Behind the Wall - 'The Circus of 'Democracy'


When the circus rolled into town none of the 'audience' were expecting many laughs. It was a circus not invited, or welcomed, by the audience - but instead invited by the ring-masters in their offices. As usual it was the audience, and not the ringmaster, who suffered for this charade. Nobody was offered a front row seat.

When George W. Bush arrived at Ben Gurion airport it was no doubt a very different experience from the disgusting treatment many visitors have received, myself included. I doubt Mr Bush was strip searched repeatedly and interrogated for hours. I doubt the contents of his luggage were strewn unceremoniously across tables as ever increasing numbers of incredibly unwelcoming 'security' officials tried their best to intimidate this visitor who had dared to attempt to enter the 'only democracy in the Middle East'.

It didn't take the President long to get into the swing of things, and display some of the ludicrous contradictions at which he is so adept:

"Our support aims to secure the security of Israel as a Jewish state".

This champion of freedom and democracy advocates a 'democratic' system based not on equality but on race, separation, and discrimination. Furthermore, the reference to a 'Jewish state' also has deeper connotations which are not coherent with international law. A 'Jewish state' is by simple demographic definition one which annuls the Right of Return for refugees, as stipulated in international law and UN resolutions (194, 242 etc).

Bush continued his airport speech, according to news reports, by comparing the circumstances of the creation of both the United States and Israel, saying that both peoples have established democracies under very hard circumstances. Is this an admission that both the United States of America and Israel were states that were formed on land stolen from indigenous populations? Is it an admission that as these two states were being created, and ever since, the respective indigenous populations have been murdered, forced from their land, and oppressed by their colonisers? Is it an admission of the ghettos that the remaining indigenous people of both states have been forced into whilst their gaolers attempt to delude people with talk of freedom, liberty, and democracy? On all counts it seems very unlikely that this is what Mr Bush meant.

In the days leading up to the visit many Palestinian non-conformists had been arrested save giving people their right to voice an opinion. The majority of those rounded up in the days preceding the visit were not arrested by the IOF, but at the bequest of the U.S. by Palestinian Authority security services. Is this what Bush means by democracy? It would not however have been possible to arrest all those who did not support the President or his visit, there are not enough prison cells in all of Palestine, and by that I mean pre-1948 Palestine, for that to have been possible.

On the day Bush finally 'graced' the collection of bantustans now known as the 'West Bank' even the weather seemed to have picked up on the feelings of futility about this visit felt by many Palestinians, the sun refused to shine and instead a grey fog descended preventing Bush from boarding his expected short flight to Ramallah to meet Abu Mazen. He was forced to travel by road, and through checkpoints. But much as Bush's airport experience was world's apart from that of many visitors, so his checkpoint experiences would be unrecognizable from those suffered by Palestinians every single day. Roads were closed and Palestinians were kept well out of sight. After all, what a huge PR disaster it would have been for Israel if the President had to queue for hours in the damp weather, if he was beaten and insulted by teenage conscripts, or if he had been told he could not pass and must return back to the ghetto from which he came. On another day he may even have been forced to cut the umbilical cord and clean up the blood from yet another child born at a checkpont such as most recently happenned only a few days earlier in Al-Khalil (Hebron). Had his journey been unannouced he may have borne witness to more injuries to go with the 117 Palestinians injured by IOF gunfire in the seven days leading up to his visit, or worse still another death to go with the 22 Palestinians killed by the IOF over this same period. But none of this was seen on the day Bush came to town, at least not anywhere that the President may have been able to witness it.

It is reported that Bush's entourage included literally thousands of security personel, six helicopters, fifteen armoured vans, his personal cars, and fifteen dogs. This entourage was welcomed into Ramallah to meet Abu Mazen whilst local people were not allowed to walk the streets. Some families living in the area directly adjacent to the Muqarta (Abu Mazen's presidential compound) are reported to have been evacuated from their homes. All families living in properties within a one kilometre radius of the Mukarta were told not to use their roofs or balconies. The PA banned all demonstrations but did not succeed entirely in silencing opposition. In Ramallah, a demonstration was called by civil society organisations including the Palestinian Grassroots Anti Apartheid Wall Campaign, the Prisoners Association, and the National Committee to Commemorate the Nakba. As the demonstration attempted to reach Clock Square it was met with clubs and pepper spray, not weapons of the Occupation, but weapons of the Palestinian Authority security forces. News reports described many injuries and 'dozens' of arrests. This is another example of the model of 'democracy' George Bush wants to bring to Palestine, one where opposition is not tolerated.

Bush's reception in Bethlehem was much the same. Streets were closed off as was the city center, children were denied their education as schools were closed for the day. One angry Aida Camp resident described the city as 'similar to curfew days'. Another resident, only recently released himself from an Occupation prison, described scenes he had never witnnessed before:

"I have heard about people forced by oppressive rulers to celebrate a national day, or the King's birthday, but it is the first time I have witnessed how an entire people is arrested in order to secure the visit of the one supposed to bring peace for them?.

The President wanted to visit the Church of the Nativity, as do many international visitors to the city whether pilgrims or not. However, no other visitor except Bush, and the Occupation itself, has the ability to create 'curfew-like' conditions for the people who are in reality his true hosts - the people of Palestine, for if anybody can claim any semblance of 'ownership' of a country it is its people, and not its ruling elite. But in Bethlehem too, civil society made itself heard. Banners were hung around the city with their messages written in English including 'No Peace with Settlements', and 'Arafat's vision: Return of Refugees, Independance, Jerusalem'. Across Nativity Square from the church a few hundred Palestinains had gathered to express their rejection of Bush's visit and policies.

