Updates

Update from AIJAC

December 19, 2007
Number 12/07 #05

This Update is devoted to analysis of issues related to the year of negotiations planned to follow Annapolis – as the first Israeli-Palestinian meeting occurred last week, and a major conference for donors to the Palestinian Authority is on in Paris this week.

The first entry is a fairly comprehensive backgrounder on the process and the issues likely to affect it for BICOM (the British Israel Communications and Research Centre). It has insightful discussions about the problems of Hamas and Gaza, settlements, security and violence, and the role of regional players. However, it is at its best in exploring the need for negotiators to manage day-to-day events, such as rocket attacks, by neither ignoring them nor allowing them to predominate in the negotiations. For this analysis and a great deal more, CLICK HERE. More on the future of the process and how to make it successful from former Israeli peace negotiator Uri Savir. Also, a Jerusalem Post editorial on what PA President Mahmoud Abbas can do to further current negotiations.

Next up, Avi Yissacharoff and Amos Harel of Haaretz explore the current policies and political fortunes of Hamas in Gaza, which will be one of the key issues affecting the negotiations in the months ahead. They report that the organisation is divided and fast losing Palestinian public support, but, as demonstrated in a recent mass rally in Gaza, in which Hamas vowed never to recognise Israel, the  organisation is maintaining its hard-line stances on Israel. They also make it clear that Hamas’ grip on authority in Gaza appears to be as tight as ever, and Israel has little choice but to seriously consider a large-scale incursion against rocket attacks before Hamas and other terror groups succeed in creating longer range rockets. For their full take, CLICK HERE. Also, here is more on the Israeli debate about a possible major Gaza incursion – with Israeli defence chief Ashkenazi reportedly saying that such an operation may be “unavoidable” while prominent Israeli columnist Yoel Marcus argues it is likely to be a bad idea, and Israel should continue with smaller operations. Plus, Haaretz‘s Bradley Burston praises Monday’s airstrikes in Gaza, which killed 11 terrorist operatives and no civilians.

Finally, academic turned peace campaigner Yossi Alpher explains what is behind the recent demand from Israel that the Palestinians recognise Israel explicitly as a “Jewish State”. While he is opposed to pushing such explicit recognition at this time, he says that the demand is a reasonable Israeli response to Palestinian positions which appear to negate a genuine two-state solution by demanding there be one Palestinian state and one binational Jewish-Palestinian state. He says these Israeli concerns must be addressed if there is to be peace. For Alpher’s complete argument, CLICK HERE.

Readers may also be interested in:

• Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni’s speech to the donors’ conference for the Palestinians on Monday.
  
• After the international community pledged US$7.8 Billion to help with Palestinian reform and institution-building on Monday, both Israel and the PA were reportedly preparing for the likelihood that the Arab states would never deliver on most of the promises, as has happened with past pledges. The Jerusalem Post also had some comment on the disappointing behaviour of Arab donors to the Palestinians.
• Khaled Abu Toameh of the Jerusalem Post argues that aid to the PA is, on past form, no guarantee of boosting Palestinian moderates. Also, American scholar Daniel Pipes argues that, on past form, more aid to the Palestinians is a bad idea at present.
• Hamas denounced the donors’ conference as a “dangerous conspiracy” to divide Palestinians. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda #2 Ayman al-Zawahiri, in his latest videotape, denounces Hamas for tolerating and negotiating with Abbas and demands they fight for a caliphate encompassing “every inch of Islamic land from Andalusia to Chechnya.”
• Israel is reportedly complaining that Palestinian negotiators are being much less flexible than PA President Abbas has signalled he wants to be.
• The US is engaging with the Egyptians to try to stop weapons smuggling into Gaza, though Amos Harel argues Washington doesn’t fully understand the problem. Meanwhile, Israel has sent the US footage of Egyptian police assisting Hamas terrorists to cross the border.
• Some speculation on why Iraq didn’t come to Annapolis.
• Palestinian Authority sources say Hamas has been stealing fuel from Gaza hospitals for its operations. Plus some Israeli ruminations on the organised and apparently officially tolerated  nature of the extensive Palestinian car stealing operations from the West Bank.
• More children’s programming on Hamas-TV calling for using force to “liberate” the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem and wiping out the “people of Zion” and “not [leaving] a single one of them.”
• A song for kids promoting suicide bombings sold in a British mosque.
• A Turkish Islamist columnist says Jews are a “curse” responsible for all the world’s problems.
  
