Many Israeli observers have noted the inherent foolishness of
claims by Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Acting Foreign Minister
Shlomo Ben-Ami that "there is no longer a 'partner' for the peace
process." Such statements are presumably meant to indicate that the
peace process is "on hold" for the time being, since a meaningful
answer to the question "Who is Israel's partner?" can only be
provided by the Palestinian people itself. Israel, in any case,
will return to the negotiating table with the "partner" whenever
the peace process resumes. However, the senseless talk about "no
partner," which implies that the whole crisis is due to Arafat's
problematic and untrustworthy personality, is both factually untrue
and politically unwise.
Numerous Israelis with leftist views have also expressed
"disappointment" with Arafat following the Palestinian uprising at
the end of September 2000, as if what was at stake was not a
complex relationship between two nations at war but rather a
personal friendship with Arafat, which he has "betrayed." They
accused him of breaking the confidence that had been entrusted in
him. The argument that the real problem is Arafat's character
prevents the Israeli public from understanding the true nature of
recent events and damages the slight chance that remains of
returning to sane and serious discussions between the
parties.
Rather than blaming the personality of one leader or another, it is
now high time (I am writing about a month after the outbreak of
what is called the Al-Aqsa Intifada) to make a serious attempt to
address the question: why have we reached this crisis? Why has the
peace process, which was and still is supported by the majority of
Israel's citizens, reached such an impasse?
Understanding the Oslo Accords
I do not know if the Oslo process which started seven years ago is
now "dead," as many tend today to believe, but recent events may
provide us with a better understanding of past errors and,
particularly, of our mistaken interpretation of the fundamental
meaning of the Oslo Accords. The accords included complex
formulations regarding the interim period, but at their core were
two basic assumptions, without which the two sides would not have
reached an agreement. Their non-fulfillment led to inevitable
erosion in the validity of the agreement itself.
The Israeli assumption was that the accords would eliminate, or at
least reduce, the need to assure Israel's security through the use
of force since, from now on, the Palestinians would suppress any
use of force against Israel from within their own camp. The
Palestinian assumption was - though this was not explicitly
promised - that the accords would lead, within a defined period of
time (five years at most), to the creation of an independent
Palestinian state in all or the greater part of the land occupied
by Israel in the 1967 war.
There was a clear asymmetry in the expectation of the two sides.
Israel expected the change in the area of security to occur
immediately and, for this purpose, even agreed to the creation of
Palestinian security forces in the limited territories that were
granted self-rule. On the other hand, Palestinian statehood and the
degree of sovereignty were left for the negotiations on permanent
settlement. Palestinian expectations were therefore postponed for
five years and they were never specified in detail.
Through a five-year interim agreement, Israel strove to "verify"
whether the Palestinians had indeed relinquished the use of force
to further their interests, and had become sufficiently "reliable"
to establish an independent state. This approach was based on a
hope so false that is without precedent in a historical context -
that within five years, the Palestinians would drop their
historical and emotional opposition to the Zionist enterprise and
to a Jewish state in their midst. This was an illusion. Nations
stop fighting and sign a peace treaty when, while continuing to
uphold their aspiration and animosities, they reach the conclusion
that the war can no longer satisfy them. If, among the nations, it
can subsequently take years or even generations for the hostility
to be overcome, it surely cannot be otherwise in a struggle with
roots as deep as those nourishing the Israel-Arab conflict.
Against All Logic
Thus, while Israel was ready to bestow sovereignty on the
Palestinians so as to render them fully responsible for their
actions, this was not due to a change of heart among the Israelis.
The fundamental meaning of sovereignty is that the central
government has sole authority, including that of using force both
internally and externally. Israel refrained on a number of counts
from taking this issue to its logical conclusion: it both failed to
maintain the Oslo schedule and, during the interim phases of the
agreement, to buttress Palestinian sovereignty and responsibility.
On the contrary, Israel constantly and manifestly treated the
Palestinians as "untrustworthy," consequently trying to do
everything in its power at every stage to limit the territorial
degree of Palestinian rule and the extent of their
independence.
While errors on the part of the Palestinian leadership also
contributed to these negative developments in the process, many on
the Palestinian left, and not only in the rejection front, had
foreseen this development from the outset and warned that the
interim status would become permanent and the Palestinian goal of
statehood would not be attained. In this complex situation, though
the prediction turned out to be true, the outcome was not
inevitable. Had Israel adhered to the schedule, fortified
Palestinian independence and expanded its territorial sway, it
could have expected a greater degree of responsibility from the
other party. Israel would thus have encouraged the Palestinians to
pursue the process in spite of the obstacles. Israel's policy over
recent years stood in direct opposition to this logic.
