Murder Plain and Simple

The real intent of the assassination of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin is identical with Sharon’s disengagement ploy: to block any significant opportunity for the resumption of efforts towards genuine negotiations. The fixed goal is the targeted assassination of any chance for peace.

The policy of targeted assassinations was immoral and illegal in the first place. It really had little to do with the prevention of terror. The real intent of targeted assassination was to legitimize the employment of political murder as an instrument in the execution of crimes against the Palestinian people, from collective punishment up to politicide – the denial of their national rights. In the present context, these are also crimes against peace and the people of Israel.

Sharon has opted to include political assassination as a weapon to defend his crumbling authority. His coalition is falling apart, his ministers openly defy him, his party is in disarray. Even more important: his prestige with the broad public is in a state of disintegration. Just weeks ago he had massive support from the public who believed that he was trying to get us out of the current mess. But he has also squandered this last vestige of prestige by bumbling inconsistency and refusing to tell anyone what he is exactly trying to do. Adventurism always came naturally to Sharon, he still feels more comfortable in battle dress. So we learn that the aging general, frustrated and more isolated by the hour, personally directs the ‘heroic’ helicopter raid on a civilian convoy of a religious leader on his way back from worship.

There is method in this madness. If ever an act was designed to deepen the hostility of the Arab and Moslem world against Israel, its people and its friend, this was it. Sharon is betting the future of Israel on the clash between civilizations. His hope for Israel’s survival is pinned to the banners of George Bush’s kind of Christendom and its battle against the Arab and Moslem world.

The Bush-Sharon alliance will weather the present storm. The two need each other in their hour of adversity. Even so, Sharon’s present infatuation with political murder, may cause problems in Washington, where things like this are farmed out to proper departments of dirty tricks. In the capitals of this world, leaders do not usually brag about killing other leaders.

Sharon’s Disengagement: Pre-empting the ‘Growing Danger’ of Peace

Never a day goes by without a flood of commentaries on Sharon’s disengagement plans. Sharon insists on a major pull out from the Gaza area, the removal of some 7,500 Jewish settlers, with most of their settlements. Sharon talks about also dismantling several settlements in the West Bank and gives everyone to understand that all this is going to be coordinated with the U.S. administration, down to the last detail. The new arrangements in the Gaza region, the timing of the withdrawal, and some sort of financial assistance from the U.S. government are already the subject of intensive negotiations between the Israeli and U.S. governments. Naturally enough, the super hawks in his coalition and in his own party are fuming with indignation over the fact that the boss himself is going to grant, heaven forbid, a colossal ‘prize to terror’.But there is nothing mysterious about Sharon’s intentions. He wants very much to create a new status quo in which Israel will retain 50 per cent of the West Bank, and 90% of the settlements there, Israel will continue to have complete, undivided control of Jerusalem. And, of course, Israel will continue to look the other way whenever the refugee problem is mentioned. Sharon hopes to pacify international pressure by agreeing to the establishment of a Palestinian state in the area that is to remain in Palestinian hands after Sharon puts his disengagement program into effect. There is, of course, not the remotest possibility that the Palestinians might accept his ridiculous offer for a Palestinian state in 10% of Palestine. The sole purpose of the offer is to allow Sharon to appear as an ‘advocate of Palestinian statehood.’

Sharon may be a reactionary militarist but unlike the settler leadership, he is not a religious fundamentalist. He sees himself as a man of the world, a statesman with international standing. And as such, he never forgets that the main component in Israeli strength is the alliance with the United States and a high level of understanding and cooperation with the administration in Washington, D.C.

Sharon’s Problems

The settlers, for their part, claim to derive their politics from reading Torah. Sharon, on the other hand, reads military and political maps and tries to anticipate the effect of short and long range processes. He has arrived at the conclusion that despite Israel’s tremendous military superiority, the given status quo is tenuous and inherently unstable. And if change is inevitable, it is the task of the leader, to make every effort to shape future events. Religious fanatics don’t accept compromises. But even the most chauvinist of politicians, especially those with rich military experience, understand that there are times when you simply have to shorten your lines, so as to better defend your main positions. Sharon has announced that the time has come for Israel to carry out this kind of exercise.

Sharon fears that any sort of negotiations, even with a tremendously enervated Palestinian leadership, might propel Israel in the direction of a settlement acceptable to the international community. The contours of such a settlement, if and when genuine negotiations get underway remain clear. It is no accident that when Sharon started to talk seriously about ’separation’, his advisers informed the public that Sharon’s plan was necessary to head off other initiatives such as the Geneva Accords. Just last week, in an attempt to gain support from the Likud MK back benchers, he told them out and out that Israel must either adopt his plan or ‘lose it all’. Sharon teaches his colleagues the facts of life. A partial unilateral withdrawal is preferable to the danger of genuine negotiations for peace

Hoisted by his Own Petard

Sharon has serious problems in his government and in his party. He cannot get his plan through the cabinet without a major coalition crisis and he cannot reconstruct a new coalition without a crisis in his own party.

