"Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was apparently more delighted by the
banquet prepared for him by the wife of Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat
than he was with meeting President Mahmoud Abbas in Jericho the day before
yesterday," the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir reported on its website on 8 August,
citing Israel's Channel 10 television station.
Channel 10's correspondent spoke of the "hospitality and warmth" that marked
Abbas' reception of Olmert and his delegation, noting that "Erekat's wife
insisted on personally preparing and serving" the banquet. Olmert, the report
added, "was unable to conceal his delight and appetite for the rich food and for
the hospitality and generosity" the Israelis received from their Palestinian
hosts.
Behind all the theater, the results of the meeting were as meagre as can be
expected. Olmert publicly affirmed his commitment to the "two-state solution,"
while spokesmen briefed the press that Israel was not ready to discuss any
fundamental issues, such as borders, halting colonial settlements, or the rights
of refugees. The exercise was aimed at maintaining the fiction of a "peace
process" from which Abbas will supposedly one day be able to deliver results.
Yet while he treats Olmert to delicacies in Jericho, Abbas is doing his best to
ensure that Palestinians in Gaza continue to suffer and starve due to the
closure of the commercial and civilian crossings and tightened siege imposed by
Israel since Hamas fighters routed US- and Israeli-backed Fatah militias in
early June.
A source who works directly with Abbas' ministers in the unelected and illegal
"emergency government" of Salam Fayyad in Ramallah wrote to me that "Abbas has
explicitly ordered the Rafah border to close and remain closed with the purpose
of strangling Hamas." The source, who was motivated to speak out by his outrage,
but requested anonymity because he fears reprisals, added that Abbas "is ready
to see his own people die for his political games." The source added that while
Abbas' official public relations pronouncements are that the border is to be
opened at once, "what is going on in the meetings is the opposite."
What my source confirmed had already been revealed by Haaretz in a 8 July
article that reported that Abbas "asked Israel and Egypt prevent the movement of
people from Egypt to the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing" and that
"Abbas and a number of his aides asked that the request not be made public" ("Abbas
asks for Rafah Gaza-Egypt crossing point to remain closed," Haaretz, 18 July
2007).
Abbas' policy of colluding with Israel to starve his own people is having its
effect. The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA issued a
desperate appeal for the borders of the besieged strip to be reopened. Filippo
Grandi, the agency's deputy commissioner general warned in a 9 August statement
that within weeks Gaza could "be one hundred percent aid dependent" (Press
Statement by Filippo Grandi, Deputy Commissioner General, UNRWA, Gaza City, 9
August 2007.)
All 600 garment factories in Gaza have shut down because they cannot import raw
materials and 90 percent of factories involved in the construction industry have
closed, the BBC reported on 9 August, citing figures given by the UN. As many as
120,000 workers in Gaza are likely to lose their jobs, and even UNRWA and the
United Nations Development Programme have had to halt construction of shelters
for refugees. ("UN warns over Gaza economic woe," BBC News, 9 August 2007.)
In what might be a tacit admission of Abbas' complicity, Grandi made a direct
appeal not only to Israel, but to the "Palestinian authorities" to take
"immediate steps to open up the Karni Crossing, to imports and exports, as well
as humanitarian goods." He added, "Only this will allow the little that remains
of Gaza's economy to survive."
As the people in Gaza suffer strangulation, thousands of their relatives were
stranded in desperate conditions on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border
crossing, refugees exiled even from their place of exile. Many are people in
poor health who went to Egypt to seek medical treatment, and at least 31 have
died while waiting to return home.
On the political front, Hamas has continued to react to Abbas' escalating war
with equanimity, issuing daily calls for dialogue, reconciliation and a return
to a national unity government. Despite the siege, it has also continued to hold
its own successfully, paying the wages of thousands of government employees
whose salaries Abbas and Fayyad had confiscated.
Abbas, while literally embracing the occupier and colonizer, has continued to
angrily reject any intra-Palestinian dialogue. Yet it is doubtful how long this
position will be tenable. Abbas, under a veto from the Bush administration
refuses to talk, even as some senior Israelis have started to advocate direct
dialogue with Hamas.
One of those is Efraim Halevy, the former head of Israel's Mossad intelligence
agency. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Halevy said, "I don't say we should
talk to Hamas out of sympathy to them. I have no sympathy whatsoever for Hamas.
I think they are a ghastly crowd ... But I have not seen anybody who says the
Abbas-Fayyad tandem is going to do the job" ("What if Israel Talked to Hamas?
Ex-Spymaster's Plan, Seen as Heresy by Some," Wall Street Journal, 1 August
2007).
Halevy expressed doubts about the US strategy of trying to prop up Abbas and
isolate Hamas, calling it "political fantasy." He called for Israel to negotiate
a long-term truce with Hamas, something the movement has already offered. Halevy,
the Journal reported, "is part of a small band of public figures who now say
that, because of Hamas's growing clout, it is becoming impossible to avoid such
a dialogue. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell joined the group in a recent
interview with National Public Radio."
Unashamed, Abbas carries on; he recently received another large arms shipment --
1,000 rifles -- coordinated by Israel and Jordan to strengthen his militias
against Hamas. All these provocations are having an effect. While Hamas'
civilian leadership continues to offer olive branches, the rank and file of the
resistance movement are showing signs that their patience is wearing thin.
Following Fayyad's recent call for all resistance forces to unilaterally disarm
in front of the occupation, and the subsequent publication of his "government
program" that omitted mention of armed struggle, the Popular Resistance
Committees (PRC) issued an ominous warning. In a 28 July press conference a
spokesman for the group -- a coalition of resistance fighters from various
factions including Fatah, responsible for capturing the Israeli prisoner of war
Gilad Shalit -- "dubbed Abbas, Fayyad and other members of the government the 'Ramallah
traitors' and vowed they will receive an 'identical response as to the Israeli
occupation'" ("PRC: Fayad and 'Ramallah traitors' targets for attack," Haaretz,
28 July 2007).
Meanwhile, another Hamas member, Mou'aiad Bani Odeh, 22, died in an Israeli
hospital after being transferred from al-Juneid prison, run by Abbas' forces.
Bani Odeh, Hamas alleges, succumbed to injuries resulting from torture inflicted
by Abbas' men, who continue their campaign of repression against Hamas members
throughout the West Bank. ("Hamas member dies after being tortured in jail run
by Palestinian Authority," Ma'an News, 10 August 2007.)
The signs are that unless Abbas and his entourage reverse course and end their
war against the Palestinian people, the apparent calm that now prevails will
soon be shattered by another storm.
Source: electronic Intifada
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