News » 'Your conscience, your choice': PA urges the boycott of settler goods to undermine the OccupationWith unarmed protests ending in injury and rock-throwing at illegal Israeli details ending in detention and death, the West Bank Palestinian Authority is looking for a third way to break through the Israeli Occupation, New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner reports.
Palestinians in the West Bank have begun conducting olive tree planting ceremonies as a non-violent way to assert their claim to the land
Neither diplomacy nor armed struggle have effected a positive change in Israeli policy for the West Bank, so now the PA is looking toward ways to "rouse popular passions while avoiding violence.
The idea, as Fatah struggles to revitalize its leadership, is to build a virtual state and body politic through acts of popular resistance.
PA economic minister Hasan Abu-Libdeh says, "it's all about self-empowerment" when it comes to the new campaign to undermine the Israeli occupation. The campaign includes steps to boycott the purchase of settler goods and end the employment of Palestinians by settlers and the settler industrial sector.
"We want ordinary people to feel like stockholders in the process of building a state," Abu-Libdeh says. This new approach has gained plenty of support in the West Bank for the campaign's potential to pressure Israel, but they are none the less unconvinced of its "ultimate effectiveness."
The project to rid the West Bank of "symbols of the occupation" is working in tandem with the "Karama National Empowerment Fund," a $2 million venture funded by the PA Ramallah government and Palestinian businessmen. Billboards stating "Your conscience, your choice" about buying settler goods are springing up as part of the campaign, and the PA Ministry of Communications has banned the sell of Israeli phone cards, as Israeli signals are relayed from settlements.
Abu-Libdeh says a law barring the purchase of settler goods is likely to go into effect soon. Trade with settlements is worth roughly $200 million per year. As for settlement employment, the economic minister said the government could not levy penalties on Palestinians working for settlers or in settlement industries, as the PA does not provide unemployment insurance. An estimated 30,000 Palestinians work within the settlement economy.
The business owners behind Karama are eager to fill the gap left by settler goods with their own. The law would not affect Israeli goods, as Israel and the PA have trade agreements. Settlements in the West Bank are not recognized as part of the Israeli economy.
Even the Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is taking the new campaign rhetoric to heart, getting his hands dirty to plow fields on Land Day and opening civil infrastructure projects related to water works, power, and education in long-neglected West Bank villages.
The Prime Minister, currently in Madrid to work on the Palestinian statehood plan, has called for steadfastness among Palestinians, and he called for it again when he addressed a crowd in Izbet al-Tabib village near Qalqailya last month. The village lies in an area that meets the Israeli separation barrier, which has made farming the land extremely difficult:
“Steadfastness must be translated from a slogan to acts and facts on the ground... This is our real project, to establish our presence on our land and keep our people on it.”
It is too early to tell if this state-sponsored plan of non-violent resistance will be successful, but Palestinian political analysts will say that the new cocktail of popular resistance combined with institution building has gained notice with the public.
Chairman of the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, Mhadi Abdul Hadi, says:
“Fatah is living through a crisis of vision... How can they combine being a liberation movement with being a governing party? This is one way. The idea is to awaken national pride and fulfill the people’s anxiety and passion. Of course, Hamas and armed resistance still remain a real option for many.”
Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research director Khalil Shikaki comments:
“The society is split. The public believes that Israel responds to suffering, not to nonviolent resistance. But there is also not much interest in violence now. Our surveys show support for armed resistance at 47 percent in March. In essence, the public feels trapped between failed diplomacy and failed armed struggle.”
The Israelis have not made clear their response to the new resistance campaign. Israeli politicians have voiced their positive opinion of Fayyad as a true statesmen with whom they can debate, but his new approach may cost him that positive opinion. One Israeli military official commented:
“We respect Salam Fayyad... But we don’t want him to engage in incitement. Burning goods is incitement. Destroying the fence is incitement and is not nonviolent. They are walking a thin line.”
Even if the gains of this campaign are short-lived, Palestinian analysts say another Intifada is unlikely at this time in the West Bank. Fayyad has spent the last two years restoring internal safety and normalcy to the West Bank, and it not the crucible for uprising that it was in 2000. The trappings of civil infrastructure are function again, with police routinely handing out tickets for traffic violations and businesses accepting personal checks, which were long eschewed.
Still, Fayyad can do little about the Israeli presence within and without the West Bank, which has made the his constituency doubt if they will ever live in a sovereign state.
The prime minister is unwavering in his commitment to his statehood plan and all the steps, small and large, to get there:
“It’s about putting facts on the ground... The occupation is not transitional so we need to make sure our people stick around. If we create services, it gives people a sense of possibility. I feel we are on a path that is very appealing both domestically and internationally. The whole world knows this occupation has to end.”
Photo: Hoyasmeg - Flickr
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