A Process of Erosion
This policy is epitomized by prime minister Yitzhak Rabin's refusal
to remove a single settlement, even those established in the midst
of areas that would clearly end up in the Palestinian state, like
Netzarim, the Jewish Quarter in Hebron, Joseph's Tomb in Nablus and
Psagot. More than any other factor, for the Palestinians, these and
other settlements in different parts of the country symbolized the
meaning of occupation and the extent of annexation. In Palestinian
eyes, they seemed to furnish visible and undeniable proof that the
Israelis had no intention of granting them a solid and contiguous
territorial base on which to establish their sovereignty.
To the contrary, the Palestinians perceived Israel's intent as
merely to assure that the Palestinian leadership cooperate with the
Israeli authorities in perpetuating the existing situation. Hence
the continuous erosion of Palestinian faith in the Oslo process.
One could analyze the constraints behind Israel's policies, but
this would not change the overall picture: the Oslo process "died"
not only because the Palestinians "killed it," but also because
Israel from the start denied it a real chance to live.
Israel's contribution to this course of erosion and creating ill
will on the Palestinian side took many forms: the complex and
intricate negotiations preceding every step forward; seemingly
petty and embarrassing Israeli intransigence over security affairs;
the limitations that Israel placed on internal and external
Palestinian movement from place to place, such as the safe passage
between Gaza and the West Bank, the airport in Dahanieh, or
delaying the development of the Gaza port. The gradual breakdown of
Palestinian trust was particularly evoked by ruinous closures and
travel limitations into and through Jerusalem.
With all this, the overriding problem was always Israel's attitude
to the settlements. The Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faithful)
religious-nationalist settlement movement in the occupied
territories, and the Israeli right wing, never concealed that the
goal of the settlements was to consolidate Israel's sovereignty
over all the territories west of the Jordan. But even many of those
Israelis seemingly loyal to the peace process refused to give up
the settlement option on the assumption that it was necessary "in
case the process were to fail."
Consequently, as governments came and went, one pretext after
another was sought for continuing the expansion of the settlements
and opposing the removal of any of them. At the same time, a dense
network of bypass roads and tunnels, of which Rabin was the most
prominent architect, was established for so-called "security
reasons." In view of all this, no wonder that unmistakable signals
of Israeli mistrust were accompanied by increasing signs of
Palestinian alarm.
Barak and Arafat
At this point, Ehud Barak entered the scene, after the process had
already passed through six years of progressive erosion. He
correctly understood that accelerated negotiations were now needed
to urge the process forward toward its final goal of a permanent
settlement. Vigorously setting about this endeavor, he courageously
offered a list of far-reaching "concessions" in all spheres,
including the particularly sensitive issue of Jerusalem. The
then-approaching elections in the U.S.A. (and in New York!) ensured
him enthusiastic American support. From the Arab point of view,
this undermined the American role as "honest brokers." Moreover,
since Barak went so far in his opening proposals, the Barak-Clinton
pair ended up confronting Yasser Arafat with an ultimatum of "Take
it or leave it."
Arafat was no longer willing to play the game according to these
rules. He may also have reached the conclusion that it would be
preferable to continue with the present temporary status rather
than reach the sort of final settlement for which the price was too
high. We refer to Arafat, but we are dealing not with him
personally, but with the entire Palestinian leadership, not to
mention Palestinian public opinion. (Incidentally, Israel reacted
similarly at the end of its war of independence when the UN
Palestinian Conciliation Committee demanded that it pay what it saw
as too high a price in return for a peace treaty at the Lausanne
Conference in the winter and spring of 1948.)
New Parameters
It is a mistake to believe that the sides were close to an
agreement at the second Camp David summit (July 5, 2000) and that
everything was ruined only by Arafat's last-minute refusal to
accept the American proposal regarding the Temple Mount/Haram
al-Sharif in Jerusalem. Arafat, who, in any case, had gone
unwillingly to the summit meeting, found himself dragged into the
continuation of a process with which he had long felt
disillusioned. Rather than evading a particular agreement, he
negated the entire framework of the process. In effect, at Camp
David, Arafat declared "We quit." Since then he has been trying to
achieve a change, not in the outcome of the process, but in its
fundamental parameters, aspiring to replace the framework with
which he entered the Oslo Accords by an alternative which would
serve the best interests of the Palestinians.
This explains Arafat's insistence on involving the UN in the
conflict and trying to turn Kofi Annan into the central host of the
Sharm al-Sheikh Summit (October 16, 2000), as well as his
persistent efforts to win the support of the European Community in
his confrontation with the Americans. Some worrying signs point to
an attempt to impose on the Middle East the rules of the game
applied in Kosovo, if not through his friends in Europe then
through the Arab world, with the help of the Muslim world. Even if
he does not delude himself about the possibility of a European
military coalition against Israel, perhaps Arafat hopes to bring
about the imposition of political and economic sanctions against
Israel. Whether they can or cannot be achieved, such considerations
are not entirely irrational. Brutal events on the ground, as
reflected in media images, may advance Arafat's chances in this
direction.
