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COMMENTARY
Treating the symptoms
instead of the cause
By K Gajendra
Singh
Their body language said it all. US
President George W Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon at the White House press meeting on Tuesday
looked like a couple in some discomfort and disagreement
but with joint family interests to protect. Compared
with this uneasy encounter, just four days earlier there
were warmth and an air of understanding at the press
conference with Palestinian prime minister Mahmoud
Abbas, when a modest and persuasive Abbas pleaded for
understanding, fair play and justice.
But in
political life it is always the mind and not the heart
that decides. Even though Bush and his national security
adviser, Condoleezza Rice, now have a better
understanding of the Middle East problem - especially of
the under-construction 50-meter-wide wall snaking around
the occupied West Bank and gobbling up Palestinian land
- common US-Israeli strategic interests, Israeli
tentacles in the United States and empathy of US
neo-cons with the Israeli cause are powerful. But there
are now voices being raised in Israel and from Jewish
organizations in the US against the excesses of Sharon's
rule. It has brought neither security nor stability,
with 100 persons dying violently every month since the
second Intifada began 34 months ago.
But on
Tuesday, a 75-year-old and unsure Sharon made things
worse by losing concentration and fumbling over his
written statement. He said the two leaders had agreed
there would be no release of prisoners "with blood on
their hands", or those who were likely to return to
terrorism, or prisoners who, when released in the past,
resumed terror activities. However, there are children
13-14 years old who have not been charged even after
many years in jail. Sharon stressed terrorism and said:
"We are thankful for every hour of increased quiet and
less terrorism, and for every drop of blood that is
spared," but "at the same time, we are concerned that
this welcome quiet will be shattered any minute as a
result of the continued existence of terror
organizations which the Palestinian Authority is doing
nothing to eliminate or dismantle". He also praised Bush
for the US military success in toppling the regime of
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
While Bush didn't
fully endorse Israel's decision to build a security
fence separating Israel from the Occupied Territories,
he did not press Sharon on this point. But he asked
Israel to improve the daily lives of Palestinians:
"Israelis and Palestinians deserve the same chance to
live normal lives free from fear, free from hatred and
violence and free from harassment ... I also urged the
prime minister to carefully consider all the
consequences of Israel's actions as we move forward on
the road to peace."
Bush also agreed on the need
for Israel's security and specifically cited Hamas as a
threat to the peace process. "The Palestinian Authority
must undertake sustained, targeted and effective
operations to confront those engaged in terror and to
dismantle terrorist capabilities and infrastructure,"
Bush said. On the security wall Bush said: "I would hope
in the longer term the fence would be irrelevant. The
fence is a sensitive issue, I understand that." Sharon
indicated flatly that he had no plans to cease
construction of the fence. "The security fence will
continue to be built with every effort to minimize their
infringement on the daily life of the Palestinian
population," Sharon said.
Palestinian
information minister Nabil Amr described Sharon's
comments as "entirely negative ... This means there are
big obstacles in the way of the peace process and the
implementation of the roadmap," he said.
For
many cynics and critics of US policy in the Middle East,
the visits by Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen) to the
White House last Friday and Sharon on Tuesday were no
different from Bush's recent sweep through four West
Africa nations - just another spin to divert attention
from the failures of their administrations' policy.
Even before the dust had settled on Abbas' visit
there was a rejoinder from Israel. At the White House
press meeting with Abbas at his side, Bush had
criticized the fence erected by Israel: "I think the
wall is a problem, and I have discussed this with Ariel
Sharon. It is very difficult to develop confidence
between the Palestinians and the Israelis ... with a
wall snaking through the West Bank," Bush said.
An unnamed Israeli official contesting the use
of word "wall" said, "It is a shame that President Bush
did not use the correct term, 'security fence'. Israel
is not constructing a wall - it's the Palestinians who
use that term in a bid to persuade the world it's some
sort of Berlin Wall. This fence is a necessity and not a
choice - Sharon will explain that to President Bush when
he meets him," he said. The official noted that in the
past the US leader had "always championed Israel's right
to defend itself".
