Updates from AIJAC

Palestinian self-inflicted wounds

Today’s Update focuses on the costs to Palestinian society of Arafat’s leadership and his resort to war two years ago and speculates on its future.

The first piece comes from Avi Davis, a senior editorial columnist for Jewsweek.com and the author of The Crucible of Conflict: Jews, Arabs and the West Bank Dilemma, to be published later this year. Writing in Israelinsider, Israel’s daily news magazine, Davis illuminates the signs that the Palestinian terror campaign is ultimately turning on Palestinian society. The second comes from visiting Middle East authority Daniel Pipes, writing in his regular Jerusalem Post column, highlights the devastation that Arafat’s war option has foisted upon Palestinian society. Finally, Harvey Sicherman, president of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, explores the significance of the recent developments in Bush’s Middle East policy and its chances of assisting the creation of reformed Palestinian administration and society.

The Palestinian revolution's vision of darkness

Avi Davis

Israelinsider August 6, 2002

It should have been no surprise to anyone that among the victims in Sunday's bus bombing in the Galilee were Arabs. The Galilee's population is 52% Arab and it is inevitable that any attack on a bus in that region would have an impact on that population. So too the destruction in Hebrew University's cafeteria last Wednesday. A university that proudly boasts a population 15% Arab should statistically have expected to find Arabs among the dead. It certainly shouldn't have surprised most Israelis who can now finally appreciate the true nature of the terrorist campaign they are facing: any Israeli institution, including the ones that service or care for Arabs, is a potential target. This would seem to include hospitals, day care centers, fire stations and welfare organizations. It goes a long way to answering the question posed by Alistair Goldrein, a British student studying at the Hebrew University when he asked: "Why would someone target this university - it is what was best about Israel."

Why, indeed. The good intentions of liberal institutions or service organizations are largely irrelevant to the master planners of Palestinian terrorism. For them the secular education offered by the Israelis is a trap, designed to goad Arabs from their culture and shatter Palestinian unity. So too are the hospitals where world class physicians often sweat to save Arab life. So are the Israeli human rights groups who actively lobby for their interests and protection. All of these well intentioned people are regarded as indistinguishable from other Zionists "occupying" Palestinian land - a land categorically defined by Hamas as stretching from the Mediterranean to the Jordan.

The spiral of self deception into which the Palestinians are rapidly spinning has as its practical source the acceptance by the international media and European governments that Palestinian terrorists are freedom fighters no different in nature than the French resistance during Second World War. But a poorer analogy could not be imagined. The French resistance, which eventually unified communists, socialists and nationalists under the banner of the Forces Francaises de l'interiuer, not only had as its goals the liberation of German-occupied French territory, but the restoration of a French democratic republic and the reinstitution of French law.

Furious debate was entered by members of the resistance on the nature of that renewed French republic, giving rise to the ideological rifts that characterize French society to this day. But the important point is that debate ensued and the unifying theme of that debate was that only a vigorous democracy could save France from a decent into renewed authoritarianism or even civil war.

The Palestinians have no such mechanism vouchsafing the progress and prosperity of their in choate state. There is no visible debate on the nature of such a state (although there is considerable tension between the religious and secular in that society); there are no intellectuals or statesmen who feel free to talk openly about the challenges of democracy; there is no room for moderates whose voices are silenced in the popular call for jihad. No, the Palestinian state-in-making speaks only in the language of hatred. Today the target is Israel but with the increasingly apparent failure to achieve any concrete political objective, the rancor and hatred unleashed by their venomous campaign is likely to turn inward. The most probable outcome is therefore not victory but civil war.

But an even graver malady afflicts the Palestinian people. Their cause has been hi-jacked, not by a resistance front but by revolutionaries. Hamas, which has stepped into the vacuum left by Arafat's corrupt Palestinian Authority, does not merely seek to eject what it perceives as foreign occupation of its land. It seeks no less than the total transformation of Palestinian society. Its militant Islamist message resonates as prescriptive change reminiscent of many other historical revolutionary movements — conceived in high ideals, reverting to violence and ending in butchery.

