The new Prime Minister of Israel, Binyamin Netanyahu, has made it
clear that attacks on the Palestinians and their national rights
are not going to cease.
He is refusing to fully lift the border restrictions to allow
Palestinians to return to their jobs in Israel. To date the Israeli
government has allowed only 35,000 Palestinian workers to return to
their employment in Israel.
He is adamant in his determination to hold on to Jerusalem as
the capital of Israel and not allow even East Jerusalem to pass
into the hands of the Palestinian authorities. Jerusalem was seized
from the Palestinians during the 1967 war and later annexed by
Israel.
With regard to Israeli settlements on Palestinian land,
Netanyahu said that his government will allow new settlements to be
built and will also increase ease of transportation for them by
building new access roads. The number of Israeli settlers on
Palestinian land already exceeds 130,000. Netanyahu is quoted in a
newspaper declaring that he will permit expansion of settlements in
the occupied West Bank and Gaza "without limits but under
government supervision." Netanyahu is quoted as saying that "Jews
have the right to live anywhere in biblical Jewish lands." The West
Bank and Gaza Strip were also captured by Israel in the 1967 war.
Over two million Palestinians live in the area with many other
former residents forced to flee over the years to refugee camps
scattered throughout the Middle East.
Netanyahu also rejected the idea of an independent Palestinian
state, saying the best deal he can offer is an "arrangement of
something we call autonomy." Israel has continued to refuse to
remove their armed forces from the West Bank town of Hebron,
persists in its detention of thousands of Palestinian prisoners in
Israeli jails, and will not accede to the demand of the
Palestinians to establish a "corridor" through Israel to link Gaza
with the West Bank, nor will it discuss the problem of the
thousands of displaced Palestinians who are living in refugee camps
and abroad. Israel is also persisting in its occupation of South
Lebanon.
The new Israeli government is continuing the attacks on the
Palestinians in the same manner as its predecessor. As noted in over one
dozen previous posts, the Israeli state only grasps the enormity
of the risks it is taking on a short-term basis. It thinks that
U.S. imperialism will rescue it in any eventuality. It is sowing
the seeds of an extremely bloody conflict and of its own
self-destruction. The people of Israel must oppose this Israeli
state that is behaving as a tool of foreign oppression. The people
of the area must throw the imperialists out from their region and
settle matters amongst themselves on the basis of undoing the
injustices of the past.
Shawgi Tell
University at Buffalo
Graduate School of Education
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
