Next Steps in Arab-Israeli Peacemaking (JCPA) JERUSALEM CENTER FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS) Jerusalem Viewpoints No. 543 by Zalman Shoval 06/01/06)
Source: http://jcpa.org/jl/vp543.htm
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The U.S. military victory in Iraq did at first create a more
congenial atmosphere among Palestinians for peace with Israel.
However, the present situation in Iraq, as well as Iran and Muslim
fundamentalism in general, have caused matters to move in the
opposite direction. The Palestinians are further away from a spirit
of reconciliation and compromise than ever before. Terrorists
everywhere are feeling emboldened by what they see, at least for
now, as an American failure.
While pragmatic Westerners tend not to give too much weight to
ideological statements by Palestinians, this is a mistake. Article 6
of the Hamas covenant says that the organization "strives to raise
the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine." Just like the
rantings of Iran´s president, this should not be seen as some
bizarre religious, extremist oration, but as the concrete
Islamist "roadmap" and action plan it is.
There are those in the West who believe that once Hamas has had
to face the realities of governance, it will moderate its
intransigent views. But neither the Taliban, the Iranian ayatollahs,
nor Saddam and the two Assads grew moderate while in office. Neither
did Arafat.
Contrary to what is often claimed, only a fraction of the
Palestinians voted for Hamas because of its promise to clean up the
corruption and inefficiency of the previous Fatah regime.
Palestinians voted for Hamas because they identified with Hamas´
aims against Israel - including terror. They clearly recognized that
they were electing a party that ruled out any form of permanent
peace with Israel.
There is a growing tendency within the Palestinian body politic
to de-emphasize the quest for separate Palestinian statehood, and to
aim for a state in the whole of Palestine after having eliminated
the State of Israel. Even prior to the Hamas victory, a two-state
solution didn´t necessarily mean that the Palestinians wouldn´t
continue to try to undermine the existence of Israel as a Jewish
state.
Unfortunately, experience has shown (and I was a supporter
of "disengagement") that Israeli withdrawals and concessions do not
bring about Palestinian moderation and reduce the conflict but
actually create escalation.
The "Peace Process" Illusion
If I were to ask people at most Washington think-tanks about what is
still called the "peace-process," many would continue to frame their
replies on the Oslo agreements or on the international "roadmap."
This would have been an illusion even before the Hamas election
victory. Oslo was moribund almost from the beginning, and it was
dead and buried after the 2000 Camp David talks, which led to
Arafat´s so-called "Al-Aqsa Intifada."
The abject failure of Oslo and Arafat´s terror offensive has
engendered among Israelis a strong sentiment in favor of
unilateralism. The Israeli security fence is a concrete embodiment
of this approach. Especially after the failure of "Oslo" became self-
evident, there was talk about some sort of "unilateral separation."
The idea was that with no realistic prospect for a final, formal
peace agreement to be signed anytime soon, based on premises that
could be acceptable both to Israel and the Palestinians - and in
order to break the impasse, and taking into account the demographic
realities, as well as international developments - the only way
forward was to take unilateral steps.
Of course, "unilateral" is a bit of a misnomer, as not only was it
hoped that there would be certain dealings with the Palestinian
side - now mostly discontinued because of the Hamas victory - but it
was always clear that the United States, as well as other players,
would turn the unilateral element into a multilateral one; for
instance, the Egyptian role or the European role at the border
crossings between Gaza and Israel. Most important were the perceived
American assurances to Israel with regard to the eventual borders on
the West Bank, to include the large settlement blocs, and with
regard to the so-called Palestinian "right of return." Without those
assurances, there might not have been sufficient support for the
disengagement from Gaza.
Sharon had declared that the security fence should not be seen as a
political border and it isn´t, but it obviously is a point of
departure, a point of reference, for a future border if permanent
status talks should actually take place one day. One often over-
looked point is that the Arab side with which Israel signed the 1949
armistice agreement - Jordan - never claimed that the
temporary "green line" was a state border. Quite the contrary, they
specifically stated - and this is well-documented - that the "green
line" was not to be a border but only a temporary armistice line.