So those looking for historical analogies should not waste time examining France of the 1940s. They should recall France of the 1790s when another revolution, conceived with noble aspirations reverted to carnage and destroyed itself in a frenzy of blood letting. That cynical Frenchman Albert Camus once commented that "every revolutionary ends either as an oppressor or as a heretic." He might have also added that most die at the hand of their own people. The leaders of the Palestinian Revolution, wading knee deep in blood and accustomed only to the language of hate, should now be put on notice that history is unlikely to make an exception for any of them. Born in blood, they will likely die in blood.

And no one should be surprised when this revolution begins to devour its own children.

Despite appearances, Israel is winning

Daniel Pipes

Jerusalem Post Aug. 6, 2002

Despite appearances to the contrary, Israel is defeating the Palestinians.

For one piece of proof, note this reversal a few weeks ago: Yasser Arafat announced his belated acceptance of a generous Israeli offer that he had spurned two years earlier. This time, however, the Israelis responded with disdain.

To be sure, the Palestinian campaign of terror continues apace, with frequent bloody successes. But it has failed to have the intended effect of demoralizing Israelis. Quite the contrary, the violence has promoted a sense of resolve and unity the likes of which Israel has not enjoyed for decades.

"Rather than undermine our morale, the terrorist attacks only strengthen our resolve," observes the writer Yossi Klein Halevi. A "notoriously fractious society has rediscovered its commonality," he concludes.

In contrast, consider three ways in which the Palestinians' own violence is causing them to suffer, lose ground, and have doubts:

Palestinian impoverishment.

Two years of terrorism has brought on huge economic losses to Palestinians. Unemployment is variously estimated between 40 percent and 70%. Underemployment is no less dramatic: "University graduates, architects and engineers, men who once wore suits, now hawk flavored water, fruit, paper napkins and chewing gum alongside street children with their hands [outstretched] for alms," reports The Chicago Tribune.

As a result, over 50% of residents on the West Bank and some 80% in Gaza live below the poverty line, according to one recent survey. Just getting food is a problem.

"I've been confined to my home for more than a month. I have eight children, we've eaten all we have," laments a felafel seller in Nablus.

He is hardly alone: preliminary results of a survey conducted in the Palestinian areas by Johns Hopkins University finds 30% of children suffering from chronic malnutrition and another 21% from acute malnutrition. (This said, even the Palestinians acknowledge that no one has died of starvation.) The Palestinian Authority itself is nearly bankrupt, unable to pay salaries or other expenses.

Palestinian depression.

Palestinian violence has ended normal life in the West Bank and Gaza, where the population labors under curfews, transportation barely moves, schools are mostly shut, and hospitals hardly function.

The result is severe depression.

"Today is my wedding day and I want to die," exclaimed a bride who had few guests at her wedding, no food to serve them, and hardly any presents from them.

Misery leads some Palestinians to even contemplate the unmentionable.

"I don't say [Israeli] occupation would be better," said a farmer in Jericho who let his peppers wilt on the vine. "But if they were occupying us, at least the city might be open," permitting his produce to get to market.

More broadly, 55 Palestinian intellectuals and public figures signed a petition in June condemning the continuation of suicide bombings in Israel. Ehud Ya'ari of the Jerusalem Report notes that "instead of automatic applause for the attacks, there is now a readiness to allow expressions of doubtfulness and dissent."

Palestinian recruitment woes.

The unremitting Palestinian campaign of violence has prompted what appear to be effective Israeli countermeasures. Destroying the houses of suicide bombers' families, for example, dissuaded at least two would-be suicide bombers in recent days from carrying out their operations. Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, for one, detects in this particular development "the initial signs of deterrence" at work.

The highly trained cadres of the war's opening months have been replaced by hastily recruited volunteers or in some cases (such as the planted bomb at the Hebrew University cafeteria) different means entirely. Hamas publicly acknowledges that it needs to find new methods against Israel, suggesting that the 70 suicide attacks of the past two years cannot be sustained.

The unwillingness of Hamas leaders to dispatch their own children to their deaths adds piquancy to this evolution. Israeli media have widely played recordings of a Hamas leader's wife as she is entreated to allow her son to become "one of the martyrs." To this she stiffly replies that the boy "is not involved in any of that... my son is busy with his studies."

In brief, terrorism is not working. It takes a toll on the Palestinians without having the intended effect on Israel. Barring a major change, the Palestinians will wear themselves out fairly soon, probably by the year's end.

