With the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process going nowhere, mainly due to Israeli intransigence and American complicity, Israel is increasingly bullying the Palestinian Authority (PA) into doing its bidding, says Khaled Amayreh in Ramallah Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, the second-most powerful Israeli official after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, has called PA President Mahmoud Abbas "a terrorist who will have to be eliminated". Lieberman also urged the international community, especially the Quartet for the Middle East peace process, which includes, the UN, US, EU, and Russia, to organise new elections that would see the PA replaced by another Palestinian entity that is more acceptable to Israel. Lieberman's remarks, which he repeated several times in the past few days, came in part as a response to declared PA plans to restart endeavours at the UN for recognising Palestinian statehood and accepting "Palestine" as a member-state at the international organisation. "There is a division of labor between [Hamas premier Ismail] Haniyeh and Abbas. Haniyeh and Hamas are leading armed terrorism while Abbas is leading political terrorism." Palestinian officials retorted by calling Lieberman "a thug disguised as a politician". PA negotiator Saeb Ereikat said Lieberman was continuing his rudeness and incitement without the Israeli government taking any measures to rein him in. "The whole world condemned those declaration and we were officially informed by the Israeli governments that it and its premier were not related and did not necessarily share his view." The United States, Israel's guardian ally, firmly opposes Palestinian plans at the UN. American officials wary of angering Israel and her powerful supporters at the American domestic arena, especially during an election year, have threatened to punish the PA in case it went along with its statehood recognition plans at the UN. However, Israel is worried that American pressure, especially financial pressure, may not eventually succeed in thwarting PA plans. Netanyahu sought to distance himself from Lieberman's remarks, especially calling Chairman Abbas a "terrorist". However, the Israeli premier, who some PA officials consider a "mere diplomatic carbon copy of Lieberman" made no signs suggesting that he opposes the essence of Lieberman's recalcitrant approach towards the PA, namely constantly narrowing its horizons and forcing it to grovel at Israel's feet. In fact, nearly every Israeli measure in the West Bank shows that the Netanyahu government is not really interested in reaching a balanced and dignified settlement with the PA, a settlement that would free Palestinians from Israeli domination. Last week, Israel's electric company said it was considering cutting off power to large parts of the West Bank due to unpaid bill totaling $125 million. The PA has been undergoing a sever financial crisis stemming from the failure of donor countries to make good on their promises to bail out the PA, forcing the Ramallah government to take some austerity measures and postpone the payment of salaries to civil servants and public employees. Israeli electricity is distributed to the West Bank by the Jerusalem District Electricity Co, a private firm. In a news conference last week, officials of the Jerusalem Company said some 12 Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank were the main debtors. It is unknown why the PA has accepted liability to pay the electricity bill for the refugee camps when the UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Work Agency, is supposed to be the main body that should cater for the refugees. In addition to the electricity crisis, several Palestinian towns in the West Bank are facing an acute water shortage crisis due to scarcity of drinking water. Some localities, especially in the southern parts of the West Bank, receive tap water only once every five or six weeks, which lasts for a few hours. The problem stems from the fact that the lion's share of water resources in the West Bank is allocated for Jewish settlements which in many cases leaves many Palestinian literally thirsty. When Palestinian citizens complain to PA officials about the dearth of water supplies, the officials simply tell the complainants. "Sorry, we are as helpless as you are. We can do nothing about this because the Israelis control the water distribution system." Still more, Israeli measures go far beyond merely stealing and arrogating Palestinian water. The so-called Israel Civil Administration, which is a tool of the Israeli occupation army and Jewish settlement enterprise, has been destroying water cisterns belonging to Palestinian villagers and peasants in the so-called area C where, according to the Oslo Accords, Israel maintains security as well as civilian authority. In recent days and weeks, the Israeli army destroyed several cisterns south of the town of Dahiriya, 20km south west of Hebron. According to Azmi Shoyoukhi, head of popular committees for resistance, Israeli troops destroyed three cisterns, several huts, as well as a number of water containers in the proscribed area. Residents and human rights activists in the region say the ultimate Israeli goal behind these measures is to force Palestinians to flee the area in order to expand Jewish settlements. Israel, say political observers, is hell-bent on preventing the establishment of a viable and territorially contiguous Palestinian state in the West Bank. On Monday, Netanyahu declared that the Gush Itzion settlements were an integral part of Jerusalem, which he called Israel's "eternal and undivided capital." International Law doesn't recognise Israeli sovereignty over any part of the occupied territory. The latest Israeli measures to corrode whatever remaining prospects for a balanced and fair resolution of the enduring Palestinian issue are coinciding with a serious escalation of organised Jewish terror against Palestinian civilians. The latest wave of Jewish terror in the West Bank included hurling a firebomb on a passenger Palestinian car, causing serious burns to five people, including children. More to the point, an East Jerusalem youth was nearly killed after fanatical Jewish youths tried to lynch him while walking on a West Jerusalem street. Jewish terror is encouraged by rampant incitement against Arabs and Muslims in the Israeli media and synagogues and also by the extreme leniency with which the manifestly racist Israeli justice system deals with Jewish terrorists especially when the victim is Arab.
