Volume 4, No. 8, August 2003

The creation of a ‘Palestinian State’ under the overall authority of the Israeli terror administration has been postponed a number of times in the past. The things that led to the 1993 Israeli-Palestinian agreement (Oslo Accord) included the transfer of some of the Israeli state functions to the Palestinian Authority that would ultimately lead to a "Palestinian State", which in spite of being called an independent state would still be at the mercy of the Israeli Zionists. This earlier roadmap also envisaged Palestinian statehood; but the falsehood that was woven around independence for the Palestinians made the travelers on these roads stumble again and again. The major roadblock on this path was the Palestinian resistance movement that refused to be led into the trap of such ingenious ‘peace’ tricks. Men like Yasser Arafat, who shamelessly kowtowed before the US, proved themselves unable to control the ire of the Palestinian masses that felt betrayed by their own leadership and were indignant at the aggressive Israeli behaviour towards the common Palestinians. All these years the Palestinian masses have bravely resisted the attacks of the Israeli authorities and made thousands of supreme sacrifices. Every so-called peace roadmap crumbled, leading to more atrocities by the Israelis and more stiff resistance on the part of the Palestinians. Ultimately a great movement of protest and revolt, called the intifada, was born. It has been continuing for the last three years in which more than two thousand Palestinians have laid down their lives, tens of thousands have been injured or crippled, thousands of Palestinian houses been destroyed and lakhs have been forced to live a life of mercy and destitution.

A decade of "peace" (laden with murder, mayhem and destruction) that was promised in 1993 is enough to understand that in the name of establishing it, the imperialist-Zionist alliance wanted to impose a terror structure over the Palestinians through the Palestinians. Time and again the US and Israeli administration demanded of Arafat to cooperate fully with the imperialist-Zionist alliance to impose a terror structure over the Palestinian people and prove that he is capable of controlling the rebellious masses. He was promised full statehood of Palestine only if he succeeded in doing so. But so great is the force of Palestinian resistance against the state terrorism of Israel that he was unable, despite utmost efforts, to do the job of an efficient policeman. To maintain his popularity he was often forced to side with the Palestinian masses against Israeli brutalities protesting that Israeli terror tactics were making his job difficult. His Al Fatah faction was forced to launch the Al Aqsa Brigade to counter the all-round attacks of the Israeli military machine. Israeli atrocities provoked and aroused the Palestinian masses to such a level that he was unable to pacify the situation. He was frequently asked by the US imperialists to control the Palestinian fighters but he could not. At their bidding, he arrested a number of militants or handed them over to the Israelis, accepted the intervention of the CIA in matters of internal security and the maintenance of law and order, implemented governmental reforms dictated by the US, reorganised the state machinery, and ultimately accepted the installation of the US puppet, Mahmood Abbas, as his Prime Minister. With the last demand fulfilled, it was like a last nail in his own coffin. It is ironic that the man who did his best in implementing the dictates of the US imperialists has now fallen in their eyes for not being sufficiently pliant. He could not regain their confidence and has been ultimately sidelined by Abbas, taking charge as a handpicked Prime Minister.

A pathetic Arafat has been caught in the grip of a powerful vice by having to bow to US dictates on the one hand, while at the same time desperately attempting to the Palestinian masses along with him. He was unable to reconcile the two entirely opposing camps and forces — i.e. the oppressors and the oppressed.

The intifada gave rise to suicide bombings by the Palestinians sending chills down the spines of Zionists. These bombings were an answer to the murderous Israeli forces that are always trigger-happy and merciless in killing innocent Palestinians. The enemies of the Palestinian people (including most of the Arab governments) asked him to stop not only the bombings but all forms of resistance. Arafat argued that, as long as Israel continued its occupation of post-1967 lands and did not vacate and abandon the settlements in the Palestinian territories and until the forty-five lakh displaced Palestinian refuges were not settled in their villages it would be impossible for him to stop the resistance movement. That meant Israelis stop all their interventions in the "Palestinian territories" to make way for a "Palestinian State", though truncated, to be established first and then make sure that the two States co-exist.

But Sharon and all his predecessors insisted that the Palestinian Authority first do the policing work effectively and only then talk about their rights. In contravention to all UN resolutions, Israel never agreed to vacate these lands unconditionally. It has always violated the UN decisions. But Israel is unlike Iraq and other poor and weak countries of the world. Being the chief pillar of US reaction in the Middle East, it was never pressurized, let alone forced, by the sole Super Power of the World to listen to the world body and world public opinion. When the master is a gangster its lap dog must behave rabidly. And that is why the Palestinian Authority, under Arafat, could not deliver the imperialist and Zionist goods. The PA could not work according to the wishes and interests of the US and Israelis. They proved to be bad gendarmes, while on the other hand the US supported all the oppressive measures and terror assaults of its canine, giving it additional billions in aid so that it becomes more and more rabid.