• Veteran Australian Jewish activist Isi Liebler on the lessons and history of the successful Soviet Jewry movement, of which he was a key founder and leader.
• Some excellent graphs illustrating the dramatic recent return of casualty rates to 2004 levels in Iraq.
• Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi has just completed a trip to Europe where he embarrassed his hosts no end, apparently deliberately. Plus, David Schenker on why Gaddafi does not deserve the recent rehabilitation he has received.
  
• European Arabs want to stop al-Jazeera broadcasts in Europe. Plus, former New York Times correspondent Joel Brinkley takes on the hypocrisy of the portrayals of America and Israel in the Middle Eastern press.
• American academic and editor Marty Peretz on the tendency to blame all Middle Eastern problems on Israel.
• North Korea reportedly may have aided Hezbollah with arms. Plus, Iran has reportedly demoted Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, placing the Sheikh Na’im Kassem in direct control of Hezbollah’s military wing.

BICOM Analysis: After Annapolis, Taking the Strain

Dec. 18, 2007

Introduction

After the fanfare of Annapolis two weeks ago, a confluence of events in the past week reminded anyone who might have forgotten how delicate and challenging the bilateral peace process between Israelis and Palestinians really is. On Wednesday, 12 December, the two sides met for the first time to begin the negotiating process. By all accounts the talks were tense, and foundered on mutual recriminations about recent events. The Palestinians are angry about the housing construction moving ahead in the controversial Har Homa district of Jerusalem, even though this was approved before Annapolis. Israel is dissatisfied by Palestinian efforts on security.[1]

The start of talks came the day after a more vigorous than normal Israeli incursion into the Gaza strip to confront the militants responsible for rocket attacks, and was accompanied by a particularly fierce barrage of Qassam rockets fired at the Israeli town of Sderot. And this week the violence has continued, with more rockets being fired into Israel, wounding a toddler on Sunday, and with the IDF launching a series of air strikes killing more than a dozen Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants on Tuesday.

With these various incidents, dilemmas which plagued negotiators in the past have been revived for both parties. Quite separate from the problem of bridging the gaps in the sides’ expectations of what a final agreement between the two will look like, the interlocutors must deal with the host of background incidents that can stop the negotiation process itself in its tracks. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni reportedly told EU diplomats on Thursday that the negotiations need to be divorced from “current events”. But what kinds of events have the potential to disrupt the process, and how far is it possible for the negotiators to cut themselves off from them?

The ‘cycle’ of violence

Tension between violence that may be taking place on the ground and talks taking place in the conference room has been a perennial feature of the Palestinian-Israeli bilateral process. The threat of Palestinian terrorism, carried out by groups which want to undermine the peace process or extort political influence within the Palestinian camp, presents both a practical and a political problem for both sides. The practical problem is that Israel is unwilling to make concessions, i.e. withdraw military forces from Palestinian territory or reduce restrictions on Palestinian movement, if that is going to raise the risk to Israelis from terrorism. Unfortunately, at no point since the beginning of the Oslo process has the Palestinian Authority proved reliable in preventing terror attacks against the state of Israel emanating from areas handed over to its control. In recent years the PA has persistently failed to reform its security services into a force equipped for this task. They themselves are currently under no illusions that they are ready for the task of controlling terror groups.[2]

The political problem is that violence emanating from Palestinian terror groups makes it harder for the Israeli leadership to justify continued negotiations, which are likely to lead to security concessions and a greater risk from terrorism. This is not a new problem. Yitzhak Rabin’s solution was to place dealing with the terrorists and dealing with the negotiations in two separate categories, effectively saying that: we will work for peace as if there is no terrorism and fight terrorism as if there is no peace. Ariel Sharon’s approach represented the opposite extreme from that of Rabin. His policy was ‘no negotiations under fire’ and he expected complete calm on the Palestinian side before entering talks. In the intervening years Netanyahu took a third approach. He tried to apply conditions of reciprocity by setting the pace of the peace process according to extent to which the Palestinians were dealing with terror, and therefore making them responsible.

