WELL-PROTECTED Israeli soldiers were surprised this week when they entered six Palestinian cities that there was no organized Palestinian resistance, as had been the case with earlier incursions. The Israeli military entered six Palestinian cities two days after gunmen assassinated a right-wing Israeli cabinet minister in an Israeli hotel built on expropriated Palestinian lands in East Jerusalem. Palestinians were also surprised to hear after a meeting of the supreme Palestinian military council of the decision that considers all military wings of Palestinian factions to be illegal. This Palestinian decision was followed by a series of arrests of Palestinian activists that has netted 30, mostly from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, as well as from Islamic groups. Sixty others are reported hiding from attempts to arrest them by the Palestinian security. Those arrested included a spokesman for the PFLP and a member of this organization’s politburo.

Spokespersons for the Palestinian National Authority attribute both these actions to the ceasefire decision made by the Palestinian leadership after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the United States. Yasser Abed Rabbo, the minister of information has insisted in public statements broadcast on local and satellite television stations in Arabic that the Palestinian decision is strategic and not tactical. He elaborated in detail the need to end what he called "illegal Palestinian militias". Abed Rabbo and other senior PNA officials have insisted on the sensitivity of the situation and the need for a single security power to be in charge in the Palestinian areas.

This dramatic Palestinian turnaround has gone almost unnoticed as Israeli troops rolled into Bethlehem, Ramallah and other Palestinian cities. Diplomatic efforts by European and American officials have also gone unheeded. Israeli arrogance has reached the level where Ariel Sharon has chosen to ignore public calls by US officials to withdraw from these newly occupied areas.

For Sharon and half of his government, the events of Sept. 11 and the assassination of a Cabinet minister were opportunities to reverse Israeli withdrawals from populated Palestinian cities under the Oslo Agreement. When asked about the effect of the terrorists’ attacks on US-Israeli relations, former Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu told an American television reporter:"very good". Only moments later did he realize what he said and tried to correct himself.

There is little doubt among many, including leading Israeli analysts, that Sharon’s incursion had been planned for some time and that he was only awaiting an excuse. It is ironic that in 1982 Sharon deceived Israelis and the world by saying that he only wanted to enter a 40-kilometre radius of south Lebanon, ending up besieging Beirut within days. At that time, Israel invaded Lebanon after an assassination attempt against an Israeli diplomat. This time, we are told that the latest Israeli incursion is temporary and is not meant to destroy the PNA. When his attempts to link Arafat with Ben Laden failed, he waited for another justification. The Palestinian ceasefire offer and the meeting with Shimon Peres after four attempts that were blocked by Sharon, produced a relative quiet that forced the Israeli army to begin reversing its crippling siege on three million Palestinians. But Israel’s agreement to the ceasefire apparently didn’t include their refraining from assassinating Palestinians. For three consecutive days after the ceasefire went into effect, Israel assassinated Palestinian activists. This is when the second largest PLO faction decided to avenge the assassination of its secretary general Mustafa Abu Ali.

This was the justification that Sharon had wanted.

For sure the Palestinian leadership has a responsibility to contribute to the American and Western desire for a quiet Middle East, in order to strengthen the international campaign against Afghanistan and Ben Laden’s Qaeda movement.

Palestinian leaders have a difficult balancing act. They must show that they are serious about their ceasefire, but they have to deal with a population one third of which is now under curfew imposed by Israeli tanks. In such situations, the Palestinians have neither the morale nor the physical authority to be able to do much while the tanks are at every corner. To ask Palestinians to refrain from resisting this latest occupation is akin to denying people their legitimate right to self-defense.

The problems in the Middle East are not restricted to Israeli tanks rolling in front of this street or outside this church or mosque. The underlying problem is the absolute need for comprehensive and serious negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis, based on international law and not the rule of the gun. A framework for a solution has been agreed upon internationally: Land-for-peace. Military dictates will not accomplish the required peace that will have to be based on an independent and viable Palestinian state alongside a peaceful Israel within recognized boundaries.

Ramallah — When Israeli tanks rolled into Ramallah, on Thursday morning (October 18), they expected stiff resistance. They drove in from the northern side of the city near the Best Western Hotel and from the West near the Jawwal building. To reduce casualties the Israelis chose the early morning hour of 6:30, using only tanks and armored personnel carriers, and entered only two kilometers into

Palestinian "A" areas. Palestinian national security forces were poised for battle and ready to attack the invading Israelis. But the Israelis were surprised as to what awaited them. No resistance.

The Palestinian decision not to respond in an all-out resistance campaign reflected the new Palestinian strategy. President Yasser Arafat articulated this new strategy, adopted after the Sept. 11 attacks in America, when he agreed unilaterally to a ceasefire. At the time, he said that Palestinians will not shoot even if they are shot at.

This new strategy takes into consideration the changes in the world after the attacks on New York and Washington and tries to capitalize on the needs of the Western powers for active support of Arab and

Muslim countries.