For the last three years the Israelis have quarantined whole cities and towns in the PA ‘held’ areas in the Gaza strip and the West Bank and made Yassar Arafat a virtual prisoner President in his own headquarters not even allowing him to meet foreign dignitaries or leave his place to move around. Missiles, helicopters gunships, tanks, jet fighters, bulldozers and economic blockades have been frequently used to break the back of the Palestinian resistance. Sharon even regretted not killing Arafat in 1982 and threatened to banish him from the land of Palestine. Arafat was declared an outcaste with whom neither the US nor the Israelis would do any business. Palestinians were openly asked to change their leadership and bring in a more pliant leader in place of Arafat, i.e., a "regime change" for Palestinians. In the end they succeeded in bringing in the hand picked Abbas as the Prime Minister of ‘Palestine’, and also secured the support of the Palestinian Parliament. Now the ‘President’ of ‘Palestine’ stands alone with no practical significance as the Head of a State.

Here we must remember that it was Arafat who wanted to restrict the Palestinian fight-back to stone-throwing, and now Abbas plans to go further, promising to turn the intifada into a spineless agitation against one of the most barbaric states of the world; and, finally to end intifada altogether. He has also promised to disarm the militant groups of Palestinian fighters. Abbas not only declared his commitment to end Palestinian violence against the Israeli Zionists but also appealed to various governments to stop "financial and military assistance" to such groups. What else could the imperialist and Zionists want? Why should Sharon be there if the likes of Abbas can do his work to keep the Palestinians in check and in continuous subjugation. Assuming the role of oppressors of their own people, the new Palestinian dispensation is the best thing the imperialist and Zionist butchers could dream of. And when George Bush presided over the recent Sharon, Abbas, Abdullah II summit in Jordan, he was the happiest criminal on earth.

The new roadmap was announced by the US a few days before it invaded Iraq. And the first step he took in the Middle East after the occupation of Iraq was to hold the Palestinian-Israeli Summit, in order to transmit the signal that there is no other way out than to bow obediently to American wishes if one wants to be spared of an aggression. This political signal is perhaps the most barbaric signal that any oppressor would like to convey. This warning to the Arab World, the US imperialists think, is the most rewarding outcome of the US aggression on Iraq.

Along with the US aggression of Iraq, came the new roadmap for a ‘Palestinian State’. The "new" plan for the "establishment" of a Palestinian State is neither new nor will it lay a foundation for a genuine independent country for the Palestinians. It is the same old version of the 1993 agreement leading to Palestinian Statehood where Palestinians will be lorded over by a government that, would neither be independent, nor sovereign. Such a government will only be an extended arm of the US imperialists and Zionists with a Palestinian face, and will work at the bidding of the oppressors.

The ‘new’ roadmap will lead to further brutalisation of the Palestinian masses. Before going to the summit with Ariel Sharon on June 4, Abbas declared that he would curb all anti-Israel activities from the Palestinian areas. In a word, he will go much further than Arafat in implementing the imperialist and Zionist dictates. Coming out of the summit in Aqaba (Jordon) Abbas declared, "we repeat our denunciation and renunciation of terrorism and violence against Israelis wherever they might be" He promised that he would end the intifada and make it a peaceful and non-violent movement.

It is a co-incidence that where there is oil, there are Muslim states and the war for oil has become a war against the Muslim states as well. When Bush had said "crusade" it was not unintentional, though he had to retract the word the next day. Afghanistan ensured incursions into Muslim central Asia; Iraq made way for a much bigger control of the Middle East; now, roping in of the Palestine renegades like Abbas will serve to further strengthen the strategic reactionary bastion to curb the revolutionary aspirations of the people throughout the Arab world. The US roadmap for Palestine and Israel is an important part of a worldwide strategy for dominating the world.

As the roadmap reduces the so-called Palestinian state to a helpless and miserable entity, with no independent foreign policy; no army to defend borders but only a police department to control the masses; and literally no economic base as a state to sustain itself. By making it a begging-bowl, surviving on donations, it will only provide further basis for greater radicalisation of Palestinian society in particular and the Arab world in general. With such a roadmap, while the imperialists intend to make Israel immune from any counter attack from the Palestinian and Arab masses, the outcome, in the final analysis, will prove to be the very opposite.

