A turn for the worse
From the West Bank, Khaled Amayreh describes the ongoing ordeals the Palestinians continue to suffer

Israel has resorted to the most draconian measures of collective punishment against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank in alleged retaliation for the killing of three Israeli settlers by suspected Palestinian guerrillas on Sunday.

The settlers, who came from two colonies south of Hebron, were killed in an ambush by armed men travelling in a speeding car on a key intersection seven kilometres south of Bethlehem.

The killing of the settlers was preceded by the assassination of Islamic Jihad activist Nihad Abu Ghanem, aged 27, in Jenin by an Israeli “death squad”. Another bystander was also injured by Israeli fire.

Initially, an anonymous caller phoning a Western news agency in Gaza City claimed that the Fatah-affiliated Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades carried out the attack as a reprisal for the recent killing by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) of more than 10 Palestinians in the Gaza strip and the northern West Bank. However, a spokesman for the Brigades in the West Bank later denied any involvement in the incident.

An Israeli army source quoted by the Haaretz daily said that it was more likely that a “Hamas cell”, not Fatah, carried out the ambush in retaliation for the killing of several Hamas fighters in the Gaza Strip in September.

For its part, Hamas has said it remains committed to the de facto ceasefire reached between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) earlier this year.

Meanwhile, the IOF have closed off all roads and routes linking the central West Bank with Hebron in the south. Palestinian taxi and bus drivers told Al-Ahram Weekly that even unpaved mountainous paths were closed by army bulldozers, forcing thousands of students, teachers and civil servants to stay away from their institutions and places of work.

Moreover, Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz has issued orders barring Palestinian private cars from travelling on intercity roads throughout the West Bank. This draconian measure is expected to further strangle the nearly decimated Palestinian economy, paralysed by five years of Israeli repression and blockade.

“We will change the policy of how they [the Palestinians] use the roads. We will demand that they use public transport rather than private cars,” said an Israeli military source.

Meanwhile, Jewish settlers in the central and northern West Bank have resumed their assaults and acts of vandalism against Palestinian olive harvesters and villagers. The olive-harvesting season in the West Bank has just started and many olive growers dread settler violence which has, over the past few years, killed several Palestinians.

Palestinian sources reported on Monday that Jewish settlers from the colony of Illan Moreh east of Nablus set fire to Palestinian olive groves.

Similarly, settlers in the old city of Hebron set fire to Palestinian businesses, causing substantial damage. In southern Hebron, armed Jewish settlers attacked Palestinian shepherds and their flocks this week, killing and injuring a number of sheep. The assaults occurred in an area where settlers routinely carry out hostile acts against Palestinian villagers, such as poisoning their grazing land and polluting their water sources.

Meanwhile, the IOF continued to round up Palestinian political activists and community leaders, ostensibly to disrupt the upcoming Palestinian elections.

Palestinian sources said on Monday that as many as 60 activists and professionals were detained in the Hebron and Jenin regions during the past few days. Among the detainees was Khadr Sondok, professor of Islamic Studies at An-Najah University, who was “picked up” while returning home from college on Sunday.

An Israeli army spokesman routinely describes the detainees as “militants and potential terrorists”. However, it is abundantly clear that the vast bulk of the detainees have absolutely nothing to do with any anti-occupation activities and that their incarceration was politically motivated.

Most of the estimated 700 Palestinians detained in the past few weeks are political activists affiliated or associated with Hamas, and many are considered potential candidates for the upcoming Palestinian parliamentary elections, scheduled for 27 January.

Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, have said they will seek to disrupt Palestinian elections if Hamas is allowed to take part in the polls.

The PA rejected “Israel’s brash interference” in the elections, arguing that Israeli actions would only strengthen Hamas and weaken Fatah as Palestinian voters usually identify with whichever group was most targeted and persecuted by Israel.

The latest harsh measures are likely to further undermine PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s image and stature among many Palestinians. Ever since his rise to power, his standing among his people has been linked with and dependent on his ability to alleviate Israeli measures against his people.

Abbas condemned the killing of the three settlers, but Israel wanted him to do more — regardless of his utter powerlessness in the West Bank where the IOF is the only force with any real power.

It is not yet clear whether Sharon is really interested in “strengthening” Abbas or in shattering him altogether. Israeli unilateral measures — including the continued confiscation of large swathes of Palestinian land, especially in the Jerusalem region, and the effective ghettoising of Palestinian population centres as a result of the continued construction of the Apartheid Wall — are leaving the PA powerless and completely exposed.

This week even the Americans — Israel’s guardians and allies — appealed to Sharon to ease up on the Palestinians and to refrain from taking actions that would weaken the “moderate elements” in the Palestinian camp.

In a message delivered privately to the Israeli government by Lieutenant General William Ward, the US security envoy in the region, the State Department said that Israel should “take steps to ease the daily plight of the Palestinian people”.

It is doubtful, however, that the Sharon-Shalom-Mofaz trio will heed the American message as the government is coming under a rabid onslaught from right-wing hawks who have demanded even more stringent actions against the Palestinians.

These hawks have by no means forgiven Sharon for implementing the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and are now likely to seek to create every conceivable obstacle to prevent Sharon from making any further changes.

But by pushing Sharon so hard towards further tormenting Palestinian civilians, the far-right extremists who control at least a fourth of Israeli parliament seats, could guarantee that the fragile ceasefire — so far observed by Palestinian resistance groups including Hamas — will end.

This in turn would guarantee that no Palestinian elections take place, at least until Israel starts to view Palestine as a real negotiating partner, not a vanquished supplicant whose main role is to repress its people and carry out Israeli orders and dictates.