The assassination of a right-wing Israeli cabinet minister this week, reportedly by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), complicated the situation. The denouncement of the killing by

Arafat and top Palestinian National Authority (PNA) officials reflects the concern that the PNA wants to try its best not to be left out of the new world coalition against terror.

The Palestinian decision not to shoot at infiltrating Israeli tanks also reflects the experience of the power of diplomacy. Palestinians have seen Israelis withdraw from Jenin, Beit Jala as well as last

Sunday’s withdrawal from Hebron’s Abu Sneneh neighborhood as a result of diplomatic pressure. Sure Palestinian resistance did have some effect. But the withdrawal from Beit Jala, for example, was due to the Palestinians’ continuous attacks on the settlement of Gilo rather than attacks against Israeli soldiers who were hunkered down in tanks and in high buildings.

Despite the official PNA position, the assassination of a much despised Israeli official has been well received in many Palestinian circles. The fact that it was carried out at all, and the fact that those carrying it out escaped, rather than knowingly carried out a suicide mission, has lifted Palestinian spirits.

It followed a period in which the PNA and the world community were unable to stop the Israeli policy of assassinations, even after the Palestinian side respected the ceasefire agreement, which had resulted, in part, in a gradual lifting of the Israeli siege last Monday (October 15).

But while the assassination resulted in a return to the siege policies, a number of Palestinians felt that it created a new dimension to the conflict. This was the first time that an Israeli cabinet minister was killed by Palestinians. This reflects a weakening in the effect of deterrence by Israeli officials. By assassinating a senior Israeli official, the Palestinians have slightly shifted the balance of deterrence to a degree that now Israelis will start thinking twice before resuming their assassination of senior Palestinian officials.

The quest for a free and independent Palestinian state is a just and noble cause. This cause must not be defiled by the evil actions of international terrorists. Palestinians eject the attempts by Osama Ben Laden to link his case with Palestine nor do they support his oath that America will not witness peace until their is peace in Palestine.

It is true that for years America has bowed to domestic pressure and has obstructed the implementation of this internationally legitimate cause of a people wishing to be relived of an unjust Israeli occupation of their land. But the path of killing innocent people in New York and Washington is not the path of justice for Palestine.

Palestinian officials, intellectuals and many average Palestinians expressed their condemnation to the terrorist attack against America in numerous ways. The US consul general in Jerusalem publicly thanked Palestinians referring, among other things to a thick dossier of faxes from Palestinian individuals, NGOs and public figures expressing support for Americans.

This is not to say that Palestinians are not frustrated or unhappy with their present predicament. In just the last year alone more than three million Palestinians have been living under inhuman conditions that included shelling of residential areas, uprooting trees, demolishing houses and banning travel between cities and towns.

The suffering is not restricted to this past year. For 53 years the world has stood silently as the suffering of the refugees continued, their lands and homes made available to incoming Jewish immigrants and their right to return as enshrined in UN resolutions 191 was left to collect dust. Palestinians suffering increased as all of mandatory Palestine was occupied and a brutal 34-year Israeli military occupation continued despite the Security council’s resolution 242 that called that occupation in 1967 "inadmissible."

One need not wonder why Palestine has become a calling cry for any leader of a country or a movement, irrespective of their opportunism or their sincerity, whether they be considered moderate or radical, whether they run stable countries or rouge states. Palestine has become the opium of Arab and Moslem nations. Dictators refer use our cause to silence opposition, they chant for Palestine in order to rally their ignorant people behind them and divert attention from their own inadequacies.

Palestinians will not allow their just cause to be hijacked. Since 1987 when the Palestinian intifada began, the overriding theme of this people revolution was the opposition to the Israeli occupation and not opposition to the existence of Israel. In 1988 the PLO adopted this call by accepting a historic concession of a two-state solution, a Palestinian state on roughly 23% of historic Palestine alongside the state of Israel. Since then this has been and continues the Palestinian position, which fulfills President Bush’s condition for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

The Gulf War, a hesitant peace process and continued Israeli settlement activities during a transitional period failed to fulfill Palestinian aspirations of an independent state within the June 1967 areas. Since the Gulf War the US has insisted that Iraq should not be rewarded for its aggression. When Palestinians rejected Israel’s demands to keep parts of the lands it occupied in 1967, the Palestinians were declared uncompromising towards Israel’s ‘generous offer’. Average Palestinians ask the simple question: Why should Israel be rewarded for its aggression while Iraq’s children suffer 10 years after the invasion of Kuwait has been reversed.

This anti-American feeling became more obvious once the new Bush administration started to vocally defend Israeli actions while claiming lack of interest in international affairs. Israel’s right wing leader was received twice at the White House while the Palestinian leader Arafat was unabashedly shunned by a country that is supposed to be an ‘honest broker.’

The frustrations of the Arab peoples with America reached unprecedented heights when the US delegation so brazenly and publicly sided with Israel before and during the UN’s anti-racism conference in Durban South Africa. The fact that the US was unwilling to accept what the world had seen as a clear discriminatory policy by Israel towards Palestinians, widened the rift with America and increased Islamic and third world support for Palestinians.

