How the El Aqsa Intifada Began

In a previous communication we referred to the main points in the Israeli version as to the causes for the present crisis. This version, which has turned into a sort of catechism, is supposed to provide the ultimate justification for recent large scale Israeli military operations. Now according to the ‘catechism’, you must believe that the El Aqsa Intifada started as a result of an order by Arafat. In case the reader has forgotten, I repeat the catechism one more time:

The very simple catechism goes as follows: Arafat rejected Barak’s MGO because he refused to renounce far-reaching Palestinian demands inconsistent with a reasonable formula for the two-state solution. Not content with his diplomatic blow to peace, Arafat returned to the territories where he initiated, organized and put into effect the El-Akseh Intifada aimed at extracting concessions from Israel that he failed to receive at Camp David. This proves that Arafat, adopted a ‘strategy of terror’ built around suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.

In fact, almost every knowledgeable Palestinian would react to this assumption with a great deal of mirth. First of all, an Intifada is a rather spontaneous affair. Has anyone ever seen an analysis to the effect that the first Intifada in 1987 was a result of someone’s order? Secondly, an Intifada is by its very nature highly volatile. Now, Arafat and his Fatah organization are a rather authoritarian outfit and as such, they are not very prone to set off chains of events which are unpredictable by their very nature. Arafat knows well that you cannot ‘push a button’ and have an Intifada and then lower and heighten its intensity, at will. The belief that Arafat gave an order to start the Intifada, or that he was able to do so, or that he even wanted to do so is a political fable and not a very convincing one. But if you accepted as true, up to now, the accusation that ‘Arafat started the El Aqsa Intifada’, you are not going to be satisfied with my analysis of Palestinian reality. You are going to ask for more proof that the fable is a fable.

Israel pushed the ‘fable’ as if it was disseminating some unchallenged, internationally recognized finding. However, there is in existence an internationally recognized report that deals explicitly with the Israeli allegation. This is the report issued at the beginning of May 2001 by the Mitchell Commission, established with Israeli consent, precisely to determine the cause for the outbreak of the El-Aqsa Intifada. Here are a number of findings: “…neither were we provided with persuasive evidence that the PA planned the uprising. Accordingly, we have no basis on which to conclude that there was a deliberate campaign by the PA to initiate a campaign of violence at the first opportunity. …The Sharon visit did not cause the Al-Aqsa Intifada. But it was poorly timed and the provocative effect should have been foreseen…More significant were the events that followed; the decision of the Israeli police on September 29 to use lethal means against the Palestinian demonstrators.” The same report notes that 4 Palestinians were killed and 200 wounded on that day. A central finding determines: “For the first three months of the current uprising, most incidents did not involve Palestinian use of firearms and explosives…Altogether, nearly 500 people were killed and over 10,000 injured over the past seven months; the overwhelming majority in both categories were Palestinian…Israel’s characterization of the conflict as ‘an armed conflict, short of war’ does not adequately describe the variety of the incidents reported since late September 2000.” The Report appeared in Ha’aretz, May 7, 2001

The report is eminently fair to Israel. It takes pains to reject several Palestinian allegations, such as the claim that the Sharon provocation was inspired by the government of Israel. The report refuses to blame Israel for the chain of events that lead to the outbreak of the Intifada. Moreover, describing the situation well into the Intifada, the report criticizes both the PA and Israel, saying that it has no evidence that the PA made a consistent effort to control and contain the violence once it began nor did the Israelis attempt to use non-lethal methods against unarmed Palestinian demonstrators. We can fault the PA for not making any effort to ‘control and contain’ the violence, and reject its claims that this is no easy matter at a time when Israel is using lethal means against unarmed Palestinian demonstrators. However, paradoxically, even this criticism of the Palestinian leadership contradicts the Israeli version of Arafat’s planned initiative.

Thus, we note a total lack of any proof in the Mitchell report for the key allegation that Arafat started the Intifada as part of a plan to use force so as to achieve concessions that were denied the Palestinians at Camp David. Moreover, the Mitchell report presents findings that support the conclusion that there is a distinct possibility that Israel bears the overwhelming responsibility for the outbreak of the Intifada.

The Mitchell report notes the deep sense of frustration and despair among the Palestinians as a result of the failure of the Camp David talks. May we add that it is only a matter of common sense to appreciate that 3,000,000 Palestinians suffering for almost 35 years under the yoke of a brutal military occupation can decide to rebel against inhuman conditions. Our own analysis would suggest that the collective suffering of the Palestinian masses, insulted by Sharon’s provocative visit to Haram al-Sharif and outraged by the I.D.F. method of using massive and unrestrained lethal force against unarmed demonstrators, were the real and genuine reasons for the uprising.

