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Israel Not Practising What it Preaches

Michael Jansen writes from Nicosia
***In recent months. Israeli officials have changed their tune regarding relations with Palestinians. However, despite talk of Jews and Arabs living side by side and prospering, the words are so far proving hollow.****
IN this era of Middle East peacemaking. Israel's leaders speak of "peace between peoples."
They have dropped the propaganda line that Arab enmity to the Jewish state is eternal and. instead, argue that Arabs and Jews can live side by side and prosper.
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin inaugurated (he new public relations policy in July while in Washington for the signing of a non-belligerency pact with Jordan's King Hussein. Rabin reiterated this line in August at the opening of the first border qroqslng between Israel and Jordan, saying that ''the two peoples ... wanted this to happen."
This line is being elaborated by his Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. During a recent visit to Cyprus he said the region is entering "an entirely new era” in which territory and boundaries are no longer the key factors governing relations between countries. A country can no longer rely on its armed forces for strength in this age of long-range missiles. instead. Strength is based on its intellectual and scientific achievements which have a global range."
And. he asserted: "markets are more important than countries." calling for an Israeli-Arab common market. Co-op-eration can begin, he said, in developing regional tourism and water resources.
Elegant and eloquent, economic and eminently reasonable. this line of talk is being pedalled by Israeli spokesmen and diplomats the world over.
What Israel preaches is. however, belied by what it practices.
The Labour Party won office in 1992 on the platform that it would negotiate a comprehensive peace based on the "land for peace" formula. Soon after taking office Labour declared the "freeze" on settlement activity demanded by the United States as the price of providing
guarantees for loans of $10 billion for immigrant absorption.
At the same qme Labour inaugurated a new settlement policy, called the "Sheves" plan. The plan provides for the integrated economic development of Israel and the occupied West Bank and Gaza and
for linking Jewish settlements in the territories to Israel "proper" through an elaborate network of roads. ,
The private sector is encouraged to invest in this development plan, making it impossible for the government to impose a "freeze" in future.
Instead of cutting off financial incentives to encourage Jews to settle In the territories. Labour continued to fund individual settlers, offering grants to the value of $18,000 an half of the 150 illegal colonies planted there.
To encourage Jews to settle in the territories, the government also allocated to certain settlements a large proportion of a $280 million Job creation fund. And the government accelerated settlers' registration of private houses and flats.
The Sheves plan Is designed to transform the situation in the territories during the present two year period of Palestinian self-rule so that once negotiations begin on the permanent status of the West Bank and Gaza the Palestinians will be unable to demand an Israeli withdrawal and the return of the territories to Palestinian sovereignty.
Israel's alm is to block Palestinian self-determination apd prevent the emergence of a Palestinian entity by making it impossible to separate Palestinian population centres from Jewislj settlements.
Israel has already taken over about 30 per cent of the territory of the West Bank Where 120.000 Jews live among a million Palestinians and 40 per cent of the Gaza Strip to accommodate 4.000 Jews settled among 850,000 Palestinians.
Israel has accelerated its building programme In and around Palestinian East Jerusalem. This year the number of Jewish settlers In East Jerusalem reached 160,000. giving them a slender majority over the native Palestinians
who seek to make their sector of the city the capital of the emerging Palestinian entity.
The Government has also Initiated legislation in the Knesset to ban all Palestinian political activity In East Jerusalem. If passed it would force Palestinian natiori-build-ing institutions in the city, like the PLO's headquarters at Orient House, to close down or relocate.
Israel has already warned various International organisations providing technical and economic assistance to the Palestinians that offices in Jerusalem should be shifted to autonomous enclaves in Gaza or Jericho.
Through Its military orders banning Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza from entering East Jerusalem. Israel has cut them off from their historic and religious capital.
Palestinians from the territories are deprived of medical care in the city's hospitals, schools for their children and Jobs in firms and offices in East Jerusalem. West Bank and Gaza produce cannot be sold In East Jerusalem or. even, be transported through East Jerusalem en route to Palestinian markets in the territories.
Israel's policies violate the ' terms of the Oslo accord, the key document governing relations between Israel and the PLO. Article IV states: "The two sides view the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a single territorial uQjt, whose Integrity will be preserved durlrig the interim period."
Israel's policies make It clear that It has no intention of
preserving that unity and Integrity Under the Oslo accord, the permanent status of Palestinian East Jerusalem, boundaries and sovereignty over the territories is to be decided in negotiations "as soon as possible, but not later than the beginning of the third year" of Palestinian self rule.
Israel Insists that these negotiations cannot begin until May 1996, the latest possible date given in the Oslo timetable. while the PLO demands negotiations as soon as possible." particularly on the Issue of Jerusalem.
By postponing, in order to create facts on the ground. Israel is trying to pre-empt the final status negotiations which are. according to the Oslo aecord. meant to produce a "permanent settlement based on Security Council resolutions 242 and. 338" demanding Israeli withdrawal from the territories captured in 1967.
Israel violates the spirit of the Oslo accord as well as its terms. The government committed a particularly flagrant violation when on September 1 the Israeli army closed off! for 10 months. 3.000 acres of prime West Bank farm land, containing 17 subterranean wells. The produce of this area amounts to 60 per cent of the total reaching the West Bank in winter.
Palestinians claim that Israel took this action in order to enable Jordan to sell $30 million worth of produce in the West Bank to make up for the shortfall. If this is true, the Palestinians, last year's partners in peace, without whom there would be no peace process. are being made to suffer in order to please Jordan, this year's partner.
Such peacemaking cannot produce a just and enduring settlement. —GEMINI NEWS
MICHAEL JANSEN was born In the US. lives in Cyprus, and has covered the Middle East for many years.