Interestingly enough, Sharon seems, according to the polls, to have a clear majority of Israeli public opinion behind his suggestion for a partial pull out. But most of the ministers and the local bosses in the party’s central bodies, accept the settlers’ secular arguments to the effect that any kind of pull out is a prize to the terrorists. For years, Sharon and his political allies have been arguing that Israel can ignore international public opinion and diplomatic realities and the opponents of the withdrawal are having a field day quoting relatively recent statements by Sharon such as the one that claimed that Netzarim – an isolated Israeli settlement on the southern tip the Gaza Strip- is as important as Tel Aviv. How interesting to watch Ariel Sharon being condemned by more and more of his political and ideological kinsmen of being soft on terror.

There are two main problems with Sharon’s proposed major pull out from Gaza and a few relatively isolated settlements in the WB. The first is the difficulty converting broad support in the public for a pull out into a broad coalition of support in Israeli politics for a man whose credibility was always very low. A lot of smart money is on Sharon’s retreat being more likely than any retreat by the IDF. He can always change his mind and blame parties to his left for not giving him unqualified and unconditional support. But such support may be lacking precisely because very few people believe that Sharon is really a man of principle willing to go down fighting for his beliefs. It is very hard for the forces of peace and political realism to extend any support to Sharon, who has contributed so much over so many years to the horrible predicament in which Israel finds itself.

Pre-empting Peace

But this is not the only problem. Sharon’s plans to ‘pre-empt’ peace suffer from their narrow and provincial conceptions. If Israel is already in a concessionary mood, many observers ask why not use this opportunity for some constructive negotiations with the Palestinians. Up till now, Bush and company justified their hands-off policy by the rather lame rational that nothing could be done without first meeting the need to eradicate terror. But if there is going to be an Israel pull back, without any perceptible change in the intensity of terrorist actions, isn’t it simply logical to use the opportunity to restart serious negotiations?

There are some strange mutterings coming out of DC. Bush’s advisers must be saying something like this: Here we are here in Washington, justifying our inaction by the intractability of the situation, which turns out to be highly tractable. Doesn’t our trusted ally know that this is an election year and we have plenty of our own problems? Or is it possible that Sharon could try and use the U.S. election to wring pro-Israeli policy statements, funds and other concessions from us in the administration precisely in this election year. Perhaps Sharon believes that it is better to do business with George W. while he is still around.

Momentarily, Sharon and the United States are not on the same page. But have no fear, Sharon will go nowhere without the blessings of George W., even if you promise him 80% of the votes in the Israeli parliament. He won’t move an inch, without all the damage control mechanisms, in Washington DC, in place. At the moment, it appears that Sharon doesn’t intend to move a single settler before November 2004, but he does want to use the year to clear the way for decisive action afterwards. He wants to package his separation plan this year in order to deliver it in 2005. And he wants clear policy commitments from the United States for his plans.

Sharon knows that he cannot stabilize the current situation. He is telling Bush that Israel needs to make serious changes to maintain the occupation and a lot of ‘help from its friends’ to rearrange things in order to create some hope of relative stability. What is certain is this: despite the military weakness of the Palestinians and the disarray of the Palestinian leadership, and because of the horrendous suffering of three and a half million Palestinians under conditions of brutal occupation, the Palestinian issue continues to haunt the halls of power and the consciences of decent people everywhere. The status quo, one might say, is a ‘non-starter’.

Yes, Refusal Is In The Air

Four separate Refusal-centered events are currently occurring these days in the country. In Tel Aviv, a high level IDF committee discussed at length a demand from the IDF prison authorities to ‘relocate’ the five anti-occupation conscientious objectors, Hagai Matar, Noam Bahat, Adam Maor, Matan Kaminer and Shimri Tsameret to the civilian prison system.

The infamous IDF Conscience Commission turned down for the fourth time, Yoni Ben Artzi’s demand that he be exempted from service on the basis of his clear pacifist convictions, but did redirect him to the Incompatibility Commission with a recommendation that he be released from the IDF.

Amid Zahad from the town of Dalyat El-Karmel belongs to that section of Israeli Druze who have opted for military service. Therefore, his decision to join the Israeli refusal group, Courage to Refuse, was newsworthy and led to his designation as the first Druze refusenik. Zahad told the media that his action met with general approval in his community.

Laura Miloh will not be alone this Sunday morning, February 22, 2004 when she presents herself to the IDF mobilization base in order to be jailed. Laura wrote to the “Conscience Commision’ that she refuses to participate in the crimes perpetrated by Israel through the IDF. I am not a pacifist. My refusal is motivated by my opposition to the occupation.” And the Commision wrote back that her request was rejected because her position was not related to a question of conscience. Laura, a member of Hashomer Hatzair, has recently completed a year of community service in the Yeruham development town. She will receive deep expressions of solidarity from members of the High school seniors group (the ’shministim’), New Profile and members of the Refusers Parents’ Forum. If indeed jailed, Laura will join Inbal Gilbart, serving her third sentence in jail after her right to follow the dictates of here conscience was rejected by the Conscience Commission.

