As
the years pass since the signing of the Good Friday
Agreement and the Oslo Accords, both of which led
to what the mass media and the politicians they
serve called a Peace Process, one in the Middle-East,
the other in the north east of Ireland, one cannot
help but be struck by the similarity of these two
processes.
Of
course those within the Provisional Republican Movement
will have none of this. If the Oslo Accords and
the middle east Peace Process it led to, and the
GFA were much of a muchness, they ask, then why,
since the signing of these agreements, has the fate
of the Provisional Republican Movement (PRM) and
Gerry Adams not been that of Yasser Arafat and the
PLO?
The
reason is, they claim (always off the record), Yasser
Arafat failed to take the opportunities Oslo and
the Clinton administration offered him, thus his
diminishing status was inevitable. Whereas 'the
leadership' of PRM under Gerry Adams has managed
to sustain movement in the process, the result being,
despite setbacks beyond 'the leadership's' control,
the SF Party has gone from strength to strength,
gaining ever more local Council seats across the
island of Ireland and steadily increasing its number
of TD's, MP's, MEP's and MLA's, plus the PRM leadership
are regularly welcomed in the political chancellories
of the major powers and in the process have become
a main stay on the nightly TV news, which has allowed
them to punch way above their political weight.
One
is tempted to repeat the reply of a certain old
beard who on being asked two hundred years after
the event, whether the French revolution was a success,
he replied it is far too early to say. On the surface
there may seem some substance in the above SF analysis,
especially if your main sources are 'the leadership'
of SF and the Western media. However, we now have
another source from which to draw our conclusions,
The Great War for Civilization by Robert
Fisk, published by Fourth Estate. It is a magnificent
tome and essential reading for anyone who wishes
to understand the similarities between the two peace
processes and who and what really lay behind them,
plus the tragic consequences of the poisonous cocktail
western imperialism poured into the middle-east
post 1914. Whilst Robert Fisk's book in the main
covers the great sweep of history in the Middle
East, it may also make uncomfortable reading for
Irish republicans.
The
motivating factor behind the Palestinian Peace Process
was the inability of the State of Israel and its
financiers the US government to crush the Palestinian
Intifada (as with the PRM and the war in the north
of Ireland). The Palestinian people and its organization
the PLO could not alone defeat the occupier of their
land, but their struggle to be free of occupation,
albeit in varying degrees of intensity could be
maintained almost indefinitely. Thus the US State
Department, along with the think-tanks and academics
who feed it intellectually, looked around for another
solution to what had become a very expensive and
dangerous problem, as it brought instability to
a region that was of prime importance to the US
economy and adversely effected US relationships
throughout the Islamic world and beyond.
A
plan was hatched to reel in the PLO, with a two
state solution as the bait, nevermind the US admin
was well aware that no Israeli government would
implement such a solution, nor did the US have any
true intention of seeing that they do so. The sole
purpose being to bring the PLO and its leader Yasser
Arafat in from the cold to restrain, police and
thus control the Palestinian people and their intifada.
(pg 555)
Thus
the idea of the Oslo Accords and the middle east
peace process evolved. In Chapter 12 of his book
entitled, "The Last Colonial War", Robert
Fisk sets out how it was choreographed by the USA
with perfection and always in the interest of Israel.
It is worth analyzing this process carefully, for
the similarities with the northern Ireland peace
process should become obvious to even the most servile
and fawning SF apparachik, let alone the odd nincompoop
within the organization.
As
Fisk points out with anger and passion, when the
US is running a Peace Process all who support it
is a friend, the guys in the white hats, this includes
Arafat (or Adams?), who due to the clout of the
western media can be metamorphosed from a murdering
terrorist to a worthy partner for peace without
the sign of a flushed face. Of course the only criteria
that is demanded of these 'partners for peace' is
they dance to the US administrations tune without
missing a beat. (pg 507)
If
they cease to, or even argue on the detail, along
with those who have opposed the peace process all
along, they become 1984-like, 'Enemies of
Peace', to be vilified in the international media
and within the political chancellories of the world
from which they quickly revert from being honored
guests to persona non grata. Arafat's torture during
the continuous negotiations since he first signed
the Oslo Accords has been, to quote Robert Fisk,
exquisite, each negotiation ending with yet another
compromise on his part, the sole purpose of which
was to further water-down the original Oslo Accord
document and to display to all who is master of
this Peace Process. (pg 536)
It
should not be overlooked that by accepting the original
document, Arafat had not only recognized the State
of Israel but he had relinquished 78% of what was
Palestine under the British mandate. Leaving him,
he thought, the 22% which consisted of the West
Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem on which to
build the new Palestinian State. In other words,
by agreeing to the Oslo Accords, Arafat and the
PLO had already made an enormous compromise which
was in opposition to all they had previously fought
for and against the charter of their own organization.
