"The Complex Art of Simulation" by Tanya Reinhart

["Bryan Atinsky" <bryan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

http://indymedia.org.il/imc/webcast/58986.html

THE COMPLEX ART OF SIMULATION

Tanya Reinhart
Yediot Aharonot,
June 6, 2003

Translated from Hebrew by Bryan Atinsky; quotes expanded

[The article went to Print a few hours before Israel's attempted
assassination of Hamas spokesman in Gaza, Abdel Aziz Rantisi.]

The Israeli public discourse has been storming around "Sharon's
revolutionary change of mind". The extensive debate on his psyche focuses on
the question whether he has changed from the inside, or whether it is all
just U.S. pressure.  Either way, Sharon has turned suddenly into the beloved
leader of the Israeli "peace camp". The right wing is furious and the peace
camp celebrates, yet both sides agree on the substance of what they perceive
has occurred: Sharon's Israel has already taken the fatal historical step,
and gave up on the occupation. - "In Akaba, the State of Palestine was
founded"! - declared the headline of Yediot Aharonot on June 5. This is
because, following in the tradition of Oslo, the mere declaration of a
willingness to give away something at some future time, is by itself the
most painful and crucial of concessions. As stated by Abraham Burg in his
excited address of appreciation to Sharon, "even if you will regret this
later; even if you will not stand the pressure of your own party, you
already made your contribution, because you said occupation, you said
evacuation, you said peace, you started to believe" (Yideot Aharonot, June
5, 2003 ).

In the Israeli consciousness, it is not the test of actions that matters,
but the test of words - the complex art of the simulation of peace, which so
eased our conscience during Oslo. In this perception, Bush and Sharon are
the indubitable proponents of world peace. Who would stop to notice what
actually occurs in the real world?

>From May onward we began to hear that:

"Hamas leaders openly declared their willingness this weekend to enter a
temporary cease-fire (hudna) with Israel, for the first time since the
establishment of the movement in 1987. If such a cease-fire is attained, it
would mean a cessation of terror attacks against civilians in Israel. A
senior Hamas spokesman in Gaza, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, who usually represents
movement hardliners, said on Friday: 'The Hamas movement is prepared to stop
terror against Israeli civilians if Israel stops killing Palestinian
civilians ... We have told (Palestinian Authority Prime Minister) Abu Mazen
in our meetings that there is an opportunity to stop targeting Israeli
civilians if the Israelis stop assassinations and raids and stop brutalizing
Palestinian civlilians" (Ha'aretz, Arnon Regular, May 25, 2003).

What could be more suitable for a new peace initiative then starting with a
period of some calm - quiet for the Israelis without terror, quiet for the
Palestinians without the constant presence of the IDF in their midst?  Not
in Sharon's view, who repeatedly rejected this proposal. On the eve of the
Aqaba summit, the headline in Ha'aretz declared: "The prime minister: A
Palestinian ceasefire is not enough"; and the text continued to explain
that:

"in his meeting with U.S. president George Bush at the Aqaba summit,
prime-minister Ariel Sharon will seek the U.S. backing of his demand that
the Palestinian authority will use forceful [military] means against the
terror organizations and their  infrastructure in the territories, as a
precondition for any diplomatic advance. Sharon will tell Bush that it is
not acceptable to settle just for agreements between the Palestinian
organizations to a cease fire (Hudna)… In return Sharon will promise Bush
that Israel will evacuate illegal outposts in the West bank ” (Ha'aretz
Hebrew edition, Aluf Ben, June 2, 2003). (1)

In other words, until the Palestinian organizations willingly begin to kill
one another, the IDF will continue to do this job for them.

In the plans of Sharon and the army, the situation in the territories will
remain precisely where it stands today: IDF soldiers present everywhere,
demolishing, killing, abusing, and causing starvation. Each week, another
piece of Palestinian land is stolen under the auspices of the Separation
Wall project.  Even during the week of the peace summits, when in the world
of simulation the headlines heralded an easing of the closure, the IDF made
sure to clarify that nothing would change. On the contrary, the restrictions
over Palestinian movement were increased. (Ha'aretz, June 3, 2003, see (2)
below). The diabolical aspect of this plan is that from now on, only the
Palestinians will be accused of whatever happens.  Since the Aqaba summit,
Palestinians shouldn't show any resistance to the IDF, because in the
Israelis' perception, Israel has already fulfilled its part of the bargain
when Sharon declared that he has had enough of the occupation, and will even
evacuate a number of outposts (most of which are empty). Now it is the turn
of the Palestinian Authority to fulfill its part of the generous agreement
and to prove that it is capable of controlling terror, even without any
change in the situation on the ground.

Thus, the People of Israel are left to wait for the next inevitable terror
attack, following which, we will sigh and declare, "what could we do, we
tried again, but with the Palestinians, making peace is just impossible."

