This summit was organized at Washington’s initiative to announce an agreement on a U.S.-crafted “peace” plan. The plan calls for the formation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip within three years, on the condition that the Palestinian Authority cracks down on groups deemed “terrorist” and chooses a leadership acceptable to the U.S. rulers.

The Israeli government is making these concessions to block with Washington in achieving larger objectives in the region. A major goal shared by the U.S. and Israeli rulers is to deal blows to Iran, including the destruction of Tehran’s capacity to develop nuclear weapons.

As part of this goal they seek to neutralize or qualitatively weaken Hezbollah—a Lebanon-based group made up largely of Shiite Muslims—as well as Hamas. A Palestinian group based in Gaza, Hamas, like Hezbollah, aims to establish what it calls an Islamic republic. Both Hamas and Hezbollah have opposed any political settlement with Tel Aviv, have taken responsibility for guerrilla attacks and suicide bombings against Zionist targets inside Israel and elsewhere, and are on Washington’s hit list of “terrorist” organizations.

Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon has made some commitments to the U.S.-sponsored plan for an Israeli-Palestinian accord, known as the “road map.” But these commitments leave open the possibility that the Zionist regime will later pull back from recognizing any kind of Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, once these broader goals of Tel Aviv and Washington are met.  
 
Initial Israeli concessions
On May 25 the Israeli cabinet approved the so-called road map in a split vote. “The moment has arrived to divide this tract of land between us and the Palestinians,” Sharon told the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot. The government held a second vote, rejecting the right of the 700,000 Palestinians expelled from their homes in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and their estimated 4 million descendants, to return to their land in what is today Israel—a key Palestinian demand. Sharon also stated that his government has 14 objections to the “road map,” which must be taken into account during its implementation.

The next day, the Israeli prime minister took this stance further at a Likud party meeting. “You may not like the word, but what’s happening is occupation,” Sharon told Likud members of parliament, referring to the West Bank and Gaza. “Holding 3.5 million Palestinians under occupation is a bad thing for Israel, for the Palestinians, and for the Israeli economy.” Another 1.2 million Arabs who are Israeli citizens live inside Israel today, along with 5.5 million Jews.

Sharon, a former general in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), has overseen massacres of Palestinians, including the infamous slaughter of more than 3,000 civilians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut in 1982, while he was defense minister.

After coming under fire from many in his governing coalition and beyond for his May 26 statements, Sharon backtracked, saying he meant the Palestinians were occupied, not the land.

On June 1, Tel Aviv announced it had lifted its closure of the occupied territories, which it had imposed since May 18. This was one of many such closures over the course of the last several years. The Israeli regime said that as many as 25,000 Palestinians with work permits could now travel to Israel.

The first day after this step, about 4,500 Palestinians from Gaza were allowed to cross into Israel on foot, according to Agence France-Presse. Three years ago, before the eruption of the latest armed conflict between the occupying forces and the Palestinian resistance, some 30,000 workers and small businessmen used to cross legally from Gaza into Israel for jobs. More than 120,000 Palestinians across the occupied territories held such permits at that time.

The situation in the West Bank, however, has not changed. According to the June 2 Haaretz, one of the main Israeli dailies, “Despite lifting the closure, the IDF has not stopped surrounding the West Bank and has not removed the dirt roadblocks at the entrances to cities and villages. Most Palestinians are unable to get from the villages to the cities or to travel on the roads that link West Bank cities, and in some places IDF roadblocks are also limiting residents’ movements within the cities.”

If the Israeli army begins redeploying and allows Palestinians to move freely in the West Bank, the IDF has made it clear it will divert Palestinian traffic to roads designated only for Palestinians, which are not in good condition and are the longest routes.

“Israeli claims about a so-called easing of the closure are untrue,” said Nabil Abu Rdainah, an aide to Palestinian Authority president Yasir Arafat. “The siege should be lifted.”

Israeli army attacks have continued, though to a lesser degree. Israeli troops shot at two Palestinian students near Jenin in the northern West Bank, for example, killing one May 29. A second Palestinian died in Gaza the same day from gunshots by Israeli soldiers, according to Palestinian medics. A week earlier, when 12 Israelis were killed in suicide bombings within 48 hours, Tel Aviv did not launch major reprisals in the West Bank and Gaza as it has often done in the past. Some 700 Israelis and more than 2,000 Palestinians have been killed since the conflict flared up in September 2000.

