Palestine
Sharon is clearing the way for ethnic cleansing

As predicted in the last REVOLUTION, the conflict in the Middle East has reached a decisive turning point, and events over the next few weeks may be crucial in determining the outcome of the struggle for the next few years.

On 29 March, he sent tanks and troops into the West Bank town of Ramallah, encircling the headquarters of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, destroying buildings and raiding the Ein Beit Elma refugee camp nearby. That was just the start. Evey major Palestinian town has been occupied and their are reports of massacres in the Jenin refugee camp.

And all this has happened when an Arab summit was being held in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, to discuss new "peace" proposals put forward by the Saudi government.

These proposals offered peace and full normalisation of diplomatic relations between Israel and all of the Arab states combined. In return they demanded Israel's full withdrawal from the territories it captured in the 1967 war, and the establishment of a Palestinian state in the whole of this territory with East Jerusalem as its capital.

But, while many within the ruling classes of the Arab states, the Palestinian Authority's administration and the governments of the European Union countries have welcomed the Saudi proposals, the Palestinian masses have rightly rejected the Saudi "peace plan".

Why? For this reason: if the plan was meant merely to bring about a cease-fire and a return to political negotiations, then it is a trap. The latest intifada (uprising) broke out in September 2000 because the Palestinians had enough of being entangled in fruitless negotiations, while Israel continued building illegal Jewish settlements on land stolen from them to create "facts on the ground", and squeeze the Palestinians into ever-contracting ghettos.

And, if on the other hand, it was seriously intended to be the basis of a political settlement overseen by the "international community," then it is also a trap. It would result in a disarmed Palestinian mini-state, incapable either of absorbing the Palestinian refugees, of building a viable economy independent of Israel or of addressing the injustices at the heart of the Palestinian conflict.

For a just solution it will take a single, democratic state for both Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews - and the overthrow of both the Israeli and Arab ruling classes of the region and Western imperialist domination - to do that.

Sharon prevented Arafat's attendance at the Beirut summit, arguing that he had not done enough to prevent terrorism against Israeli civilians. This was a move clearly intended to humiliate the Palestinian people as a whole, by demonstrating Israel's ability to prevent their leaders from taking part in pan-Arab diplomatic efforts to bring about a cease-fire. The message is that there will be a cease-fire on Israel's terms or not at all - in other words, that the obstacle to a cease-fire comes from the Israeli government's own policies.

Nor has Arafat's confinement in Ramallah produced the results allegedly intended by Israel in reducing the physical threat to its civilians' safety - contrary to the promises Sharon made to his own people, suicide bombings have continued despite the presence of Israeli tanks on Palestinian streets.

Sharon demands that the Palestinian Authority act to protect Israel's security - while rendering it powerless to do so. Holed up in his compound, and with his police force under constant siege and attack by the Israeli security forces, Arafat cannot physically repress the militant organisations like Hamas.

Equally, without at least the promise of political concessions or a halt in Israeli incursions into Palestinian population centres, Arafat cannot possibly persuade them to observe a cease-fire, either. But then, Sharon's incursions are not intended to protect the lives of ordinary Israelis and never were.

Their real purpose has been to re-occupy the Palestinian ghettos evacuated by Israel during the Oslo "peace process" (which were handed over to Israel's would-be collaborators in the form of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority), and to dismantle the Authority and all the other institutions of Palestinian self-rule.

Another likely purpose of the Israeli incursions is to strengthen Israel's hand in the event that negotiations resume - by using the promise of military withdrawal and the release of prisoners as a bargaining chip. In the meantime, more deaths - on both sides - will follow.

Sharon and his Zionist backers are responsible for the crisis - not the suicide bombers or the Palestinians as the western media want us to believe. Sharon is directly responsible for the latest intifada. Ever since the terrorist attacks on Word Trade Centre in New York on September 11, he has being trying to send in the tanks to crush the Palestinian people. He was only prevented from doing so because the US needed to get Arab support for the war in Afghanistan.

But don't be fooled by reaction from the west to Sharon's invasions of Palestinian towns. Even though Bush and Blair have demanded that Israel withdraw from the areas that it has entered since the end of March they still support him 100%.

George W Bush and Tony Blair have spent the last few weeks trying to put together a coalition of Arab states to attack Iraq in the name of the "war on terrorism". Their objection is not to the Israeli army being used to murder defenceless Palestinian civilians, but that this should be happening at a time when Britain and the United States need the support of Arab governments to murder defenceless Iraqi civilians instead.

Everyone knows that if the United States really wanted Israel to pull back, then it could force it to - by withdrawing the $3 billion in military and economic aid, loan guarantees it gives Israel every year.

Having failed to coax the Israelis into withdrawing from the West Bank, Bush and Colin Powel have switched the onus for ending the violence onto Arafat.

The hypocrisy and racism of this view is appaling. Since the incursions began, 28 Israeli soldiers and 27 Israeli civilians have been killed, compared with between 200 and 500 Palestinians. The reason for the uncertainty in the number of Palestinian dead is that Israel has sealed off several towns amid accusations of massacres of civilians and attempts to hide them by burying bodies in mass graves.

Of the Palestinian dead, Israel claims that only 15 were key fugitives on its wanted list. Similarly, of the 4,185 Palestinians arrested since the incursions 60 were said to be fugitives and 30 wanted for killings. There is not even an attempt to conceal the fact that this "operation" is directed against the entire Palestinian population of the Occupied Territories - and not just those directly involved in armed violence.

The Israeli government has attempted to stave off American pressure by insisting that it wants a cease-fire and negotiations towards a political settlement, and that the current incursions are aimed merely at "destroying the terrorist infrastructure".

However, if Israel continues also to disarm the Palestinian Authority's police and the militants alike, to destroy the infrastructure of Palestinian autonomy, and to humiliate the Palestinian leadership to the point of reducing the to an irrelevance ignored by the masses, then Israel will have no-one to negotiate with. The Occupied Territories will become ungovernable, and Israel will have no option except to re-garrison the area with its own forces.

This would mean a return to the status quo before the first Intifada in 1987. However, few Israelis believe that this would improve their security at all - and the deaths of 13 Israeli soldiers during an ambush in Jenin show just what is in store if such a "military solution" is attempted.

Short of a political settlement, Israel's only option for a "peaceful" re-occupation would be mass expulsions and massacres - making this a very real danger in the near future.

Sharon's coalition government includes parties formally committed to "transfer" - ethnic cleansing - and he has recently strengthened his coalition by including two new ultra-right parties in the Cabinet, ending his dependence on the labour party for a parliamentary majority.

Already, opinion polls show that 75% of Israelis support the current incursions, while 46% support the idea of "transferring" the Palestinians out of the West Bank and Gaza to Jordan as a "solution" to the problem.

Mass ethnic cleansing is exactly Sharon's preferred option is and that is what he is trying to lay the ground work for.

To prevent such a reactionary outcome from taking place, the workers movement and anti-capitalist movement world-wide must mobilise now in support of the Palestinian people and build a movement that can isolate Israel politically and economically, while giving real practical assistance to the Palestinians.

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