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Treating the Symptoms Instead of the Cause - UN Security Council - Global Policy Forum Treating the Symptoms Instead of the Cause
By K Gajendra Singh*
Asia Times
July 31, 2003Their 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.
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