Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July/August 2003, pages 6-7, 52

Special Report

 

New Palestinian Leaders Face An Unyielding Israel and a Divided Bush Administration

 

By Rachelle Marshall

Hours after the Israeli government was handed the road map, tanks were moving into Gaza. We expected the response from the Israeli government to come in words but it came with bullets and tanks.—Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, just after an Israeli missile attack on Gaza killed 13 Palestinians, Jerusalem Times, May 9.

The succession of suicide bombings in late May that killed 12 Israelis in three days ended another long lull in Palestinian attacks. There was no lack of violence during those months, however, as the Israeli army ransacked Palestinians towns and refugee camps, carried out scores of assassinations and random killings of civilians, and demolished hundreds of homes. Meanwhile three million Palestinians remained imprisoned behind cement walls and roadblocks.

Finally, as was almost inevitable, a handful of Palestinians willing to blow themselves up provided Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with the excuse he needed to reject the "road map to peace," a plan proposed by the United States, the United Nations, Russia and the European Union that calls for Palestinians and Israelis to take simultaneous steps leading toward a Palestinian state by 2005. Palestinians were hopeful last April that the appointment of Mahmoud Abbas as prime minister, with a cabinet largely of his own choosing, would enable the road map to peace to go forward. Those hopes began to dissolve, however, when Sharon rejected two of the plan's most crucial elements: the dismantling of the more than one hundred Jewish settlements built since 2001, and a freeze on new settlement construction.

After the first suicide bombings Sharon canceled a scheduled trip to Washington and repudiated the peace plan entirely. In response, the White House has proposed that the Israelis give "qualified" endorsement to the road map by accepting its goal of a two-state solution while still objecting to some of its provisions. The ambiguous wording of the endorsement, for instance, would allow Israel to stick to its demands for a ban on the return of Palestinian refugees and the indefinite postponement of the settlement issue.

The proposed qualifications succeeded in mollifying Sharon's right-wing cabinet, which voted 12 to 7 to accept the White House proposal. Exactly what the cabinet agreed to intentionally was left vague. Sharon's notion of a Palestinian state means giving the Palestinians control of most West Bank cities while Israel controls the land that surrounds them—roughly 60 percent of the West Bank. He dismissed out of hand the settlement freeze called for in the road map. "There is no restriction here," he assured one cabinet member. "You can build for your children and grandchildren and I hope your great-grandchildren as well."

Palestinians know such comments mean there will be no progress toward a genuine peace settlement without powerful U.S. intervention, and so far there is no assurance this will be forthcoming. What is far more likely to result from Israel's "qualified endorsement" is that Congress will give the Israelis a substantial financial reward, Bush will run for re-election as a Middle East "peacemaker," and many Palestinians will continue to believe that neither the Israelis nor the Americans are interested in a just peace.

American presidents periodically go through the motions of brokering peace between the two sides, but Washington's unwillingness to pressure Israel to withdraw fully from the occupied territories or dismantle the settlements invariably turns these negotiations into ceremonial dances rather than serious acts of diplomacy. Their futility was underscored in mid-May when Secretary of State Colin L. Powell met with both Abbas and Sharon and urged that they begin taking steps toward implementing the road map to peace. Abbas fully endorsed the peace plan, but Sharon refused to do so and proceeded to make it impossible for Abbas to end Palestinian violence.

During his meeting with Powell, Sharon announced that, as a concession to the Palestinians, he would allow 15,000 documented workers from Gaza to enter Israel. But before the secretary of state's plane could take off for Egypt, and in the absence of any provocation, Israel sealed off the border with Gaza and imposed the tightest crackdown since the intifada began. Even international aid workers and U.N. administrators were barred from entering. Within hours the army resumed its hunt for militants and in the next two days killed eight Palestinians.

The Bush administration's formal publication of the peace plan on April 30 proved lethal to scores of Palestinians. In the first two weeks of May Israeli forces killed more than 30 Palestinians and destroyed more than 50 homes. Three days after Powell urged both sides to refrain from attacks, the Israeli army invaded the village of Beit Hanoun just before dawn with two dozen tanks, armored vehicles and bulldozers, and ordered terrified families into the streets while soldiers blew up 15 houses. In response to sporadic gunfire and stone throwing, soldiers killed five Palestinians, including three boys aged 12, 14 and 18, and wounded more than 20, then blocked ambulances from the scene. As additional punishment, the army flattened citrus and olive orchards that had provided the community's livelihood for generations. Acording to The New York Times, "Five bulldozers took down hundreds of mature orange trees like huge lawn mowers trimming an overgrown yard."

Such attacks have been typical of the Sharon government's response to international peacemaking efforts. Their goal is to make it impossible for any Palestinian leader, whether it be Yasser Arafat or Mahmoud Abbas, to convince militants to lay down their weapons. And the militants invariably rise to the bait. According to a correspondent for the Jewish Telegraph Agency, Israeli officials fear that if a cease-fire takes hold, the Bush administration might demand major concessions from Israel. The suicide bombings in late May allayed these fears. They also undermined Abbas's ability to obtain tangible concessions from the Israelis.

It was no surprise that Sharon and Abbas reached no agreement at their May 17 meeting. Abbas said he could not proceed with his security strategy until Israel accepted the road map and acted simultaneously with the Palestinians to carry out its provisions. Sharon refused to take any action until Palestinian security forces disarmed and arrested militants. The Israeli leader undoubtedly knows as well as Abbas that, without reciprocal action by Israel, efforts by Palestinian leaders to forcibly suppress the militants could lead to a bloody civil war and postpone peace efforts indefinitely.

