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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
September 12, 2004
Two very different anniversaries will take place in the next few days. The first is 9/11, about which no explanation is necessary. The second, two days later, is the 11th anniversary of the signing of the Oslo agreement on the White House lawn.
On the surface there is no connection between the two. The first was the worst civilian disaster in American history, a date which will always represent the dividing line between the days of relative American innocence before and the loss of innocence after. There is even a book about to be published about September 10, 2001 to remind Americans what life felt like one day before 9/11. We were a different country.
The date of the Oslo signing is a very different anniversary. Anyone who attended the White House ceremony will not forget it. Americans, Israelis, Palestinians and non-Palestinian Arabs all gathered on the South Lawn to watch the Israeli Prime Minister and the Palestinian leader signing an agreement which committed the two sides to a process which was to culminate in a full peace treaty within five years.
Things didn't work out that way. We can leave it to historians to decide precisely why but suffice it to say that Palestinians, Israelis and Americans all made their share of mistakes. (For a powerful, well-documented and readable take on those mistakes, see The Truth About Camp David by Clayton Swisher.) Nevertheless, the last three years of Oslo were the most secure in Israel's history (12 Israeli victims of terror between 1997 and 2000 in contrast to over a thousand since). Terrorism had essentially ended because Israelis and Palestinians were working together to thwart the killers. It seems a long time ago.
A central fact about Oslo is that it was not a conception that sprung out of the heads of optimists or starry-eyed dreamers. The central figure behind Oslo was Yitzhak Rabin, who pursued peace with the Palestinians not because he believed that peace is nice but because he believed that Israeli-Palestinian peace could help deter horrors threatened by Israel's - and the West's -- most implacable enemies. For Rabin, peace with the Palestinians was good, in and of itself, but even more importantly it was a deterrent.
Rabin would have been horrified by the events of 9/11 but he would not have been surprised by them. The same applies to the massacre of hundreds of children by terrorists in Russia and to the apparent Iranian rush to develop nuclear weapons. It was precisely because of the threat of mass horrors that he made the decision to negotiate with the Palestinians.
Rabin knew that Israel's survival was not threatened by its immediate neighbors. The peace treaty signed by Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin was holding and the Israeli-Egyptian border was calm. Even without a peace treaty, Jordan and Israel had peaceful relations. His emissaries to Damascus told him that a deal with Syria was within reach. As for the Palestinians, they 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. It wasn't the immediate circle of nations surrounding Israel that worried Rabin. It was the secondary circle -- and heavily armed killers 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; the fanatics would not be able to credibly exploit Palestinian grievances to rally support and enlist more terrorists. The central (although not sole) grievance of the Islamic world would dry up.
Those of us in the pro-Israel community may not like to admit it but the Palestinian issue remains, after 56 years, the only grievance against the West that all Islamic radicals share. Saddam Hussein and the Ayatollahs ruling Iran did not agree on much. But they agreed on Palestine. And, whether or not one believes Al Qaida and the former Iraqi regime were in cahoots, one thing is certain: they both used the Palestinians as a justification of terror and hate. Osama Bin Laden has cited the Palestinian issue as a pretext since his career in terror began.
Rabin's goal was to eliminate the pretext. He viewed the mostly secular Palestinians who constituted the Palestinian Authority as people with whom he could negotiate, in contrast to the fundamentalists who would never reconcile themselves to the existence of Israel. With a circle of peace - including Palestine - surrounding Israel, the IDF would be free to focus on how best to defend itself from WMD and other terror attacks from beyond the horizon.
Much has changed since Rabin developed that concept but not much for the better. The Iranian mullahs are more militant than ever, more anti-Israel, and seemingly closer to and more determined to develop nuclear weapons. Iraq is still volatile and remains a dangerous and destabilizing element just one nation away from Israel. As for the international terrorists, 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.
The attack in Russia, like the 9/11 attacks here, are reminders of just how much worse the situation in Israel can be. The constant emphasis in Israel on preventing a "mega-terror" attack (like the one in Russia) demonstrates just how seriously Israel's defense establishment takes that possibility.
Israel's supporters have a choice. We can focus on what is wrong with the Palestinians, argue that there is "no partner," and watch as the most dangerous people on the planet use the Palestinian issue as their most effective recruiting tool in the war against the United States, Israel and the West. Or we can look honestly at the situation and realize where the real threat comes from and how best to mitigate it.
That means supporting Prime Minister Sharon's plan to get out of Gaza and supporting negotiations with Palestinians. The Palestinian issue need not be the fuel which ignites fires which may consume us all. It can be, if resolved fairly, a way to achieve greater security for both Israel and America. It should be obvious that we do not have all the time in the world.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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