Albawaba.com
Amman
A leading Israeli journalist, and an expert on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict said that ending the violence in the Palestinian territories must start with looking into the root causes of the Palestinian wrath that has been translated into the Aqsa Intifada.
“It [The Intifada] showed the fact that occupation is still going on, and it seems that Israel, backed by the US, is not intending to rescue the situation. It didn’t seem that Israel and the US are intending to change the situation, whereby the Palestinian political status is ambivalent, and hostage in the negotiation system to Israeli politics,” said Amira Hess in a telephone interview with Albawaba.com.
On the other side of the fence, the journalist said that the Israeli society, including those who belong to the peace camp, feel victimized and betrayed because they believe that the Palestinians did not deliver their part of the peace deal, which is to keep security and order in the Palestinian territories.
As far she is concerned, this problem exists because Israelis looked at the issue from their perspective and did not listen to the cry of the Palestinian people.
Hess was born in 1956 in Jerusalem. Her parents arrived in the city from Romania and Yugoslavia in 1948. She studied history in one of Jerusalem’s universities and at Tel Aviv University. She joined Haaretz in 1989, and started visiting and writing about Gaza in 1991. In 1993, she was nominated to be Haaretz’s correspondent in the Gaza Strip. At the end of 1996, she published a book, which was called “Greeting the Sea at Gaza.” After that she became the daily’s correspondent in the West Bank. She now lives in Al Beereh near Ramallah.
Following is the full text of the interview:
Q: Can you give us your assessment of the Sharm Al-Sheikh summit?
A: I’m afraid it didn’t tackle the reasons for the eruption of (the) Aqsa Intifada for the last three weeks. I think it evaded listening to the main cry of the Palestinians during the last three weeks. And the Intifada is mainly saying that the last six years or seven years have been a big disappointment to the Palestinians who have supported peace with Israel.
Q: What are the real reasons for (the) Aqsa Intifada which Sharm Al-Sheikh didn’t tackle?
A: It showed the fact that occupation is still going on and it seems that Israel, backed by the US, is not intending to rescue the situation. It didn’t seem that Israel and the US are intending to change the situation, whereby the Palestinian political status is ambivalent, hostage in the negotiation system to Israeli politics. All the main aspects of Israeli control are still there in Gaza and the West Bank. The Palestinians have tried to talk about it, and tell both the Israelis and Westerners that the situation is intolerable but they haven’t been really listened to. Israel is still in control of the three main sources of Palestinian livelihood: Israel is in control of Palestinian land; Israel is in control of water; and, Israel is in control of movement. You know Palestinians have been deprived of their rights of freedom movement since 1991. So what happens is that both Palestinian society, Palestinian population, and Palestinian territory are being dissected by Israeli policy. The territories are being dissected into categories of A, B, C, especially Area C, where Israel has full military and administrative control, this area covers 61.2% of West Bank territory. Area B where Israel maintains military control is 26.8 %. And the area which is in full Palestinian security and administrative control is only 12% of the West Bank. All of this information is from Israeli data.
Israel is in full control of 20% of the narrow Gaza Strip and this 20% serves the army, military purposes and the settlements. These are things, which people in both Gaza and the West Bank couldn’t tolerate any longer - being shut in enclaves.
The other dissection is the dissection of Palestinian society. Palestinians for the last decade have lived under an apartheid regime. Which means that they are dependent on travel permits from Israel to move around inside the country, between Gaza and the West Bank, in Israel, or going outside. They are actually at the total mercy of Israeli policy, which we can categorize in terms of the freedom of movement. And this right of the freedom of movement has become the privilege of very few people. This privilege is also very different for different people. Some people have the right to go out for one evening, some for work, some for business. So the whole society is dependent on Israel for these permits and for these basic needs for normal life. Out or more or less three million Palestinians, no more than maybe 200,000 are given permits to travel outside (the territories).
This is not mentioning the settlements. You know (that) in the last ten years, since the Madrid Agreement, the population in the settlements has more than doubled, from something like 91 thousand to 200 thousand in ten years. Of course the settlements enjoy much better conditions than the nearby Palestinian villages. So all of this has built up over the years and there is an enormous gap between how the years were characterized by the peace process, and the way the people saw their situation. This was something far away from the peace process. This gap, this deception, fueled and is still fueling the anger and it needed a match such as Sharon’s visit to start the fire.
Q: So obviously the Sharm al-Sheikh Summit in your opinion is not going to stop the violence?
A: No, it will not because it does not look at the real roots of the problem. Unfortunately most of the Israeli media concentrated on believing that this is all initiated by Arafat, and by Arafat’s Fateh leaders. It’s as if everything is under the full control of Arafat. Here, they don’t want to look at this as a popular uprising. They look for all kinds of ways to see it as a planned scheme, one from above and channeled for the political aims of Arafat.