The wall, or security fence,
includes a network of earthworks, trenches and patrol
roads that will snake some 900 kilometers along the West
Bank, cutting many Palestinian communities into two and
adding large swaths of the territory to the Israeli
side. It is estimated that the wall could take away as
much as 12 percent of Palestinian territory. It is seen
as a bid to preempt negotiations on the final borders of
the Palestinian state. Sharon "will consider ways to
reduce, by as much as possible, infringements by the
security fence on the Palestinian populations' daily
lives", his office said.
A few hours before
Sharon left for Washington on Sunday, a decision to
release 100 Palestinian prisoners was announced and
Israeli army bulldozers began knocking down three
roadblocks in the West Bank to make it easier for
Palestinians to enter Israel for work. It included an
important one in Ramallah, whose Governor Mustafa
Liftawi urged Israel to remove 10 other checkpoints
around the town. Yitzhak Deri, deputy head of the nearby
Israeli civilian and military liaison office, said more
checkpoints would be lifted if calm prevails. Israel
also announced plans to withdraw troops from two more
Palestinian cities.
Although Israel has pulled
its troops out of the Gaza Strip and Bethlehem, they
remain surrounded by its troops. Israel has refused to
undertake general withdrawal from occupied Palestine
until disarming of militant groups responsible for
suicide bombings begins. If a few hundred Palestinian
prisoners out of more than 7,000 are released, new ones
are jailed. Israel is at its old game. While it is
evacuating a few settlements, it has begun new ones,
much to the dismay of US officials. The United States
has concentrated on persuading Israel to dismantle small
settler outposts in the West Bank. "We are also getting
to the point of taking up the issue of settlements per
se and growth," a US official said. But Israel maintains
that the settlements be allowed to expand to cover
demographic growth, even though the "roadmap to peace"
says all settlement activity should cease.
There
has been slow progress on the first phase of the
roadmap, despite Bush's personal interest. Secretary of
State Colin Powell admitted last week that the plan had
been stalled: "You can't go faster than circumstances
permit." Bush had promised many things and staked his
presidential prestige in Aqaba. If things do not work
out and Sharon is not forced into line soon, Bush might
back off, passing the Middle East buck to officials
rather than risk a personal setback. Any confrontation
might be risky with elections in mind. Bush could take
the line of earlier US presidents that if the parties
are not interested in peace there is little he can do.
That may be the outcome Sharon is aiming at. Once
Benjamin Netanyahu, when he was not received at the Bill
Clinton White House, reminded it that he was after all
the prime minister of Israel.
With his hands
full with Iraq, it is doubtful whether Bush, even if he
were willing, would have time to deal with a wily and
tough customer like Sharon, who recently mocked Abbas as
an impotent "chick without feathers" and "cry-baby".
Then there has been a sudden spurt in violence in
northern Iraq in spite of the recent killing of the sons
of Saddam Hussein in Mosul and the gruesome display of
their bodies, with the situation in Iraq showing little
improvement. India declined to send a division of troops
to northern Iraq, with many other nations showing
reluctance. With a US soldier or more being killed every
day and growing disaffection among US troops, Bush's
popularity has fallen at home. While the United Nations
welcomed a three-man delegation from the US-selected
Iraqi Governing Council, it did not bestow recognition
on it. The council has also not been accepted by the
Iraqi people at large. At home controversies continue to
rage: with no signs yet of weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq, the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) role in
inclusion of Iraq’s uranium purchase from Niger in the
president's State of the Union Address and the
institutional failure of US intelligence services in
stopping the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The lunch at the
White House was designed to bestow legitimacy on Abbas,
who was chosen as the Palestinian interlocutor after
Bush had announced last summer that he would not meet
the elected Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat. This is
the first high-level Palestinian visit to the White
House since Bush took over two years ago. Abbas has not
been embraced by the Palestinian masses and is on
probation to show results. In a TV interview in
Washington Abbas said, "If I don't receive anything in
exchange from the Israeli side, it means my policy has
failed and ... peace will be in danger."
Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in
Washington, Abbas said Israel had delayed its
obligations in the roadmap. "This pattern of hesitant
implementation has characterized Israel's approach." He
also said militant groups such as Hamas and Islamic
Jihad understood his commitment to ensure that the
Palestinian government is the only armed force in
Palestine but he is reluctant to meet Israeli and US
demands that he disarm the militants so they could never
attack Israelis again, as it would lead to a civil war.
Abbas urged Washington to make Israel release
some of the thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli
prisons, freeze the building of a security wall between
the West Bank and Israel and freeze the expansion of
Jewish settlements. He said the release of prisoners was
crucial in the maintenance of the ceasefire, agreed to
for three months by Palestinian militant groups. It has
held since June 29, despite isolated attacks on Israel.
Abbas said: "Prisoners are one of the main
constituencies for peace and an active player in the
conclusion and maintenance of the ceasefire." He added:
"Releasing them would strengthen the moderate elements
among the various groups and create a sense of inclusion
for these groups."
But Abbas only got promises.
Bush said, "This is the time of possibility in the
Middle East. People in the region are counting on the
leaders to seize opportunities for peace and progress."
He added that the US would "strive to see that promises
are kept " and monitor the progress along the roadmap to
the creation of a Palestinian state. Two senior US
officials are to travel later to look at economic
development, create jobs and decrease unemployment , now
at 70 percent in Gaza.
After Abbas' meeting with
Bush in Washington, Palestinian militants accused him of
capitulating to Israel. They added that comments by Bush
during the visit showed that the United States cared
only for Israeli concerns.
Any shift in US
policy is unlikely, with similar views and close
relationship between the hawk politician generals in
Israel and the extreme right wing of the US Republican
Party. If the United States succeeds in establishing a
military presence in Iraq with a friendly government,
Israel's importance as US gendarme in the region will
decrease, but that seems unlikely soon, with Iraq
looking like a quagmire. This ground reality has also
changed US relations with Turkey, which was the
recipient of tongue-lashing and arm-twisting after the
unexpected collapse of Iraqi armed forces at the gates
of Baghdad and US leadership on a high. But now the two
sides are making up.
The Palestine
Roadmap
The latest "roadmap" - the plan to
resolve the Middle East problem unveiled by Bush -
offers little to the long-suffering Palestinians except
demands on the Palestinian Authority to abandon the
struggle against Israel's ever-creeping occupation over
its territories and suppress those who are struggling
for their rights. Except for a brief reference soon
after September 11, 2001, Bush has shown little interest
in the problem. It was partly to humor and strengthen
his subservient ally British Prime Minister Tony Blair,
an advocate and supporter of the roadmap, and also to
appear fair in Arab and Muslim eyes, that Bush committed
himself to the roadmap's vision of two states side by
side at the Arab leaders' summit in Egypt last month and
declared that he wanted to see a "a continuous territory
that the Palestinians can call home". Then a formal
summit was held at Aqaba with the prime ministers of
Israel and Palestine and the host, King Abdullah of
Jordan.
The plan is divided into three phases
that are to culminate in the founding of a Palestinian
state by 2005. The first part demands an immediate
cessation of Palestinian violence, reform of Palestinian
political institutions, the dismantling of Israeli
settlement outposts built since March 2001 and a
progressive Israeli withdrawal from the Occupied
Territories in a series of confidence-building measures.
Next comes the creation of an independent Palestinian
state and an international conference. The third and
final stage will seek a permanent end to the conflict
with an agreement on final borders, the status of
Jerusalem, and the fate of Palestinian refugees and
Israeli settlements. Arab states would also sign peace
deals with Israel. The four godmothers who midwifed the
plan, the United States, the European Union, the United
Nations and Russia, would decide whether each stage had
been completed successfully.
But like a hazy
desert road, each stage gets progressively less well
defined and it is not clear what would constitute an
independent and sovereign Palestinian state. On the
basis of information available, it appears to be a
collection of apartheid-style Bantustans, wholly
subservient to a powerful Israeli state.
The
roadmap was issued only after the United States had
successfully coerced the Palestinians to implement the
first stage, a comprehensive political reforms. As
Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat, father of
Palestinian struggle since 1968, regularly and fairly
elected, could not be removed, he had to be sidelined.
