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CounterPunch
October
1, 2002
Wake Up and
Smell the Occupation
by
SAM BAHOUR
As Israel jumps from one self-made crisis to the
next, the State of Israel itself is in an alarming condition.
The peace and security that Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon promised during his year 2001 election
campaign have vanished in the dust of Israeli tanks rampaging
Palestinian cities. Israel's economy is declining at a record
pace. The right-wing Sharon government has sparked a national
debate in Israel that questions the legal right to citizenship
for over 1.1 million of its Palestinian citizens. Israeli families
across the social strata are sending their children to study
abroad and emigrating at a pace that was not thought possible
only a few years ago. Over 400 Israeli conscripts, soldiers,
or reservists are refusing to serve in the occupied Palestinian
areas and some are now imprisoned in Israeli jails as consciousness
objectors. The moral fabric of Israeli society is tearing apart
at the seams as the Israeli military proudly reverts to a policy
of assassination, imprisonment, demolition of homes, deportation,
and collective punishment.
Israel's unrelenting military onslaught
against every Palestinian city, village and refugee camp in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip has put the Israeli economy at serious
risk. As Palestinians living (if you can call it  that) under Israeli military occupation
for the past thirty-six years and Israeli military curfew for
the last five months, our first concern is hardly for the welfare
of Israel and its economy. On the other hand, I, as most Palestinians,
fear that the threatening socio- economic collapse of Israel
may bring even more death and destruction upon us.
Only last week the price of flour in
Israel rose 6 percent and gas 14 percent. Flagship Israeli companies
are reporting cuts in their workforce by the thousands. One high-tech
firm just cut twenty-five percent of its workforce in one day.
Rochard Fox, senior director of sovereign ratings, from the international
ratings agency, Fitch, told Reuters this week, "There's
a greater than 50% chance the [Israel's] rating will go down
based on current trends." Israel's other credit rating has
taken a pounding lately as the Israeli currency, the New Israeli
Shekel (NIS), declined against the US dollar after Standard and
Poor's lowered its rating for two of Israel's top banks to BBB+
from their previous A- rating.
Additionally, this week the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) said that Israel faces negative growth and
rising unemployment, which the IMF said would hit 10.7 percent
this year and 10.9 percent next year. The IMF report predicted
that Israel's gross domestic product would contract by 1.5 percent
this year. The IMF also forecasts for Israel an inflation rate
of 6.2 percent this year and 3.0 percent in 2003. Combined with
the bleak global economic scene and the growing strains of continuing
its three-decade old occupation, these numbers should be ringing
many bells within Israel.
Another arena that may further damage
the Israeli economy is the global divesture campaign that was
launched by Professor Francis Boyle, professor of international
law at The University of Illinois College of Law. Already, groups
at over fifty US university campuses have signed on to help organize
the campaign and many other campuses and professors around the
world are joining in. This effort recalls the successful divesture
campaign against South African Apartheid that contributed to
Apartheid's abrupt end.
As Israel continues to refuse to implement
dozens of United Nations resolutions, the latest calling for
an end to the siege of Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah, it
can only be expected that increasing numbers of communities will
bypass governmental paralysis in taking action against Israeli
and look for other means, such as economic sanctions, to pressure
Israel into ending the occupation. Alternatively, Israelis do
not have to wait while the US forces Sharon to end the siege
of Arafat. Israeli citizens have the power to step back from
yet another embarrassing political scenario on their own, today.
Israel's occupation of Palestinians is
destroying Israel from within and ultimately only Israeli citizens
have the power to reverse the current trend of self-destruction.
After two years of watching Israel spiral downwards, the world
no longer believes that the current Israeli administration is
interested in addressing its sad state of affairs. As a matter
of fact, all efforts, even those by Israel's strongest allies,
are falling on deaf ears. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
instead chooses to continue his wildly irresponsible (many would
say criminal) foreign and domestic policies while being cheered
on by the current US administration and the more powerful elements
of American Jewry and Christian fundamentalism.
It is no longer sufficient for Israelis
to pay lip service to their intent to end the occupation. It
is in Israel's immediate best interest to set aside the political
spin that aims at demonizing the Palestinian leadership and people
and swiftly, even unilaterally if need be, beg the international
community to assume responsibility for the West Bank, Gaza Strip
and East Jerusalem. By doing so, Israel can finally end the long
drain of military occupation. There will be many years after
the end of occupation to discuss the details of a final status
political agreement with the Palestinians. But holding 3.5 million
Palestinians hostage until a final status agreement can be reached
will only destroy Israel from within.
Israeli voters taking back their country
from those bent on forever persecuting Palestinians is the final
hope for Israel to save itself from its own ill-advised, three-decade
policy of occupation. The fact remains that there exists only
one policy that Israel, to date, has refused to even attempt
to employ: actually ending the occupation. This action has the
best chance of relieving Israel of the prisoner's ball and chain
that it has been dragging around for the last fifty-five years.
As many Palestinians are anxiously waiting
for the US to gallop across the Atlantic on a white horse to
solve our woes, I prefer to appeal to my Israeli neighbors to
wake up and smell the occupation, for their sake and for ours.
Sam Bahour
is a Palestinian-American businessman living in the besieged
Palestinian City of Al-Bireh in the West Bank, He is co-editor
of HOMELAND:
Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians (1994). He can
be reached at sbahour@palnet.com.
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