Just in case the thrust of Mitchell report is still unclear: Ha’aretz headed its report on the response to the report as follows: “PA Accepts Mitchell suggestions. PM regrets report didn’t blame Palestinians for start of violence.”

One might assume, considering the arrogant tone of Israeli propaganda, that there was some degree of unanimity on this question in the Israeli establishment. However, three prominent Israelis – Ami Ayalon, former Chief of Staff Amnon Lipkin-Shakhak and Dr. Oded Aran –all of whom had some intimate connection with the Israeli intelligence apparatus monitoring Arafat and his policies, rejected the thesis that Arafat initiated the Intifada. Ayalon, who was still head of the Israeli shin bet (Security Services) just six months before the Intifada, summed it up: “The Intifada is a result of a Palestinian loss of confidence regarding Israel’s readiness to pay the price needed for peace, and also [an] eroded public belief in the PA’s ability to establish a regime marred by less corruption and brutality. The Initifada was directed against a process which included Arafat; in no way was it conceived by Arafat himself as a measure taken against the process.” (Ha’aretz political commentator, Akiva Eldar, Ha’aretz, September 17, 2001).

This is getting a bit tedious but we must return, for the moment, to the ‘catechism’: Arafat rejected Baraks MGO and initiated the Intifada. In a previous communication, basing ourselves on an explicit statement by Dennis Ross, we learned that Barak never made any offer and that the Barak offer was actually made by Clinton. A week after granting us this startling revelation, Dennis Ross, who has become a member of the Fox News permanent staff (!?), shocked us again with this new revelation about his previous revelation: “…at Camp David we did not put a comprehensive set of ideas on the table. We put ideas on the table that would have affected the borders and would have affected Jerusalem.”Here is the electronic source: www.foxnews.com/story/0.2933.50863.00.html

There was no Barak offer. There was not even a Clinton offer. There were ‘ideas’ and not even a comprehensive set of ideas. These did not deal at all with the refugee issue, they did not (at that stage of the negotiations) include Palestinian sovereignty on the Harem Al Sharif or any neighborhood in or around the Old City – elements which do appear, for the first time in Clinton’s December 2000 offer, six months after Camp David.

So there was nothing sinister or unreasonable in Arafat’s decision to reject the Camp David formulae. The negotiations indeed continued after Camp David, with important gains for the Palestinians, over and above the incomprehensive set of ideas presented back at Camp David. These later negotiations, serious by any account, suggest that Arafat had actually fulfilled his duty to his constituency by saying no to Clinton at Camp David. These later negotiations went up in smoke, but not because of anything that the Palestinians did. Time ran out. Barak had resigned and Israeli elections were on the agenda. Clinton was already a ‘lame duck’ president. Their partners had indeed disappeared, but the so-called Palestinian non-partner had never left the table. Arafat never said no.

All the allegations that made Arafat’s ‘strategy of terror’ a logical step in a pre-conceived plan to wreck the peace process prove groundless. We must find the causes for the escalation of the conflict and the violence, including the increase of atrocious and reprehensible tactics on the Palestinian side in the dynamic that developed as Israel moved to use force, and more and more force, against the El-Aqsa Intifada. But this will have to wait.

The Unbelievable Account of the Offer that was Never Offered

A friend of mine who wished to take issue with my criticism of the widely promoted version of ‘Barak’s most generous offer’ (BMGO) sent along an interview recently granted (April 12, 2002) by Dennis Ross to a gentleman at Fox Television by the name of Hume. The document was sent along to me as another bit of evidence that Arafat bears responsibility for the present crisis because of his refusal to accept Barak’s MGO.

I do not have the time or patience to explain why anything coming out of Fox, which bears, of course, the ‘sole responsibility for the accuracy of the transcript’, is suspect. Dennis Ross, who seems to be trying to make up for the not too lucrative years spent in public service by hiring himself out to a pro-Israeli think tank in D.C., has himself seriously damaged his own credibility. However, there are a few sentences in the interview that I do want to share with you. Hume, the interviewer starts out by pushing the thesis that there is no sense in future negotiations with Arafat. For this purpose, Hume opens by giving Ross an opportunity to go over the Camp David scenario. Ross’ first answer is amazing. “ Lets look at the terms (of the offer R.K). Let me spell out exactly what it was. It was something that we offered, by the way. There is a kind of imagery out there that Barak made an offer. It was a U.S. offer.”

How interesting! Here we are, a multitude of truth seekers, trying to evaluate the dimensions of the catastrophe that resulted directly from Arafat’s rejection of Barak’s MGO. And it turns out that there was never any such offer. ‘By the way,’ informs us DR, ‘it’s a kind of imagery.’
Now, the difference between a Barak offer or a Clinton offer is no slight matter. This is not a technicality. Why, and on what basis, was the public presented with the powerful image of a generous Israeli offer by a noble and innovative Israeli PM, when no such offer ever existed! Why has Dennis Ross remained quiet for so long and refused to share this ‘tidbit’ of information with the public which wants to figure out what really happened at Camp David?

