A Green Light for the Destruction of the Palestinian Authority

The kidnapping of the Palestinian vice prime minister in Ramallah is only the most recent avatar of an Israeli policy of denial of the other, a policy initiated at the installation of the Israeli state in Palestine, and which has seen only a brief interruption between 1991 and 2000, the period during which there were negotiated, and partially applied, the Oslo agreements. These were agreements of mutual recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the state of Israel, which successors of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, assassinated in November 1995, have all endeavored to destroy, be they on the right, like Netanyahu, Sharon or Olmert, of from the labor party, like Barak. It was Barak who invented in 2000 at Camp David that destructive slogan, which became the theme song of his successor, Ariel Sharon, "There is no partner."

This is a simple way to avoid all search for a negotiated solution, and to pursue a policy of accomplished facts imposed by force: from colonization to the "wall of shame", from the reoccupation of autonomous zones to unilateral "withdrawals" that one can decide to cancel on the whim of the moment [1], from destructive bombing to the taking of hostages. How otherwise to interpret the act of taking from their homes, before dawn, sixty Palestinian ministers and deputies? A worst-case policy dramatically illustrated today by the team of Olmert-Peretz, without a doubt the most dangerous team Israel has known.

But if Israel is able to continue its blind march forward, it is because the support of Washington to Tel Aviv has become total and unconditional since the arrival of the Bush administration. While previous administrations had from time to time put pressure on Israel (papa Bush forced Shamir to participate in the 1991 conference in Madrid) or joined hands for resolutions aimed at a peaceful solution of the conflict (especially during the Clinton presidency). G.W. Bush has clearly shown his hand from the beginning, giving a free hand to his friend Ariel Sharon unilaterally to impose each step in a policy aimed not to create a Palestinian state, but to render such creation impossible.

Bush gave his agreement to the elimination of Yasser Arafat (politically, then, without a doubt, as the Palestinians are persuaded, physically), to a total reoccupation of the West Bank, to the extension of colonies, and finally, in 2004, to a unilateral determination of the borders of Israel. The demolition of the Palestinian Authority that we witness today is but one more step in this process. It was desired by Israel and by Washington, who have never ceased to discredit and weaken the PLO in order to let blossom, in the void created, an Islamist movement, the Hamas, which they felt would be far easier to combat. Wasn’t the Hamas immediately categorized as a terrorist organization, thus, assimilated with "International Islamo-fascism", that dragon that George Bush sees himself given a mission to kill. And with the embarrassed support of Europe and of the Arab world, hypnotized by the terrifying spectre of a "war of civilizations".

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