Israel's Raid

Jonathan Cook examines why Palestinians are so pissed off about Israel's raid on a Jericho jail on Monday (which, btw, killed two).

The assault was launched, purportedly, to snatch Ahmad Saadat, the assassin of Israeli politician Rehavam Zeevi.

As Cook explains,

Zeevi, head of the Central Command in the late 1960s and early 1970s, personally developed and managed Israel's brutal regime in the newly occupied West Bank. After retiring from the battlefield, he waged a relentless war against "the Arabs" on the political front. His Moledet party, founded in the 1980s, advocated the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Greater Israel--in other words, from Israel and the occupied territories.

His thinking became so acceptable after the outbreak of the intifada that he was appointed tourism minister in Ariel Sharon's first cabinet. Maybe Sharon thought that, with Zeevi for company, he really might start to look like a man of peace.

Zeevi's killing by gunmen in a Jerusalem hotel in 2001 was about as close as the Palestinians have managed to get to emulating an Israeli-style targeted assassination--with the difference that, in the Palestinian operation, no bystanders were killed.

Israelis were, and still are, horrified by the killing of Zeevi, with most taking the view that the Palestinians broke all the rules of engagement in targeting an elected politician. That neatly ignores the point that Zeevi's death was retribution for Israel's earlier assassination of a widely respected Palestinian politician, Abu Ali Mustafa, the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

But what is sauce for the goose was never going to be sauce for the gander.

Indeed. Cook goes on to lay out why the assault struck such a nerve within Palestinian society, sparking protests, kidnappings, and assorted violent outbreaks. It all stems from the symbolism of Saadat's imprisoment, he says:

To prevent his [Saadat's] targeting for assassination by Israel, and in the vain hope of winning a reprieve for Yasser Arafat from his effective house arrest in Ramallah, the Palestinian leadership brokered a deal with Britain and the United States in 2002. The two countries agreed to provide monitors to guarantee Saadat's confinement in the tiny West Bank town of Jericho, in the sun-baked lowlands of the Jordan Valley.

Four years later, on Tuesday morning, Britain reneged on its understandings with the Palestinians and quit Jericho, but not before telling Israel it was going. As if waiting for its cue, Israeli armour rolled into Jericho at once to capture Saadat and a handful of other wanted men.

To Palestinians, the British broken promise, as well as the hasty exit from Jericho and apparent collusion with Israel, all smacked a little too painfully of other episodes of British foreign policy in the Middle East. There were echoes of 1956 and London's pact during the Suez Crisis with Israel on the invasion of Egypt. And there were echoes too of 1948, when Britain hurriedly abandoned Palestine, though not before it had effectively fulfilled the Balfour Declaration's promise of creating a Jewish homeland by allowing hundreds of thousands of Jews to immigrate.

That in large part explains the outpouring of rage from Gaza to Ramallah on Tuesday, as well as the kidnapping of foreigners. Britain's duplicity was a reminder--if it was needed--that nothing has changed in a century of Western "diplomacy".

Of course, Israel justifies its action in the face of alleged hints from the Palestinian leadership that they would release Saadat. There's also good reason to suspect that the raid was a stunt to make Olmert look "strong" ahead of Israeli elections at the end of this month.

Whatever the case, the fact remains: Israel can get away with just about anything in the occupied territories.