Whilst
these seemingly interminable negotiations were going
on, political life within the occupied territories
did not stand still nor did its colonization by
Israel. As Fisk points out, in 1990 the total number
of Israeli colonists in the West Bank and Gaza was
approx 76 thousand. By the year 2000, which is 7
years after Arafat first signed the Oslo Accords
which began the so called Peace Process, there were
383,000 colonists within the occupied territories,
living within strategically situated new towns and
villages. All of which were built in violation of
the Geneva convention.
One
would not have known this by reading the Western
press or listening to US/EU spokespersons, who to
this day still describe these Israeli colonists
as settlers — they do this for exactly the
same reasons the Nazis during WW2 called those Germans
who went East to farm the land vacated by the Jews
of Poland 'Settlers'. This far more gentler term
negates having to mention that not only are these
people 'settling' on some one else's land, but they
have stolen it, often in the most brutal manner.
(pgs 528-527)
By
this time it had long become obvious to the overwhelming
majority of the Palestinian people that the Peace
Process was a dead duck, hence the rise in the popularity
of Hamas who had opposed it. The Peace Process'
sole purpose had been to lull them into believing
the United States would act in an honorable way
and be an honest broker in the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict and to sucker in the PLO. In reality all
that had come from it was yet more sorrow and hardship
and increasingly more land was being lost to their
tormentors. The movement they had placed their trust
in, the PLO and its leader had all but betrayed
them.
The
reasons are manifest, incompetence; Mr Fisk tells
us that during the Peace Process negotiations the
Palestinians had no maps of the land they were haggling
over with Israel, having to rely on those provided
either by the Israeli Army or the CIA. Greed, egotism,
vanity, personal ambition, infiltration by Mossad
and CIA, but most of all a lack of democratic accountability
within the Palestinian Resistance, which allowed
Arafat and his clique to make one compromise after
another without first consulting or answering to
the Palestinian people. The cult of 'the leadership'
had taken hold and it was to have tragic consequences
for the Palestinian people.
Still
for Arafat, ever the Machiavellian prince searching
for the main chance, the victory of Ehud Barak and
the Labour Party in the Israeli elections of 1989
and the call to Camp David from President Bill Clinton
lit the flame of hope within his weary breast. We
in the West were told by our media that at Camp
David Arafat was offered his State by Barak, guaranteed
by the United States. Or very nearly so, the actual
deal was said to be 95 percent of the occupied territories
and this great lie has become history.
Robert Fisk rages at his fellow journalists for
reporting this rubbish, displays total contempt
for those politicians who continue to spout this
lie knowingly, and demolishes their wretched tall
tales. What Arafat was actually offered was in fact
64% of the West Bank and Gaza, and not a blade of
grass or cobble stone of east Jerusalem, which was
promised to the Palestinians as their Capital when
their leaders first signed the Oslo Accords. Finally,
just to add insult to injury and to show whose heel
was on whose neck, not a single member of the millions
who make up the Palestinian diaspora would be guaranteed
the right of return to their homeland. For the poor
suffering and abused Palestinian people there would
be no, 'next year in Jerusalem'. This right was
to be reserved for the Jewish people alone and guaranteed
by the United States of America. (pg 540)
Once
Yasser Arafat, who had been so willing to sacrifice
his peoples's dreams and hopes for a will in the
wisp peace process, understood that even he could
not make a silk purse out of this particular sows
ear, nor did he have any wish to, the penny dropped,
and he returned home to his compound/prison in Ramallah
to await his fate. When asked soon after he returned
from Camp David by a journalist what future lay
ahead for the Palestinian people he answered, "to
endure".
In
the end, this vain, often foolish Machiavellian
Prince had not discredited himself, nor his people,
for on their behalf he finally refused the poisoned
chalice that was the Middle East peace process.
For this act of defiance the Western media, spoon-fed
by the US administration and their European satraps,
all but crucified him, pouring tons of excreta upon
his head in the process, but he, like the people
he once led, endured and looked forward to better
days, either here on earth, or in the next life.