The Israeli government has also promised to release about 100 Palestinian prisoners held in “administrative detention,” under which Tel Aviv imprisons people indefinitely without charges or trial. Most of the 100 were due to be released soon or are chronically ill. There are 1,100 such “administrative” inmates among the more than 5,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails today.

Tel Aviv has also promised to turn over to the Palestinian Authority funds from taxes it has withheld—at least 50 million shekels ($11.4 million) per month.

After a trip to Israel by U.S. assistant secretary of state William Burns and Elliot Abrams, who heads the Middle East desk at the U.S. National Security Council, Sharon said he would announce at the Aqaba meeting that he would order the evacuation of less than a dozen “illegal settlement outposts,” according to the June 2 Ha’aretz. There are dozens of these Zionist settlements in the occupied territories built since March 2001 in areas that not even Tel Aviv terms “state land.”

Since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, when the IDF seized the West Bank and Gaza, the Israeli regime has established hundreds of Jewish settlements throughout the territories and has moved more than 200,000 settlers—largely right-wing Zionists—there. Sharon has been one of the architects of the settlement movement.

Sharon also promised the new Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, after a May 29 meeting in Jerusalem between the two, that his army is ready to withdraw from most Palestinian urban centers as soon as Palestinian police can guarantee “security.”  
 
Palestinian Authority welcomes moves
The Palestinian Authority has largely welcomed these steps. “This was a good start,” said Palestinian information minister Nabil Amr, according to the May 30 Wall Street Journal. “It’s a good preparation for next week’s summit.”

Signaling the Palestinian Authority’s position that the U.S.-sponsored plan should be approved as is, Amr had stated earlier, “We are ready to implement the road map as one package without any changes.”

The U.S.-orchestrated plan sets a timetable for establishing an independent Palestinian state by 2005 alongside Israel. It does not specify what its borders will be, whether it will include part of Jerusalem that Palestinians claim as their capital, or what will happen to the hundreds of Zionist settlements that dot the entire West Bank and Gaza.

According to a summary released to the press, the draft accord requires Tel Aviv to end attacks on Palestinians, halt further expansion of settlements in the occupied territories, and withdraw from lands the IDF has occupied since September 2000, as short-term concessions.

The Palestinian Authority is supposed to enforce an “unconditional cessation of violence” against the Israeli regime, resume “security cooperation” with Tel Aviv, “restructure” its police forces, and carry out a “comprehensive political reform,” including elections and a new constitution—under terms that Washington deems acceptable.

Palestinian prime minister Mahmoud Abbas told Israeli TV May 30 that Palestinian security forces would be ready to take Sharon up on his offer to hand over parts of the West Bank and Gaza within “two to three weeks.” According to the May 30 New York Times, Muhammad Dahlan, Abbas’s security chief, has begun reconstituting some Palestinian police units with help from the CIA.

Abbas also stated that he hoped to reach a cease-fire agreement with Hamas and other Palestinian groups shortly. Abdel-Aziz Rantisi, a top Hamas leader, said his organization was still discussing the proposal. A central leader of Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian group, offered a conditional cease-fire. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, another organization that has claimed responsibility for suicide bombings, said it would continue attacks.

Abbas also told Yediot Ahronot that the Palestinian Authority will not use force against Hamas as it did in 1996. “We are not going backward,” he said. “A civil war—never.”

The announced Israeli measures still fall short of Palestinian demands that Israel pull its troops back immediately to the lines of September 2000. Abbas has also urged Sharon to freeze settlements and lift restrictions on Yasir Arafat.

Abbas was appointed prime minister at the end of April by the Palestinian Authority, a body with limited control over a patchwork of territory in the West Bank and Gaza. This followed demands by Tel Aviv and Washington for “political reform,” aimed at isolating Arafat, the central leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Both Sharon and Bush have stated publicly they will not negotiate with Arafat at the table. Abbas has publicly condemned attacks on the Israeli government.  
 
Washington’s goals
Arafat “had a chance to lead and didn’t,” Bush told reporters at a May 29 White House press conference before he left for a trip to Europe and Middle East. This unambiguous stance by Washington has established a precedent that the U.S. rulers have a say in the makeup of the Palestinian leadership.