Bush’s Palestine

Harvey Sicherman

Peacefacts - Volume 9, Number 2, July 2002

Ever since the failed Camp David Summit of July 2000, the Arab-Israeli conflict has been shaped by a striking anomaly. All the parties -- Arab, Israeli, European, and American -- have concluded that a peaceful Palestinian state must be part of a final solution to the conflict. But nearly two years of violence pressed by the Palestinian leadership have convinced the same parties that Arafat and the Palestinian Authority, as currently constituted, cannot create such a state. How then to go forward?

On June 24, 2002, George W. Bush offered an answer to this question when he reaffirmed support for a Palestinian state but only one with a leadership not tainted by corruption and terrorism. Washington would not play midwife to a deformed state. Instead, Bush sketched a three-year period of Palestinian preparations, helped (perhaps guided would be more accurate) by the U.S. and others, to suppress terror, practice democratic politics, and create an honest financial system. Midway through, the President foresaw a Palestine with provisional borders. At the end there would be secure and recognized borders between Israel and Palestine plus negotiated solutions to Jerusalem, settlements, and refugees.

Bush's speech, although only seventeen minutes long, reportedly went through twenty-eight drafts, a vast number even by Washington's prolix standards. This reflects a serious struggle for the President's mind, between the war against terrorism that brooks no exception for special causes and the devilish complexities of the U.S. role in the Middle East: ally and mediator, peacemaker and belligerent, superpower and coalitionist.

By all accounts the two suicide bombings on June 12 and June 18 -- the last claimed by the al Aqsa Brigades tied to Arafat's Fatah Party and his payroll -- confirmed the President's view that Arafat was not only part of the problem but on the wrong side of the war against terrorism.

After the six-day delay because of the violence, Bush delivered his speech flanked by the Secretaries of State and Defense and the National Security Advisor. Powell quickly informed The New York Times (June 25) of his robust support for the policy, hoping to end speculation over quarrels in the Administration. Still, there could be no doubt that Bush's speech favored one approach over another.

The internal debate might be seen this way. Powell's earlier idea of an international conference to sketch political horizons was a device to commit the U.S. to a plan of action and to give Arafat reasons to call off the war. It would have been another version of what had been attempted last year by the Mitchell-Tenet plans and U.S. endorsement of a Palestinian state but more so; more detail about American views on final status issues and a more definite timeline for statehood. This time around, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan would also be urging Arafat to take the lifeline. But this option carried its own perils. The new proposals might look like a reward for terrorism, enough to rouse domestic and Israeli opposition but not enough to satisfy the Palestinians.

On this last point Arafat hastened to signal flexibility. He dispatched his chief negotiator Saeb Erekat to Washington with a Palestinian peace plan while informing the Israelis through an interview that he now accepted the Clinton ideas, circa December 2000. This appeared dubious twice over: urging Bush to adopt Clinton's approach and Sharon to adopt Barak's. Add to that the bombings and Arafat had given Washington a short course in why he was no longer a partner.

Opposition to the political horizonists was thus strengthened paradoxically by the would-be Palestinian beneficiaries themselves. Still, even in Washington, you cannot defeat something with nothing. Bush therefore took a new approach.

The Palestinian partner had to be rehabilitated and only then would statehood be granted in stages. Out went the conference to confer early statehood; in went demands for a "new Palestine" and, in the final tweaking after the bombings, the President's insistence on a new leadership. There would be no reward for terrorism; these requirements were significantly higher than those demanded by Washington before the intifada and there was nothing in them that resembled the Clinton "parameters."

REACTIONS TO THE SPEECH

Conflicting internal views about the speech and its lengthy editing process left outsiders in possession of outdated leaks about its ultimate form. Reactions therefore ranged from the outraged to the confused to the cautious. Those pundits who demanded Bush's "engagement" on behalf of a U.S. plan evidently assumed that it would have to be one that accelerated Palestinian statehood and Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines; the "plan" offered by the President was therefore a grievous disappointment. Others faulted Bush for laying too much emphasis on displacing Arafat either because they saw the problem as bigger than the Rais (e.g., the Palestinian people or Islam in general) or because they could not conceive of an alternative to Arafat. The Europeans (and the UN) fell into this latter category where they were joined by the main Arab states.

