The Transnational Elite’s New “Model” for the Middle East TAKIS FOTOPOULOS

The recent dramatic developments in Palestine gave the international mass media the opportunity to distort the facts concerning the transnational elite’s latest attempt to crush the Palestinian people’s resistance once and for all. The ultimate aim was, as always, to clear the way ―in the context of the two-state “solution”― for the establishment of a Palestinian ‘Bantustan’ (i.e., a formally independent “state” lacking any real legitimacy or power and consisting of several unconnected enclaves), next to a Zionist giant.

From the outset, contrary to the impression successfully created by the mass media, the conflict in Gaza ―as Karma Nabulsi[1] stressed in a significant article― was neither a civil war nor an Islamist attempt to seize power:

As Alvaro de Soto, the UN envoy for the Middle East peace process, revealed himself in a confidential report leaked to the Guardian,[2] the stage was set for the present confrontation more than a year ago, just after Hamas won the elections. Hamas wanted to form a broad coalition government with its more moderate rivals, including Fattah, run by the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas. But the US discouraged other Palestinian politicians from joining. "We were told that the US was against any 'blurring' of the line dividing Hamas from those Palestinian political forces committed to the two-state solution." At the same time, he stresses, the US was clearly pushing for a confrontation between Fattah and Hamas, and he quotes an unnamed US official as saying earlier this year: "I like this violence … It means that other Palestinians are resisting Hamas." Meanwhile, Zionist Israel was continuing its expansion into Palestinian land. In the words of De Soto, "With all focus on the failings of Hamas, the Israeli settlement enterprise and barrier construction has continued unabated." This occurred with the tacit support of the rest of the transnational elite, in this case expressed by the Quartet of Middle East negotiators — the UN, the US, the EU and Russia —which “has often failed to hold Israel to its obligations under the Road Map”.

However, the process of separating the ‘moderates’ (i.e., those obedient to the orders of the transnational elite and their organs, who had much to gain from the creation of a Bantustan —merchants, professionals, etc.) from the ‘extremists’ (i.e., those taking part in the resistance, mainly from among the lower social strata in Gaza) was pre-announced in Bush’s 2002 speech, at the height of the second intifada. At that time, the transnational elite had put Arafat in quarantine in his ‘headquarters’ in Ramallah, for not being co-operative with the transnational and Zionist elites. In fact, Arafat, having committed the criminal mistake of adopting the two-state ‘solution’, which was destined to lead to the creation of a Bantustan-type state (instead of fighting, as the South African liberation movement did under similar circumstances, for the creation of a single multicultural state – an anathema to Zionists, both of the ‘Left’ and the Right variety!), had already abandoned his illusions about the final outcome of the Oslo process which he had initiated with the Zionists. Under Israeli siege and the unbearable pressure of the transnational elite, Arafat agreed in 2003 to name Abbas ―a well-known ‘moderate’ who was committed to implementing the Quartet’s (i.e., the transnational elite’s) policy on Palestine― as the newly empowered prime minister of the Palestinian authority. Then, following the mysterious death of Arafat in 2004, the road was wide open for Abbas and his corrupt clique, who, with the direct support of the transnational elite, won the presidential elections.

Yet, when Abbas, under popular pressure, was forced to hold legislative elections and decided to invite Hamas to participate, (presumably believing he could beat them at the polls), Hamas decisively won the elections which, the transnational elite had to admit, were carried out under its own prescriptions for free elections. This was clearly due to the consistent stand of Hamas against a Palestinian sell-out in the form of a Bantustan-type ‘state’ (despite its extremist rhetoric, what Hamas essentially demands is a state in the Palestinian territories, illegally occupied since 1967) as well as to Hamas’s social welfare work[3]. At this point, there began a combined policy of military violence and the ‘targeted’ assassinations of Hamas members by the Zionist regime on the one hand, and economic strangulation of the Palestinian people on the other for their resistance, which is called ‘terrorism’ by the transnational and Zionist elites —exactly as all oppressors have called liberation movements in the past. At the same time, a plan was set in motion by the US elite to arm part of Fattah under the infamous head of the Preventive Security Force, Mohammed Dahlan, a well-known 'collaborator with Israel and the US', according to Hamas and many Palestinians. Most Gazans blamed him for ordering a series of killings of Hamas members which, in their view, were what fuelled the cycle of violence that intensified after Hamas swept Fattah from power in January last year.[4]