So Abbas was elected as Arafat's’s replacement for
discussions with Washington. Abbas, a businessman and
former adviser to Persian Gulf rulers, had led the
discussions culminating in the Oslo Accords.
While Arafat continues to get the blame, he had
shown willingness for a settlement with Israel by
signing the Oslo Accords in 1993. But both Israel and
the United States then wanted to remove him because of
his subsequent refusal to go along with Israeli efforts
to rewrite the Oslo agreement and reduce the territories
making up a Palestinian state and legalize the vast
increase in the Israeli settlements on the West Bank and
the Gaza Strip. Arafat's fate was sealed when he failed
to suppress the Intifada that erupted in September 2000
as a result of Likud leader Ariel Sharon's provocative
visit to the Al-Aqsa mosque and Dome of the Rock on the
Temple Mount.
After assuming the post of prime
minister, Abbas has promised to combat terrorism "by any
party and in all its shapes and forms" as directed by
Washington. The United States had also insisted on
approving the cabinet list, which included Muhammad
Dahlan as the top security official because of his
proclaimed readiness to crack down on militant
Palestinian groups. A US-dependent Egypt pitched in by
pressuring Arafat to accept Dahlan. It was only after
Abbas had been installed that the roadmap was published.
An unnamed Bush official told the press candidly, "We're
telling people that this is the moment to build up
Abbas, and it undermines that objective if you treat
Arafat like he's still in charge. That cannot happen and
must not happen."
The first demand placed on the
Palestinian Authority was that it suppress militant
groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah's own
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. The document declares, "A
two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
will only be achieved through an end to violence and
terrorism, when the Palestinian people have a leadership
acting decisively against terror." A recipe for a civil
war among Palestinians, if Israel does not fulfill its
obligations.
Roots and history of the
problem
The Israeli-Arab problem is as old as
time, beginning from the days of the Trojan wars, the
struggle between the West and the East. Or the expulsion
and dispersal of Jews from Palestine. Or from the
differences between the Prophet Mohammed and the Jews in
Medina after the Hijra. Or the Christian Crusades to
recover the religious sites in the Holy Land, except
that the Crusaders had treated Jews as brutally as the
Muslims. Or even the Orthodox Christians at
Constantinople. And now, in the blunt words of US Deputy
Secretary of State Paul Wolfowitz, to control and
exploit the petroleum reserves under Arab lands.
After the rollback of Ottoman Turks from the
gates of Vienna in the 16th century, European powers
started moving into Islamic lands and from 18th century
onward progressively colonized them. The British had
already taken over Cyprus and Egypt but World War I
provided an opportunity for further colonial
acquisitions when Turkey sided with Germany. To protect
its Indian possession and the Suez Canal, its lifeline,
the British encouraged Arabs under Hashemite ruler
Sharif Hussein of Hijaj to revolt against the Ottoman
sultan caliph in Istanbul (and deputed spy T E Lawrence
to help out) with promises of independence.
But
the war's end did not bring freedom to the Arabs as at
the same time, by the secret Sykes-Picot agreement in
1916, the British and French had arbitrarily divided the
sultan's Arab domains and their warring populations of
Shi'ites, Sunnis, Alawite Muslims, Druzes, and
Christians. The French took most of Greater Syria,
dividing it into Syria and Christian-dominated Lebanon.
The British kept Palestine, Iraq and the rest of Arabia.
When Sharif Hussein's son Emir Feisel arrived in
Damascus to claim Syria, the French chased him out. So
the British installed him on the Iraqi throne. Feisel's
brother Emir Abdullah was granted a new Emirate of
Trans-Jordan, east of the River Jordan, encompassing
wasteland vaguely claimed by Syrians, Saudis and Iraqis.