Today this old problem has a new twist. In the past Israel dealt with a ‘moderate’ Palestinian leadership which was expected to cooperate with Israel to control the extremists in its midst. Today, there are two separate Palestinian leaderships, the Fatah leadership that Israel is dealing with, based in the West Bank, and the Hamas leadership that continues to refuse to recognise Israel, renounce terrorism, and accept existing agreements between Israel and the PA. Israel is not holding Abbas and Fayyad responsible for the rockets that are being fired daily from Gaza at Sderot, but the predicament of Sderot still puts strain on the relationship, and makes it difficult politically for Israel to advance a process which appears to put Israel at further risk.

Violence coming from Gaza complicates things for the Palestinians also. Whilst Israel is able to make a distinction between Palestinian violence emanating from Gaza and that coming from the West Bank, it is harder for the Palestinian leadership to make a distinction between Israeli military activity in either territory. The threat of a major IDF incursion into Gaza to attack the sources of Qassam rocket fire has been growing almost since Israel withdrew from its last major operation towards the end of 2006. Israel has set a high bar of tolerance for Qassam rockets. It has absorbed the impact of hundreds of rockets on Israeli population centres without responding with a major and sustained incursion into Gaza. But there is a tipping point, which may be approached the next time a Qassam rocket causes loss of life. There have been a number of very near misses with frequent direct hits on houses and other inhabited buildings, and the risk that a Qassam killing one or more people at any time is very high. If Israel were to respond with a major incursion into Gaza, even if it were aimed at Islamist groups unconnected to Fatah, a major loss of Palestinian life would make continuation of talks with Israel impossible for the Palestinian leadership.

Israel is also conducting nightly operations against militants in the West Bank but at a less intense level, and in a more predictable environment. The basic rule for both sides is, whether emanating from the West Bank or Gaza, that the bilateral relationship can sustain a certain degree of violence. But the room for manoeuvre is small and things can quickly spiral out of control.

Putting houses in order

Lying behind the issue of incidents of violence is the fact that both sides have made commitments under the Roadmap that are important to the building of trust but remain unfulfilled. The Palestinians have long been committed in theory to a major reform of the security, finance and political sectors to lay the groundwork for a Palestinian state that Israel can live with. Israel is committed to a freeze on settlement construction, and to evacuating illegal settlement outposts. The Palestinians are also demanding that Israel relax its security restrictions in the West Bank to allow its economy to recover.

The Palestinians have just been pledged $7.4 Billion in international aid at a major donor conference in Paris to help revive their economy. But the Palestinian economy has not collapsed since 2000 for want of international aid. The Palestinians have received higher levels of sustained per capita aid than anyone else in the world. The failure of the economy is due to two factors, one the mismanagement and misappropriation of the funds by the Palestinian Authority, the other Israel’s security measures, particularly since the Second Intifada broke out in 2000, to confront militants and restrict the movement of Palestinian people and good within the West Bank and Gaza and between those territories and Israel.

The latest World Bank report repeats the conclusion it has made several times in the past, that even if the Palestinians do everything possible to create a responsible and well managed budget, their economic position will not improve without Israel relaxing its restrictions on their movement and trade.[3] Israel’s willingness to lessen its presence will depend on their trust that the PA can secure territory under its control. But the PA’s security forces, like its public sector in general, is over-inflated and ineffectual.[4] Two other reports published last week, one from the Red Cross, and another from Oxfam point to the same conclusions.[5]

The failure of Fatah to deliver benefits to the Palestinian people cost them an election to Hamas in January 2006. If Fatah leaders continue talks with Israel whilst the situation for Palestinians in the West Bank shows no improvements, they risk yet further erosion of their waning authority and the further strengthening of Hamas in the West Bank. Therefore a complete divorce from reality on this issue does neither Israel nor the Palestinians any good.