The Dangerous, Disruptive Five Subversives

Pity the poor military prison system. Just a few days after the five entered Military Prison #6, the chief wardens sounded the alarm by requesting that an internal high-level IDF relocation commission send the five to civilian prisons. Colonel Major O. told the committee that “ever since they arrived the five, their presence is completely undermining discipline and order in the prison…the chief warden and the entire staff are mainly busy with them and do not have any time and energy left for the other five hundred prisoners.” The clincher came when the IDF official explained that as a group the five were quite problematic, by this example: If we would send the prisoners to work on the Wall isn’t it clear that they would refuse?

When asked to detail the sins of the five, O. demanded that the courtroom be cleared of the public before he would indulge the secret information.” Certain members of the commission asked the five, almost enticingly, that since you do not want to be in army, wouldn’t you be better off without the troublesome yoke of military discipline. The prisoners replied that if they are considered unfit for military service, then they should be released and sent home and not shoved off to serve time with hardened criminals. After it became clear to the five and their counsel that the IDF was going to do everything to make life miserable for them, including attempts to force them to do prisoner assignments in the occupied territories, the five withdrew their opposition to the transfer.

Vicious, Savage Character Assassination by an Official IDF Panel

The lengthy 9 month proceedings in the case of the IDF v. Yoni Ben Artzi propelled the IDF Conscience Commission into the public limelight. The Commission became the object of justified media criticism and public ridicule. Nobody could accept that it was reasonable that Army officers with no previous training or minimal understanding of the problem, and who never bothered with small matters like rules of procedure or criteria regarding the nature and the definition of pacifism, should be the ones to decide the fate of conscientious young men and women. A while back, a panel of military judges expressed their belief that Ben Artzi was indeed a pacifist and with this in mind sent Ben Artzi back to the Conscious Commission instead of sentencing him for refusing to obey orders.

It wasn’t a complete surprise when the CC stuck by its previous decision. However, in a fit of vengeance and anger, the CC proceeded to release a flood of vilification against Ben Artzi, accusing him of ‘ego-centricism’, inconsistency and indifference to the welfare of fellow soldiers. In an action probably unparalleled in the annals of military bureaucracy in this country, an official IDF panel defended its crude behavior by an act of totally uncalled for character assassination against a young Israeli who had been in confinement for over a year struggling to make his totally honest case before them. The IDF prosecutor chimed in trying to convince the public that Ben Artzi was devious and dangerous because he expressed on one occasion that dangerous idea that the state should not force people to act against their will.An official government bodies seized on partial and distorted quotes from hundreds of pages of testimony to defend themselves, at the expense of an honest young person, from the justified suspicion that they really had no understanding of the subject and just enjoyed setting themselves up as all powerful and all knowing.

Divide and Conquer

The manipulation of the Druze community in Israel is one of the stellar achievements of the government policy to set Arab against Arab by extending preferential treatment to candidates for co-option. Thus, most young Druze, at the insistence of their elders become regular and often professional soldiers in the IDF. The idea that a young member of the community can set up his own ideals and feelings as the only guide to his behavior can, in unchecked, spoil the deal that is based on the strange idea, promoted by Israeli quasi-intelligence ‘academic’ experts that Druze are not Arabs. A Druze soldier has declared that he will not serve in the occupied territories. What a lack of gratitude for all the Israeli government has done for the Druze by separating them from their Arab brethren.

A Matter of Slight Lack of Proportion

I have little chance of being appointed an advisor to the PR division of the IDF. But here is a bit of free advice for them. Be very careful about throwing women into military prison because they have a conscience and refuse to participate in the crimes of the occupation. We have witnessed a surge of solidarity here and abroad with the anti-occupation five serving their second year in jail. If you insist on imprisoning all the young women who openly and clearly tell you that they refuse to serve the occupation, you are going to get into a very serious battle, indeed.

The glare of publicity on the Conscious Commision may be indirectly responsible for the current wave of arrests against young women. During the Ben Artzi proceedings, it was revealed that 97% of male requests for exemption are rejected while 97% of requests from women are accepted. Two things have to be said here. The first is that the reason for the discrepancy is obvious: men are cannon fodder in demand and women are less suitable in this respect. The second is that the only ‘logical’ explanation of the discrepancy is that the women are all devoted pacifists and the men are just a bunch of fakers. The problem with this explanation is that no one will believe that it is true. It may be that the CC is trying to even up the numbers by jailing more female conscientious objectors. If this is true, boy, are they making a mistake.

(Special thanks to Adam Keller of Gush Shalom)