Bush joins Sharon in whitewashing Israeli assault on Palestinian towns (front page)

BY PATRICK O’NEILL   In a June 10 press conference after meeting with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Washington, U.S. president George Bush spoke in defense of the aggressive Israeli military operations against the Palestinian people. "There are people in the Middle East who want to use terror as a way to derail any peace process," he said. "Israel has a right to defend herself." Bush made his statement as Israeli military forces occupied the West Bank towns of Jenin, Hebron, and Nablus, centers of Palestinian resistance, and demolished most of what was left of the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah. With PA chairman Yasir Arafat and other officials trapped in their offices, Israeli forces bombarded the compound, destroyed sections of the buildings, and then bulldozed debris to block entrances and exits to the headquarters. Palestinians and Israeli soldiers exchanged fire in the area. This was the second time within a month that Israeli forces had surrounded Arafat and his associates, placing them under virtual house arrest.

Protesters in Washington oppose Israeli leader’s visit to White House Militant/Sam Manuel Fifty people demonstrated outside the White House, June 10, to oppose the talks between Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon and U.S. president George Bush, which were conducted as Israeli army occupied a number of Palestinian towns.

As a total curfew was enforced in the days that followed, one journalist described the city as being "in a state of lockdown." On June 10 alone, Israeli troops arrested 27 Palestinian youths.

Giving cover to Tel Aviv’s assault, which was presented as a response to a car bombing of a bus June 5 in which 13 Israeli soldiers and four other passengers were killed, Bush spokesperson Ari Fleischer told reporters that in the "president’s eyes Yasir Arafat has never played a role of someone who can be trusted or who was effective."

Both Sharon and Bush have demanded that Arafat mobilize his security forces and arrest anyone suspected of planning attacks. They hold Arafat and the Palestinian Authority responsible for any assaults that take place against Israelis. Nearly 70 Israelis have been killed in eight such attacks since the Israeli armed forces launched a sweeping offensive throughout the West Bank at the end of March.

Islamic Jihad, an opposition organization backed by the Iranian and Syrian governments, claimed responsibility for the bombing of the bus. Like the larger Hamas organization, Islamic Jihad opposes the Palestinian Authority and the leadership of Yasir Arafat, and frequently times its attacks to undermine U.S.-sponsored attempts to restart talks between Palestinian Authority and Israeli representatives. The leaders of both Hamas and Islamic Jihad refused an offer by Arafat to join his cabinet.

Islamic Jihad’s leaders have increased their following by speaking against the Palestinian Authority’s attempts to clamp down on military activities outside of its control. "Every Palestinian is wanted by Israel," said Sheik Abdallah al-Shami, on June 5. "Does it make any sense that the Palestinian Authority would go out and arrest Palestinians on behalf of our enemy?"

PA officials told Sharon they will arrest anyone from Islamic Jihad responsible for the attack, but point out that their security apparatus has been severely crippled by the Israeli onslaught.

"The Israelis have practically destroyed every police building in the West Bank," said Arafat spokesperson Samir Rantisi. "We need to see some move toward real results" in the negotiations before any progress can be made, he noted.  
 
Turns down request by Egyptian leader
The meeting between Bush and Sharon came a few days after Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak met with the U.S. president at the White House. Mubarak reportedly asked Washington to set a date for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian leadership on a settlement of the conflict and to endorse an early declaration of a Palestinian state. Bush declined specific support for either request.

Despite Bush’s refusal to distance his administration from the latest Israeli military action, and his comment that "no one has confidence in the emerging Palestinian government," differences continue to emerge between the two enemies of the Palestinian struggle.

As he pushes ahead with renewed military aggression, Sharon has publicly rejected any talks with Arafat, and brushed aside diplomatic initiatives by the governments of Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The White House, on the other hand, has collaborated with governments in the Middle East to bring pressure to bear on the Palestinians.

U.S. representatives have continued to press for negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian representatives that could cement a deal to help quell the Palestinian struggle.