Quartet envoy Tony Blair, tasked with helping the Palestinians develop their institutional capacity, appears to be assuming the role of mediator in this particular conundrum. His job looks like manoeuvring a large wardrobe through a small door, where he has to forcefully but carefully nudge each side a little at a time. On the Israeli side he is running into Israel’s internal political issues. Ehud Barak has a significant role to play in this regard and the personal relationship that Blair appears to have been building with the defence minister will be important to persuading Barak to engage with the process, when Barak’s own political position is aided by giving only little room on the issue of easing security restrictions.[6]

Whilst a failure of the PA to reform its security infrastructure and general institutional capacity makes it difficult for Israel to make concessions on the ground, continued Israel settlement construction puts the Palestinian leadership in a difficult position. Israel is not engaging in a major settlement drive, but it is continuing to build within what it calls existing settlement blocs, in areas it believes will stay part of Israel in a final peace deal in any case.[7] This and the building of the security fence are, of course, highly antagonistic to the Palestinians. Israel also has a long overdue commitment to evacuate ‘illegal settlements’ of the type established independently by Israelis opposed to withdrawal from the West Bank. Failure to move on these issues erodes Palestinian confidence at the negotiating table, and Palestinian public confidence in Israel’s real intent to conclude a deal.

Regional interference

An additional source of upset to the process is the regional players. The role of the region in the dispute has never been more complex. Rival Arab states have historically competed to exert some control over Palestinian internal politics, rather than being seriously committed to finding a solution. But the situation has been greatly complicated by Iran’s increasing sponsorship of Hamas, and Hamas’s rise to power. The current division between Hamas and Fatah is the biggest roadblock of all Palestinian independence. How an agreement made between Israel and Fatah to create a state on Gaza and the West Bank can be implemented without Hamas losing power in Gaza is hard to envisage. The division between Fatah and Hamas, and Gaza’s isolation, suits Iran, which can exploit the situation to increasingly bring Gaza and its militant groups under its influence.

The Annapolis conference and this entire process is given its international urgency and interest by a united desire in Israel and across the Arab world to halt the growth in Iranian influence. But reports from the past week indicate that there are moves taking place to bridge the gaps between Hamas, or at least more moderate parts of it, and Fatah, and a rapprochement between Hamas and Sunni Arab states.[8] Whilst Hamas leaders are no doubt looking for a way to end isolation for themselves and the Gaza Strip, any attempt to unite Hamas and Fatah in power sharing or a unity government, such as that attempted by the Saudis in February, will the shortest route to ending the negotiation process with Israel.[9] Israeli leaders will not deal with Fatah if it is in any kind of alliance with an entity committed to its destruction. They wish to see Hamas collapse under the weight of its inability to provide practical benefits to the Palestinian people, and have no interest in any deal that will help the organisation survive.

Conclusions

Whilst the approach to developing the Israeli-Palestinian track has changed over the years, there has always been an interaction between the situation on the ground and what is being discussed by the negotiators. If either side thinks it can talk now and act only later, when it’s more convenient, it will find the situation has slipped further beyond its reach yet again.

Each side has to deal with the challenge of how to relate the theoretical peace talks taking place in comfortable conference rooms in Jerusalem hotels to events that are taking place on the ground. If the negotiators respond to every adverse event, they will never proceed, and they will grant the power to violent extremists to disrupt the process whenever they choose. If they ignore completely what is happening on the ground, and the need to actively create a situation which would allow an agreement to be implemented, the negotiations risk being out of touch with reality. The negotiators need to conduct their talks, not in a room without windows, but in a room with the curtains partly drawn.

[1] PA, Israel point fingers in tense talks, Herb Keinon and Khaled Abu Toameh, Jerusalem Post, 13 December, 2007

[2] PA battles with reforming security, Khaled Abu Toameh, Jerusalem Post, 14 December, 2007

[3] Investing in Palestinian Economic Reform and Development, Report for the Pledging Conference, 17 December, 2007

[4] World Bank West Bank and Gaza Public Expenditure Review Volume 1, February 2007

[5] ICRC, The occupied Palestinian Territories, Dignity Denied, 13 December, 2007 and Breaking the impasse: ending the humanitarian stranglehold on Palestine, Oxfam, November 2007

[6] International Herald Tribune, World Bank: Palestinians will get poorer, despite massive aid, if roadblocks remain, The Associated Press, 13 December, 2007

