BY JENNY LONG
SYDNEY — Speakers at a public meeting, held in Punchbowl in Sydney's south-west on April 23, described how the election of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in early 2001 brought a change in Israel's policy toward the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Government policy shifted from pressuring the PA to make continuous concessions that undermined the possibility of a viable Palestinian state, to attempting the PA's outright elimination — and the Palestinian people's hopes for a Palestinian state.
The meeting, attended by 50 people, was organised by the Sydney inner-west branch of the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP).
Rami Meo, from the Council of Australian Palestinians, noted that Sharon had sought from the outset to re-establish Israel in all of historic Palestine and to expand Israel's settlements across the occupied territories. However, Sharon needs the "green light" from Washington to remove PA President Yasser Arafat.
The carnage of the current military attacks on the West Bank's cities is intended to destroy the PA's ability to govern or even deliver services.
The DSP's Melanie Sjoberg pointed out that Israel's latest onslaught against the occupied territories is a reminder of the 1948 mass expulsion of Palestinians from what has become the colonial-settler state of Israel. By targeting Palestinian refugee camps, Israel is making homeless the descendants of those it drove out in 1948.
Noting that even Israeli foreignt minister Shimon Peres has described the latest Israeli attack as a massacre, Rawan Abdul from the Palestine Human Rights Campaign said peace would only come to the region when Israel's occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza came to an end. This would require all its settlements in the Occupied Territories to be dismantled. She also insisted that Palestinian refugees must be accorded the right to return to their homes.
Abdul exposed the lie being peddled in the mass media that the previous Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, had made a "generous" offer to the Palestinians at the July 2000 Camp David talks. In fact, he proposed the return to the Palestinians of only a portion of the 22% of historic Palestine that remains.
Describing as "genocide" Israel's appropriation of Palestinian land and its scarce water in the Occupied Territories, Sjoberg noted that construction of more than 30 new settlements had commenced since Sharon's election. Previous Israeli governments had also steadily increased the pace of settlement construction. The previous Likud-led government, in which Sharon served, had designed a master plan that would divide the West Bank and Gaza into a series of isolated Palestinian cantons.
Abdul and Sjoberg stated that this policy of successive Israeli governments was intended to predetermine the shape of any final agreement and prevent the establishment of a genuinely independent Palestinian state. Israel's goal was that a future Palestinians state simply be a series of cheap labour zones for Israeli capital.
Abdul told the meeting that current US policy was a continuation of the dishonest role Washington has played since 1993. The Palestinians' request for an international protection force has been repeatedly stymied by the US, whose president recently described the war criminal Sharon as a "man of peace".
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, May 1, 2002.
Visit the