At his joint press conference with Abu Mazen in Ramallah Bush at one stage retorted:

?Do you want a democratic Palestinian State or the status quo??

With this simple question he once more, whether inadvertantly or otherwise, spoke volumes to reaffirm exactly the issues which many Palestinians, and supporters of justice worldwide, are opposed to. Clearly, nobody in Palestine wants to see a continuation of the 'status quo', but Bush's implication that his vision of a 'democratic Palestinian State' which he claims is a real possibility before the end of his term in office, is an acceptable alternative, is a view clearly not shared by many people. Are people meant to believe that this proposed state would be contiguous, that it would be based on pre-1967 borders (ie the Apartheid Wall is going to move), that Al Quds will be the working and accessible capital of the state for all Palestine's people, that ALL settlements will be removed given that they are ALL illegal according to international law, and that the Right of Return will be granted? Of course Bush would say their must be 'compromises' for peace - read this as 'Palestinians must give up their rights'. Civil society, and a widely held public opinion (ie a democratic choice), would both be labelled as 'hardline', 'extremist', or even 'fundamentalist', and 'obstacles to peace' for daring to challenge any 'offer' of a 'state' which would infact resemble no more than seperated bantustans, walled in, uncontiguous, and imprisoned, in the shadow of Settlements with over half a million residents, and a 'state' accomodating hundreds of thousands of refugees who are still denied their rights.

Bush went onto display another of his remarkable acts of denial which the world has sadly become so accustomed to when he spoke about Hamas in Gaza. He said that when Hamas was elected in January 2006 people hoped they could improve conditions for people living in the Gaza Strip, such as providing improved health care facilities and education, but that "they (Hamas) have delivered nothing but misery". The contradictions and denial which fill his words are hard to believe. Let us remember that it was his government which demanded of the Palestinian Authority that elections were held in 2006, he said then he was bringing democracy to the Middle East, only people voted for the wrong party (in Bush's eyes). The misery that followed the elections was a direct result of the international blockade placed upon the new democratic Palestinian Authority government and its people, and a continued result of the U.S. supported Occupation. It is this blockade that kept schools closed for months across Palestine as teachers couldnt be paid, it is this blockade that continues to see hospitals unable to treat sick patients, it is this blockade which has seen poverty and unemployment levels soar across Palestine. This blockade, his blockade against democracy and humanity, and his countries continued and ever expanding support for the Zionsit state, kills people. I am not denying that subsequent events in the internal Palestinian political arena have added to the despair and bloodshed but it is fair to question how things may have been different in this respect had the blockade never begun and if the democratically elected government, and the electorate, had been given their chance. The U.S. role in events in Gaza must also not be underestimated through their pressuring of Abbas to take on Hamas militarily.

How are Palestinians meant to have any hope in the actions or words of George W. Bush, and his entourage? A Nakba survivor from Aida Camp, a woman who has lived through every day of Israel's Occupation in exile, expressed what many people were thinking:

"Why all of that (security)? If I saw Bush in the street I would refuse to speak to him even if he wanted to... everyday he kills civilians in Iraq."

Her 13 year old grandson was similarly angry:

"Why did he come to Bethlehem if he didn't want to see how the people here lived?"

Bush's much touted US sponsored Annapolis Peace Summit was shunned by much of Palestinain civil society in the same way as was this weeks visit, again this was written off as the actions of a few 'extremists'. But has this shunning of Annapolis proved to have been misplaced? According to figures Mustapha Barghouti released this week, statistics reveal that Israeli military attacks, and killings of Palestinians, have increased by around 100% since the so-called 'Peace Summit'. It seems the voices written off as 'extremist' by the 'elite' may infact be the voices of clarity. Whilst Abu Mazen may have welcomed George Bush, Palestinian civil society did not. In Gaza, where the PA no longer have the power to disperse demonstrations, tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest against Bush's visit. In Ramallah, as previously described, protestors were attacked viciously. The Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, one of the organisations who called for the Ramallah protest, released a statement after the demonstration:

'We gathered today to raise our voices against everything that he (Bush) and the US administration represent: policies of war and Occupation, denial of Palestinian rights, the trampling of international law, and support for racist Zionism and ethnic cleansing. These policies are integral to the process discussed at the Annapolis conference in November. The Annapolis project, under the auspices of Bush, is designed to map out a future for the Palestinian people: a Bantustan government administered and controlled by a Palestinian Authority ruling the ghettos with the permission of the occupiers. This will never be acceptable for the Palestinian people.'

The statement continues to say:

'...While Abbas met and discussed with the closest ally of our oppressors, his men were deployed in the streets to beat and teargas any who voiced their objection'.

For the few hours that the George W. Bush circus was in the West Bank it demonstrated with the utmost clarity the respective positions of the 'haves and the have-nots' in this arena. Whilst the 'haves' sped through checkpoints unchallenged, arranged for the arrest of dissenting voices, and emptied the streets through violence or the threat of it, the 'have-nots' were banned from school, placed under curfew, beaten, and arrested... but they have not been silenced.



Rich Wiles