This soon proved embarrassing. America's allies in the war against terrorism were now defending an Arafat not only "tainted" by terrorism but more importantly with a year-long record of unfilled promises on the subject. Those who argued to Bush that nothing could happen without the Palestinian leader were silent about what could happen with him. In the final analysis, however, no European leader wanted a big public fight with Bush over Arafat.

The Arab governments reacted very carefully, finding in Bush's words encouragement that the ending of Israel's occupation would be followed sooner rather than later by a Palestinian state.

As for reforms, why even the Palestinians favored them. The speech was "balanced," said Egyptian President Mubarak, but it needed clarification and details, a position shared by the Saudi foreign minister.

The Palestinians rallied briefly behind Arafat's honor while he pretended that the "new leadership" did not exclude him. Evidence abounded that the Rais and his men expected a very different speech. The "hundred days of reform"; the shifting of posts and personalities; the official Palestinian plan delivered to Washington; Arafat's talk about the Clinton proposals -- all seemed intended to show that the Palestinians would be "reformed and ready" for statehood and final status talks in only a few months, with an election thrown in later to confirm it all. But this was not Bush's idea of Palestine.

In Jerusalem, the Israelis were elated. Sharon's dogged insistence that Arafat was behind the violence, disqualifying him as the Palestinian partner, was now U.S. policy. But the Israelis still had an existential problem, the war itself. Within a week of Bush's speech, the IDF had reoccupied all the major Palestinian towns except a quiet Jericho and the Gaza Strip. The Israelis were also constructing a fence across the West Bank on lines that the Palestinians (and some Israeli settlers) feared lest they become permanent borders. A lengthy Israeli military occupation of Palestinian cities and unilateral decisions on final status issues would be a highly combustible outcome for all, including the Sharon government.

POST-OSLO: BUSH'S PALESTINE

Bush's speech and Israel's return to the Palestinian cities ended the formality of Oslo and, with it, Arafat's status as a partner for peace. Those who argued that Arafat must remain the partner because of his essentially uncontested election in 1996 overlooked this fact: he had been and would continue to be a Palestinian leader but his position as Rais of the Palestinian Authority -- and the Authority itself -- owed its legitimacy to Oslo. Arafat's intifada and his renewed alliance with terrorists had violated the heart of his pact with Israel; he had disqualified himself, bringing the Palestinians neither peace nor victory. This had now been recognized by the United States.

Yet, the circumstances that produced Oslo were still evident. Both sides hate the status quo, neither will risk a final status deal and no outside power, in the absence of directly applied military force, can alter these facts. Bush's proposals are therefore another attempt to take an intermediate step in the hope that subsequent improvements would lead either to the long-awaited final agreement or at least to a more comfortable stopping place. Unlike Oslo, however, the U.S. and other governments will be taking a much closer hand rather than relying on Israel and the Palestinians to sort it out.

Bush's Palestine is predicated upon the ability of outside powers, including the U.S., the E.U., Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, to work with the Palestinians in rehabilitating their bid for statehood. This means loosening Arafat's grip on purse and pistol, improving the security and economic situation quickly, and consequently shortening the Israeli occupation of densely populated Palestinian areas.

Can it be done? The two-fold tests of honest administration and suppression of terrorism can be passed by an internationally assisted Palestinian leadership willing to do so. The donors know how to control the purse strings; and the CIA, the Mossad, Egypt's and Jordan's secret services can work the security issue. In short, where lies the will lies the way.

That will, however, depends upon American pressure both to start or to stop the business if the Palestinians backslide or others, including Israel, fail to deliver. U.S. approval or lack thereof is thus key to the scheme. It cannot be assumed, of course, that the American standard of performance will be accepted by everyone or even that Washington will have the stamina to stay the course. Yet, the parties do not have much choice except to try Bush's ideas unless they prefer a violent occupation that carries the risk of a broader war.

To sum up: the next six months will tell whether Bush's Palestine has a chance. The "international mandate for Palestine" is workable if the parties want it; the best argument for this is the severity of the status quo. Large steps toward a peaceful if not wholly democratic or efficient Palestinian state can be taken despite Arafat's objections so long as the U.S. and its allies in this matter are steadfast in their purposes.