News | Sunday, 05 April 2009

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No toast for Netanyahu

RAMALLAH (West Bank) – Benjamin Netanyahu obtained Knesset approval to return to the Prime Minister’s office Tuesday night, but barely having stepped in, he was already facing accusations from all quarters about the new government.
In Israel, the new Head of Government and leader of the hawkish Likud party is already being charged with forming a bloated and convoluted cabinet that is unable to deal with the country’s many problems, while in the Palestinian occupied territories, the people fear it will be more of the same.
A total of 30 ministers and seven deputy ministers form the biggest government in Israel’s history, and most unlikely bedfellows around the cabinet table: from Avigdor Leiberman, head of the radical right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party to Ehud Barak current defence minister with his Labour party. In her maiden speech as opposition leader, former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who heads the Kadima center-right party, said the new government was full of “Ministers of Nothing”.
“It’s appalling. Selfish. And to be expected,” The Jerusalem Post wrote about the enormity of the new government. “We can’t promise Netanyahu a honeymoon. But we’d advise a good night’s sleep – there’s lots to be done.”
Daily newspaper Haaretz predicted failure before Netanyahu even showed up for his first day in office. “Israel’s 32nd government, which was sworn in last night, is destined to fail,” it declared in its leader on Wednesday. “Not a single spark of hope was ignited yesterday. The government that was born in sin, the sin of petty politics, is destined to spend its days in battles for survival, and that alone.”
Netanyahu’s coalition includes Lieberman’s party, which was elected on the campaign slogan “No loyalty, no citizenship” in what is feared to be signalling a new wave of racism towards Israeli Arabs, the Palestinians living inside Israel.
The Israeli public itself is giving the new government anything but a grace period. According to a Haaretz survey, 54% are already dissatisfied with Netanyahu’s government, and less than a third attest satisfaction with the government’s composition. Most of those interviewed said they do not believe Netanyahu will face up to Israel’s daunting economic and defence challenges.
Israelis also believe Lieberman is not suited for the job of Foreign Minister and that he should not represent Israel abroad, receiving the support of only a quarter of participants in the survey.
His assertion upon taking office that the 2007 Annapolis Agreement calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state had “no validity” triggered an immediate reaction by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who in turn urged the US and the international community not to let such provocations go unnoticed, adding that Netanyahu did not believe in peace.
In his address to the Knesset, Netanyahu did not once mention a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – a measure deemed “critical” for peace in the region by US President Barack Obama. He said his government “will work toward peace on three tracks – economic, security and political.”
“We do not want to rule the Palestinians,” he said. “Under the final settlement, the Palestinians will have all the authority they need to rule themselves ... I say to the Palestinian leadership that if you really want peace, we can achieve peace.”
Among Palestinians, those who believe him are few and far between. The problems faced by Israeli Arabs and Palestinians living in the stiflingly fragmented West Bank precede Netanyahu and are seen to be endemic to security policy of the Jewish State irrespective of government.
Within Israel, Arab workers are being systematically excluded from the job market. Last week, 40 Arab employees of Israel Railways were fired for “security reasons”, and Lieberman had not yet even been sworn in.
In the West Bank, Jewish settlements are still being built up between Palestinian villages, as is the Wall being erected, segregating whole communities whose movement on their land is completely subjected to the mercy of heavily fortified Israeli checkpoints.
Palestinians in Ramallah are strictly forbidden from travelling just 20 minutes to Jerusalem through the Qalandia checkpoint, or to any other areas in the West Bank.
“We dream of going to Jerusalem to see the Old City and pray at the Al Aqsa Mosque,” a young university student from Ramallah said.
Only those holding Israeli ID cards identifying them as Jerusalem residents are allowed to travel, and failure to produce the documents gets them in serious trouble. Permits for movement may be arbitrarily granted for exceptional cases for those without ”Jerusalem ID,” mainly for health reasons, but even then the conditions imposed limit their travel to only a few hours.
For Omar Niziah Qourah, a lecturer at Birzeit University and Assistant Director of Fundraising for the educational institution, travelling to Bethlehem as a visiting lecturer takes him 70 minutes when it should take 25.
“It’s apartheid,” he says. “The systematic oppression of a whole people. The Israelis use security as an excuse, but what kind of security do they need to impose for Palestinians to travel within the West Bank? Checkpoints are actually being upgraded and it’s clear they’re here to stay.”
Right now, he says, there are 100 students aged from 18 to 19 who are prisoned without charge under what is known as administrative detention which allows for a six-month incarceration that is renewable at the whim of the Israeli authorities.
Even what, on the face of it, seems the inconsequential distribution of a harmless Palestinian product faces the full brunt of the occupation.
In Taybeh some 20 km from Jerusalem, the Khoury family running the brewery that produces the beer bearing the name of the village, faces an uphill climb to distribute its unique Palestinian product.
“It’s a nightmare,” says Founder Nadim Khoury, who besides the intricacies of brewing has to coordinate product distribution through the labyrinthine roads of the West Bank and parts of Israel in which they are allowed to pass. Drivers carrying the truckloads of beer to Haifa have to plan two days in advance.
What was once a straight seven-minute drive to Ramallah now takes more than an hour and a half, not counting stops at checkpoints that could take hours in which thousands of litres of beer risk being spoilt under the sunlight.
It might sound a trivial detail within the wider tragedy of the occupation, but it also yet another reason why the Palestinians are not toasting Netanyahu’s new government.

Karl Schembri is reporting from Ramallah for Ramattan news agency.

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