Somebody out there is going to start taking me to task that this could not be the ‘whole’ story’ in the interview. I never said it was. I repeat: It turns out, according to the same interview, that it was a U.S. offer (and the plot thickens). The interview reads: “Hume asks: Barak accepted it? Ross answers: Barak was willing to accept it. Hume: Willing to accept it.” At this point, Ross starts to present yet another original and novel version of the U.S. offer (maybe we should call it Clinton’s most generous offer, ‘CMGO’)? Anyone acquainted with the vast material will recognize the gross inadequacies and the inconsistencies in the Ross version. But that is not the subject of this communication.

But there is an interesting episode here dealing with this Barak was ‘willing’ business. A careful reading informs us that Barak did not accept C’s MGO, but that he was willing to accept it. How and when and under what conditions was Barak willing to accept it? We can only guess (and I do not want to spend too much time on Fox and DR, who appears, interestingly enough in my text, with the title of a ‘Fox News contributor’). Working from the text we of the interview we do have, we could guess that maybe Barak said I am ‘willing’ if Arafat is willing.The interviewer missed up on asking as to whether Barak’s acceptance was unconditional. I have a penchant for believing that the Chair of the PA is no dumbbell. And if the circumstances were indeed those described here, Arafat might well have had every reason to believe that Barak was continuing to refuse to negotiate with him and the whole scene was designed to confront Arafat with an offer that did not allow for further negotiation.

Admittedly, it is hard to reconstruct the kind of closed, tricky diplomatic maneuvering of the kind that occurred at Camp David, especially as one senses that everything said in that framework was formulated so as to insure future deniability. At any rate, the Clinton (!) offer, as detailed by DR in the Fox interview, is presented tendentiously and simply distorts or evades many of the issues that were on the negotiating table – if there were any real negotiations. But Barak, my friends, according to this source, according to the passionately pro-Sharon network and according to Dennis Ross, never ever made any offer.

The ‘Catechism’

If you know and believe in the ‘catechism’ then you can justify Sharon’s war, even if you claim to have always been his fierce political enemy. The very simple catechism goes as follows: Arafat rejected Barak’s MGO because he refused to renounce far-reaching Palestinian demands inconsistent with a reasonable formula for the two state solution. Not content with his diplomatic blow to peace, Arafat returned to the territories where he initiated, organized and put into effect the El-Akseh Intifada aimed at extracting concessions from Israel that he failed to receive at Camp David. This proves that Arafat, adopted a ‘strategy of terror’ built around suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.

The Function of the ‘Catechism’

The ‘catechism’ is the cornerstone for the justification of Israeli military activity, including wide scale incursions into Palestinian civilian population centers with all the death and destruction that such operations entail. The difficulty with the Israeli case is simply that even if the ‘catechism’ is accepted as the latest version of divine truth, it does not and cannot justify Israeli policy and actions.

Even though the ‘catechism’ is an excellent public relations exercise and it has certainly helped Israel and its partisan supporters in the propaganda war, it is irrelevant for any serious political analysis. (This does not mean that the Israeli version regarding the failure at Camp David or regarding the causes for the El-Aksa Intifada should not be challenged. There is every reason to re-examine this and other issues at some later date). The function of the ‘catechism’ is to demonize Arafat and the Palestinians so as to prevent any rational evaluation of the clear and open political objectives of the two sides to the conflict. I tried to explain to my friend that whatever the merits of the Israeli version of recent history, the Israeli argument does not answer the main accusation against Sharon.

The Palestinian side has repeatedly reiterated its position that it is ready to resume negotiations from the point where they ended. Israel is not ready to resume negotiations from the point that they broke off. The simple truth is that it is Israel and Sharon’s policy that prevents the resumption of negotiations. This simple truth exposes the real motives of Israeli policy. Israeli ‘explains’ that it refuses to reveal its position before actual negotiations or to negotiate under the pressure of violence. But given public knowledge of Sharon’s politics, the subterfuge is rather flimsy. It is common knowledge that Sharon has rejected any chance for the resumption of negotiations at the point where they ended. Is there anyone who can deny that Sharon has always rejected the idea of peace without annexation. The ploy that Israel refuses to negotiate under the pressure of Palestinian violence is rather strange. By entering negotiations, Israel does not forfeit its right to legitimate self-defense nor is its military superiority impaired. At any rate, it is generally the weaker side that refuses negotiations until it has somewhat improved its position regarding the balance of forces. It is the weaker side that has cause to fear that it will be negotiating ‘out of weakness.’