[7] Har Homa homes mar new talks, Barak Ravid, Ha’aretz, 14 December, 2007

[8] Mashaal: Hamas ready to cede control, Jerusalem Post Staff and Khalen Abu Toameh, 12 December, 2007

[9] Livni: Israel will cut ties with PA if Fatah, Hamas create unity government, Jerusalem Post, 13 December, 2007

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Analysis: Despite its troubles, Hamas is toeing the radical line

Avi Yissacharoff and Amos Harel
Haaretz, December 16, 2007

“The organizers of Saturday’s rally in Gaza, which marked 20 years since Hamas’ founding, were delighted by the turnout – an estimated 200,000 people. Yet this impressive demonstration of strength cannot hide the Islamic organization’s distress. The division between “Hamastan” in the Gaza Strip and “Fatahland” in the West Bank is deepening; Gaza’s economic distress is worse than ever; and Hamas’ leadership is riven by a battle between the (relative) pragmatists, headed by the Damascus-based head of its political office, Khaled Meshal, and Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh, and the radicals, led by the head of its military wing, Ahmed Jabari.

This dispute was not evident at the rally, where all the speakers toed the radical line. Haniyeh lauded Hezbollah’s activities in Lebanon and Al-Qaida’s in Iraq and Afghanistan, linking them to Hamas’ operations in Gaza to argue that only “resistance” (i.e. violence) succeeds. He said Hamas will never recognize Israel and has made resistance its strategic choice. Meshal, in a recorded speech, made similar comments, urging another intifada and swearing “we will not concede an inch of Palestine.”

But even such fighting words cannot conceal the criticism the organization has suffered since its takeover of Gaza in June. Every public opinion poll since then has shown its popularity declining. Palestinians increasingly view Hamas as a cruel, dictatorial and frighteningly religious organization interested mainly in consolidating its position – a radical image change for a group once viewed as religious nationalists who dedicated much of their efforts to helping Gaza’s poor. The organization appears to be losing its place in the Palestinian consensus.

None of this means that Hamas’ grip on Gaza has weakened. Moreover, both the rival government in Ramallah and the international community are acting as if the Palestinian Authority still controlled Gaza: The aid requests the PA will present to donor states in Paris tomorrow relate extensively to the Strip. Pretending that Hamas does not exist is apparently more convenient for both the PA and the world than actually dealing with its control of Gaza.

Israel, however, does not have this luxury.

Contrary to the impression sometimes created in the media, neither the government nor the army is eager to invade Gaza. There have even been estimates that such an operation would cost the lives of 100 soldiers.

Nevertheless, the General Staff sees only a narrow window of time – a few weeks to a few months — in which it would be possible to launch an operation that would fall short of reoccupying the entire Strip. That window will close the moment Hamas solves two technical hurdles: extending the Qassams’ range beyond 15 kilometers and learning how to store the rockets for long periods, thereby enabling it to stockpile them. It is close to solving both. And once it does, any operation in Gaza will be much costlier, involving more casualties in southern Israel, while the army’s room to maneuver will be much smaller.

Within both the army and government, a debate is raging over when the proper moment will arrive. The fear is that we might discover we have closed the stable doors only after the horses have fled.”

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The ‘Jewish State” question:

A reaction to Palestinian positions

by Yossi Alpher

bitterlemons.org, Dec. 17, 2007

The demand that as part and parcel of the emerging peace process Israel be recognized by the Palestinian leadership as a Jewish state, was voiced recently by PM Ehud Olmert as well as others in both government and opposition. The timing of Olmert’s embrace of the concept appeared to have been motivated mainly by the political need to placate the right wing of his own coalition. One hopes that Olmert himself understands that, certainly at this point in the process, the demand is a non-starter and even a deal-breaker with Palestinians.

Nonetheless, the concept of Israel as a Jewish state is extremely important to understanding the evolution of mainstream Israeli views regarding peace with the Palestinian national movement as well as coexistence with the Palestinian citizens of Israel.