By the 1917 Balfour Declaration, Britain had
also promised a homeland for Jews in Palestine. Under
the Versailles conference in 1920, Britain was made the
mandatory power for Palestine, which appointed Samuel
Butler, a liberal Jew, as the first high commissioner to
facilitate Jewish immigration and their settlement. So
the European Jews began migrating to Palestine, and the
trickle became a flood with the rise of anti-Semitic
policies in Nazi Germany and elsewhere in Europe. From
then onward started fights, pogroms and battles between
Palestinian Arabs and Jewish immigrants. After World War
II, the State of Israel was carved out of British
Palestine by the United Nations in 1948, but it was not
recognized by the Arabs. The United States recognized
Israel but not Palestine. In the ensuing first 1948
Arab-Israeli war, which the Arabs lost, Israel expanded
its area, while Jordan in collusion with Israel annexed
the West Bank and Egypt took over Gaza. Palestinians
were then just another Arab people up for grabs.
After the rise of Arab nationalism in the early
1950s led by Colonel Gamal Nasser of Egypt, socialists
and nationalists, mostly military officers, took over
the decaying medieval kingdoms of Yemen, Syria, Iraq and
Libya - much to the consternation of Western oil
companies. The Anglo-French attempt in collusion with
Israel to cut Nasser down to size in the 1956 Suez war,
opposed by the US and USSR, was an abject failure. But
in the six-day preemptive war of 1967, Israel captured
the West Bank from Jordan and Gaza from Egypt and
occupied Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and Syria's Golan
Heights. Thus were laid the foundations for Arab-Israeli
problems of the region. The core UN Resolution 242
requires that Israel vacate lands it occupied after the
1967 war.
From its very inception, almost all
its neighbors coveted Jordan. But astute King Hussein
(who ruled from 1953-99) not only survived a dozen
assassination attempts, he also fended off conspiracies
against his land. When Hussein died in 1999 of cancer,
the kingdom had become a keystone of equilibrium in the
region and a modern flourishing state, despite lacking
oil or other resources. Palestinians make up 60 percent
of Jordan's population (some Israeli leaders say that in
Jordan Palestinians already have their own state).
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) militants and
Palestinian army officers conspired against King Hussein
(King Abdullah, his grandfather, was assassinated by a
Palestinian in 1951), who expelled the Arafat-led PLO to
Beirut in early 1971. The Hashemite kings rely on tribal
Jordanians for security and armed forces and have
Chechens as their praetorian guards.
Menachem
Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, who became prime ministers of
Israel later and had fought savage guerrilla battles
against the British and the Arab Palestinians to create
the State of Israel, were no different from leaders of
Hamas, Islamic Jihad and others (it can be seen in
British archives). The British were unable to handle the
turbulent situation and handed over the problem to the
United Nations Organization (UNO), which in 1947 put
forward a plan to partition Palestine into Arab and
Jewish states.
Since then there have been three
regional wars between Israel and the Arabs (1948, 1967
and 1973) and two Palestinian uprisings (intifadas)
against Israeli occupation. It was either an Arab wish
to destroy the State of Israel or an Israeli attempt to
extend its (biblical) boundaries further into Arab
lands. With every war and uprising more Palestinians
came under Israeli control or left their homeland and
now number in the millions. After each war Israel gained
more territory. In 1948 it extended the Jewish areas
under the partition plan to its present internationally
recognized borders (but the Arabs of Israel do not have
full and equal rights as citizens).
From these
areas a large number of Palestinian refugees fled or
were forced to flee the Jewish state in 1948. After the
wars in 1948 and 1967, Israel began an illegal program
of building new settlements in the Occupied Territories,
which has continued all along and never really ceased.
The 1973 Yom Kippur war begun by Egypt made
Israel feel vulnerable and not that invincible. Only a
US military hardware air bridge and other help turned
the tide for the Israelis. But Egypt gained little while
oil-rich Gulf states became obscenely wealthy with
fourfold increases in crude prices. Egypt made a peace
deal with Israel in 1978 at Camp David after the
startling 1977 visit and address to the Israeli Knesset
(parliament ) by its president Anwar Sadat, who was
later assassinated for this treason by his own Islamist
group of soldiers. Egypt got territory back from Israel,
including oil wells in Sinai.
In 1982, when
Sharon was defense minister, Israel invaded Lebanon and
expelled Arafat and his guerrillas from there. It was
then that massacres took place at the Palestinian
refugee camps of Sabra and Chatilla, for which Sharon
was blamed after an inquiry. Arafat and his PLO
headquarters were made to move to Tunis.
