Abbas and Sharon shake on the latest peace agreement.
News » February 11, 2005
Spellbound
A specter is haunting the Middle East: the specter of “democratic occupation.”
It is not surprising that, following the Sharm El-Sheikh summit on Feb. 8, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas used almost the same language to announce a cessation of hostilities between the two peoples. Reading from a prewritten script, they both stated that the Palestinians would stop all acts of violence against Israelis, while Israel would cease all military activity against Palestinians. The director of the show was not Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the host of the event, but newly appointed U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. To be sure, neither Rice nor any other American was present at the summit, but the Bush administration’s spirit was ubiquitous.
Many reporters and analysts applauded the meeting, claiming that it will pave the way for a resumption of dialogue and cooperation. They seemed to suggest that Israelis and Palestinians are on the doorstep of a new era. All of this begs the question: Will the Bush administration manage to stop the seemingly endless cycle of violence and rekindle the so-called Israeli-Palestinian peace process?
The answer is a resounding yes—on the condition, of course, that one believes in magic.
President George W. Bush would have to succeed in casting at least one of two spells in order to create fertile ground for negotiations. He would need to charm Abbas into renouncing the three most essential demands that have informed the Palestinian struggle since the late ’80s: Israel’s full withdrawal to the 1967 borders, the establishment of a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem and the recognition of the rights of Palestinian refugees. Or alternatively, Bush would have to enchant Sharon and get him to abandon his plan of creating Palestinian Bantustans in the Gaza Strip and in approximately 50 percent of the West Bank, with no Palestinian right of return and no sovereignty over any part of Jerusalem.
But even if Abbas were to fall prey to the spell, his renunciation would be worthless, because the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a clash of civilizations, despite the ongoing attempt of the mainstream media to present it as such. Instead, it’s a struggle between two unequal rivals over land, self-determination and basic human rights. And basic human rights are not a commodity that a leader can easily bargain with or exchange.
It is also difficult to imagine Sharon being so enthralled that he would actually change his position. After all, he was the proponent of “the Jordan is Palestine solution” for many years and currently considers a withdrawal from Gaza and parts of the West Bank as a major concession.
But if the magic won’t work, then how is the Bush administration planning to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Why is Secretary Rice so optimistic?
The answer lies in Iraq and Afghanistan, where a unique Middle Eastern model is being enforced. Bush and his aides have managed to resurrect a distinct political practice rarely used in the history of humankind, and for this at least, they deserve credit. For lack of a better term, one could call this practice “democratic occupation,” a neologism recently formulated by former Israeli Knesset member Tamar Gozansky. The strategy is straightforward: gaining and maintaining control of the land, while bestowing a democratic face on the occupation.
Even though Western commentators praised the elections that were recently carried out in Iraq, Afghanistan and the occupied Palestinian territories, the correspondents seemed to have overlooked the essential fact that popular power and authority don’t rest with the people in any of these entities, even after the elections. If, for example, a referendum were carried out in any of these regions asking the residents whether they wanted the foreign troops to leave, imagine how many would answer positively. But would the forces actually leave these ostensibly democratic areas?
Another way of testing these democracies is to ask a series of forthright questions: Will the newly elected Iraqi parliament really rule the country? Does President Hamid Karzai control Afghanistan? And who is in command of the occupied Palestinian territories—Mahmoud Abbas?
Considering that the Bush administration is unwilling to pressure Israel to dismantle all of its settlements and to respect its recognized international borders—the necessary conditions for true negotiations between the two parties—it seems that the Sharm El-Sheikh summit was convened because the administration wants to replicate the “democratic occupation” model in the Israeli-Palestinian context.
This is not to say that Bush lacks talent as a magician. Indeed, since the true goal of his administration is to control and dominate the Middle East, the fact that he has managed to convince the majority of Americans that he is promoting freedom and democracy in the region is no less than fantastic.
ABOUT THIS AUTHOR
Neve Gordon teaches in the Department of Politics and Government, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in Israel. One can read about his most recent book, Israel's Occupation, and more at www.israelsoccupation.info.
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Reader Comments
What really does need to happen is to acknowledge the **obvious** - the Middle East is stuck in the Middle Ages. They are still barbarians (which seems to be strongly linked to their brand of Islam - see fundamentalist). This is not meant as an insult, just a statement of the obvious.
Thus just as parents need to raise their children, the West must raise up these infant countries. Forcing them into democracies is a wonderful idea - but it will be a bloody affair (hopefully mostly theirs!). Or as Bush might say (or think) it is analogous to civilizing the old wild west (kill the outlaws until they finally realize it does not pay to be an outlaw).