No doubt that the deterioration of the Intifada into armed struggle brought
disaster upon the Palestinians.  No doubt that it would be better to return
to a path of non-violent struggle, but for that, one basic condition must
exist that Israel will make this path possible for the Palestinians. The
only significant sentence in the Road Map text requires that already at the
first stage, Israel should withdraw from Palestinian areas that it entered
since the beginning of the Intifada and allow for a restoration of the
status quo existing then. If a peace camp had actually existed in Israel,
instead of marveling at the wonders of Sharon's soul, it would demand that
he implements at least this minimum requirement.

(1) Is it just an incident that in the internet English version of Ha'aretz,
this piece of information was eliminated altogether, and the headline
announced only Sharon's willingness to evacuate outposts?
(2) Here is the full report of Arnon Regular on the closure situation at the
week of the summits, in Ha'aretz, Tuesday, June 3, 2003

No signs of eased conditions in West Bank By Arnon Regular

"The picture that emerged yesterday after a day of driving up and down and
back and forth across the West Bank is of tens of thousands of people who
have seemingly been thrown back into the Middle Ages, when the only mode of
transport was by foot."

On road to Ramallah, thousands still travel by foot from village to city and
back Haj Yusuf Musa, 77, is on his way back to his village, north of
Ramallah, after he made the trip to the city to get medicine for his bad
back.

He makes his way - on foot - down the road to the checkpoint that marks the
start of the area where Palestinian vehicles are not allowed to travel. From
there, he makes his way down a steep hill, for about 500 meters into a wadi,
and then back up another hill, for another 500 meters, to reach another
checkpoint. Only when he's through that checkpoint can he look for a
Palestinian taxi to take him to his village.

Yesterday, like every day, thousands of people crossed this checkpoint on
foot. Cripples on crutches, elderly people and children, women, the
pregnant, old and infirm, some on horses others on donkeys, everyone goes
through the humiliation. Those who need medicine or those who want to visit
family.

Adal, a handicapped man from Silwad, needs his crutches to stand. He's
sweating in the hot sun after somehow making his way down the 500 meters and
then back up the 500 meters. The pity of the others goes out to him. Someone
offers him water, another suggests he lean against a railing. After he
catches his breath, he explains he couldn't find a car that would take him.

Like him, thousands of people have to go through the Surda checkpoint at the
northern entrance to Ramallah every day. And the long queues are
characteristic of all the checkpoints.

At the Halhul and Sa'ir checkpoints, the same picture was seen yesterday as
it was at Qalandiyah and at the Gush Etzion junction.

At first, it seemed the Surda checkpoint only handed the tens of thousands
of villagers from north of Ramallah, on their way to the city, but the
checkpoint explains the reality created during the nearly three years of
intifada. People from Nablus, Jenin, Tul Karm and Qalqiliyah, who have made
their way through four, five and sometimes six previous checkpoints to reach
this one, line up.

Palestinians are not allowed to use the thousands of kilometers of new
highways and "bypass" roads built in the territories over the past decades.
Only settlers and the army are allowed on those roads. They aren't allowed
on Highway 60, the main road in the West Bank.

Hundreds of mounds of dirt and mobile and stationary checkpoints force them
onto the side roads, old one-lane roads, sometimes made of dirt, often in
bad repair, and those who want to go to Ramallah from Nablus, for example,
have to take the narrow village roads. Eventually, they all end up at Surda.

A few months ago, the civil administration decided to let Palestinian buses
move on main roads. But the lengthy security checks required to get a pass
to use the buses, has kept them empty. There are parking lots with the buses
in Halhul, al Khader, and in the northern West Bank. A lot of buses. Very
few passengers.

The picture that emerged yesterday after a day of driving up and down and
back and forth across the West Bank is of tens of thousands of people who
have seemingly been thrown back into the Middle Ages, when the only mode of
transport was by foot. Nobody is allowed to take a vehicle from a village to
a city. Instead, they must get off at checkpoints, walk the extra few
hundred meters, and then, if they have the money, take a cab to the next
checkpoint, where again they have to walk the few hundred meters - sometimes
more - to the next point where they can get a taxi.
The Palestinians might have heard about Israel's easing conditions for
travel, but they haven't seen this on the ground. In fact, there are signs
that nothing at all has changed. Take the little checkpoint at Ein Ariq,
west of Ramallah, used by hundreds of villagers from the area. It's a
relatively small checkpoint, consisting of a couple of jeeps that sometimes
are there and sometimes not. On Friday, less than 24 hours after the summit
of prime ministers in Jerusalem and announcements of abatements, an Israel
Defense Forces bulldozer showed up for the first time in the intifada and
dug a channel across the road, ending the possibility of using a car to get
through the checkpoint, even if the jeeps aren't there. Thus, the thousands
of villagers in that area yesterday joined their brethren at checkpoints
elsewhere in the West Bank, lined up at the blockade. A line of about 1,000
people lined up in front of the checkpoint, on their way by foot to
Ramallah.