Sharon's job is made easier by the fact that the Bush administration is itself divided when it comes to pressuring Israel to make concessions for peace. At his meeting with Sharon, Powell put no pressure on the Israelis to accept the road map or even to freeze settlement construction, but he did try to convince Sharon to take substantial steps to ease conditions for Palestinians. With even this limited an agenda, Powell faces opposition from such top Pentagon figures as Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle, and from Bush's Middle East policy adviser, Elliot Abrams. All four men are backers of Sharon's Likud party and favor Israel's permanent control of the West Bank and Gaza.

Powell and other administration moderates also must contend with a powerful group of Christian conservatives, led by former Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer, that calls the peace plan "a disaster for Israel" and is urging the administration to abandon it. The Israeli settler lobby, Yesha, is seeking support from American Jews for an "alternative road map" that leaves the settlements intact and rules out a Palestinian state. On the other side, paradoxically, is a group of 100 prominent Jewish Democrats—normally bitter opponents of Bush—who have petitioned Democratic presidential candidates to back the road map.

 

The Ruse of Regime Change

Pro-Israel hawks within the administration have long regarded Syria and Iran as the next candidates for regime change in the Middle East. Both countries cooperated in tracking down Islamic militants after Sept. 11, and Iran bitterly opposed the Taliban in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has charged them with a variety of offenses, including harboring wanted Iraqi officials and developing chemical and nuclear weapons. Rumsfeld and other administration officials blamed two car bombings in Saudi Arabia in mid-May on an al-Qaeda cell they said was operating out of Iran. "There's no question but there are today senior al-Qaeda leaders in Iran," Rumsfeld declared on May 21. "And they're busy."

Israeli security officials meanwhile blamed Syria and Iran for the recent suicide bombings in Israel.

The more credible reason Syria and Iran are on the Bush administration's hit list is that they are thought to support, or are willing to tolerate within their borders, organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah that actively oppose Israel's continued occupation of Arab land. The assumption is that if Syria and Iran are forced to withdraw their support for such groups, the terrorists would no longer be able to operate, and the Palestinians would realize they had nothing to gain by further resistance and agree to Israel's terms.

Since Hezbollah and Hamas provide schools, clinics, and other essential services in poor, predominantly Muslim, communities, the administration is targeting them more directly by going after Muslim charitable organizations in America that raise money for victims of Israeli occupation. In November 2002 a three-judge court that adjudicates investigations under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act authorized the FBI to shut down several such charities on the basis of foreign intelligence that alleges they provide financial support for terrorists. The source of the "foreign intelligence" undoubtedly is Israel.

So far there is no evidence that the money has gone for anything other than social services, but the crackdown is certain to inhibit fund-raising on behalf of people who have no other source of aid. James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute in Washington, DC, warns that shutting down the Muslim charities could also backfire. "By criminalizing attempts to send money to Hezbollah or to support it," he said, "the FBI is alienating people here who could be allies in the war on terrorism."

The United States needs such allies more than ever before. Two months after U.S. forces launched the invasion of Iraq, it was apparent that the U.S. attack had turned an abusively governed but functioning society into a jungle, where looters roamed the streets, children were dying of severe diarrhea and malnutrition, and doctors were forced to treat sick or wounded people in hospitals stripped of their equipment. High-level American officials and returning Iraqi exiles quickly established themselves in Baghdad with their entourages, but the emissaries of the most powerful nation in the world proved unable to restore electricity, arrange for garbage disposal, or even provide doctors with painkillers. After the Americans announced they would remain in charge for several months, many Iraqis protested that they had been liberated from Saddam Hussain only to come under foreign occupation. One angry resident told reporters, "The people are desperate. What will we do if a leader comes again to fight the Americans? We will follow him."

The Bush administration argued that it was necessary to get rid of Saddam Hussain in order to prevent future terrorism and make the world more secure, but in fact the war has made Americans less safe. The chaos in Iraq that followed the U.S. invasion erased much of the support America gained from ousting a cruel dictator, and revealed shocking callousness and lack of foresight on the part of U.S. authorities. Iran and North Korea appear to be arming themselves with nuclear weapons in order to deter similar attacks, and other countries will be tempted to do the same.

Even more worrisome has been the resurgence of terrorism, with devastating suicide bombings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on May 12 and in Morocco on May 16. The victims in both cases were mainly Arabs or Europeans, but the actions appeared to justify the warnings of many Middle East experts that a war on Iraq was likely to provoke violent reactions. A U.S. counterterrorism expert told The New York Times after the Riyadh bombing that al-Qaeda was gaining new recruits and that "There is an increase in radical fundamentalism all over the world."

There are many reasons for the rise of extremism, such as poverty, income disparity, and feelings of impotence in the face of oppression, but most Middle East scholars believe the continued Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains the most significant cause of resentment. With a Palestinian leadership in place that is eager to achieve a just and lasting peace, the Bush administration could strike its greatest blow against terrorists by convincing the Israelis that their security lies in an end to the occupation and pressuring them to accept such a solution. Prime Minister Abbas has made it clear that he cannot take steps to end Palestinian violence until Sharon accepts the road map to peace. It is now up to Bush to see that Sharon does so and begins dismantling settlements and withdrawing from Palestinian territory. If, instead, the administration tries to weaken and destabilize Syria and Iran in the hope of depriving the Palestinians of support, the United States will only create more of the havoc the world is seeing in Iraq, and condemn more innocent people—including Americans—to death.

Rachelle Marshall is a free-lance editor based in Stanford, CA. A member of the International Jewish Peace Union, she writes frequently on the Middle East.

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