Jordan
made peace with Israel after the Oslo Accords. In 1988
it had given up all its claims on the West Bank. But the
Israeli conflict with other Arab states such as Syria,
Lebanon, Iraq and others persists. It is said that there
can be no war against Israel without Egypt and no peace
without Syria (with its armed forces in Lebanon and its
support to Hizbolla). With Egypt neutralized, fears of a
regional or wider conflagration have receded but it has
spurred up Islamist terrorism, and hatred towards
Israel's Western backers, now primarily the United
States - even more so after the illegal US-UK-led
invasion of Iraq. But everyone agrees that great
injustice has been done to the Palestinians, now under
Israel control or as refugees spread elsewhere, with
millions still living in refugee camps.
Israel
after its agreement with Egypt thought that it had
resolved the problem of Palestinians under its
occupation, who also provided cheap labor. It was then
that Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, refusing
to be enslaved, revolted. This erupted as Intifada in
1987 in the Gaza Strip and then spread to the West Bank.
Later other organizations took over and claimed credit
for this spontaneous outburst of anger against
repression and thirst for freedom. Except for
stone-throwing by children, it was generally free from
violence from the side of the Palestinians. These
pictures on TV screens around the world brought home the
injustice being perpetrated on the Palestinians in their
own land.
The 1987 Intifada was somewhat like
Mahatma Gandhi's non-violent movement against the
British but in a Middle East setting. The Hashemite
Kingdom of Jordan used to screen on its TV channel
Richard Attenborough's film Gandhi on the
anniversary of Intifada in November, which was easily
received in the Occupied Territories, Israel, Syria and
the neighborhood. Its implicit message was to keep the
revolution (Intifada) non-violent and not let Israel
divide the Palestinian people in their struggle. The
horrendous results of change to violence with regular
killings of Israelis by suicide bombers coupled with
carnage and destruction by Israeli military planes,
helicopter gunships and missiles in the second Intifada
from September 2000 are there for all to see.
It
is amazing that those who suffered so much in the
Holocaust and for centuries earlier because of blind
prejudice in Europe and elsewhere are so capable of
inflicting the same unspeakable horrors on the lives of
others. What the Israelis are doing is indeed the action
of "terrorists" who accuse Palestinians of "terror".
When a person has to turn himself or herself into a
human bomb in order to fight for a cause, when children
throw stones at tanks, these are acts of desperation
from an oppressed people.
Israel is a powerful
country, backed by the mighty power of the United
States, both in money and in arms. The world recognizes
the plight of the Palestinians, and understands it, but
is unable do much about such incredibly inhumane events
such as in Jenin and elsewhere.
Israeli
solutions
Since the occupation of Palestinian
territories after the 1967 war, the major policy debate
in Israeli military and political elites has been about
how to keep maximum land (and water and other resources)
with minimum Palestinian population. Annexation of
heavily populated Palestinian land, with high
birthrates, would have created a "demographic problem"
and reduced Jewish majority. (Massive emigration from
Russia was encouraged and organized in the early 1990s.)
So two solutions have been considered. The Labor Party's
Alon plan consisted of annexation of 35-40 percent of
the Occupied Territories, and either Jordanian rule or
some form of autonomy for the remaining land to which
the Palestinian population would be assigned.
It
was as necessary a compromise as it was inconceivable to
repeat the "solution" of the 1948 independence war, when
much of the land was obtained "Arab-free", after mass
expulsion of the Palestinians (nearly 700,000 were
forced to flee). But in keeping with Sharon's character,
the second solution now remains the mission how to get
more land by finding a more acceptable and sophisticated
"1948-style" solution, ie squeeze out as many
Palestinians as possible. "Jordan is Palestine" was the
phrase Sharon and other leaders had coined in the 1980s.
The 1993 Oslo Accords were along the lines of
the Alon plan to which Arafat had agreed. In the past,
the Palestinians had always opposed such plans, which
would take away too much of their land. Arafat had
agreed only because he was getting old and losing his
grip on the Palestinian society. There was opposition to
his dictatorial one-man rule and open corruption in his
organization. This is a problem with all revolutionary
organizations when they acquire levers of power. In this
case funds meant for the PLO were distributed among
close associates (some of them looking quite well fed
and content), which was being talked about openly.