There is no denying that Mahmoud Abbas is a more pleasant and
positive person than his predecessor, Yasser Arafat. He was also on
record as being against terror - "because it hurt the Palestinian
cause." But the real question is whether anything has concretely
changed on the Palestinian side, not in words but in facts and
prospects. Unfortunately, Abbas has granted Hamas political
legitimacy instead of disarming and disbanding it. He also told the
New York Times in an interview that his goals and principles did not
deviate in any way from those of Arafat.
There are also outside factors that impact on the present state of
the peace process. The U.S. military victory in Iraq did at first
enhance the prospects of success for the American-led effort to
further democracy in the Arab world - and perhaps created a more
congenial atmosphere among Palestinians for peace with Israel.
However, the present situation in Iraq, as well as Iran and Muslim
fundamentalism, in general, have caused matters to move in the
opposite direction. Democratization in the Arab world is on hold, if
not dead, and the Palestinians are further away from a spirit of
reconciliation and compromise than ever before. Actually, the
present situation has created a vicious cycle, with Hamas, Syria,
Iran, terrorists, and fundamentalists everywhere feeling
collectively and separately emboldened by what they see, at least
for now, as an American failure.
The Israeli Elections
The election results in Israel to a large extent were a direct
result of the Hamas victory among the Palestinians. Even before,
there wasn´t too much confidence in talks with the Palestinians, but
after the Hamas victory there is a broad consensus in Israel that
there is no one to talk to, and that, therefore, unilateral steps of
one sort or another are the only practical option.
The Israeli election results were strange; one could almost say that
everybody lost - except for two parties: Lieberman´s "Israel Is Our
Home" Party, supported mainly but not exclusively by immigrants from
the former Soviet Union, which got 11 seats; and the
real "Cinderella" of the elections, the Pensioners´ Party, which got
7 seats - including many votes from young people as a sort of
protest vote. Kadima got 29 seats, about 10 fewer than it and the
pollsters expected; Labor suffered its severest electoral defeat in
the 76 years of its existence; and Likud went down to utter defeat -
though some hold that its votes were only redistributed between
itself and Kadima which some people tend to regard as "Likud lite."
Both Labor´s talk about still trying to negotiate, and Likud´s
approach that there could be withdrawals but only if there were a
real quid pro quo on the Palestinian side, were considered by the
Israeli public as largely irrelevant.
In the end, the three supposedly major parties - Kadima, Labor, and
Likud - together comprise only 50 percent of the Knesset, and Kadima
and Labor together have only 48 seats out of 120, which will make
stable governance more complicated. The so-called "Geneva
Initiative" of Yossi Beilin, who now heads the Meretz Party, also
suffered total defeat as the party got only 5 seats. All in all,
left-wing or center-left parties now hold 20 percent of the Knesset.
The Islamist Roadmap
While pragmatic Westerners, including not a few Israelis, tend not
to give too much weight to ideological statements by Palestinians,
this is a mistake. Article 6 of the Hamas covenant says that the
organization "strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch
of Palestine," and "this is the law - namely that no part of
Palestine may be given up - and the same goes for any land the
Muslims have conquered by force, because during the times of Islamic
conquests the Muslims consecrated these lands to Muslim generations
till Judgment Day." Just like the rantings of Iran´s president, this
should not be seen as some bizarre religious, extremist oration, but
as the concrete Islamist "roadmap" and action plan it is.
