Barak unilateral

The Geneva Accords have registered a unique success. The very idea of a full, detailed blueprint for peace and coexistence that settles all outstanding issues has captured the minds of a significant segment of the Israeli public, the same public which is increasingly aware that Sharon doesn’t have any real strategy for ending the conflict. Indeed, more and more Israelis are taking notice that Sharon’s policies are increasingly costly for Israelis, as well as the Palestinians.

It was that old consummate opportunist, Shimon Peres, who realized that the Accords were important. Answering Sharon in the Israeli Knesset, Peres explained that the Accords had proven that there was a potential Palestinian partner for negotiations, and that a reasonable solution was very much a possibility. This announcement by Peres that Israel has a potential partner with whom to discuss peace may not appear particularly startling for those uninitiated in current Israeli political discourse. The true importance of Peres’ intervention lies in the fact that it contradicts a well known article of faith in Israeli politics to the effect that Arafat’s leadership means that meaningful negotiations for peace are simply impossible.

The article of faith to the effect that Israel lacks any potential partner for negotiations was the personal contribution of former Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Barak, in explaining the breakdown of the Camp David negotiations in July 2000, informed the Israeli public that he had achieved a major success in that he had torn the mask off Arafat’s face. The post-Camp David mess for which Barak was mainly responsible helped to catapult Sharon and the settlers to power while it simultaneously bewildered and disoriented large sections of the dove constituency.Of course, there was no objective basis regarding Arafat’s obstructionism.He wasn’t an easy partner for the Isrealis, but that wasn’t exactly Arafat’s job description. As a matter of fact serious negotiations were still going on in the fall and winter of 2000-2001. It was Barak and not Arafat that rendered them useless by first making overtures to Sharon to join his government and then resigning (on the advice of his wife, Naavah) and forcing the new elections which brought Sharon to power.

One lasting result of Barak’s treachery was to convince many Israelis who wanted peace that this goal could not be reached through negotiations with the Palestinian Authority under Arafat. Many of those who refused to accept Sharon’s leadership, but accepted Barak’s verdict against Arafat worked out an alternative conception: Israel would somehow make peace through a unilateral retreat from Palestinian territory. If we could not negotiate a peace agreement with the Palestinians, we would separate ourselves from the Palestinians (We are here! They are there!) and impose arrangements on the Palestinians imposing separation and walling off one society from the other. The idea was and is still ridiculous (Israeli-Palestinian peace without Palestinian). Tens of different formulae for unilateral withdrawal were in the air, all kinds of fences were to go up according to Israel’s needs for security. Paradoxically, many Israelis who detested the occupation accepted this alternative as the only way out of the predicament. The details of the proposals never congealed into a serious plan or program.

For more than three years, Sharon has been using Barak’s anti-Arafat line to justify his annexationist and militaristic policies. The Geneva Accords have exposed the false premises and the weird thinking involved in plans for a unilateral withdrawal. The idea was still born from the beginning. But there are still many conscious or unconscious Barakists in and around the peace movement who are uncomfortable with the idea that they will have to negotiate a peace plan with Palestinians as an equal partner. They would like to keep the ‘unilateral withdrawal’ in play, especially as Barak opposes the Geneva Accords and the neo-cons in Washington are still influencing U.S. policy against ‘unreformed Palestinians.’

Given the tremendous impact of the Geneva Accords and the prestige of the leaders of the Israeli initiative, there will few direct and open attacks on the Geneva Accords in the peace movement. On the other hand, we will witness indirect attacks and reservations. First, there are the super-realists who will explain that the GA are not so special, or not so different from Oslo. They will defend ‘pluralism’ so that they can still support different approaches (including unilateral withdrawal) and not put all our eggs in one basket. They will pretend to be more radical by talking about ‘leaving the territories’ or one-sided retreat from them. In short, unable to contest the message of the GA, they will try to minimize their impact and importance. This tendency must be overcome in open debate and in a broad collective effort to analyze new dimensions in the struggle for peace. This is the reason why we need clear decisions and a clear mandate to mobilize our activists on behalf of the GA breakthrough.

Say Yes to Bush

Isn’t this interesting? Bush is supposed to be diving head first into the swirling waters of the ME on a heroic mission for peace. So, supposedly, the pressure is on both sides, the Israeli and the Palestinians, to start performing. Still there is this ‘minor’ problem: Israel has still not endorsed the Road Map. If Bush is sincere (and believe it or not there are peace people in Israeli who entertain such a notion) then he simply has to tell Abu Mazen to take a breather while he works on Sharon. But no, Bush wants both sides to perform.