For most Israelis, Israel has always been a Jewish state, or, in a more secular formulation, the state of the Jewish people. After all, from an international legal standpoint this is the most legitimate definition of Israel. The Balfour declaration of 1917, later ratified by the League of Nations, declares that “Palestine will be reconstituted as the National Home of the Jewish People”. UN General Assembly Resolution 181 of 1947 creates an Arab state and a Jewish state in Mandatory Palestine. The definition of Israel as a “Jewish state” was incorporated into Israel’s declaration of independence of 1948 precisely in order to conform to international legality.

For the vast majority of Jews, the only rationale for Zionism is the existence of a Jewish state. Nor do most Israeli Jews see a conflict between “Jewish” and “democratic” or a problem in ultimately rationalizing the status of the Arab citizens of Israel as a national minority in a Jewish state, even though these are very thorny issues today.

The demand for Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state as a component of an end-of-conflict formula was on the periphery of the agenda of the Camp David negotiations in 2000. Israel never asked Egypt and Jordan to recognize it as a Jewish state when it negotiated peace treaties with them. Rather, the demand has emerged in recent years as a central Israeli position because, since Camp David, the Israeli mainstream has concluded from Palestinian demands and behavior that the ideal Palestinian vision of a two-state solution comprises an Arab state alongside a state called Israel that is understood by Palestinians as a future bi-national, Jewish-Arab state. Israel as Palestinians wish to see it would have a fast-growing indigenous Arab population and would confront pressures to absorb Palestinian refugees–based on the Palestinian understanding that Israeli acceptance of some responsibility for the events of 1948 constitutes de facto recognition that Israel was “born in sin” by expelling the indigenous Palestinians.

Today, given this Israeli perception of the ultimate Palestinian understanding of a two-state solution, Israel cannot permit itself in final status negotiations to accept even the symbolic return of a few thousand refugees–unless the Palestinians renounce the right of return and accept Israel as a Jewish state. In other words, the Israeli mainstream has concluded that the Palestinian demand for Israel to recognize the right of return, even if only “in theory” and to give Palestinians “psychological satisfaction”, is contradictory to the two-state solution as Israelis understand it and as the international community intended.

The Palestinian negotiating position that has generated Israel’s demand for recognition as a Jewish state is reflected not only in the right of return issue. At its core is apparently the Palestinian and broader Arab perception that Jews are either not a people or, if they are, they are not indigenous to the land now known as Israel.

Take Jerusalem. It was only at Camp David and thereafter that leading Palestinian spokesmen, from Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas on down, informed their Israeli counterparts that “there never was a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount”. According to authoritative Palestinians, it was only at Camp David that the Palestinian side realized for the first time how important the Temple Mount actually is to Jews!

Never mind that prior to the conflict, Arab historiography readily acknowledged that the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif mosques were deliberately built on the ruins of the Temple in order that Islam benefit from the perception of continuity with Judaism. Today, the Palestinians are unable to accept a solution that acknowledges the historic Hebrew roots of the Mount and provides accordingly for Jewish access. And mainstream Israel is unable to accept anything less, lest it officially feed the Palestinian narrative that the Jews of Israel are merely a band of colonialists who lack roots in a land that they took by force.

The Palestinian position on this issue is also reflected in mainstream Israeli Arab position papers published during the past year that, in effect, demand that Israel become a bi-national state. This means that the future status of Israel’s Palestinian citizens is now directly linked to the outcome of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on the Jewish state issue.

Admittedly, it was pointless and needlessly provocative for Olmert to raise this issue now, just as FM Tzipi Livni need not have asserted so bluntly that Palestinian citizens of Israel could find their national identity in the emergence of a Palestinian state. But Palestinians must understand that, first, these Israeli assertions are a direct reaction to the positions they themselves take regarding the ultimate nature of Israel, and second, the conflict cannot be definitively resolved until and unless Palestinian positions on issues like refugees and Jerusalem reflect an acknowledgement that the state of Israel is built upon Jewish history and tradition in the historic homeland of the Jewish people.

Note that the Israeli mainstream, which supports a two-state solution, has no difficulty offering a parallel acknowledgement to Palestinians regarding their history, tradition and homeland.- Published 17/12/2007 © bitterlemons.org

Yossi Alpher is coeditor of the bitterlemons.org family of internet publications. He is former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University and a former special adviser to PM Ehud Barak.