the Palestinian cause and surrendered
to Israel and the United States instead of resisting with their
people. Here, we need to remember that the miserable life conditions
endured by the people have not been shared by these leaders,
who enjoyed freedom of movement and plenty of money, as well
as power over their compatriots.
The advent of this new government
has been due partly to the desperation of the people before the
never ending deterioration of the general situation and the rampant
corruption of the previous governments. The old guard see their
privileges vanishing and they resent it. This situation is producing
power struggles between the President and his allies on one camp
and the new government and their supporters on the other. Members
of the former government and Fatah boycott the Hamas government
whilst still holding the hand of Israel and the Western powers.
Zionists could not be more
satisfied. A Hamas government is a gift on a silver platter.
It is enough to think that they martyred Arafat until the end,
despite the fact that he accepted, willingly or not, Israeli
policies and diktats. As far as the members of the new government
are concerned, they can only expect the same missiles that killed
their leaders: Yassin and Rantisi. This is what the Israeli government
has just announced: the members of the Palestinian government
are still targets of the Israeli military.
Israeli voters have approved
the genocidal policies of the present government (the only difference
between the political parties in Israel is the name of the leaders)
and have confirmed their wish that Palestine, without Palestinians,
should be for the exclusive enjoyment of the Jews, no matter
where they come from. We must understand that a nation that is
the only nuclear regional power and that also has the support
of the most important nuclear power in the world, does not want
to negotiate with an opponent as powerless and forsaken as the
Palestinians.
The West know the Zionist dream
of "a land without people for a people without land,"
which is at the same time the Palestinian nightmare of expulsion
from their land and a life as refugees without compensation or
hope of justice. They know that by cutting the economic aid to
the Palestinian government they are leaving 140,000 employees
without a salary that would allow them to feed their families,
that is, 23 per cent of three and a half million Palestinians
who live in Gaza and the West Bank. Their calculation is that
it will be the Palestinians themselves who will bring Hamas down,
so that they can again negotiate with the collaborators of Fatah,
who have been so useful in the past to neutralize the National
Palestinian Movement.
It is risky and pointless to
predict the future, but even so, being aware of the historical
precedents and the recent warning from the International Committee
of the Red Cross that "the lack of international aid will
produce a humanitarian, economic and security disaster,"
can only induce pessimism.
Their own self-interest, since
the powerful have not shown even a hint of humanitarian feelings,
or any common sense for that matter, should convince them that
they can only have the peace and security they claim they are
searching for, with justice and not with abuse of power and repression.
The prophet Isaiah, who lived in Jerusalem, knew this more than
two thousand years ago, and he wrote in one of the prophetic
books: "Justice will be the source of peace, and from righteousness,
there will be calm and safety forever." (I. 32,17)
 Otros
textos del autor en CSCAweb
Agustín
Velloso: Enhorabuena, Palestina. Bienvenido, Hamás (un
comentario no político a las elecciones legislativas palestinas
de 2006)
Agustín
Velloso: Biografía de Sharon, que es la de Israel y la
del sionismo
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