The so-called Palestinian state that is being promised in 2005 may again prove to be a mirage as was the case in 1997, 1999 and 2001, when the granting of Palestinian statehood was postponed due to a single factor — that the back of the Palestinian struggle against the oppressors could not be broken. This could not be achieved either with all kinds of promises of financial doles, nor with the wholesale bombings of refugee camps and all sorts of terror by the Zionists. 2005 too may not go as the US imperialists expect.

How afraid the Zionists are of the Palestinian revolutionaries can be fathomed from the fact that the whole of the Gaza strip is being surrounded by a twelve foot thick, six meters high and 1660 km long wall to prevent the Palestinians from attacking their oppressors. This wall will be manned by the Israeli Defence Forces at every step with towers and Defence ports built at short distances. Also a deep and wide trench of water, and a barbed wire will surround the wall. This barricaded roadmap to peace smacks of schemes for unprecedented violence against the Palestinian people. The wall plan is already being translated into action and a good part of it has already been built. This will make Gaza the biggest ghetto on earth and its people as miserable as any animal. The so-called peace will be the result of imposition of vast amounts of violence, which can only make the people more brutalised and more likely to revolt and rebel.

In this new Roadmap, though it has not yet been made public, the primary thing is the legitimization of the State of Israel that had come into being as part of the US-British conspiracy and under the umbrella of the UN. The previous attempts at the creation of a ‘Palestinian State’ failed as these did not address, among other things: (a) the question of dismantling of the Israeli Settlements in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank; (b) the question of Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine; (c) the question of the return of Palestinian refugees displaced in the 1967 war; and (d) the question of establishing contiguity of the West Bank (in the East) and the Gaza Strip (in the West). What the new roadmap suggests on these problems can only be deduced from the statements of various leaders. Sharon has accepted to vacate the settlements and also talks about the need of a corridor (mostly likely a road) between Gaza and the West Bank. None of the leaders have spoken about Jerusalem and the refugees. The US has been stressing that Jerusalem be partitioned into two parts which the Israelis always resented and opposed while Arafat’s P.A. accepted the US proposal. Perhaps the new roadmap will also include the partition of this great ancient city of Palestine, a la Berlin in the Middle East. Similarly, on the question of refugees both the parties are tight lipped so far.

As it is already clear that a ‘Palestinian State’ alongside Israel will only be a State in name, devoid of any military and economic capabilities, one thing must be kept in mind that this road (map) has been paved with tanks and bulldozers reducing Palestinians to either hapless onlookers or desperate fighters. They have been told that they have to accept the might of the imperialist backed death machine of Israel as invincible; that there is no way out than to accept the horrible reality of Israel if they ever want to live peacefully (!)The 1993 betrayal is being forced through the nozzle of the gun. Abbas has agreed to the new map on the US-Israeli condition that he will disarm the armed Palestinians.

The so-called theory of two states in one land is nothing but a façade to obliterate, and make the people forget the atrocities of the British and US imperialists and their protégé, the Zionists. The land where the Zionists have established Israel belongs to the Palestinians. The so-called words used, which in today’s terminology signify Palestinian territories, the Palestinian state, the Israeli settlements, the two peoples, etc. are nothing but deceptive. The whole of Israel is a foreign colonial settlement built on the land stolen from the Palestinians, and Israel itself, as a state, has no locus standi. The so-called land for peace agreement, the Palestinian-Israeli summits, the so-called resolution of the refugee question, and so on, are also deceptive words, that are being widely propagated by the media just to make the world people think that the entity called Israel is genuine. Targeting and abrading the Palestinian freedom fighters as terrorists, and their armed struggle as being opposed to peace are also the products of imperialist brigandage and colonialism that seeks to make white as black and black as white. It is time that this imperialist jugglery is exposed and the reality established, to counter the imperialist lies and machinations. The beautiful word, "peace", means permanent subjugation and misery for Palestinians.

In fact, not only are the imperialists and Zionists against a genuine State for the Palestinians, so also are the reactionary Arab governments in the neighbouring countries, who fear the national liberation of Palestinians, as it could lead to the establishment of an anti-imperialist revolutionary state in the Middle East. Such a state in the Middle East will only signal the impending collapse of the reactionary Sheikhdoms and pro-imperialist governments of all hues in the region. So, it is not at all surprising that the reactionary Arab governments always try to sabotage the Palestini an struggle from within while paying lip service to the Palestinian cause. They collaborate with the US imperialists while criticizing the Zionists now and then, to appease public opinion. They in fact, cannot hate the lap dog while loving its master. This ambiguity in their stand conceals a great deception. The ‘new’ roadmap seeks to free these states of this calculated ambiguity. The map calls on States to recognise the State of Israel when the so-called Palestinian State comes into existence. Moreover, with Iraq in US hands and Syria and Iran being put on the immediate target list, the Arab reactionary regimes are fast on the way to shed off their ambiguous positions to seek the ‘benevolent’ hand of the US imperialist brutes.