The return to the path of violence, and particularly the behavior
of Palestinians when attacking holy Jewish shrines, have led to a
wave of disappointment, anger and hatred in Israel, part of which
is focused on Arafat's personality. But anger is never a good guide
in times of crisis and Arafat's decision to revert to violence was
not the result of emotionalism or character defects. Risky and
speculative as it may be, it was not without a significant degree
of rationale and, up to now, it has yielded a fair number of
achievements. If Arafat does not go too far, the historian may have
some good things to say about this decision of the Palestinian
leader.
This was perhaps the best way for him to "opt out," to change the
rules of the game, to express his refusal to continue playing the
role of "collaborator," ready to guarantee Israel's security in
exchange for some crumbs of autonomy. Israel itself contributed
significantly to pushing Arafat into the corner from which he is
now trying to escape. As we noted, the Oslo process had "died" long
before the Camp David summit. Arafat never promised to be "nice" to
the Israelis. His primary duty is to be "nice" to the Palestinians.
If he has a negative image in the eyes of the Israeli public as an
"immature" and "erratic" person who cannot be trusted, who is an
obstacle to peace - all these allegations ignore what should be
clear, namely, that it was the Palestinian people as a whole that
had urged him to take this course. It is they who now afford him
full support.
Sovereignty and Power
Influenced by repeated reports of the fighting and the count of
casualties, many Israelis also harbor a basic misconception
regarding the purpose of Palestinian violence. At the risk of a
small degree of exaggeration, one could say that, consciously or
unconsciously, the Palestinians seek less to kill Israelis than to
cause the Israelis to kill them. Even if this was not the initial
intention in the first weeks of the fighting, it was certainly the
result. The gains in terms of public relations and on the political
level did not stem from children attacking Israeli soldiers with
their slingshots. The world saw a quite different picture: before
the cameras, Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian child in the
arms of his desperate father.
The predominant assumption of most of the Israeli public is that we
cannot afford to give the Palestinians sovereignty before we are
sure that they have changed their ways, because sovereignty
provides them with power, which in turn makes it more difficult for
Israel to maintain its own security. However, from the strictly
military point of view, recent events have proved that there is no
fundamental difference between the situation that Israel would face
with a sovereign Palestinian entity and the current situation in
which Israel maintains the option of occupation and control over
the Palestinians. On the contrary, to the extent that a
confrontation would appear as a war between two sovereign entities,
Israel would have more effective ways to force the Palestinians
back in line, so to speak, without having the international
community lay the blame at its feet.
Various military measures, be they the destruction of buildings,
the use of live ammunition or rubber-coated bullets, have always
been used in the semi-autonomous regions, or in the perimeter of
the fully autonomous regions. However, these measures have no real
effect on the resolve of the Palestinians to continue with the
violence. On the other hand, there are measures which more resemble
a war between states, such as the use of tanks or air strikes on
selected targets in Palestinian towns and, particularly, blockading
and isolating the Palestinian areas from the outside world. The
latter may have a stronger effect and demonstrate to the
Palestinians that there are limits to the achievements to be
obtained from the use of violence.
No Solution by Force
After his achievements in the early weeks of fighting, Arafat may
have exaggerated expectations regarding what he can achieve by
force. There is no chance of his being able in this way to compel
the Israelis to concede on what they consider absolutely vital
issues, like the impossibility of the return to areas within the
Green Line of a large number of Palestinian refugees. Yet in the
gray area between Barak's proposals and Palestinian aspirations in
the current unresolved situation that Arafat has chosen, there are
issues on which Israel might think that it would not be rational to
refuse a compromise in view of the risk of international sanctions
and perhaps, even, of the alienation of American friends, who have
shown more than once in recent times that their own interests are
not bound solely to the fate of Israel.
It is difficult for the two sides to return to the negotiating
table as long as violence is rampant, and everything possible must
be done to bring about its cessation. Though Israel has effective
means to cause great suffering to the Palestinians, it is
crystal-clear after over 30 years of occupation that there is no
way to subdue them by force. Regardless of the vocal opposition of
the rightists, Israel must take all possible measures to ensure
even a temporary end to the confrontation, and even at the cost of
concessions and compromises regarding the way the negotiating
process will continue in the future.
Those hoping to achieve an interim agreement via which to continue
the status quo have completely failed to learn the lesson of the
more distant and the more recent past. Statehood for the
Palestinians is inevitable, and will enable them to maintain their
international responsibilities, not as a people waging an uprising
of the oppressed, but as a sovereign entity capable of maintaining
its international responsibilities. Thus, there is no alternative
but to return as soon as possible to renewed negotiations on a
final settlement that will ensure the establishment of an
independent Palestinian state within viable borders.