As independent observers have confirmed, the latest conflict in Gaza which led to the splitting up of the Palestinian entity was not the result of a general attack by Hamas against Abbas and Fattah, as the world media presented it, but simply an attempt to rid Fattah of Dahlan and similar elements. Thus, as The Observer correspondents noted,[5] the collaboration of Fattah members with Hamas was suggested strongly by several witnesses. One told The Observer that some officers of the Presidential Guard sent their men home as soon as the fighting began. Another Hamas official, the spokesman for its Qassam Brigades, Abu Obaida, insisted that there was co-ordination between the two sides as the purge went on, stating: “Our fight is not against Fattah… but against just one group of Fattah agents who were following the Zionist agenda. The decent people of Fattah were coordinating with us and are happy we have got rid of the corrupt people of Fattah.” Furthermore, it is well-known that Hamas officials have always insisted that, despite Abbas's dissolution of the unity government, they still recognised him as President. However, despite Hamas’s overtures, Abbas swiftly proceeded to swear in a new emergency government, after both he and Dahlan had met senior US diplomats. He appointed as Prime Minister, with the explicit agreement of the transnational and Zionist elites, their confidant Salam Fayyad, who worked for many years at the World Bank in Washington and as an IMF representative in Palestine until 2001. It is worth noting that, in last year's election for the Palestinian Legislative Council – which Hamas won, securing 44% of the vote ―Fayyad's list secured just 2.4 per cent of the vote. So much for Western ‘democracy’!

The intermediate target of the transnational elite is the creation of a new ‘model of engagement’, as a senior US administration official called it while celebrating the outcome of the conflict in Gaza, ("there is no more Hamas-led government. It is gone")[6], and the establishment of a protectorate of the transnational elite in the West Bank. Needless to say, this Bantustan-in-the-making was immediately adopted both by the transnational elite (which promised generous financial help after the long economic strangulation imposed on the Palestinian people as punishment for their ‘inappropriate’ vote), and by the Zionist elite (which promised multiple goodwill gestures, i.e., an easing of roadblocks, cooperation on security, a glimpse of the "political horizon"—read Bantustan). However, as Olmert was at pains to make clear, all these ‘goodies’ depend on whether the new Abbas government can demonstrate that it is a "credible and serious administration" committed to defeating terrorism, (i.e., the resistance of the Palestinian people to these plans!)

The ultimate aim is the beginning of negotiations on the final form that the Palestinian ‘state’ will take. This will inevitably be that of a Bantustan, since the Zionist elite has repeatedly declared that Jerusalem and the main settlements in the West Bank are not negotiable and, of course, they do not even want to hear a single word about the right to return of the millions of Palestinian refugees who were uprooted from their homes, through the Zionist use of military or economic force. The Gazan people will, of course, be excluded from this process because, as the Zionist elite has declared, Gaza will be considered a ‘terrorist entity’, while the US elite, always scrupulous about the law, has even found a legal formula with which to exclude them; as a senior US administration official put it: “Gaza has no territorial issues with Israel, since there are no Israelis in Gaza, so the Hamas entity there would have no stake in potential peace talks concerning the border on the West Bank”.[7]

On the other side of this new model, in Gaza, people should expect a continuation and intensification of the treatment they have had since last year, when they dared to vote against the wishes of the transnational and Zionist elites: continuous military attacks and targeted assassinations from the Zionist regime and economic strangulation from the transnational elite, apart from some charity money. The expectation of the transnational and Zionist elites was aptly described by an Israeli government insider: "They'll understand that moderate policies bring home the bacon, while the other road brings only pain”[8]. Therefore, if all goes according to plan, either Gazans will eventually rise up and eject Hamas from power, or Hamas itself will realise that it has to change course. Either way, the end result is expected to be the end of resistance against the Bantustan type of ‘solution’.

In conclusion, the Palestinian people now have to make the most crucial choice in their long and bloody struggle:

* The above text is based on an article which was first published in the fortnightly column of Takis Fotopoulos in the mass circulation Athens daily Eleftherotypia on 23/6/2007

[1] See the significant article by Karma Nabulsi, fellow in international Relations at the University of Oxford, ‘The people of Palestine must finally be allowed to determine their own fate’, Guardian, 18/6/07
[2] Rory McCarthy, ‘UN was pummelled into submission, says outgoing Middle East special envoy’, Guardian, 13/6/2007
[3] see "Middle East: 'Democracy' in Action", The International Journal of INCLUSIVE DEMOCRACY, Vol. 3 - No. 1 (January 2007)
[4] Peter Beaumont et. al "How Hamas turned on Palestine's 'traitors'", Observer, 17/6/07
[5] ibid.
[6] MSNBC 15/6/07
[7] ibid.
[8] Jonathan Freedland, "The scene of Fattahland flowering as Hamastan wilts is sheer fantasy", Guardian, 20/6/07
[9] see "Palestine: the hour of truth", IJID ,Vol. 2 - No. 2 (January 2006)