[GushShalomPress] Invasion of Ramallah - the arrogance of power

[Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)]

GUSH SHALOM - pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 - http://www.gush-shalom.org/

Press release
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Invasion of Ramallah - the arrogance of power
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June 10, 2002. Thirty-five years ago on this date, a cease-fire was supposed to end a 
war of six days. In retrospect it merely set the stage for a prolonged and agonizing war 
that has already dragged on for three and a half decades.

Again and again, Israeli decision makers resorted to the illusion that their 
overwhelming arsenal of tanks and helicopter gunships and fighter planes can 
ensure a definite victory - always again coming up against the limitations of 
power. "Operation Defensive Shield" of April this year, the latest effort in 
that direction, already proved a hollow victory - as evident from the very fact 
that Sharon found it necessary today to send his army yet again into Ramallah 
and subject that city to the umpteenth occupation in the past year. 
Once more the invasion is said to be aimed at "uprooting" a "terrorist 
infrastucture" which the generals admit has the tendency to re-grow amazingly 
fast. 

By launching the present invasion of Ramallah on the very eve of his meeting 
with President Bush, Sharon has demonstrated his confidence of having 
Washington's virtually unlimited backing. The PM did not anticipate any 
reprimand for the invasion nor a demand for withdrawal of the tanks from the 
streets of Ramallah - and from all reports of the Bush-Sharon meeting, there 
had been neither. The curfew imprisoning Ramallah's hundred thousand  
inhabitants in their homes, and the new siege of Arafat's headquarters,  had 
been declared to be "an act of self-defence". 
The invasion of Ramallah also calls into doubt the issue of "reforms" in the 
Palestinian Authority, which so occupied international diplomacy in the past 
month and which still featured prominently on President Bush's pronouncements 
of this evening. What use to debate the division of powers, the democratic 
procedures and "transparency" of  a Palestinian governmental structure which 
has been deprived of virtually any power to govern; an Authority whose citizens 
are forbidden by an occupying army to leave their towns and villages and travel 
even to the the nearest community, which can make no plans for the rest of the 
week, to say nothing of the longer range, whose premises may be seized by 
invading soldiers at a moment's notice and whose whose ministers may be 
imprisoned in their homes by curfew and unable to gather for a cabinet meeting? 

Talking of reforms in the structure of the Palestinian Authority could make 
sense only on the assumption that the disabilities would be eventually removed, 
that the PA's sovereign status will be restored and that the Authority would 
still serve as the nucleus of an independent Palestine. But this is exactly 
what the present Israeli government is determined to undermine by all means.  
And the Bush administration remains evidently unable or unwilling to do 
anything concrete to really implement the two-state vision which the President 
is repeating ad nauseam. ("Conditions do not yet exist for peace in the Middle 
East" the president said tonight - which may be true, but is that reason to 
allow Sharon to make them worse?)
Obviously, Sharon is interested in one reform on the Palestinian side and one 
reform only: the removal of Arafat. The PM's preferred way of implementing this 
"reform" would be Israeli troops storming Arafat's headquarters. That is about 
the only military operation which Bush has not (yet?) authorized - apprehensive 
of a massive backlash in the Arab World destabilizing the pro-American regimes. 
For his part, Sharon is said to be biding his time and waiting for a "mega 
terrorist attack", with a death toll so massive that it would provide a 
suitable pretext for the final attack upon Arafat, upon the Palestinian people. 

Adam Keller, Gush Shalom spokesperson: +972-(0)3-5565804 / +972-(0)56-709603


[The following report from Ramallah which was written today, and which we received  
just now from our member Yehudit Har'el may serve as an illustration.]

------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent:      	Mon, 10 Jun 2002 12:46:08 -0700
From:           	Yehudith Harel <ye_harel at netvision.net.il>
	
Enclosed by a message - just to give you another taste of what Life in Ramallah is like,
while Sharon is received in Washington like "Man of Peace...and while the World 
tends to forget that the colonial War Israel is waging against the Palestinian people is 
on and in full scale.  Yehudith

(...) The Israeli army is in Ramallah. We are under curfew and don't know exactly what 
are they doing or why they are here. It was completely unexpected. My plans to 
go to the conference in Italy seem to have evaporated. It is not just that the 
Israelis feel they can come in and out, kill and destroy and arrest. It is 
also that they seem to want us to know that they even own our time and our 
schedules. Today children did not go to school. It is the last day of classes 
and my son was looking forward to getting his certificate and say bye to other 
kids. We could not take him to school obviously. My nephew has a graduation 
from high school tomorrow and that will perhaps be cancelled. I am not saying 
this is more tragic than killing, but it is another form of violence that we 
have to deal with as a community. Not to mention that I was supposed to spend my 
day working on the paper for the conference about violence in the Palestinian 
narrative... how ironic...

Still I hope that I can make it to Italy somehow... 

best wishes