Throughout the past year and as the frustration of Arabs and Muslim peoples was rising, governments in the region were seen as being completely helpless in defending Palestinians or in pressing the US to take a more balance approach..

While the biased US policy to Israel caused tremendous anger amongst Arabs and Moslems, it failed to blind Palestinians and their leadership from the determination to reach their goal.

The years of suffering also brought with them experience. They taught Palestinians a simple lesson not to count on anyone except the justice of their cause. It is no wonder that Ben Laden’s demagogy failed to find deep roots with Palestinians.

Sure a few people were mesmerized by the person they say has caused Americans to feel what Palestinians feel very day under Israel’s occupation. But the struggle of Palestinians for a free and independent homeland hasn’t been without sacrifices. Palestinians will not allow this struggle to be defamed by an extremist terrorist who sees the world only in terms of religious blocks.

Palestinian Muslims and Christians are united in their fight for freedom and democracy. The Palestinian struggle for independence is a national not a religious one. This struggle will be victorious because it is just and right and not because of the actions or words of an international terrorist.

The invitation by the German representative office for a celebration at a Ramallah restaurant on the occasion of "German Unity" was normal. An addendum to the invitation was not normal. It expressed understanding by the Germans if the invited Palestinian guests couldn’t make it because of the difficulties in movement in the Palestinian areas.

Sure enough the party by a European representative, normally an occasion where Palestinians get to see other Palestinians suffered from the difficulties of not many people able to come. Foreigners by far out-numbered local Palestinians. There were hardly any Palestinians from Bethlehem, none that I saw from Hebron or Nablus. The few that was there were from Ramallah and Jerusalem, with those from Jerusalem leaving early prepared to go to battle at the Israeli check posts.

Check posts were naturally one of the main topics of discussions by all. A German professor married to a Palestinian was telling her friends how she has to carry an extra set of shoes that will be used for walking the dirt roads in Qalandia and Surda in order to get to Bir Zeit University. A Palestinian businessman who lives in Jerusalem but works in Ramallah was talking about his plans to install a shower in his office in order to clean up after a difficult and messy journey to work part of it by foot on dusty roads.

The discussions on Wednesday had taken place days after the Arafat Peres meeting and cease-fire agreement. The Israeli army, which was supposed to ease the siege, had done no such things, on the contrary the Qalandia check post had become even more inhumane. And then Peres’s statement, that areas that are quite will notice a gradual ease of the siege. That also turns out to be no more than PR aimed at diverting attention from the reality on the ground.

The mess at Qalandia is unbelievable. Literally thousands of Palestinians have to daily cross a stretch of unpaved and dusty lands, often walking between cars and trucks in order to get from one side to the other. Those wanting to drive into Ramallah have to wait for hours and are rarely guaranteed a chance to enter. Traffic jams are created because cars on both sides fight to reach the checkpoint first. Drivers argue for a long time with soldiers who decide on the spot whether to allow a car in or not. On the Ramallah side of the road a big mess exists because the area in and around Qalandia is in a legal vacuum. Most of that area belongs to the Jerusalem municipality and therefore is under Israeli military and administrative controls but the Israelis have abandoned it. The Palestinian police is not allowed in that area so it has become an area of chaos. At times young people from Qalandia try to help direct traffic but nasty drivers rarely listen to them. Of late individuals who direct the movement of taxis (and get a fee from the taxi drivers) has emerged and has somewhat organized a messy situation.

To be sure what is happening in and around Jerusalem is inhuman and oppressive not to mention racist and discriminatory. Israeli settlers continue to enjoy freedom to travel in and out of settlements to Jerusalem and Israel while Palestinians are punished collectively. I saw a woman at the Bethlehem checkpoint begging a young Israeli soldier for permission to enter. She had a Jerusalem ID and wanted to see her daughter who is living in Bethlehem. No said the soldier. Only people who are living in Bethlehem and can show that by presenting utility bills are allowed in.

As a journalist I am allowed to drive to Ramallah, if I am willing to wait. On Wednesday driving from Ramallah to Jerusalem. I came to the Qalandia checkpoint. Only 16 cars were ahead of me. Half an hour later I had barely moved. Suddenly I noticed that cars are diverting to another road. I followed the road to a nearby quarry. Twenty-five minutes later and having driven in terrible road conditions I was able to get on the other side of the checkpoint. It would take me another hour to pass through the Ram checkpoint and the newly installed checkpoint outside of "Neve Yacoub" settlement in the Beit Hanina area.

Despite the restrictions on movement Palestinians somehow adjust. I am not sure whether this is a good or a bad sign. It is good in the sense that people make the changes needed for their lives to go on and in order not to loose hope completely.

But on the other hand one wonders if our people have become so accustomed to humiliation that it no longer fazes us and we learn to adjust to the most inhumane collective oppression.