Israel and the world at large have been inundated by Hamas-
orchestrated siren songs (but only in English, never in Arabic)
insisting that their organization did not really mean it when it had
called for the destruction of Israel. In a rash of recent interviews
to the Western media, the new Palestinian Prime Minister, Ismail
Haniyeh, has spoken about "the need to avoid bloodshed" and Hamas´
willingness for a long-term truce. The truce (hudna) he proposed
would in fact serve Hamas´ purposes to widen its power base and
build up its military capabilities for the next round against
Israel. In addition, while the local Hamas leadership forms the main
body of the new Palestinian government, Hamas´ external leadership
based in Damascus, which many consider the real power in the
organization, maintains active contacts with its international
supporters and funders, including other terrorist organizations and
especially Iran.
Hamas has been trying and sometimes succeeding to convince the world
that it has been miraculously transformed into a peaceful,
democratic, tolerant organization which should, therefore, be
accorded diplomatic and especially financial support - realizing
that without some measure of international support it might not be
able to hold on to power. This raises the question as to whether
Israel and the rest of the democratic world should go out of their
way to ease the burden on Hamas and in this way facilitate or
prolong its hold on power.
There are those who contend that what is important is what Hamas
does, not what it says. As a general rule, I would agree, but not in
this case. Between 1933 and 1939, Hitler hadn´t yet started a war,
nor had he killed any Jews - actually he had declared eternal peace
with the French and the British - and although he had made clear
more than once what his real intentions were, most of the world
chose to ignore it.
Hamas is not really a uniquely Palestinian phenomenon; similar to
other organizations in Jordan, Egypt, and Syria, it was established
by the Muslim Brotherhood, part of the jihadist movement whose aim
is to re-establish an Islamic Caliphate - first in the Middle East
and eventually in all regions which are or were occupied by Muslims.
The Burden of Governance Does Not Bring Moderation
There are those in the West, and even Israelis, who believe that
once Hamas has had to face the realities of governance, it will
moderate its intransigent views. But even leaving aside the fact
that no fundamentalist Islamic organization anywhere has ever made a
rationalizing about-face, according to Hamas´ philosophy and
ideology, without its self-declared mission to destroy Israel, in
its own eyes it has no reason to exist. As Robert Satloff of the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy has reminded us, one of
Hamas´ principal leaders, Khaled Mashal, has stated without
equivocation his organization´s principled rejection of Israel´s
right to exist - in any size, in any borders. Hence, Hamas rejects
not only the international Quartet´s roadmap and President Bush´s
vision of peace in the Middle East, but also the very concept of
a "two-state solution." The reason for the total rejection of peace
with Israel is that it violates the most basic tenet of Hamas´
credo, according to which Islam demands the annihilation of Israel.
Article 13 of the Hamas charter states: "Abandoning any part of
Palestine (i.e., accepting Israel) means renouncing part of the
faith."
Actually, Israel may not even be the main target of the jihadists,
but defeating the Jewish state would constitute in their eyes the
first step towards victory over Judeo-Christian values everywhere,
over the West as a whole, and especially America.
Those who say that "one must respect the democratic choice of the
Palestinian people" (this is also the favorite line of various Arab
leaders who have never had a democratic election in their own
countries) seem to be forgetting that the Palestinians were not
blind to Hamas´ anti-Israel and anti-peace stance when they voted as
they did. In fact, and contrary to what is often claimed by outside
apologists, it has been established that only a fraction voted for
Hamas because of its promise to clean up the corruption and
inefficiency of the previous Fatah regime. Palestinians voted for
Hamas because they identified with Hamas´ aims against Israel -
including terror. They clearly recognized that they were electing a
party that ruled out any form of permanent peace with Israel.
Indeed, why should Hamas moderate in office when its extremist
ideology is its very reason d´etre and the perceived basis for its
electoral victory? Neither the Taliban, the Iranian ayatollahs, nor
Saddam and the two Assads grew moderate while in office. Neither did
Arafat.
In fact, Hamas is not interested in a Palestinian state. They
advocate an Islamic nation, one that will engulf not only the Middle
East but also other parts of the world - with a nuclear Iran in the
background or, perhaps more correctly, in the forefront. As Tony
Blair has said, the world "confronts a clash about civilization,"
not "a clash between civilizations."
