 |
Jeremy Sharon received his BA in History from the University of Leeds and gained a Masters in International Relations from the London School of Economics. He has worked as a Research Assistant at the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University and was the Senior Researcher at NGO Monitor. He is currently serving in the IDF.
|
|
|
|
By Jeremy Sharon
November 14, 2007
 Bookmark to del.icio.us
Self-esteem, psychiatrists tell us, is one of the critical character traits required to becoming a well-adjusted, confident person. As with individuals, so too with society and nations as a whole.
In a few weeks the Annapolis "gathering" is scheduled to take place in which some type of framework may be proposed for bringing the Israel-Palestinian conflict to a denouement. This current push for peace is largely the initiative of Prime Minister Olmert and has, to a great extent, been motivated by his atrocious standing in opinion polls following the Lebanon debacle and the confirmatory publication of the preliminary findings of the Winnograd Committee in April.
However, the Annapolis conference is also borne of a deep malaise, endemic to the country's current leadership, and large sectors of Israeli society as a whole. That is, namely, a failure to recognize that Israel is strong and the Palestinians are weak. Israel has all the cards and the Palestinians have very little to offer. Yet Israel persists in acting as the weaker party and continues to offer concessions and negotiations when there is little or no need to do so.
Israel has de facto control over all the central issues of the Middle-East conflict. Israel controls the territory contested by both sides. Israel controls Jerusalem. Israel controls whether Palestinian "refugees" are allowed into the West Bank or sovereign Israeli territory itself.
Crucially, Israel has crushed Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank and created a situation in which it has become almost impossible for suicide bombers to reach the major population centers and murder dozens of people, as they did prior to 2003.
This has been achieved through a number of methods, principally the security barrier, checkpoints in the West Bank and daily IDF operations in the terrorist hubs such as Nablus and Jenin, combined with comprehensive intelligence gathering in the territories.
The importance of this cannot be emphasized enough, for this was the only thing the Palestinians had to offer: a cessation of violence in return for which they demanded a state. Now, however, they cannot even offer that. Israel has already achieved it without their cooperation.
Nevertheless, what is often heard these days is that if Israel should persist with a certain policy, for example targeted killings or arrest operations, it may well lead to the eruption of a "third intifada". Often the terrorist organizations themselves threaten such action. But have you noticed that this has never materialised? It's not for want of trying.
According to the IDF, there were 71 suicide bombing plots in 2006 which were prevented by the Israeli security services, and 45 people were stopped or arrested in the West Bank in possession of suicide bomb belts. 279 people were arrested in direct connection to those plots. (126 of those arrested were from group affiliated with Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization, such as the al-Aqsa Martyr brigades.) As mentioned, that these efforts have not resulted in carnage in Israeli cities is due to the ongoing military operations of the army and security services inside the West Bank towns and cities as well as the security barrier.
In 2002, there were over 60 suicide-bombings. To date in 2007, there has been just one.
It is true that terrorists in Gaza are at present making life miserable for the residents of the western Negev region. But this too, according to army chiefs such as head of the Southern Command Major-General Yoav Galant, could be alleviated with enough willpower, which would involve a wide-ranging operation against the terrorists there and the sealing of the Gaza?s border with Egypt.
In light of this, one cannot help but be stupefied by Olmert?s initiation and promotion of peace negotiations at this time. The upcoming Annapolis conference is almost entirely his initiative, albeit no doubt with not so subtle American encouragement.
What, however, is there to negotiate about? Ending the conflict through a negotiated settlement and the creation of a Palestinian state is most likely in Israel's long term interests and probably inevitable. However, negotiating when under constant threat of violence, when official Palestinian security services have no ability and no inclination to reign in terrorists, is worse than pointless. It encourages the terrorists to continue fighting.
As National Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer said this week: if the withdrawal from Gaza has taught us anything, it is that if there is no agreement from the various Palestinian factions to cease violence (and even perhaps if there is), any concession made by Israel will simply be met with more violence.
What, then, is the solution? Israel must act according to its true strength. In light of this strong position, the political leadership could simply state that there will be no negotiations under fire. What comes first is a unilateral ceasefire from the Palestinians. If this takes five, ten or twenty years, then so be it. The security services are perfectly capable of managing the violence for twenty years as they have done for the past four years.
Once it has been inculcated into the Palestinians that violence will not succeed, and when the Palestinians themselves take action against the terrorists, only then should progress be made on their demands for a state. One course of action could be to grant them complete autonomy in most of Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank"), roughly corresponding to the current Green Line, for a number of years as a precursor to full independence and the establishment of a state. If after five years the Palestinians prove themselves capable of living in peace, then full independence could be considered, which would also entail the signing of a peace treaty with Israel and the permanent demilitarization of the new Palestinian state.
These are terms which the Palestinians will never agree to at this point. But they are by any normal standards totally reasonable. Why should Israel discuss making any concessions, territorial or otherwise, when it knows for certain that those concessions will be used as a spring-board for more violence and more terrorism, as happened after the disengagement from Gaza in 2005?
When a child demands something and kicks and screams to get it, there are two options: you can give in for a (very temporarily) quiet life and give it what it wants, though you know that the kicking and screaming will start again in short order. Or you can show some tough love, refuse to submit to its tantrums and teach it how to behave in a civilized manner, namely that rewards are dependent on good behavior.
Without gratuitously insulting the Palestinians for essentially infantile behavior, the parallel with their case is apt. In the past two years we have seen the withdrawal from Gaza, prisoner releases, amnesties for terrorists and even an Israeli election won by a candidate on a platform of unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank. All we have received in return is more rockets and more violence. The kidnap of Gilad Shalit and the war with Hizballah over the summer of 2006 mercifully buried the idea of unilateralism (for now) but the notion of negotiations and further Israeli concessions in return for peace is still seen as a panacea by the political left.
This naivete is extremely dangerous, as the people of Sderot and the western Negev have found out. In Olmert?s notorious speech of 2005, as Vice-Premier, he stated "we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies". What we must understand is that the country will get no rest until it shakes off this enervating lethargy. It is only when the political leadership and society at large will recognize its true strength that we will be able address the conflict on our own terms and provide for the long term safety and security of the country's citizens.
In short: Israelis should act like lions, not like lambs.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
|
|
|
|
Click on the blue headline to read a Talkback comment and respond to it. Click on the  icon to send a private email to the talkback writer. The icon appears only if the writer has decided to be contacted. If no popup window appears, please make sure your popup blocker allows israelinsider.com.
|
|
| |
|
|