At the present, it seems that Bush has decided to take a detour around Sharon. Israeli radio has been blaring for the last day hours that Sharon is going to suggest to the government that Israel accept, not the RM, but the clauses of the RM. Now, any normal and fair broker would ask, at this point: what the hell is Sharon trying to do? Does he or does he not accept the RM? But instead of insisting on a clear and unequivocal answer, we hear U.S. sources explain that Sharon’s statement expresses important progress on the issue.

At the same time, the United States announces that it recognizes the vital importance in Israel’s reservations regarding the RM and that these will be addressed, at an appropriate stage. Bush negotiates with Sharon behind the back of the Palestinians and in total disregard for his partners in the quartet. Bush is coddling Sharon, just as he did when Sharon refused his request to retreat from Palestinian centers at the beginning of the last Palestinian Intifada. Even after Sharon had made a joke out of Bush’s request to pull back, Bush called him ‘a man of peace.’

Even so, hope does spring eternal within the human breast. Let us wait and see. If…after Eitam and Lieberman do indeed leave the government and Sharon really takes down 20-30 occupied illegal settlements, things might get interesting. However, we have seen enough of this play to know that almost any outcome is more likely than real, genuine, progress towards peace. As we say…I really hope that I am wrong.

Who’s on Trial, What’s on Trial?

Three young Israelis have been remanded to ‘camp confinement’ until the end of the court martial proceedings against them for refusing as a matter of conscience to serve in the IDF. The immediate background for these proceedings is a growing concern here and abroad that Israel has lost forfeited any vestige of legitimacy in the present phase of military operations in the Palestinian territories. The military actions involved in the continued occupation of these territories have become increasingly fierce and brutal. The rational for all this is startlingly simple. There is any number of terrorists in the territories. The security of Israeli citizens depends on apprehending the terrorists and rendering them ineffective. Well, we have no way of knowing how many so called terrorists there are, but it seems that we are talking about many, many thousands. This dangerous element is embedded in the population and enjoys its support.

In the absence of any political horizon that could reduce tension, the Israeli government has decided to go after the terrorists. In practical terms this means greater restrictions on the general population, incessant night raids, nightly shoot outs (between Israeli armored troops and Palestinian irregulars) and a regular quota of dead and wounded – mainly Palestinians. Palestinian resistance to the armored incursion (tanks and lots of them) takes some toll among the Israelis. This, if nothing else, is a convincing reason to indulge in collective punishment. One example is to blow up a multi-story apartment building because a sniper fired from it. The scale of death and destruction rises dramatically if the raid goes wrong and there is a need to retreat under pressure. In this instance any precautions that may have been involved in the planning to prevent innocent civilian casualties is discarded and any amount of fire power may be employed to save the lives of the Israeli soldiers who might be in danger. Almost every night we are encouraged to hear that this or that terrorist who was responsible for this or that attack has been killed (usually) or captured. Another ten or twenty men on the wanted list are also rounded it up.

From time to time we learn that labs for creating explosives or metal shops making shells are discovered and blown to bits. You know that you can do a lot of things with a lathe. But not after it has been destroyed.

There is a certain eerie open-endedness in the present campaign by the IDF to annihilate the terrorist presence in the territories. There cannot be any doubt that the fighting capacity and potential of the Islamic groups and the Fatah ‘tanzim’ is suffering from the search and destroy missions of the IDF. But three and half million people under occupation seem to create an endless supply of new candidates for the armed underground groups. In a costly selection process, the terrorists will develop new methods to cope with the incessant attacks and raids. Enjoying greater support and admiration for standing up against the IDF onslaught, the armed bands will attract more and more devoted and capable people to their ranks. The IDF military machine manages to produce new terrorists at the very moment that it engages the veterans so as to render them ineffective.

Now the name of this process is called fighting terror. This is, in modern discourse, a vital necessity and something all enlightened societies should be doing, if they are not already in the thick of the battle.The real questions are, of course, ignored. Why are these people engaged in terror? What are the basic issues confronting their society and how are these being addressed, if at all.

One should direct a number of hard questions to those who consider the war on terror a justified affair. Just how much death, destruction, and human suffering are you willing to impose on the Palestinians under occupation in this mad hunt for the enemy, who multiplies, as you crush his leadership and his organization.