It is also important to realize that it isn´t only Hamas which is
moving away from Palestinian statehood as a fundamental building
block in any proposed settlement. There is a growing tendency within
the Palestinian body politic in general to de-emphasize the quest
for separate Palestinian statehood, and to aim for a state in the
whole of Palestine after having eliminated the State of Israel. Even
prior to the Hamas victory, in the eyes of many Palestinians the two-
state solution didn´t necessarily mean that the Palestinians
wouldn´t continue to try to undermine the existence of Israel as a
Jewish state.
Professor Shlomo Avineri has made the point that there are many
conflicts in the world that the international community is uncertain
how to solve, such as Kosovo, Bosnia, and Cyprus. So why should the
entire international community be so certain that Palestinian
statehood is the inevitable outcome of any Arab-Israeli peace
process, especially if it is a far more difficult conflict to
resolve than any of these European conflicts?
There is a misleading tendency to point to the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict as one of the principal causes for Arab and Islamic enmity
towards the West. Yet after 9/11, and London, and Paris, and Bali,
not to mention Amman and Egypt´s Sinai, this perception has changed.
Even the Lebanese Shiite leader Sheikh Fadlallah has said that the
Palestinian issue is only a pretext. The chimerical formula which
pretends that if only Israel were to hand to the Palestinians more
or less everything they demand, not only would Palestinian-Israeli
peace be achieved immediately but also Islamist terror against the
world would stop, is a dangerous and self-defeating illusion.
The Zionist movement has always been characterized by an ideology
and an idealism tempered by pragmatism. On the Israeli side there
has been over the last several years a process which one might call
the secularization of politics - no single, major Israeli political
party, including the Likud, has for quite a long time now thought in
terms of "Greater Israel." Most Israelis are willing to give up part
of their historic homeland, the cradle of their national and
cultural existence, for the sake of peace.
The exact opposite is happening on the Palestinian side and with
large parts of the Arab world in general. Politics is becoming an
article of religious faith. There is a theocratization of politics.
Everything is ordained by God - the Muslim God - and those who don´t
agree with this have to be eliminated. It´s not just Hamas, Hamas is
only the most recent example. The Palestinians are moving further
away from peace based on mutual compromise, and not only among
supporters of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Their motto is not "peace,"
but "justice" - "justice" interpreted as turning the clock back a
hundred years and denying the Jewish people the right to any part of
its land.
It must be understood that the aims of Hamas are fixed and
unalterable, but they are also long-term. They are prepared to wait
ten or even twenty years, and they would have no problem agreeing to
a cease-fire, or even to announce that at some later stage they may
recognize the State of Israel. It should be remembered that although
under Fatah there was a verbal commitment to nonviolence, there
actually was a reality of violence. The struggle between Hamas and
Fatah isn´t about peace with Israel, but about political supremacy -
and money.
Hamas is also actively engaged in mobilizing the so-called
Palestinian diaspora to its cause, first and foremost in Jordan,
which is the number one target of the jihadists and in which
Palestinians comprise about 70-80 percent of the population. Hamas
considers Jordan anyway a part of Palestine.
Israeli Withdrawals Do Not Bring Palestinian Moderation
Unfortunately, experience has shown (and I was a supporter
of "disengagement") that Israeli withdrawals and concessions do not
bring about Palestinian moderation - quite the opposite. In July
1994, five months after handing over the Gaza Strip to Yasser
Arafat, the busses began exploding in the center of Tel Aviv. Three
months after giving Arafat control over most major Palestinian towns
in 1995, 60 Israelis lost their lives to suicide bombers in
Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Two months after Ehud Barak and President
Clinton in 2000 had offered Arafat almost everything he demanded,
the biggest terror offensive ever broke out, costing more than 1,000
Israeli and 3,000 Palestinian lives. And five months after
disengagement from Gaza, Hamas was elected - with Kassam rockets
launched from Gaza landing with increasing frequency and accuracy
inside Israel. The rule seems clear, at least to Israelis: Israeli
withdrawals do not reduce the conflict but actually create
escalation.