As he made it clear during the summit of the G-7 imperialist powers—which met June 2 in Évian-les-Bains, France, along with Moscow—Bush aims to use his Middle East trip to push for similar goals as those he proclaimed in France, while posing as a harbinger of peace. These objectives include getting wider support for Washington’s drive to stop the governments of Iran and north Korea from developing nuclear weapons.

Washington is focusing on these goals after having accomplished its main aim in Iraq—ousting the Saddam Hussein regime and taking over the country. It is now using this reality to pursue its further aims in the region, which include pacifying the Palestinian resistance and dealing blows to the Iranian regime.

Prior to the Aqaba gathering, Bush headed to the resort town of Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt, where he met with leaders of Arab regimes to maximize chances of their cooperation along these lines.

Even though Bush’s Mideast “peace” plan is cosponsored by the European Union, as well as the bureaucratic regime in Moscow, no representatives of these governments were scheduled to be present at the Aqaba summit.

In another sign of the ongoing conflicts between the major imperialist powers over markets and domination in the Middle East, French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin met May 26 with Yasir Arafat, ignoring Washington and Tel Aviv’s calls to boycott meetings with the Palestinian leader.

“Israel has to stop military operations, settlement activities, withdraw its forces and release prisoners,” de Villepin said. “It is important for the Palestinians to stop any kind of violence.”  
 
Israel, Iran, and Hezbollah
The Israeli regime shares Washington’s openly proclaimed goals of stopping the Iranian government from developing nuclear weapons and of doing away with the ability of “terrorist” groups—especially Hezbollah—to strike at Zionist targets.

The imperialist powers are pursuing this course, as Washington reopened its consulate in Beruit, Lebanon, May 30, after being closed for two decades.

Long before the White House focused its propaganda mill on branding Tehran a nuclear threat, Tel Aviv was advocating such a course by the imperialist powers.

“Iran under the ayatollahs now poses the most ominous danger to our region and to the world,” then-Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in January 1998. Netanyahu, now a minister in Sharon’s cabinet, pointed to what he said were Iranian efforts to acquire nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

The Israeli defense ministry appointed a team at the time to monitor four points, according to Reuters: “Supply of equipment to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrilla group in south Lebanon; support of terrorism against Israel; opposition to the peace process; and non-recognition of the existence of the state of Israel.”

Tel Aviv and Washington have accused Tehran of not only using its nuclear energy plants for weapons development, but of acquiring delivery systems mainly through north Korea and, to a lesser degree, Russia.

When the Israeli coast guard seized the Karine-A boat with a 50-ton shipment of weapons that Tehran allegedly supplied for delivery to the Palestinian Authority in Gaza in early 2002, the IDF chief of staff said this was the “most dangerous axis” that threatened to “change the face” of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle, according to the British newspaper The Guardian.

“As well as supplying arms and finance, Iran, the Israelis say, is developing a supervisory role over the Palestinian ‘terror’,” the Feb. 2, 2002, Guardian continued, “through the exploitation of its existing assets in the arena, mainly the Lebanese Hezbollah, and its new ones, a direct link with Mr. Arafat and the Palestinian Authority, and a recently created Palestinian Hezbollah of its own.”

On May 22, the Israeli navy captured a small fishing boat off Israel’s northern coast sailing from Lebanon to Gaza. Tel Aviv said it was loaded with weapons materials sent by Hezbollah. The Israeli government blamed the alleged smuggling attempt on Arafat.  
 
Origin of ‘peace’ process
Arafat became president of the Palestinian Authority as a result of the 1993 Israeli-Palestinian accord, signed in Oslo, Norway. That agreement registered the continuing bourgeoisification of the PLO leadership. Growing sections of the PLO officialdom have turned their eyes away from the Palestinian toilers and their allies around the world, looking instead to the United States and other imperialist powers, and to bourgeois nationalist Arab regimes in the region, as “saviors” in the struggle for national self-determination. It also registered the inability of the Israeli state to crush the Palestinian resistance and Tel Aviv’s desire to turn over to the PLO the headache of trying to police Gaza, one of the main centers of Palestinian militancy.

Over the last decade, Washington and Tel Aviv have banked on getting the cooperation of central leaders of the Palestinian struggle to dampen and eventually pacify Palestinian resistance. They have largely failed. That resistance remains the main obstacle in the path of U.S. imperialism and its Israeli allies as they push to implement yet another “peace” agreement.  
 
 
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