[Peace-discuss] Israeli-Palestinian "cycle of violence"

[David Green]

I agree with the basics of this analysis from an
Israeli peace advocate, but unfortunately I don't
share the "optimism" regarding "new" Palestinian
leadership. My guess is that this leadership conforms
to Arafat's style of appeasement and collaboration.
Baskin is right in concluding that only constructive
international intervention will make a difference.

David Green
____________________________

Cycles

Gershon Baskin*

Protracted violence and conflict continues to be the
main characteristic of the Israeli-Palestinian
relationship. The cycle of horrific violence
continues with no end in sight.  Until the bus bombing
in Haifa last week, Israelis had been speaking about a
period of relative quiet, but
during that period Israel increased its attacks
against the Palestinian population centers.  In
February alone more than 70 Palestinians were
killed by the Israeli army - most of them were not
"ticking time bombs". As a Haaretz Editorial stated
last week: "Of the 72 Palestinians killed
in the Gaza Strip and West Bank in February, 25 were
civilians, including three children under the age of
10. A pregnant woman and two youths were among the
dead in El-Bureij." Palestinian extremists efforts
to hit Israel didn't stop for a single day but most of
those efforts to attack Israelis were successfully
stopped before reaching their targets.

Israeli experts on Palestinian affairs such as Danny
Rubenstein from Haaretz and Ronny Shaked from Yediot
Ahronot have been speaking out more and more about the
direct link between Israeli violence against
Palestinians and Palestinian violence against
Israelis. The cycle of revenge gets deeper and deeper
with each passing day.  In the aftermath
of the Israeli assassination of Hamas leader Ibrahim
Maqadmeh in Gaza this weekend, Abed el Aziz Rantisi, a
senior Hamas leader said that the
Palestinians would be guided by the Old Testament
adage of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth".
In this region where that philosophy
was first inscribed, we are really talking about each
side trying to take 100 eyes of the other side for
each eye of their own. And as Mahatma Gandhi said, an
eye for an eye will simply make a lot of blind
people. But it seems like those who implement the
policies of continued revenge have proven their
blindness a long time ago, be they Israeli or
Palestinian.

In a recent conversation with an Israeli military and
security analyst for a major Israeli daily newspaper
who has recently spent a lot of time
interviewing members of Israeli Senior Command - all
of the rank of General, I asked how could so many of
the most senior officers of the Israeli army not be
voicing criticism of what seems to me to be a
hopeless and dangerous strategy for fighting terrorism
that in my view, has no chance of succeeding. His
response was: there is criticism - but
it is that they still are not using enough force!  I
have been writing since the very beginning of the
intifada that there is absolutely no military solution
to this conflict and that there is a direct
correlation between amount the force that Israel uses
against the Palestinians and the amount of force
Israel receives in return - usually in the nature of
suicide bombers. The more force that Israel uses
against the Palestinian population, the more the
Palestinian public supports, publicly or in their
hearts, the use of all means of violence,
including terrorism, against Israelis. This is so even
though there has been a steady increase in the numbers
of Palestinians who believe that
it has been a huge error to militarize the intifada
and to launch attacks against Israeli civilians. 

Despite the demands for real political and military
reforms in Palestine by the Palestinian public, recent
attempts of reaching an agreement of
all Palestinian factions to issue a unilateral
ceasefire have failed. The attempts were serious and
the meetings of the factions held in Cairo
with the support of the Egyptian government and the
European Union were very important, but in the end,
there was no agreement achieved and
recent Israeli assassinations of leading Hamas figures
and increased attacks in Gaza will push the chances of
agreement further away. 

Over the past few days I was witness to a discussion
of several Palestinian ex-officials of the former
Palestinian security-intelligence
apparatus - the Preventive Security.  This was one of
the main forces that fought against Hamas and Jihad
prior to the intifada and from the general sense of
their discussion, it was clear that they would be more
than happy to go back to their jobs and their task of
fighting against Hamas and Jihad.  These former senior
Palestinian officers were most
definitely of the opinion that Hamas and Jihad are
working against the national interests of the
Palestinian people. They are also of the
opinion that Hamas is one organization and not a
political -social organization on the one hand and a
military organization on the other. In their view,
each part of Hamas constructs the whole and the whole
is a major danger to Palestinian society and national
interests. They are also of the opinion that the
growth in the public strength for Hamas is
the outcome of a predetermined Israeli plan. They
believe that the true Israeli intention is to apply
continued pressure to the Palestinian
population so that they will embrace the most extreme
elements of Palestinian society and thus the option
for peace, meaning Israeli withdrawal becomes
impossible.  Whether or not this is the true
intention of the Israeli government and security
forces is somewhat irrelevant, because this is what is
happening on the ground. As the cycles of violence 
and revenge continue, the support for Hamas and Jihad
are on the rise at the same time that the Israeli
occupation is deeply entrenched in all Palestinian
cities and villages.  The Israelis
have come back to reoccupy all of Palestine. The
difference between this occupation and the occupation
that existed until the Oslo period is that
now Israel refuses to accept full responsibility for
the welfare of the Palestinian people and the
Palestinian Authority has not yet decided to
turn that full responsibility over to the occupation
authorities.  There are Palestinians out there who
call this phenomenon collaboration with
the occupation and who call for the Palestinian
Authority to dismantle itself and put the full
responsibility for the health, welfare,
education and economy of the Palestinians on Israel. 