If civilian "convergence" proceeds, Israel will have to decide
whether it will have to continue military control for security
purposes in the vacated areas - as it has not done in Gaza - which
some in retrospect, especially in the military, regard as a mistake.
But the real threat to Israeli strategic targets does not emanate
from Gaza and never did. By its geographic location, Gaza can only
threaten a limited number of targets inside Israel. But rocket
strikes launched from the West Bank could hit every target in the
country´s most densely populated areas, including Ben-Gurion
Airport. The head of IDF military planning said in a recent
interview: "I don´t know what a military evacuation is in Judea and
Samaria. The IDF cannot leave the West Bank. The IDF will need to
control every corner there to provide security for the Israeli
people."
Nor can Israel ignore other possible implications from planned
withdrawals in the West Bank. Jordan might see in a unilateral
Israeli withdrawal from most of the West Bank a strategic threat to
itself. Nor will Egypt - and others in the Arab world who might view
this as a victory for radicalism and fundamentalism and a threat to
stability, which it is - be enthusiastic.
Determining Israel´s Permanent Borders
The task now is for Israel to determine its permanent borders, for
the time being, unilaterally. Actually, the internal problems
of "convergence" will be much more difficult than the external ones.
To remove 60-70,000 Israelis, one percent of Israel´s total
population - most of them idealists - from their homes in Judea and
Samaria will be incomparably more wrenching than the removal of the
8-9,000 from Gaza. And what about the cost?
If "convergence" will go ahead, it is not because we think that Jews
don´t have a right - historically, morally, and legally - to live
anywhere in their land, but because we shall reach the conclusion,
by our own choice, that it is beyond our capacity to remain in all
of the land; that Israel cannot, in the long run, survive as a
democratic Jewish state with a large and growing Arab minority; that
based on our experience we don´t have, and are not likely to have
anytime soon, a real peace partner on the other side. So we must
determine our fate ourselves. Otherwise, it is probably only a
matter of time until there would have been some sort of
international initiative, perhaps even including the U.S., which,
though not solving anything, could certainly make life more
difficult for Israel.
All of this is provided that the Bush letter to Sharon of April
2004, which recognized not only the new realities on the ground but
also Israel´s legitimate security concerns (concerns which the U.S.
has explicitly acknowledged ever since 1967, including in UN
Security Council Resolution 242), will be translated into concrete
diplomatic and practical support for Israeli plans, hopefully to
include at least parts of the international community as well.
Israel will have no problem in negotiating with the Palestinians
about a final, permanent, peace treaty, if such an opportunity
should arise at a future date. In the meantime, what we should
strive for is recognition for a temporary, security-based border.
It could be that there really is no solution to the conflict, at
least as yet - in the sense that all differences and outstanding
issues would have been conclusively and completely brought to an end
in a manner satisfactory to most of the people on both sides. But,
hopefully, there are still Palestinians who ultimately want to live
normal lives and to create their own society. Hence, I believe the
prospects for equitable arrangements based on a modus vivendi which
could give all sides an opportunity to live in relative normalcy,
without ongoing violence, still exist - though not, for the
foreseeable future, for a final contractual peace agreement.
Zalman Shoval, a member of the Board of Overseers of the Jerusalem
Center for Public Affairs, served as Israel´s Ambassador to the
United States from 1990 to 1993 and from 1998 to 2000. A veteran
member of Israel´s Knesset (1970-1981, 1988-1990), Ambassador Shoval
was a senior aide to the late Moshe Dayan during his tenure as
foreign minister in the Begin government, including during the first
Camp David conference. An abbreviated version of this Jerusalem
Viewpoints was presented at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington
on May 10, 2006. The opinions expressed by the authors of Viewpoints
do not necessarily reflect those of the Jerusalem Center for Public
Affairs.
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