Israel’s current refusal to negotiate a settlement of the conflict stems from its rejection of the basic principles of the two-state solution, accepted by the Palestinian Authority, the U.N. and the entire world community and almost accepted by Israel in the Taba talks (but not at Camp David). It is this refusal that blocks the road to peace. It is in the analysis of the basic policies of each side that we find the key to ascribing responsibility for the conflict and Israel bears that responsibility.
So there is cause to doubt the veracity of the account regarding ‘Barak’s MGO. There may not have been such an offer. But above and beyond the immediate history of the conflict and the conflicting accounts of that history, we face the basic political fact: Sharon’s policies block the path to peace and are destroying any hope for resolving the conflict.

A Flicker of Light

Some of us think that we may have discerned a very slight flicker of light coming through the dense forest. There appears to be a serious increase in public reservations regarding Sharon’s policies. I will attempt a short run down on these, but, before doing so, it must be said that on the macro level we are in the midst of one of the most critical phases in the relations between the two peoples. Sharon will decide in the very near future as to whether he can pull off his dream of destroying the Palestinian Authority and removing Arafat from the scene. Bush has certainly helped to create the climate for such a move and there are no real obstacles to such a move ‘on the ground.” Sharon must also fear that delay on his part will enable Arafat to break out of the diplomatic and strategic blockade in which he finds himself.

Sharon’s main difficulty with the public and the media comes from a growing sense that despite his promises and the faith of large sections of the public in him, he cannot fulfill his election promise to bring peace and security. The public, it may be surmised, figured from the beginning that Sharon might not deliver on the peace promise, but it did hope that he would be better at eliminating or reducing the day to day effect of Palestinian resistance. The public at large still supports Sharon’s hard line, but it is dawning on it that he cannot provide a semblence of security. At the same time, the state of the economy is increasingly grim. The economic impact of the Intifada has multiplied trends linked to the dismal state of the international economic scene.

The peace movement, especially its more radical wing, has been reinvigorated. One of the first signs of the new mood was the relative success of the annual march sponsored by the Women’s Coalition for Peace at the end of last year. In addition, a new protest organization, built around joint activity by Israel Jews and Israeli Arabs grows by the week. Tay’ush ( Partnership in Arabic) leads large convoys into the occupied territories bearing messages of political solidarity along with welcome truckloads of food and clothing. A plethora of NGO’s are a bit more successful in mobilizing activists against house demolitions, against torture and administrative arrests, against cruel and arbitrary actions by Israeli Defense Forces soldiers involved in the imposition of collective punishment such as closures, curfews and the like.

All of the above show that though distinctly a minority, there is a vibrant, growing and dedicated peace community in Israel. A certain amount of progress has even been made on the level of establishment politics. Ben Eliezer, if only because of the requirements of his new post as the leader of the Labor Party, has had to stake out a bit of independent political territory. This is the ratio behind his meeting last week with Mubarak. It is of course highly premature to hope for any good news from the Labor Party. Peres, who is supposed to keep the peace process alive by virtue of his prominence in Sharon’s national unity government, is obviously obssessed with diplomatic perquisites and frequent opportunities to hobnob with world leaders. No one seems to believe that he would pay the smallest price in the defense of principle. A full report should include an analysis of a the Zionist dove coalition headed by Beilin of the Labor party and MERETZ leader Sarid, who is the titular head of the opposition in the Knesset. I hope to return to the subject, but meanwhile, the interesting story from the dove wing of the establishment is the declared intention of Knesset Speaker, Avrum Burg to address the Legislative Council of the Palestinian Authority. Sharon, with the entire right, as well as Ben Eliezer, have come out hysterically against the visit, thereby imparting it with quite a bit more importance than it had originally. It all adds up to a sense that Sharon is still strong but there are real cracks in his image of invincibility.

The biggest story and the most fabulous development in Israel today is the very recent declaration by more than a hundred and seventy IDF reservists from combat units. They insist that they are ready and willing to serve their country, but not the occupation of the Palestinian territories. Stressing their patriotic and Zionist motivation, the reservists have stirred up a virtual storm in the media and the public. A surprisingly large section of the public seems to, at the least, understand the legitimacy of the reservists complaints, though, each and every branch of the establishment naturally enough rejects the very idea of linking military service to any political issue.

It is important to understand that the new group (still expanding), is proceeding along a path trail blazed by more radical sections of the peace movement, such as Yesh Gvul and more than a hundred high school students who have announced that they will refuse induction. Two of them are already serving time.

So there is a bit less doom and despair and a bit more of a sense that protest pays off. But I better date this communication and get it out. This is the place where yesterday’s commentaries sound as if they appeared a year ago.