Palestinians prepare for September war

How many lives will the declaration cost? The PA is readying itself for violent
clashes with Israel after a statehood declaration so as to galvanize world
opinion.

By Danny Rubinstein, Ha’aretz, July 4 2000

Yasser Arafat’s decision to declare Palestinian statehood on September 13 was
on the agenda yesterday during the PLO’s Central Council meeting in Gaza. The
Palestinians rely on the Sharm el-Sheikh agreement (which Barak and Arafat
have signed) as the basis for this date – the Sharm accord cites September 13th
as the target date for the signing of a permanent status accord.

Nasser Al-Kidwa, the PLO’s UN observer, advised Arafat to move the
declaration date up to September 1, noting that the following week the UN
General Assembly’s “Millennium” meeting will be held, with heads of states
from around the globe in attendance. Al-Kidwa’s reasoning was that Palestinian
interests would be served were Arafat to appear at this meeting as the leader of
a sovereign country.

The Central Council is the appropriate, authoritative PLO forum for reaching
decisions of this magnitude. Its 129 members represent a cross-section of the
various streams in the Palestinian national movement.

Arafat convened a meeting of the Central Council shortly before the May 1999
date also set as statehood declaration target deadline. At the time, however,
leaders from the United States, Europe and elsewhere implored him to defer the
statehood move to after Israel’s elections. Arafat agreed. The PA Chairman held
the Central Council meeting, and the PLO body decided that the statehood
declaration would wait until a new government took over in Israel.

Now, however, it does not appear that Arafat can defer the fateful step any
longer. In the aftermath of U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s
unproductive visit here last week, the Palestinians’ intentions seem increasingly
clear.

The Palestinians don’t want to wait any longer. “We can’t postpone the
decision indefinitely,” states Zakhria al-Ara, the head of the Fatah movement in
the Gaza Strip.

Arafat’s inclination to go ahead with the statehood declaration in September
enjoys widespread popular support. Virtually all Palestinian political groups back
the statehood declaration – non-PLO affiliated Hamas and Islamic Jihad are lone
exceptions.

Arafat’s aides asked Ahmad Yasin to take part in the Central Council
meeting this week, but Hamas’ spiritual leader demurred, claiming that “we
already declared Palestinian independence in Algeria in 1988, and this
pronouncement gave us neither freedom nor sovereignty – why should we make
another declaration?”

The September proclamation is expected to announce that the new Palestinian
state includes all territories conquered by Israel in 1967, including East
Jerusalem. More than three months before declaration day, the Palestinians are
lobbying energetically in the international arena, trying to cultivate support for
their position concerning the 1967 borders. They believe that most Third World
countries will recognize this borders stance; and the Palestinian leadership
expects that most European states, and perhaps even the U.S., will condone
the position.

Wary that it might simply remain unsubstantial rhetoric on parchment, the
Palestinians want to underline the declaration with practical steps. One such
move could include organizing mass protest marches around Jewish
settlements. Protesters in such events would not be full-scale military figures;
they would be political activists such as “tanzim” operatives, Fatah-affiliated
political operatives organized in groups that have a paramilitary aspect.

Reports about Palestinian mobilization for statehood-related events have
prompted IDF officers to redeploy units on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

In turn, this beefed-up IDF presence hasn’t gone unnoticed by
Palestinians.

Palestinian newspapers have in recent days carried reports about IDF tanks
newly positioned on the Gaza border, and about new IDF outposts being set up
near Jewish settlements, and adjacent to Arab cities.

Mahmoud Dahlan, the pre-eminent PA security official on the Gaza Strip,
was asked on Saturday by Israel’s Channel Two what he thinks will happen,
should the IDF re-enter Gaza. He answered, in cryptic defiance, “they’re
welcome.”

He meant, in other words, that such a step would be very bad. His colleague
Hassan Asfour, a PA cabinet member and final status negotiator, has said that
a decision to redeploy the IDF in the territories would be the most foolish policy
move ever enacted by an Israeli government.

Dahlan, Asfour, and Muhammad Rashid (Halad Salam, Arafat’s economics
adviser) have close, friendly working relations. All three are considered to be
top calibre, extremely talented men who influence Arafat’s decisions. Together,
they wield consider political power, and their outlook matters.

Act of war

This trio is not the only to advise Israel to think twice about responding to a
statehood declaration with a show of force. Other Palestinian spokesmen have
warned that should Israel respond to the declaration by annexing territories (a
possibility which Prime Minister Barak has broached), this move would be
considered an act of war.

Clarifying this threat, Palestinian leaders explain that the reference is not to all
out, formal war against the state of Israel. Nor does anyone talk about terror
attacks, at least not for the weeks left before September.

Many ranking PA officials estimate that the IDF would respond to riots and
sieges undertaken against settlements by deploying helicopter strikes, according
to a scenario referred to by IDF Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz – the Palestinians do
not expect a no-holds-barred IDF operation to reconquer territories now
controlled by the PA.

Whatever the scale, everyone concurs that violent clashes are inevitable, and
that many Palestinians will be injured by them. Freih Abu Medein, the PA
Justice Minister, and Marwan Barguti, the Fatah head on the West Bank, have
announced that the Palestinians will be willing to sacrifice thousands.

Israeli officials have interpreted such pronouncements as bravura
designed as a show of Palestinian determination. If Intifada-era images of
burned tires and hurled stones changed the atmosphere in Israel and the region
as a whole, then it’s a sure bet that scenes featuring bloodshed and masses of
Palestinian casualties will convulse public opinion around the globe.

These highly-charged expectations, fears and tensions are the background to a
Palestinian statement issued early this week. In order to prevent violence from
erupting, the Palestinians declared, they’re ready to resume talks with Israel
immediately in Washington.

Albright promised to issue invitations to the negotiation teams soon.
Talks could begin as early as the end of next week. Yet few believe that it will
be possible to organize a White House summit when these discussions between
the negotiation teams end.

Responding to Barak’s jockeying in favour of the three-way summit with Arafat
and Clinton, Abu-Allah stated that the summit proposal has become an end in
itself for the Israelis. In actual fact, Abu-Allah added, the summit is only a
means to attain political objectives.

Should such a summit be held at the end of July or the beginning of August,
just a few weeks before the anticipated Palestinian statehood declaration, it’s
likely to be dominated by an effort to forestall violent skirmishing in
mid-September.