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M.J. Rosenberg is Director of Policy Analysis for , a long time Capitol Hill staffer and former editor of AIPAC's Near East Report.
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By M.J. Rosenberg
July 1, 2004
Dov Zakheim, the former Undersecretary of Defense, told Haaretz this week that the Sharon government is making a major mistake by not aggressively pursuing an agreement with the Palestinians. Zakheim, who has served in several Republican administrations, is an Orthodox Jew with close ties to Israel.
He told Haaretz that Israel "in the past three years has lost a strategic opportunity to make progress with the Palestinians. The right approach is to say 'look, we have a White House that supports us, we have a President who cares about Israel's security and whom we trust. Now, using that as a strength, what should we do to solve the Palestinian issue?.'"
Zakheim just returned from a visit to Israel and was pained to see numerous signs of deterioration. He blames the settlements. They are "taking money out of education, money out of welfare, money out of jobs, money out of infrastructure and pouring it into the West Bank. Israel is suffering a lot as a result of the settlements," he says.
Unfortunately Zakheim's sense of urgency about moving on the diplomatic front is not universally shared. Some Israeli officials and elements in the media view the current lull in terrorism not as an opportunity to create a more stable situation but as an excuse for inaction.
Wiser heads know better. Writing in Yediot Aharonot, military correspondent Alex Fishman commends the IDF for 'reducing the volume of terror attacks inside the Green Line...by 80%." But he writes, "the intifada is not over. What this achievement really means is that the army and the [intelligence services] have given the political echelon more time. Now they need to do something with it."
In other words, it is time for a little urgency about pursuing an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Resting on laurels is not an option.
This is something the late Yitzhak Rabin understood so well. It was at the conclusion of the first intifada that he began the process that would culminate with the Oslo agreement. He could simply have declared victory and hoped for the best. But he understood that time is not necessarily Israel's friend.
Rabin did not view Israel's survival as threatened by Israel's immediate neighbors. The peace treaty with Egypt was holding. The border with Jordan was calm. A deal with Syria was probably within reach. And the Palestinians had no significant military capacity.
Accordingly, Rabin's primary concern was over Israel's increasing vulnerability to nuclear, biological, or chemical attack from Iran or Iraq or Islamic militants allied with one or both of them. It wasn't the immediate circle surrounding Israel that worried Rabin. It was the secondary circle and non-state players both in the region and outside.
Achieving peace with the Palestinians was part of Rabin's strategy for neutralizing those threats. Once Israelis and Palestinians were at peace the extremists would lose their pretext for holy war against Israel. Sure, they could still aspire to be "more Palestinian than the Palestinians" but pressure from other Arabs, and from the Palestinians themselves, would serve as a deterrent to jihad especially with the State of Palestine and the State of Israel coexisting in the same general territory.
With a circle of peace - including Palestine - surrounding Israel, the IDF would be free to focus on how best to defend itself from WMD attacks from beyond the circle. In stead of being bogged down in Gaza and Nablus, defending itself against teenage terrorists, Israel could deter the existential threat.
Much has changed since Rabin developed that concept but not much for the better. Iran is more militant than ever, more anti-Israel, and seemingly closer to and more determined to develop nuclear weapons. Iraq, as volatile as ever, seems highly unlikely to abandon the harshly anti-Israel attitudes of the previous regime. A WMD threat from Iraq seems unlikely today, but what about tomorrow? As for the non-state players, there is no doubt that Al Qaida is pursuing nuclear weapons just as there can be little doubt about which nation would be either the first or second target of that weapon.
Rabin had it right. He did not have to like the PLO to negotiate with it. Liking or not liking was simply not an issue for him when the survival of Israel was at stake. Today, Israel has ruled out dealing with Yasser Arafat but also resists negotiating with Palestinians on record as favoring peace with Israel.
That is why this is a good time for the United States and Israel to start promoting Palestinian elections. Writing in the Financial Times, Palestinian-American physician, Ziad Asali, who is President of the Washington-based American Task Force on Palestine, suggests democratic elections coupled with a referendum on a two-state solution based on the Bush "road map." "Such a referendum," he writes, "would define the political horizon for Palestinians. Opponents of the two-state model would no longer be able to thwart progress if it received popular backing in a referendum." And Israel would have a democratically-elected negotiating partner.
With so much at stake, it is time for Israel to start engaging with Palestinians again. Just take a look at the news. The threat to Israel, just looming up ahead, comes from religious extremists armed with WMDs. Reaching an agreement with the Palestinians - one that brings them fully into the struggle against the fanatics - is one of the best ways to neutralize some of the world's most dangerous people. Ignoring the Palestinians, celebrating illusory victories over them, is not only nonsensical - it is a gift to Al Qaida. Rabin understood that a decade ago. It is even truer today.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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