Only an apparent "smashing victory" could have
kept Arafat in power. So behind the back of the
Palestinian negotiating team headed by Haider Abd
al-Shafi, Arafat accepted an agreement that left all
Israeli settlements intact, even in the Gaza Strip,
where 6,000 Israeli settlers occupy one-third of the
land, while a million Palestinians are crowded in the
rest. But as time went by, Israel extended the
"Arab-free" areas by new settlements and connecting
roads etc in the Occupied Territories to about 50
percent of their land. Labor circles began to talk about
the "Alon Plus" plan, namely even more land to Israel.
That would have still allowed some kind of self-rule in
the remaining 50 percent of land under Palestinians, but
like Bantustans in South Africa. Palestinians would be
left with less than 20 percent of 1945 Palestine under
the British mandate. This is what Sharon dreams: to
break the unity of Palestine nationalism.
At the
time of Oslo Accords, the majority of Israelis were
tired of war. They thought fights over land and water
resources were over. Haunted by the memory of the
Holocaust, most Israelis believed that the 1948 War of
Independence, with its horrible consequences for the
Palestinians, was necessary to establish a state for the
Jews. But now both sides with their states could live
normally and peacefully. Most people on both the sides
believed that what they were witnessing were just
"interim agreements" and that eventually the occupation
would somehow end, and the settlements would be
dismantled. Two-thirds of Jewish Israelis supported the
Oslo agreements in the polls. It was obvious there was
no stomach for any new wars over land and water.
But the ideology of war over land never died out
in the army, or in the circles of politically
influential generals, whose careers moved from the
military to the government. From the start of the Oslo
process, the maximalists objected to giving even that
much land and rights to the Palestinians. This was most
visible in military circles, whose most vocal spokesman
was then chief of staff Ehud Barak, who objected to the
Oslo agreements from the start. Another beacon of
opposition was, of course, Ariel Sharon. In 1999, the
army got back to power through the politicized generals
- first Barak, and then Sharon.
So the
maximalist generals-turned-rulers decided to correct
what they view as the grave mistakes of Oslo. In their
eyes, Sharon's alternative of fighting the Palestinians
to the bitter end and imposing new regional order may
have failed in Lebanon in 1982 because of the weakness
of the soft Israeli society, but now, given the new war
philosophy established through US military operations in
Iraq, Kosovo, and, later, Afghanistan, the political
generals believed that with Israel's massive air
superiority, it might still be possible to execute that
vision. However, in order to get there, it was first
necessary to convince the Israeli society that, in fact,
the Palestinians were not willing to live in peace, and
were still threatening Israel's very existence. Sharon
alone could not have possibly achieved that, but Barak
did succeed with his generous offer- fraud. There was no
real offer on the table. It was a media-assisted
creation like the belief created in the US population
that Iraqis were responsible for September 11.
The Israeli press is as obedient as elsewhere,
and it recycles faithfully the military and governmental
messages. But part of the reason it is more revealing is
its lack of inhibition. Things that would look
outrageous in the world are considered natural daily
routine.
Earlier the world was made to believe
that Israel was willing to withdraw even from the
occupied Syrian Golan Heights. In the polls, 60 percent
of the Israelis, hoping for peace, had enthusiastically
supported dismantling all settlements in the Golan
Heights. But the end of this round of peace negotiations
ended in the same way as with Palestinians. It was made
out that Syrian leader Hafiz al-Assad did not comprehend
and had let the opportunity slip. Israelis then became
convinced that it was the rejectionist Assad who was
unwilling to get his territories back and make peace
with Israel. Assad was a cool and wise statesman and was
not fooled. Those close to the military now say that
Hizbolla, Syria and Iran are trying to trap Israel in a
"strategic ambush" and that Israel has to evade that
ambush by setting one of its own, ie another war like
the 1967 preemptive war. And they are encouraging hawks
in the US administration in that direction. The US and
UK have shown the way in Iraq by their war on Iraqis to
disarm Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction.
