Promoted as a key policy statement on the Mideast, the announcement occurred as Israeli military forces once again surrounded the nearly destroyed headquarters of the Palestinian Authority, completing its reoccupation of six of the eight key towns under Palestinian control on the West Bank; killing six people in the Gaza Strip, including a leader of the Palestinian organization Hamas, from two helicopter gunships; and shooting dead 10 Palestinians in a one-day period on June 21.
"Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership, so that a Palestinian state can be born," Bush said in face of the onslaught by Tel Aviv. "I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror." The U.S. president said that the "Palestinian authorities are encouraging, not opposing terrorism. This is unacceptable."
In an interview after Bush’s press conference, Secretary of State Colin Powell said that for the past 10 weeks, in talks with Arafat, "I told him the direction in which they were moving had to change in a very fundamental and strategic way, and we had to see that if he wanted the United States to be a partner in this moving forward. To be blunt," Powell said, "we haven’t seen enough of that."
The Palestinian response to both moves was immediate. In the city of Qalqilya, Palestinians fought the invading forces, killing a army major and sergeant. Watching TV coverage of Bush’s speech a few days later, a Palestinian who teaches Arabic exclaimed: "I swear to God that this speech was written and sent by [Israeli prime minister Ariel] Sharon!" Responding to the long list of demands, the teacher said, "Look, [Bush] is mixing the poison with honey and he wants us to drink it."
In a statement, Arafat said he found Bush’s proposals to be "a serious effort to push the peace process forward," but reminded the U.S. administration that he was elected to office in elections monitored by international observers.
Saeb Erakat, the chief negotiator for the Palestinians, said the Palestinian people "have chosen President Arafat as their leader and the world and President Bush must respect the democratic choice of the Palestinian people." Palestinian leaders don’t "come from parachutes from Washington or anywhere else," he said.
Imperial dictates
In addition to the removal of Arafat, Bush ticked off a list of imperial dictates for the Palestinian people to meet, including:
"Israeli citizens will continue to be victimized, and so Israel will continue to defend herself," Bush said. He added that the Israeli army should be withdrawn from the occupied territories and construction of settlements on Palestinian land ended once "progress toward security" had been attained for Israel.
Israel is the biggest single beneficiary of U.S. military and economic aid, receiving around $3 billion per year.
Sharon’s office welcomed Bush’s speech. "When the Palestinian Authority undergoes genuine reforms and a new leadership takes its place at its head," read an official statement, "it will be possible to discuss ways of moving forward by diplomatic means."
The U.S. president’s speech followed a series of meetings with diplomats from the region, including Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and Saudi Arabian foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, both of whom urged Washington to force restraint on Israel, which through the increased use of military firepower, military-police checkpoints, and security fences, is enforcing the lockdown of an entire people.
The June 25 Wall Street Journal expressed satisfaction that "the President broke from the tired Saudi-State [Department] diplomacy."
On the afternoon of Bush’s speech, Israeli helicopters fired four missiles into the car in which Yasser Rizek, a leader of Hamas, was traveling, killing him and five other people--the latest in a string of Israeli "targeted killings" of Palestinian leaders.
Meanwhile, some 100 armored vehicles moved into Ramallah. Using loudspeakers, Israeli troops warned the city’s 55,000 inhabitants to stay indoors while they surrounded the compound that houses Arafat and other officials of the Palestinian Authority. Armored bulldozers used the rubble created in this and earlier attacks to construct barricades around the compound.
Palestinian officials’ house arrest of several Hamas officials in Gaza did not deter the Israeli assault. Nor did Arafat’s reported condemnation of "foreign" elements for exploiting the anger of young Palestinians to commit suicide bombings in exchange for money.
The occupation of Ramallah further expanded an Israeli offensive following suicide bombings on June 18 and 19 in Jerusalem in which 26 people had died. The offensive was widely described as a reoccupation. An Israeli cabinet statement of June 21 pledged to "respond to acts of terror by capturing Palestinian Authority territory" and to hold on to it "as long as terror continues."
The assault began with helicopter gunship attacks on several points in Gaza, and an exchange of fire in Qalqilya in which two Israeli soldiers were killed. In Jenin, Israeli forces killed four Palestinians--two aged six, one 12, and one 50--and wounded two dozen others among a crowd of people who had emerged from their houses to buy food after hearing that a 24-hour curfew had been lifted. Machine guns and tank cannon caused most of the casualties. "An initial inquiry indicates the force erred in its action," stated an official army report.
On the same day, Israeli forces rounded up some 2,500 Palestinian men and boys in Jenin, later releasing 1,000. Haitham Awad Abuzeineh, 37, told reporters that he had been held for about 13 hours while soldiers checked his ID against their computer records. Although he was released, he said, others were held for interrogation. He heard loud screams from those undergoing questioning, he said.
"This is collective punishment," said Akram Abu Sbaa, 39, another detainee. "It is because we are Palestinians. They want to humiliate us."
"People are becoming fed up with the situation," said Jenin resident Mahmoud Subaneh, 47, an unemployed bus driver. "They cannot work, they have no money, and even when the shop owners open in the morning, the tanks force them to close."
Unremitting offensive
By June 24, Israeli forces had reoccupied six of the eight West Bank towns that had officially been designated for Palestinian "self-rule" under the 1993 Oslo accords, placing some 600,000 people under a 24-hour curfew.
The open-ended character of the operation has prompted some public expressions of concern among top Israeli officials, faced with the failure of their escalating brutality to quell the Palestinian resistance, including suicide bombings and other military operations.
Following the six-week sweep of West Bank cities that began in late March, in which--according to official figures--4,500 Palestinians were detained, military and government officials declared that Israeli citizens would be safe from attack for several months.
The widespread defiance among Palestinians did not flag, however, in spite of ongoing raids into Palestinian territory, blockades of cities and towns, and tighter restrictions on travel in the West Bank. Four bombings by Palestinians between May 19 and June 18 killed 40 Israelis, including a number of soldiers June 5. Over the past 21 months Palestinians have carried out 70 such bombings.
Dissociating himself from the June 21 cabinet statement announcing the new invasion, Defence Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer said that "when you speak of occupation the meaning is that you start dealing with everything from health to sewage. That’s not the intention. The intention is a presence on the ground in light of present reality, for as much time as necessary."
Three days later, as the government announced it was calling up 2,000 army reservists for the "crushing offensive" now under way, the minister said that the deployment would last up to six months.
Ben-Eliezer also warned that "unfortunately, while the IDF [Israeli Defence Force] is carrying out these necessary actions, the operations themselves become a hothouse that produces more and more new suicide bombers."
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Related article:
Support Palestinian people’s rejection of Washington’s imperial dictates
Divisons sharpen among Israeli rulers
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