Core issue in Mid-East
THERE are plenty of peace proposals for solving the Palestinian issue, but little evidence of the interest and effort needed to turn any of these into an implementable framework for action capable of achieving that objective. This year alone, there have been three major plans that received wide publicity, but nothing came of them. There was the Abdullah plan, proposed by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz and later adopted by the Arab summit in Beirut. It called for an Arab recognition of Israel in exchange for its withdrawal from the occupied territories, including the Arab part of Al Quds. Then the European Union also came up with a plan visualizing the establishment of a Palestinian state by 2005. The most controversial of the formulae came from President George Bush in June.
There was no emphasis in the Bush plan on the Palestinian issue as such. Instead, the American president focussed on the personality of Yasser Arafat, whom he wanted out, calling for a reform of the Palestinian Authority and stressing the need for a Palestinian leadership “uncompromised by terror.” Though he conceded the idea of a Palestinian state in principle, Bush spoke of a “provisional state,” certain aspects of whose sovereignty would be “negotiated” by the parties concerned. The plan drew a lot of flak, especially the “provisional” part of it, prompting many critics to say that a state could not be any more provisional than a pregnancy. All these plans envisage the establishment of a Palestinian state but without spelling out the method or a time-frame for an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories which is the key condition for a final settlement.
No peace plan was more comprehensive than the Oslo accord. It laid down in detail a time-table for Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories, the transfer of sovereignty gradually to the Palestinian Authority, and the holding of final status talks with regard to Al Quds. If it had been properly implemented, the Israeli withdrawal should have been completed by July 13, 1994, and a final settlement reached by April 13, 1999. However, it was only after the signing of the accords that a land-hungry Israel realized it was going to lose a valuable and big chunk of real estate. It sabotaged the peace plan.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the man who became prime minister after the murder of Yitzhak Rabin, had won his election on an anti-peace platform. Both he and his successor, Ehud Barak, had the Oslo accords re-negotiated, but again never implemented them. Finally, it was left to super-hawk Ariel Sharon to re-occupy the vacated lands and virtually abrogate the Oslo accords. The “quartet” — consisting of the US, Russia, the EU and the UN — which has now adopted the EU plan should ponder the old question: who will bell the cat? The basic issue is how to make Israel see reason and quit the land that has been under its illegal occupation for 35 years. The only country that could compel Israel to do so is America, but under the Bush presidency that country is hardly inclined to do so even while knowing the implications of a prolonged stalemate between the Palestinians and the Israelis for regional peace and stability. All its economic, military and diplomatic support for Israel notwithstanding, American politics remains hostage to the country’s Zionist lobby, and that matters more than the moral and political case for helping the Palestinians live in honour and dignity on their own soil.
Negotiate they must
THE Punjab government’s refusal to talk to the tenants of military-managed farms in Okara and its insistence on posting paramilitary troops to deal with the situation there is only adding to the tension and resentment in the area. On Tuesday, tenants working on these lands again accused the Rangers of forcibly making them sign new land contracts which the tillers say will compromise their tenancy rights and interests. The Punjab government is not even ready to listen to the grievances of the tenants, and instead is relying on coercive power to keep them under check. However, as the events of recent weeks should have amply shown by now, this approach simply cannot resolve the conflict. To make matters worse, the head of the Pakistan Rangers in Punjab was quoted last week as saying that “illegal” and “anti-state” NGOs were creating rifts between the tenants and the military farm administration. The officer, a two-star general, had also said that after the elections in October he would recommend to the government to check the accounts of these NGOs and to take note of their “other activities”. These allegations were repeated by representatives of a hitherto unknown tenants’ organization saying that the Indian intelligence agency RAW was taking advantage of the situation and instigating a section of tenants to agitate.
The role of the Rangers in this whole affair, coupled with the repeated allegations that tenants were being forced to sign the new contracts, has been most counter-productive. The paramilitary forces seems to have become involved in the dispute as if it were a directly affected party. The Rangers do have a role but that should be confined only to the maintenance of law and order. For it to become involved in something as substantive as signing of new contracts by the farmers. The tenants have time and again said that they would be more than willing to discuss the matter with the Punjab government, the actual owner of the lands. The provincial government must have realized by now that it is important to talk directly to the representatives of the tenants and try to resolve the problem in a spirit of mutual accommodation. It is pointless to pretend that it is merely a law and order problem that can be tackled only by more effective use of police and Rangers.
Modi’s sinister designs
THE officially orchestrated anti-Muslim sentiment continues to define post-riots politics in the Indian state of Gujarat. Seven months on from the bloody riots that killed over 2,000 people — mostly Muslims — hundreds of Muslim families remain holed up inside crowded make-shift camps across the state. The displaced families are simply too afraid to go back to their homes, even in those rare instances where their homes and shops have not been burnt down by Hindu zealots. It seems that Narendra Modi, now the caretaker chief minister since the dismissal of his government in July, has other sinister designs. While sporadic violence against the Muslims continues across the state, Modi leaves no opportunity to further fan hatred against them.
In his latest statement Modi tried to shame the majority Hindu voters saying Muslims did a better job at ‘making babies’ than they — a comment so overtly venomous and perverse that it has outraged many rights groups in India. Gujarat is now one of the last remaining among the few BJP-ruled states, and both New Delhi and Narendra Modi want to make sure that Hindutva continues to rule the roost in this, India’s most industrialized, state. Evidently, it is part of the BJP’s hidden agenda to keep the communal fire raging and to hold elections in Gujarat in a xenophobic atmosphere so as to make substantial political gains by riding on the wave of communal passions. The BJP’s designs were confirmed yesterday when, in a tell-tale sign, New Delhi moved India’s Supreme Court against the election commission’s ruling that elections could not be held in Gujarat unless peace was restored in the strife-ridden state.