At the same time, with tremendous pressure coming from
the Palestinian political factions - mainly Fatah, the
United Nations and from Europe,
Arafat has taken up the challenge of governmental
reform.  Abu Mazen is about to become the first
Palestinian Prime Minister while the
negotiations are on within the Palestinian political
circles on the authority that the PM will have. Abu
Mazen would like to appoint his own government and to
thereby insure the loyalty of the key people in the
Authority.  This would be a positive move, but the
real test of change will be the Israeli response to
that change.  In the aftermath of Iraq, the United
States will be called upon to implement the "Road Map"
and to bring about a full Israeli-Palestinian
re-engagement.  The US should open the door to the new
Palestinian PM as should Sharon who will need a
Palestinian partner if he is going to fulfill his
campaign promises of security and peace.  At this
point there is no reason to believe that
the US or the Israeli intentions about
Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking are real.  The US led
Quartet's Road Map might be a good place to begin,
but Sharon has already indicated that he plans to
remove from it any elements of real Palestinian
sovereignty. 

While the international community readies itself for
the war in Iraq and the aftermath and parts of the
international community have been working
on an implementation plan of the Road Map, some groups
of Israelis and Palestinians, including in IPCRI, with
the support of the International
community have been working diligently on plans for
real international involvement in Israel and
Palestine.  One of the plans being examined
looks towards the establishment of a Transitional
Administration in Palestine that together with a
Palestinian government which would take
control of most civil affairs, an international
authority led by the United States would take over
security responsibilities which would
enable the Israelis to withdraw from the occupied
territories and to remove settlements along with the
withdrawal. The international transitional
administration would be in place for as long as
necessary,based on performance based benchmarks, to
lead to the creation of an independent Palestinian
state that would be in the position to reach a
full peace treaty with Israel. The basic idea is that
in order to facilitate a full Israeli withdrawal from
the occupied territories there must be some authority
to turn the responsibility over at a time when
Israel will not turn the authority directly over to
the Palestinians. Such transitional administrations
have worked in the past in other places in the world
and now this model is being examined in depth to
determine how it could be applied here.

One thing is quite clear, whether it is the Quartet's
Road Map or some other plan, with the total
non-existence of any trust between Israelis
and Palestinians, the international community will
have to play a significant role in the verification,
monitoring, compliance processes and dispute
resolution of any Israeli-Palestinian agreements in
the future.  Neither Israelis nor Palestinians believe
that any piece of paper signed between them or any
public verbal undertakings has any
value in terms of the chances that they will be
implemented with real good intent. The international
community will have to serve as mediator,
dispute revolver, judge, and perhaps even have to come
in with military power to enforce agreements and to
separate forces on the ground.  IPCRI
and others are working with groups of Israeli and
Palestinian experts as well as experts from the
international community on these issues. 

During the past months we have once again noted a
surge in Israeli-Palestinian activities, both in IPCRI
and at other Israeli,Palestinian and international
non-governmental organizations. Many of
these activities have been classic Track II
discussions of working groups on economic issues,
civil issues, political issues - such as the
future of Jerusalem, and environment and water issues.
The main problem these days faced by all of those who
are organizing and running such
activities is the severe limitation on movement
imposed by Israel against the Palestinians. It is
impossible to convene such meetings in
Israel because the Israeli military refuses to allow
Palestinians to sleep over in Israel.  It is
impossible to convene such meetings in
Palestine because it is illegal for Israelis to enter
the Palestinian territories.  The only option is to
hold the meetings abroad.  Turkey, Greece and Cyprus
have become the main places where Israelis and
Palestinians convene. 

The Israeli army makes it extremely difficult as there
are increasingly enlarging lists of Palestinians who
are prohibited by the Israeli
intelligence service from leaving the country.  In
most cases the Israelis don't allow Palestinians to
travel via the Israeli airport and
then the logistics involved in having Palestinians
travel via Jordan or Egypt are a nightmare. We have
petitioned the Israeli government and
military to establish a special category for travel
permits for Palestinians who are participating in
Israeli-Palestinian peace meetings.  We have asked
them to create a special category to allow
Palestinian peace activists to receive regular entry
permits into Israel.  The Israelis have done this to
allow Palestinian businessmen to enter Israel. We
believe that it is high time to recognize the unending
efforts of our Palestinian colleague to continue their
peace work on the Palestinian streets despite all of
the opposition they face.  The
minimum that should be done is to allow them to meet
freely with their Israeli counterparts in order to
advance all of the non-governmental
efforts of peacemaking.  We believe that if movement
of these Palestinian activists would be made easier
there would be an even larger surge of activities and
the process of Israeli-Palestinian re-engagement
would speed up. This is essential and must be
encouraged at a time when at the governmental level
there are still almost no contacts at all. 



Gershon Baskin, Ph.D.
Co-Director, IPCRI


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