Q: I would like to look at the other side of the coin, I want to look at Israeli society now, we feel that Israel has gone very right wing since the eruption of the Intifada, how do you assess the situation now?
A: Indeed the Israeli society feels attacked, victimized, very offended, very betrayed, there was a constituency that believed there was a peace process, or wanted to believe there was a peace process. They believe that the Palestinians did not deliver their part of the deal, which is to keep security and order in the Palestinian territories. This again is another problem because this peace camp for the last six years refused to judge the situation according to what the Palestinians were feeling and experiencing. On the contrary, the leaders of this peace camp saw that they could judge the situation according to their visits and experiences with the Palestinian leadership and Fateh leadership. All were satisfied with the situation especially during the first few years after the peace accord, and trusted that the situation would work out. So on the whole, most of the Israeli public and the Israeli peace camp didn’t challenge, and defy the situation that was taking place throughout the years following the peace process.
This peace camp has done very little to challenge the development of Israeli roads in the West Bank and Gaza. This peace camp didn’t do anything about the policy of closure. It relied on the Palestinian leadership in the first few years and its continuation of negotiations despite all the settlements and closure. So, maybe it was a kind of thin peel which divided the Israeli peace camp from the rest. It’s not that many of them don’t want genuine peace but they just failed to listen to the Palestinians. Of course Israelis are being attacked but if you look at the numbers, the figures show that many more Palestinians were killed during these clashes - 7 Israelis and one hundred and four Palestinians. So of course it’s very disproportional but it seems very difficult to convince people these days in Israel.
Q: Since the Madrid conference we had so many different Israeli governments from Likud to Labor and we were actually surprised that those who should represent the left, the Labor party, are stronger than the Likud in their position in antagonizing the Palestinians and even threatening the rest of Arabs. This morning (Tuesday) somebody within the government announced that the Hurl rocket is ready to work. How do you explain this? Is Israel really ready for peace now?
A: Basically I don't think there is a big difference between Likud and Labor in the sense that both parties for the last thirty years have been looking for the best ways to gain Israeli control and access to as great of a part of the land of Israel, with as little Palestinians in it as possible . And even during the Madrid peace process years, both governments showed that this was their policy if you look at settlement activity. It was under Rabin and Peres and it was under Likud. Neither party has changed its policy over the past fifty-three years. And both reject the 67 border. I think the Palestinians insistence on the 67 border was their way of pleading for Israel to prove that it's not just a colonialist entity, whose drive is expansionism at the expense of the Palestinians. So by sticking to the 67 borders and recognizing the state of Israel in these borders, the Palestinians were looking for a historical halt to Israeli expansion. Israeli society felt strong enough through the Madrid agreement to continue its spiral of expansion under the umbrella of a negotiation process. Still I think there is a difference between the governments and the elite, the economical and the military and the political elite who are behind this government and the people. Many of the voters of Labor and Meretz were indeed ready for a solution based on the 67 border, and they did have the leadership to prepare the ground for this. But then they started believing that the Palestinians were accepting the change in borders and accepting the existence of settlements, this security cooperation, (this) collaboration during these years. So in a strange way, the Oslo agreement has lessened the sensitivity of those who were originally in favor of a two-state solution. It eroded their sensitivity to the Palestinian demands. Because the Oslo years showed Israel that they can have something that at one point was believed impossible to achieve, that you can't have peace with settlements. So the settlements continued and flourished and there was peace in the sense that there was mutual recognition and the process of consolidation of a Palestinian entity in spite of settlements. This is what I would say is the sociological and analytical process that the Israeli peace camp has gone through.
The difference between Likud and Labor is that the former has an opposition. If Netanyahu had ordered the shoot he would have an opposition, but when Barak ordered the shoot he had no opposition.
Q: Do you believe there has been a difference in media coverage in Israel regarding the first Intifada between 1987 and 1993 and this new Aqsa Intifada?
A: I wasn’t a reporter during the first Intifada, and don’t forget it lasted for a long time. At the time, Israeli TV and Radio staff were on strike, if I remember correctly, in the first days or weeks of the Intifada. As a whole though I think, in the first months of the first Intifada, the press, particularly the written press, realized that this was a popular uprising, and I think also the army and intelligence saw it that way. I think TV exposed pictures of the beatings then the shooting at the children and youngsters, and if I remember correctly, it shocked a great part of the population. I think the army was confused because its reports were not accurate, everybody found out that there were reports by Palestinian journalists on the ground which were very accurate regarding the number of casualties the atrocities in the clashes that erupted.
In these past three weeks, which is still very short and I don’t believe it’s going to end, the Israeli press was not dealing with people (in the same way) it was dealing with the leadership. So it was easy to put blame on the leadership and say that it was not keeping its promise. So the media was not only covering the general mood by the Israelis, they were propagating it, and created the peace mood of the Israeli public and the mood of being attacked. So, if I can judge, I’m not here as an objective team player, then I would say the media has taken (more of) the side of the governmental official policy than during the first weeks and month’s of the first Intifada.