Why did Barak permit Sharon a provocative visit
to Temple Mount/Haram to ignite the boiling frustrations
accumulated in the Palestinian society? The massive
security forces used rubber bullets against unarmed
demonstrators. When the visit triggered more
demonstrations the next day, Barak escalated the
shootings and ordered Israeli forces and tanks into
densely populated Palestinian areas. By all indications,
the escalation of Palestinian protest into armed clashes
could have been prevented had the Israeli response been
more restrained. Even in the face of armed resistance,
Israel's reaction had been grossly out of proportion, as
stated by the General Assembly of the UN, which
condemned Israel's "excessive use of force" on October
26, 2000.
The first Palestinian terrorist attack
on Israeli civilians inside Israel took place on
November 2, 2000, a month after Israel used its full
military machine against Palestinians including
helicopters, tanks and missiles. So it was not defense
against terrorism as claimed by Israel. It would appear
that another plan to destroy the Palestinian
infrastructure and to discredit Arafat, ie that he had
never given up the "option of violence", was ready in
October 2000 and are contained in a manuscript known as
the "White Book".
Professor Tanya Reinhart
suggests in her book Israel/Palestine that
despite the horrors of the past two years, there is
still another alternative. "Israel should withdraw
immediately from the territories occupied in 1967. The
bulk of Israeli settlers (150,000 of them) are
concentrated in the big settlement blocks in the center
of the West Bank. These areas cannot be evacuated
overnight. But the rest of the land (about 90-96 percent
of the West Bank and the whole of the Gaza Strip) can be
evacuated immediately. Many of the residents of the
isolated Israeli settlements that are scattered in these
areas are speaking openly in the Israeli media about
their wish to leave. It is only necessary to offer them
reasonable compensation for their property. The rest ...
are a negligible minority that will have to accept the
will of the majority."
That would leave only six
to 10 percent of territories under occupation with large
settlement blocks. This, along with the issues of
Jerusalem and the right of return, could be left for
negotiations, after the Palestinian society begins to
recover, settle on the land that the Israelis evacuate,
construct political institutions and develop its
economy. According to a Dahaf poll of May 6 solicited by
Peace Now, 59 percent supported a unilateral withdrawal
of the Israeli army from most of the Occupied
Territories, and dismantling most of the settlements.
Only this can renew the peace process.
Conclusion
In the evolutionary ladder
of governance, societies have moved up from the tribal
model when the warrior chief, sometimes the head priest
too, was the ruler. Security of the tribe and wars was
their major preoccupation. Israel is the first Jewish
state in history after two millennia. It is barely 50
years old. Based on its history of persecution leading
to the Holocaust, inputs of messianic religious fervor,
labor (kibbutz) ideals and other ideas brought by its
ruling elite, mostly from the European states, the
warrior-king construct dominates Israel's state
philosophy and the political system, situated as it is
among almost implacably hostile Arabs (tribes). "The
hundreds of ex-generals who man most of the key posts in
[the Israeli] government and society are not only a
group of veterans sharing common memories. The
partnership goes much deeper. Dozens of years of service
in the regular army form a certain outlook on life, a
political world view, ways of thinking and even
language."
For example, the decision to kill
senior Hamas official Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi, who
escaped, could have very grave consequences. The
decision was made by five generals: Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon, a retired two-star general; Defense Minister
Sha'ul Mofaz, a retired three-star general; Chief of
Staff Moshe Ya'alon, a serving three-star general;
Mossad chief Me'ir Dagan, a former one-star general; and
Security Service chief Avi Dichter, with a rank
equivalent to a three-star general.
Unfortunately, policies and plans of Israel's
political generals have now become intertwined into the
views of US neo-conservatives such as Vice President
Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, his
deputy Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and others. In the
name of the fight against terrorism, more terror is
being rained by Israel, where stability, security and
peace remain elusive.
K Gajendra
Singh, Indian ambassador (retired), served as
ambassador to Turkey from August 1992 to April 1996.
Prior to that, he served terms as ambassador to Jordan,
Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman of the
Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies. E-mail: gajendrak@hotmail.com
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
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