Blast follow-up
Palestine, Analysis, 9/5/1997

The soldier yelled at the driver, ordering him of the car, after he asked for identification papers. Mohammed, a Ford Transit taxi driver, is used to Israeli roadblocks. His shuttle services between Jerusalem and Ramallah have brought him face to face with Israeli soldiers more than ten or fifteen times a day. "This time, I saw the anger in their eyes. They checked everything in the car. They ordered everybody else out and even body searched one of the seven passengers who apparently looked suspicious to them," he said two hours after the blast occurred in West Jerusalem.

Immediately after the attack, which according to official records claimed the lives of seven people, including the three suicide bombers and four Israelis, Israel clamped a total closure on all the Palestinian National Authority areas in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. All Gazans and West Bankers present within the pre-1967 borders were requested to head back to their homes as soon as possible, said a police announcement that was issued minutes after the attack.

Since last July's blast in the Market area of Mahaneh Yehuda in Jerusalem, all of the Palestinian territories were under closure. Only a few days ago, Israel decided to introduce some easing measures, allowing a few thousand Palestinian workers back to their work places inside Israel. The bulk of the Palestinian labor force in Israel, estimated at 85,000 thousand in normal days, however, had remained locked in their homes even before the latest blast. Going back to work for them now seems to be totally inconceivable.

By the entrance to Ramallah from Jerusalem, Palestinian policemen and security forces personnel were on alert. They too took more precautions out of fear that the whole situation might deteriorate into an uncontrollable level. They stopped most of the cars driving through the roadblock into Ramallah and had the yellow Israel license plates. Without any clash with passengers, they would ask the driver to identify himself and often cars are allowed through without any problem.

Hazem, one of the Palestinian soldiers manning the roadblock, said they had too many reasons to worry. He cited a statement given by Israeli extreme right wing Moledet Party leader Rehvaam Zeevi as a serious source of danger. Zeevi, alias Ghandi, told Israel's army radio station after the three-way attack that he would not be surprised if similar bombings occur in the cities of Gaza, Qalqilya, Nablus or any other Palestinian city. Zeevi, who advocates the full transfer of Arabs out of Palestine into the Arab countries, called on the Israeli government to take the toughest measures possible to curb the phenomena of suicide bombers.

"We are worried because if one Jewish settler manages to drive through to the PNA areas with a car loaded with explosives, the whole region is going to flare," said Hazem, the middle-aged soldier who served in Lebanon within the PLO forces and who requested to be identified with his first name only. He said he hates to stop Arab cars but still it is his job to make sure that no extreme right wing Jewish elements infiltrate into the PNA areas. He recalled that when Israeli undercover units operated against Palestinians they were disguised as Arabs even wearing the traditional head scarf and "growing fake mustaches."

The renewed closure on the Palestinian territories has increased worries of a drastic economic collapse in the PNA areas. After last July's blast, Israel decided to hold back tax revenues that were allotted for the PNA, causing a major deficit in the PNA budget. The same Palestinian officials who expressed hopes that those revenues will be paid back prior to the visit to the region by US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, are now more pessimistic.

Yet, a consensus was easily reached among various sectors of the Palestinian people that Israel's economic measures against the PNA will, on the long run, boomerang against the Jewish state because "starvation of a nation can never bring her to knees" as a lorry driver put it so simply. The driver, a resident of Ramallah who makes his living from driving his vegetable-loaded truck between the PNA areas and Israel, said a few days ago that since the market suicide bomb attack in West Jerusalem, he has joined an army of unemployed men who meet almost daily in local coffee shops in Ramallah to smoke water pipes and talk of their economic mishaps.

"How does Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expect President Arafat to combat terror while Palestinian policemen and security guards are not even paid their monthly wages on time?" he asked referring to the Israeli decision that was taken immediately after the double blast attack in which Israel held back some US $20 million of tax revenues to the PNA.

Over the past few years, back in the days of former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, Israel has resorted to the method of total closure of the Palestinian territories as a means of punishment against the whole population. Imposed so repeatedly over many years that it seemed to have become the rule while openness became the exception, the closure, ironically, had a positive result. It deepened the sense of separation between Israel, the occupier, and the Palestinians, the occupied. When the Oslo Agreements were reached between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel, the Israeli public had by then been prepared to understand the meaning of a political separation between the two parties.