Q: It seems that Ehud Barak is making a lot of decisions that would actually help him in an internal Israeli political crisis which he started facing in the middle of Camp David and there is a possibility of early elections. Are a lot of Barak’s decisions related more to the internal problems he’s facing versus the notion or the principal of peace with the Palestinians?
A: It could be. You know I am really bad when it comes to Israeli politics. You know I’ve been living now for seven years among Palestinians. I believe, it’s my impression not a very studied impression. I believe his steps are motivated by sharpened and calculated decisions. At the same time, as I said before, like other prime ministers of Israel, both Likud and Labor have been following a general track since 91, and they all understand that the occupation of the old days cannot go on in a unipolar world. At the same time they don’t want to release some kind of dynamics which will lead into some kind of Israeli-Palestinian federation. I mean this could be the real outcome of a real two state solution. I think all these governments are looking for new ways of domineering Palestinians, both in Israel, and in the 67 occupied territories. So, it’s a mixture here. On the one hand, it is motivated in the long term by Israeli elite confederations - ones which still believe it is still possible to suppress Palestinian quest for sovereignty and equality in the country by dividing Palestinians; for example the division of the Palestinians of 48 from the Palestinians of 1967. The division of Palestinians of Gaza from those of the West Bank. At the same time, Barak’s actions are motivated by the short term calculation. At times, I think the proportions change. At times I think the situation is affected by the long term, and at (other times) it is influenced by the short term.
I think it is wrong to analyze everything by the coming elections. After all, Barak is a representative of Israeli elite, he’s not just one person. Just as Peres, Rabin, and Netanyahu were representatives of these currents of Israeli society. And these currents have not changed as far as I see; in spite of what the whole world thinks that there is a change and there is a peace policy. I think that basically there isn’t a qualitative change in Israeli thinking towards its relationship with the Palestinian people who live in the same country, and I am talking about the area that was under the British mandate.
Q: Amira, you’ve been living in the West Bank for seven years, were you there when Israeli soldiers were lynched in Ramallah?
A: First I lived (for) three years in Gaza. Now, I have lived almost four years in Ramallah. But no, by accident I was with my mother in Jerusalem that very day. But I was in some other incidents which started just as tense as the day that the soldiers were lynched on Thursday. I witnessed one near my home. I live in Al-beereh, near the junction where all the clashes take place, and just in front of me I saw people attacking two journalists whom they thought to be undercover units. They didn’t stop to ask where the journalists were from. Later I discovered that the two were cameramen, one Greek and one Russian. They were attacked severely, but the Palestinian police did manage to rescue them. So no, I was not here during the killings of the two Israeli soldiers. And I came only a few days later.
Q: But then as an Israeli, do you feel that your life is in danger while you are living in Ramallah during times like these?
A: Not really, I mean not personally. Then again, during the last three weeks I can feel the change because I feel more hostility and suspicion, of course from people who don’t know me but know that I am Israeli. I spent one week in Gaza and now I am here in Ramallah and I feel the suspicion. Suspicion is directed towards journalists as a whole, sometimes I go with the video camera and people are suspicious; because they feel that they are being given to Israeli intelligence. Or if they are being broadcast, that Israeli intelligence uses these for checking people. So there is a lot of suspicion that I didn’t feel years ago. Still I don’t take it personally because when we have the time to sit or to stand and explain things more calmly people can make the distinction and realize that I am not a spy.
Still my friends tell me I should be very cautious. Then there is the danger, which is not personal, from shooting and from stones. I was hit by a huge brick just a few days ago near the refugee camp, and there are many yellow plated Israeli cars that pass by, they just picked me. Again I want to say I know it isn’t personal, it was just my car. So the situation now is very different. I cannot drive to see my mother in the evening. So I have to drive during daytime and cannot come back at night. So things have changed certainly, not just for me. The rules of the game seem to have changed in the last three weeks completely.
Q: Are you planning to stay in Ramallah?
A: I don’t know, this is one of the things that are happening so fast now. We cannot foresee what is going to happen in a day or two, in a week or three weeks, and I am very certain about my predictions and analysis. For the last six years I have been saying that the Palestinians will not be able to tolerate the situation for long - this false peace. Even in my articles I would write about the expectations of such an Intifada, uprising. And I think that now Israeli attempts to stop such an uprising is going to get uglier. So I don’t know what will happen. (I don’t know) how I will be able to tolerate being here, not because of fear of being directly attacked, but it’s hard to perceive what will happen now. I’ve started to think that maybe it will be wiser to move to Jerusalem now, I don’t know yet.
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
