Invasion of Gaza Planned Months Ago : NM IMC

Aggression Under False Pretenses
By Ismail Haniyeh

Tuesday, July 11, 2006; Page A17

GAZA, Palestine -- As Americans commemorated their annual celebration
of independence from colonial occupation, rejoicing in their
democratic institutions, we Palestinians were yet again besieged by
our occupiers, who destroy our roads and buildings, our power
stations and water plants, and who attack our very means of civil
administration. Our homes and government offices are shelled, our
parliamentarians taken prisoner and threatened with prosecution.

The current Gaza invasion is only the latest effort to destroy the
results of fair and free elections held early this year. It is the
explosive follow-up to a five-month campaign of economic and
diplomatic warfare directed by the United States and Israel. The
stated intention of that strategy was to force the average
Palestinian to "reconsider" her vote when faced with deepening
hardship; its failure was predictable, and the new overt military
aggression and collective punishment are its logical fulfillment.
The "kidnapped" Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit is only a pretext for a job
scheduled months ago.

In addition to removing our democratically elected government, Israel
wants to sow dissent among Palestinians by claiming that there is a
serious leadership rivalry among us. I am compelled to dispel this
notion definitively. The Palestinian leadership is firmly embedded in
the concept of Islamic shura , or mutual consultation; suffice it to
say that while we may have differing opinions, we are united in
mutual respect and focused on the goal of serving our people.
Furthermore, the invasion of Gaza and the kidnapping of our leaders
and government officials are meant to undermine the recent accords
reached between the government party and our brothers and sisters in
Fatah and other factions, on achieving consensus for resolving the
conflict. Yet Israeli collective punishment only strengthens our
collective resolve to work together.

As I inspect the ruins of our infrastructure -- the largess of donor
nations and international efforts all turned to rubble once more by F-
16s and American-made missiles -- my thoughts again turn to the minds
of Americans. What do they think of this?

They think, doubtless, of the hostage soldier, taken in battle -- yet
thousands of Palestinians, including hundreds of women and children,
remain in Israeli jails for resisting the illegal, ongoing occupation
that is condemned by international law. They think of the pluck
and "toughness" of Israel, "standing up" to "terrorists." Yet a
nuclear Israel possesses the 13th-largest military force on the
planet, one that is used to rule an area about the size of New Jersey
and whose adversaries there have no conventional armed forces. Who is
the underdog, supposedly America's traditional favorite, in this case?

I hope that Americans will give careful and well-informed thought to
root causes and historical realities, in which case I think they will
question why a supposedly "legitimate" state such as Israel has had
to conduct decades of war against a subject refugee population
without ever achieving its goals.

Israel's unilateral movements of the past year will not lead to
peace. These acts -- the temporary withdrawal of forces from Gaza,
the walling off of the West Bank -- are not strides toward resolution
but empty, symbolic acts that fail to address the underlying
conflict. Israel's nearly complete control over the lives of
Palestinians is never in doubt, as confirmed by the humanitarian and
economic suffering of the Palestinians since the January elections.
Israel's ongoing policies of expansion, military control and
assassination mock any notion of sovereignty or bilateralism.
Its "separation barrier," running across our land, is hardly a good-
faith gesture toward future coexistence.

But there is a remedy, and while it is not easy it is consistent with
our long-held beliefs. Palestinian priorities include recognition of
the core dispute over the land of historical Palestine and the rights
of all its people; resolution of the refugee issue from 1948;
reclaiming all lands occupied in 1967; and stopping Israeli attacks,
assassinations and military expansion. Contrary to popular depictions
of the crisis in the American media, the dispute is not only about
Gaza and the West Bank; it is a wider national conflict that can be
resolved only by addressing the full dimensions of Palestinian
national rights in an integrated manner. This means statehood for the
West Bank and Gaza, a capital in Arab East Jerusalem, and resolving
the 1948 Palestinian refugee issue fairly, on the basis of
international legitimacy and established law. Meaningful negotiations
with a non-expansionist, law-abiding Israel can proceed only after
this tremendous labor has begun.

Surely the American people grow weary of this folly, after 50 years
and $160 billion in taxpayer support for Israel's war-making
capacity -- its "defense." Some Americans, I believe, must be asking
themselves if all this blood and treasure could not have bought more
tangible results for Palestine if only U.S. policies had been
predicated from the start on historical truth, equity and justice.

However, we do not want to live on international welfare and American
handouts. We want what Americans enjoy -- democratic rights, economic
sovereignty and justice. We thought our pride in conducting the
fairest elections in the Arab world might resonate with the United
States and its citizens. Instead, our new government was met from the
very beginning by acts of explicit, declared sabotage by the White
House. Now this aggression continues against 3.9 million civilians
living in the world's largest prison camps. America's complacency in
the face of these war crimes is, as usual, embedded in the coded
rhetorical green light: "Israel has a right to defend itself." Was
Israel defending itself when it killed eight family members on a Gaza
beach last month or three members of the Hajjaj family on Saturday,
among them 6-year-old Rawan? I refuse to believe that such inhumanity
sits well with the American public.

We present this clear message: If Israel will not allow Palestinians
to live in peace, dignity and national integrity, Israelis themselves
will not be able to enjoy those same rights. Meanwhile, our right to
defend ourselves from occupying soldiers and aggression is a matter
of law, as settled in the Fourth Geneva Convention. If Israel is
prepared to negotiate seriously and fairly, and resolve the core 1948
issues, rather than the secondary ones from 1967, a fair and
permanent peace is possible. Based on a hudna (comprehensive
cessation of hostilities for an agreed time), the Holy Land still has
an opportunity to be a peaceful and stable economic powerhouse for
all the Semitic people of the region. If Americans only knew the
truth, possibility might become reality.

The writer is prime minister of the Palestinian National Authority.

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