AN internal Israeli government document, obtained by the BBC, proposes that if the Palestinian Authority's application to the UN General Assembly, seeking UN non-member status for Palestine, is successful, President Mahmoud Abbas and his administration should be “toppled”. This demonstrates once more the comprehensive campaign that successive Israeli governments have long maintained against the Palestinians. Not content with targeted assassinations and two outright military assaults against the people of Gaza, together with the economic stranglehold it holds on both Gaza and the Occupied West Bank, the Israelis are dedicated to shameless interference in Palestinian political life. Just how Abbas should be overthrown was not specified by the document. Assassination is a tried and tested technique, but would cause international protests. Murder by poisoning, rather than a rocket strike or bomb blast, would inevitably lead to clear suspicions, which currently exist over the death of Yasser Arafat, that the bloody hand of Israel has been at work behind the scenes. But then there are more sophisticated options. The Palestinians are increasingly frustrated by the Palestinian Authority's ineffectiveness, its inability to curb corruption among Fatah members, its current struggle to attract essential international aid, and its powerlessness in the face of the Israeli drive to pauperize the West Bank and steal more land to build yet more illegal settlements. Perhaps the “discovery” of a large Swiss bank account that is apparently linked to Abbas could do the trick. Yet such a ploy might not work, once the Palestinian leader has won the crucial recognition that he is seeking in the UN. For sure, “non-member status” may do nothing to improve the daily lot of the man in the street, but it would certainly be a cause for quiet pride among Palestinians and the hope of greater things to come. What is clear, however, is the fact that Israel and its allies in Washington will do everything in their power to wreck this perfectly legitimate step that Abbas is taking toward the ultimate international recognition of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. Though the Israelis have pointed out that the document the BBC obtained is only a “position paper”, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has himself said publicly that he will ensure that the Palestinian Authority “collapses” if its UN recognition bid goes ahead. He went on to describe Abbas as an “obstacle that needs to be removed”. He added that if the UN General Assembly does indeed raise Palestine's membership status, the Palestinian Authority will have crossed “a red line, that will require the harshest Israeli response. If deterrence efforts do not succeed, Israel must extract a heavy price ” from Abbas. Lieberman went on to warn that UN recognition would completely undermine Israel's credibility and make any peace deal that could be acceptable to it, impossible. There speaks the real voice of Israel, which is intent on treating the Palestinians as a subject people to be brutalized and crushed, most especially whenever they seek to fight back. Yet this is a voice that the Americans, Europeans and the Russians seem intent on ignoring. They cling to the fiction that Israel is the victim, that, more in sorrow than anger, it is fighting back bravely against Palestinian oppression. Yet as Israeli missiles rain down on Gaza, slaughtering Palestinian civilians along with Hamas leaders, the best that Washington and Brussels can manage is concern that the violence will continue. How can supposedly responsible democracies be so spectacularly blinkered?