But the direct results of the closure were so devastating to the Palestinian economy and mainly to some 85,000 Palestinian workers who used to go into Israel daily to work within the pre-1967 boundaries of the Jewish state. In the latest closure that followed the market explosion in West Jerusalem, Israel went too far with its measures, causing very serious problems to the Palestinian economy. Nasser Sarraj, director general on the ministry of trade and commerce in the PNA, estimated that Palestinian economy losses per day as a result of the Israeli closure fall within the vicinity of $ 9 million. Other Palestinian estimates said the latest closure cost the PNA some 30 percent of its annual budget, estimated at US $ 800 million.

Right after the attack last July, Israel adopted a number of measures that were aimed at punishing the PNA, even long before it could establish who the perpetrators were. Palestinian officials hurried to stress that not only these measures will fail to intimidate the Palestinian leadership but stressed that Israel's actions against the Palestinian people will contribute to the deteriorating situation within the PNA areas, leading inevitably to additional rise in anti-Israel violence and opposition to the peace process.

The measures taken by Israel included a ban on Palestinian workers from going to their work places inside Israel, a ban on Palestinian agricultural products from heading to Israel, a siege on the Mediterranean off the Gaza shores where hundreds of Palestinian fishermen make their daily living, an inner closure barring movement of people between Palestinian cities and a total ban on Palestinians from leaving the country abroad or returning home. As a result of the latest closure, for instance, two Arab youth delegations, one from Qatar and the other from the United Arab Emirates, were stuck in Gaza for a number of days. They had come on an official visit upon an invitation from the PNA ministry of youth and sports. The visit was over but their return was blocked for several days by Israel.

However, the immediate outcome of the Israeli decision to hold tax revenues and not transfer them to the PNA was denial of some 85,000 workers, employees and security personnel their right to receive their monthly wages in time. PNA tax revenues transferred by Israel are estimated at US $ 200 million per year. The amount of money that Israel immediately held back was US $20 million which were supposed to be transferred to the PNA by the end of last July. As time passed by, the figure grew larger and larger and stands today at around US $ 45 million.

To decrease the effect of the closure and the ban Israel imposed on Palestinian workers, Palestinian officials called on the donor countries to step forward. Dr. Mohammed Ishtayeh, director general of PECDAR (Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Re-construction) called on the donor countries and the World Bank to inject additional amounts of money into the PNA budget to find temporary work opportunities to the thousands of Palestinian laborers who are locked in their own respective cities and villages and not allowed to work in Israel. But so far, responses from the World Bank and the donor countries were not as promising as the Palestinians had expected.

Commenting on the latest economic crisis within the PNA in light of the Israeli closure, Ishtayeh expressed hopes that the donor countries won't accede to the Israeli request to hold back financial support to the PNA. He too stressed on the need for Israel to transfer immediately all tax revenues that it decided to hold back after the bomb went off in the market area in West Jerusalem. This money, he said, is the PNA's and Israel has no right whatsoever to hold it back. Said Ishtayeh: "These sums of money are ours. They are neither a favor nor a gift from Israel. Israel's decision to hold back this money, is but a flagrant blackmail and a blatant breach of the Paris economic accords that were signed between the PLO and Israel in 1995. The Paris agreements explicitly stressed that transfer of tax revenues from Israel to the PNA should be totally unconditional, he said. Ishtayeh was supported by Dr. Atef Alawneh, director of the finance ministry in the PNA, who too stressed that the Paris economic protocols force Israel to transfer all the tax revenues without any delay or pre-conditions.

A few months ago, the PNA estimated its deficit at $ 50 million and asked the donor countries for help. The response was negative as the donor countries said the economic situation of the PNA was improving. What seemed to the donor countries at the time as a flourishing Palestinian economy had soon evaporated with the Israeli measures, and to some extent with the release of the inner report on misconduct and misuse of public money by some PNA ministers and their ministries. The PNA had made a great deal of effort to minimize the impact of the report and officials close to President Arafat said he intended to take tough measures against whoever breached the rules of loyalty and confidence. However, last July bomb attack and the political outcome have seemingly pushed the issue of corruption aside. The PNA cabinet, which resigned last month but has yet to receive the presidential approval of the resignation, continues its meetings under Arafat addressing a cluster of issues, starting with the overall political situation and ending the domestic difficulties that the PNA is facing due to the extended siege by Israel, without of course ignoring the potential outcome of next week's forthcoming visit to the Middle East by US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

Previous Stories:
  Triple suicide bombings put a question mark on peace   (9/5/1997)
  Suicide bombing in Israel - a thorough dissection   (9/4/1997)
  Israelis killed in suicide attack   (7/31/1997)

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