Turn on the Lights

While the people of Israel are busy celebrating their festival season, millions of Palestinians are locked in their homes under curfew. Palestinian children have not been able to attend school since the new school year has opened. The Palestinian economy is destroyed. Unemployment in Palestine is well above 50%. And there is no horizon of hope. Never before has Israeli policy making been so disconnected from reality. Israeli so-called experts on Palestinian affairs believe that once the Palestinians are defeated Israel can create a new regime in Palestine that will accept Israel's dictates. These so-called experts believe that first the Palestinian Authority must be crushed and then the Palestinian people will understand that they have lost and will capitulate to Israel's demands. Well, the Palestinian Authority has been defeated. It does not exist anymore. The PA doesn 't control any territory. The PA cannot deliver any services. The PA cannot hold political gatherings. The Legislative Council cannot function. The Palestinian Cabinet has resigned and Arafat cannot appoint a new one. All institutions of the Palestinian Authority have been either physically destroyed or their people have been arrested. There is no money, there is no Palestinian Police, there is nothing, but yet the struggle and the will of the people has not been broken.

...In the real hard and cold analysis, Israel has failed to win the war against terror. The Israelis have tried almost everything and yet it continues. The basic failing comes from the false belief that Palestinian terror is made possible because of the physical infrastructure that has been developed during the Oslo years. What the Israeli army and Government fail to realize is that the infrastructure of terror is not how many guns they have, or how many workshops for constructing ammunition have been built and then have been destroyed by Israel. The real infrastructure of terrorism is the human infrastructure. This infrastructure has not been reduced at all. There is a reverse correlation that works in the equation of the human infrastructure - the harder Israel hits the Palestinians, the stronger the human infrastructure becomes.

Israel is lost because it cannot deal with this reality - it goes against the most basic military logic - a logic that has become the policy making bible for the Israeli government. The logic follows that any acceptance of a political horizon at this time will only strengthen terror. Even the removal of so-called "illegal" settlements is perceived by the policy makers in Israel as making a concession under fire. So at the same time that Israel is hitting the Palestinians, the Israeli settlers have been given a free hand to capture more Palestinian land, to expand their settlements and to construct some 100 new settlements over the past 1 ½ years. And while 400 Jews of Hebron celebrate Sukkot, 120,000 Palestinians in Hebron are imprisoned because the settlers must be able to celebrate. And this logic is supposed to convince the Palestinians to give up their struggle.

...On the Palestinian side, as we approach the beginning of the third year of the intifada, many Palestinians, politicians and ordinary citizens have come to the conclusion that they too have lost the way. Many Palestinians think that their leadership has failed. Many believe that they were mistaken not to continue the negotiations with Israel in a more positive way. Many blame Arafat directly for these failures. Many, if not most Palestinians, would like to see a new leadership. Most Palestinians are fed up with the corruption of many of their leaders. Most Palestinians want new elections and even desire to have the benefits of democracy as they see in Israel. Most Palestinians want deep reforms in their government and society. Most Palestinians want this war to end and would like to get back to negotiations. At the same time, they refuse to be humiliated or have their leaders humiliated. They refuse to live under occupation. They refuse to accept the dictates of Israel or of the United States. They refuse to accept that they must live under occupation and curfew in order to guarantee the security of Israel and Israeli settlers. The Palestinians will not give up their fight. They will continue to support terrorism which they perceive as the weapon of the weak. The Israeli tanks and bullets can destroy and kill, but in the eyes of the Palestinians they will not kill their struggle. They will not be brought to the knees.

...The failure of us all to bring about a political solution who's end is known - a Palestinian state on 22% of Mandatory Palestine with a shared capital in Jerusalem - will force Israel to become a bi-national state that denies one of its nations national and political rights. This will be the end of Israel that its forefathers and mothers dreamed of. Unfortunately for us all, the people of Israel have a historical memory of some 24 hours. Unfortunately for us all, the leadership of the Palestinians fell hostage to their belief that they could use violence to extract concessions from Israel. Unfortunately for us all, some 9 million Israelis and Palestinians are being forced into waging a war that has no winners.

The time has come to turn on the lights. How long can we continue to live in this darkness? Too long, I'm afraid.

* "'Force The Palestinians To Surrender'" by Gershon Baskin