Barak has stepped down less than 18 months after he comfortably won the general election against the Likud Party by a wide margin. His opponent in that contest, Benjamin Netanyahu, is mustering support to mount a challenge for the Likud leadership and candidacy.

As Israeli politicians prepare for the sooner-than-expected election, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have not relaxed their siege of Palestinian areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, known as the occupied territories.  
 
Barak's maneuver
Many have seen Barak's announcement as an attempt to avoid a repeat contest with Netanyahu, who comfortably leads both Barak and the present Likud leader Ariel Sharon in opinion polls. The former Likud prime minister is not a member of the Knesset, and under the specific conditions that pertain after the prime minister's resignation is not eligible to run without special parliamentary dispensation. Netanyahu's chances of overcoming this obstacle improved when a special bill drawn up to grant such dispensation was given preliminary approval on December 13.

Sharon's prospects of holding off Netanyahu's challenge for the Likud leadership look distinctly bleak. The party's central committee greeted Sharon's speech before them the same day with chants of "Bibi! Bibi!"--Netanyahu's nickname.

The election brings to the fore the divisions among Israeli rulers in the face of the continued resistance of the Palestinian people to Tel Aviv's brutality and denial of their national birthright. All the major parties support the continued brutal occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. But Likud spokespeople have often used harsher rhetoric in supporting military measures. On the other hand, voices within Labor--which poses as a "left" alternative to Likud--have urged more restraint and for a more rapid return to negotiations.

Barak defeated Netanyahu by presenting himself and his party as advocates of a negotiated settlement with the Palestinian leadership, which also had hopes that talks would lead to an Israeli withdrawal from substantial parts of the occupied territories. But talks in Egypt collapsed in July after Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat refused to grant the concessions demanded by Barak and U.S. president William Clinton. Barak's popularity slumped in the wake of that fiasco.

Barak's brief reign entered its last act when unrest broke out in late September throughout the occupied territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and inside Israel. The prime minister gave the go-ahead for a crackdown. Since then the Israeli armed forces have imposed a siege of Palestinian areas, used heavy firepower against demonstrators, and launched military strikes against targets associated with the Palestinian Authority and its most prominent figures. The failure of these measures to stifle the unrest has opened up opportunities for Likud and other Labor opponents.  
 
Costs of Israeli repression
As of December 13 the death from the Israeli brutality stood at 318, the overwhelming majority of them Palestinians. The Palestinian Health Ministry reports that of the more than 10,000 Palestinians wounded, about 900 have sustained serious physical or neurological injuries and will require long-term care. Other economic and social costs, from the lost income of at least 190,000 Palestinians unable to cross into Israel to get to their jobs, to the destruction of homes and farms by the Israeli military, are also rapidly rising.

Seven more Palestinians fell to the gunfire of Israeli security forces on December 8, one of them a 16-year-old in East Jerusalem and four of them policemen of the Palestinian Authority killed by Israeli tank shells near the West Bank city of Jenin. Three Israelis died that same day.

Barak stated, "We will stand and not be broken. A nation that wants to live in the Middle East must know how to withstand difficult moments." The Israeli military has fought many wars against its neighbors and against the Palestinian resistance since it was established on Palestinian land in the late 1940s.

Barak also warned that "none of those who harmed us will go unpunished." The Israeli military has targeted a number of Palestinian figures for assassination. At least five such killings have taken place to date.

"Severe environmental damage [from the occupation] is now also apparent throughout the West Bank and Gaza," wrote Amos Harel in the Israeli Ha'aretz daily on December 12. The journalist described "orchards the IDF uprooted beside roads, ruined buildings, villages with all their access roads blocked."

According to Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Israeli bulldozers have destroyed about 600 acres of agricultural land in the Gaza Strip alone. The Israeli forces have effectively reoccupied Gaza, after pulling out many units in 1994.

"Never before did we enjoy guided missiles, tanks, bombardments, gunships on the horizon," said Sourani. "This is the first time that the Israelis ever chopped us in half like butchers, making it mission impossible to move from south to north. And they don't only knock down the people, but the trees."

Sourani was referring to an Israeli policy of demolishing Palestinian houses and crops that allegedly serve as cover for attacks on soldiers and policemen.

One Palestinian farming family described losing their entire farm and home due to an Israeli government decision to carve an exit road for a Jewish settlement. "We took down on either side of it what we needed to take down so the settlers would have safe passage," an army spokesperson said. Under the Oslo agreement, he said, the territory fell under Israeli security control and so was "legally Israeli."

"For about 20 days before the incident, the Israelis were in our fields with their jeeps," said Donya Dhuheir. "That night...we heard engines come closer and closer to the house until they were in the house."

The family had no time to gather their belongings as they ran out the back door. The Israeli vehicles also destroyed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of greenhouses and crops. "What does this teach my children?" said Omar Jaber Dhuheir to reporters. "It teaches them hatred of the Jews. That's not what we taught them."
 
 
Related article:
Israel out of occupied territories  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home