Speaking on June 11, U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell said that a visit by Saudi Arabian foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal on June 14 will "complete this round of consultations." Powell insisted that the Israeli military’s foray into Ramallah "to look for terrorists" would be brief. "The president not only understands Israel’s right to defend itself, he also understands the need for us to find a political way to move forward," he said.

In a related development, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld renewed the U.S. propaganda war against Iraq during a June 10 visit to Bahrain. "If you want to know a world-class liar, it’s Saddam Hussein," he told sailors and marines assigned to the U.S. fifth fleet in the capital city of Manama. He accused Baghdad of having "an active program to develop nuclear weapons," biological agents, and other "weapons of mass destruction."

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict--above all, the refusal of the Palestinian people to be blackmailed or brutalized into submission--has complicated Washington’s drive to war against Iraq and its attempts to gain support for such a war among the pro-imperialist governments of the Middle East.  
 
Sealing off areas of Palestinian resistance
The Israeli government has approved a plan to build a security barrier along the Green Line that divides Israel from the West Bank. Like the checkpoints and fences that Israeli forces continue to erect around Palestinian cities and towns inside the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the 130-foot wide barrier is designed to fence in areas where Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation has been particularly strong during the last 21 months of heightened conflict.

Construction has already begun less than 100 yards from Qalqilya, a town near the border that is home to 25,000 Palestinians. The structure includes separate roads for border police and army patrols, surveillance cameras, an electric fence, a six-to-eight-foot-deep ditch, sandy paths designed to preserve the footprints of anyone who tries to pass, and inner and outer fences made of six-foot pyramids of coiled barbed wire. For two miles alongside Qualquilya and in at least one other spot the barrier will incorporate a concrete wall.

Israeli authorities say the first phase of the project, covering 75 miles from Qualquilya to north of Jenin, will be completed within a year. Phase two will see the barrier extend along the rest of the 164-mile Green Line.

Fortified borders also divide Israel from the Gaza Strip and from Jordan. According to the construction plans, the barrier will extend through Jerusalem, and will cut into the West Bank to protect some Israeli settlements, leaving some Palestinian towns within Israel. At one point, the planned path of the barrier will force Palestinian farmers to cross a checkpoint as they go to and from their fields.

There are presently some 150 such checkpoints in the West Bank. They form part of the heavy Israeli presence throughout the territory, and of the tightening encirclement of eight West Bank cities and towns, including Jenin, Nablus, Tulkarm, Qalqilyah, Ramallah, Jericho, and Hebron. Israeli forces are also digging ditches, and erecting barbed-wire fences aimed at restricting the movement of Palestinian working people and youth in these areas.  
 
Israeli closures defended
In a June 8 interview, Israeli defense minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer expressed some concern with the course of events and his government’s inability to defeat the Palestinian resistance. With "military means you cannot solve this problem" of suicide attacks, he said. "We can fight airplanes; we can fight tanks. But you cannot fight a young man or girl who might look like one of your own children. One minute they are smiling, they are talking, they are with you. And suddenly, they push a button."

"The only thing I can do now is the closures--putting more isolation on the cities," the defense minister said. "But people cannot work. They cannot feed their families. The closures create frustration and hatred, and this hatred and frustration might mean the birth of another five to 10 suicide bombers."

Meanwhile, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are bracing themselves for an expected onslaught by the Israeli military.  
Gaza assault ‘would be complicated’
Since April the Israeli incursions and occupations have targeted the West Bank, the larger of the two occupied territories. By contrast, noted the May 29 Wall Street Journal, "Israel’s strategy has been to keep Gaza under virtual lock and key, using an extensive network of barbed-wire fences, guard posts and army patrols."

Washington’s opposition to further military escalation is one factor restraining the Israeli war makers. In addition, the military officers who have drawn up blueprints for an offensive that would include tanks, helicopters, air force jets, and naval gunboats, anticipate stiff resistance by Palestinian defenders. "Any assault on the refugee camps," home to 150,000 people, "would be far more complicated than that in Jenin," wrote the Journal, referring to the April battles in the West Bank refugee camp. "Booby traps and ambushes are a major problem," said one Israeli officer. "We know that there will be surprises if we go in."
 
 
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