Speaking of responsibility

There is an important addendum to the Human Rights Watch report on Israel's demolition of hundreds of houses in Gaza about which I posted on Monday.

Writing in the November 1 issue of the International Herald Tribune, Darryl Li and Lance Lattig, authors of the report, added a chilling detail.

Under Sharon's proposal, Israel plans to remove its troops from the Gaza Strip and "redeploy" them to bases just across the border. According to that plan, the goal of disengagement is to "dispel the claims regarding Israel's responsibility for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip."

Hang the handful of Israeli settlers who will have to move. Israel intends to turn Gaza into a gulag with over 1.3 million Palestinians as prisoners.

Under the Sharon plan, Israeli forces will continue to surround Gaza on land, patrol its coastline and its skies. That military cordon will allow Israel to continue to control the flow of all goods and people into and out of the territory. Gaza will remain dependent on Israel for water, sewerage, electricity, telephone access, trade and currency, which will remain the Israeli shekel.

Despite all that, Sharon wants to declare that Israel has no responsibility for those still so firmly under his government's control! This is both inane and cruel as well as a clear violation of international law.

Even before the uprising began in 2000, movement in and out of the Gaza Strip was nearly impossible except for an ever-shrinking number of Palestinian workers. Today, export crops rot at checkpoints while much-needed imports, including medicine and fuel, are regularly cut off for days or weeks at a time. As long as Israel holds the veto over Gazans' ability to support themselves economically, it will continue to bear an occupying power's responsibility to ensure their welfare.

The outrageousness - the sheer immorality - of Sharon's intention can't be denied. The question is, what will we, the US, do about it? Will we tut-tut? Blame Yasser Arafat, a diversion which is not going to be available much longer, it seems? Nothing? What will we do?

I'll tell you what I think we should do: We should immediately suspend all military and economic aid to Israel, such suspension to continue until Jerusalem specifically and avowedly declares acceptance of a peace plan including a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank, the latter roughly along the so-called Green Line, with any adjustments to be made 1:1 in land of equal size and value.

I won't go into all the issues, but such a declaration should also include acceptance of Jerusalem as a joint capital and recognition of at least a limited right of return.

No kindas, no "we believe in the road map"s, no "sure, someday"s. Clear. Unequivocal.

You say I'm not demanding anything of the Palestinians, who surely do have responsibilities here? No, I'm not, not here, and yes, they do. But we're not providing them, basically no questions asked, with over $2.6 billion in aid every year - 80% of that in military grants - and calling their opposites "uncivilized."

Footnote: Nadia Hijab, Executive Director of The Palestine Center in Washington, DC, wrote a commentary for the Daily Star (Lebanon) on November 1, considering what course a post-Arafat Palestinian government should pursue. While I neither agree with her proposals nor regard them as realistic - she more or less urges a return to the 1947 UN partition lines - I find one comment interesting:

Israel - under both Labor and Likud governments - has violated the agreements intended to end the occupation, from Oslo to the "road map," and can no longer be trusted as a partner for peace. The leadership will only return to the negotiating table once the occupation is ended. Ending the occupation is non-negotiable.

I was thinking how interesting it would be for most Americans to hear Israel described as the unreliable partner for peace and to consider how to Palestinians it could look that way.