Whether the new roadmap would be opposed tooth and nail right now or it will crumble in the near future due to its inherent oppressiveness remains to be seen. The most recent development indicates that Hamas and the Islamic Jehad, having the following of the most ferocious fighters for these years, have accepted the offer of ceasefire for three months, to let the American roadmap unroll. US threats and pressures have shown a bearing. They have announced that if Israel stops raiding ‘Palestinian Territories’ and its ‘target killing’ missions they will not attack ‘Israeli Areas’. This defacto recognition of the State of Israel and a truncated Palestine (Palestinian Territories) is the same poisonous water that was gulped down by Arafat in 1987. Al Fatah’s Al Aqsa Brigade too accepted the roadmap offer when Hamas and Islamic Jehad came round. It is to be noted that the top leaderships, of Hamas and Islamic Jehad, who are situated in Syria, signed the ceasefire papers in Damuscus, along with the jailed (in Israel) Palestinian leader Bourghouti.

Only the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) has not accepted the ceasefire. It does not recognize the right of existence of Israel and is still refusing to be cowed down, though it has a much smaller following then Hamas, Islamic Jehad, and Al Aqsa, and also has not been significantly involved in militant battles with the enemy. There might be other smaller groups along with the PFLP who still stick to the original and correct PLO manifesto that called for the de-recognition of Israel and the establishment of a democratic Palestine on the whole ancient land of Palestine where people belonging to various faiths would live in a secular spirit. Will the PFLP or other revolutionaries in Palestine be able to receive and rejuvenate the Palestinian resistance movement on correct lines? In the face of the all-round offensive of the imperialists and reactionary forces worldwide and specifically, in the Arab world, the ground for such a revolutionary revival is very much present. This requires unrelenting efforts to bring the people around to a revolutionary political standpoint and military tactics, while underlining the participation of increasing number of people in resisting the enemy.

If some Palestinian organizations do come out openly against the US roadmap of betrayal, and peace of the graveyard, Abbas will probably come down heavily on them — a scenario of a Palestinian civil war. He has even hinted at it obliquely and asked Hamas and others to agree. Some P.A. officials too talk of such a scenario. The alternative, of course, is not to succumb to the US-Zionists-Abbas pressure to avert such a situation. A concerted and staunch opposition to the roadmap would only expose and isolate Abbas in the eyes of the Palestinian masses. A civil war among Palestinians, that Arafat has been avoiding, Abbas may not. The piecemeal withdrawal of Israeli forces from PA held cities is on the condition (under the roadmap) that it will be completed only if the Abbas administration is able to control the Palestinian resistance. If he fails, the Zionists will again take control of these cities. The presence of Israeli forces in the cities if Bethlehem, Ramallah, Nablus, Gaza and so on, is in fact an occupation within occupation (over all). It is here that the PA is being asked to do the ‘police work’ which the Israelis have been doing till now through tanks, bulldozers, helicopter gunships and missiles. Such a policing by the Palestinian Authority under Abbas can only mean a civil war among Palestinians. The US and Israel want this to happen if the resistance to Zionist occupation of Palestine continues.

As a successful Palestinian revolution has the potential of triggering the extermination of the reactionary Arab rulers in the region, to crush the Palestinian resistance is the primary political objective of the imperialists in the Middle East. And for this, the defence of the Zionist state of Israel, the primary bastion of reaction in the region, is their utmost concern. So, if the new roadmap is directed towards destroying the Palestinian resistance, in the name of establishing a "Palestinian State", it is quite understandable.

The whole of the imperialist media has gone berserk in describing the Israeli acceptance of the roadmap as a big "sacrifice" on the part of Israel. The Israelis had aired a hundred objections and proposed two-dozen amendments to the roadmap to express their "concerns". The Israeli concerns, the US said, would be looked into. They were looked into well and many of them ameliorated. After "victory" over Iraq the US secured the support of its critics for the Mid-East roadmap. EU, Russia and the UN could not say no to the US roadmap. They supported it. All are one in this US offensive against the Palestinian people, though contradictions exist, as reflected in Europe’s and Russia’s continued support to Arafat.

With Iraq occupied, Syria and Iran put on notice, the potential US rivals temporarily falling in line, all the reactionary forces of the world have been pitted against Palestinian liberation. The roadmap in the Middle East is another horrible example of imperialist designs, which can only push the Palestinians to more extremes and educate and bring the oppressed of the world, particularly the Arabs, more closer.

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