It would be nice to just ignore them and their primitive societies, but, unfortunately, they have access to modern technology (that was a BIG mistake, like giving fire to infants!). So we are now forced to raise them up to acceptable standards.
Oh well, perhaps their grandchildren will be teachable. . .
Posted by dan on Feb 11, 2005 at 3:20 PM
Do you really think that the juvenile Bush administration is going to raise these Islam nations. Bush can’t even raise his daughters right. He needs to grow up first.
Unfortunately, your wild west comment is how Georgie Boy sees the world; he really thinks he is a cowboy fighting those primitive Indians in the wild west.
Seriously, it won’t happen under the rapture presidency but we need to start controlling Israel. But as long as we are fighting an illegal war in Iraq how can we convince any nation to rein in their imperialistic warmongering?
Posted by AmericanInsurgent on Feb 11, 2005 at 8:34 PM
Gee Dan I’d say that your description of the Middle East as stuck in the Middle Ages is just as descriptive of Washington DC… barbarians stuck in their own brand of fundamentalism. Certainly the US has murdered plenty of women and children in Iraq, which qualifies as barbarian in my book.
And I wish there were some adults among the current group in Washington, someone who knows that killing the outlaws until they quit is an endless cycle, as Ariel Sharon has endlessly demonstrated in Palestine.
Primitive societies with technological weapons sounds like Washington DC too, as the fra-right wing there regresses further and further into their primitive fundamental outlook, encouraged by the Likudniks who are playing them and all of us for fools.
Oh well Dan… perhaps our grandchildren will be
teachable. But I’m afraid the Bush administration plans on shedding their clothes, heading for the heavens and leaving all American students behind. There’s no hope for public education from this bunch.
No Dan. We don’t need to kill anybody. Just cut off the funds that Sharon is using to build his Concentration Camps on the West Bank and to turn all of Gaza into one big Concentration Camp.
In the midst of the Memorial to the Liberation of Auswitz the studied quiet surrounding the construction of new Concentration Camps in Palestine by the people who themselves swore “never again” is deafening.
No Dan, all we have to do to bring peace to the Middle East is to stop funding the war.
Posted by John Francis Lee on Feb 12, 2005 at 4:51 AM
Ha ha ha ha ha hoo ho ha ha haaa!!!!
Wow - someone who actually seems to think that the US is on the same moral level of the Middle East. Wonder if they would be willing to actually live there (ha ha ha!!!)????
Now that is funny!! Ha ha ho ha ha ho ha!!!!
Posted by dan on Feb 12, 2005 at 2:07 PM
Hi Dan.
I’ve been thinking about your question, would I actually be willing to live in the “Middle East”.
Would that be in Palestine? Palestine is in the midst of a conversion to a series of Concentration Camps by Ariel Sharon, using the Israeli entitlement fund provided by the ever-compliant US political class, so I don’t think I’d like to live there. The Isralis use ten year old girls in school yards for target practice.
Or would that be in Israel? Well I’m not Jewish, so living in a theocratic Jewish state would make me a second class citizen, determined by my race, so I wouldn’t like to live there. It’s dangerous as well, with the Palestinians resisting their elimination by the Israelis using whatever means they can.
Perhaps you meant Iraq? Well Iraq has been destroyed by the United States of America hasn’t it? Shockingly and awfully so. It is a very violent place as the Iraqis are engaged as are the Palestinians in a death struggle against the occupiers of their country. And the Americans have leveled Fallujah, slaughtering women and children in a truly breathtaking act of terrorism there. Payback is sure to follow that unspeakable deed. No I don’t think I’d like to live in Iraq either.
Iran and/or Syria may soon be invaded or bombed by the US/Israeli axis as well. I don’t think I would like to live there either.
In fact as an American I find that “my” government’s rogue, terrorist actions world-wide are making people hate me without even knowing me. Hating me as an American for the actions of my government. It used to be that people would distinguish between the American government and the American people, but after the fascist victory in the American elections of 2004 they are no longer able to do so.
So I guess my advice to you Dan would be to stay out of the Middle East, to stay out of the world, to remain deep in your Red State in the heart of fortress America where life is fast becoming a way of death, just as it has in Israel.
Or else to work for the removal of the present regime in the 2006 elections. To cut off the funds for the imperial American war machine that is causing so much death and destruction and building up so much hatred for Americans everywhere as it prosecutes its two fronted war in the Middle East.
The Constitution of the United States has not yet been suspended. We may yet exercise our control over the purse strings of our treasury by selecting a new House of Representatives to reign in this present mad regime in 2006.
Posted by John Francis Lee on Feb 12, 2005 at 4:03 PM
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