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Jewish World Review August 6, 2003 / 8 Menachem-Av, 5763 Bush should learn from Clinton's errors By Mortimer B. Zuckerman
http://www.jewishworldreview.com |
Is George Bush about to
fall into the trap that ended Bill Clinton's
hopes of a permanent settlement in the Middle East?
The trap is that men of goodwill presume there is at
least an element of good faith and enlightened
self-interest among all the parties--and that is not
a prudent assumption with the Palestinian
leadership.
The Bush administration is misreading the
situation in treating Abu Mazen as if he were a
victim of Arafat instead of Arafat's longtime
colleague and supporter. In the Palestinian
community and in Arabic he speaks of his total
loyalty to Arafat, and in America he speaks as a
victim of Arafat who must be supported by Israeli
concessions, some of which would put Israeli lives
at risk. This two-tongued approach has been a
baleful feature of Palestinian politics for decades,
a hypocrisy that has deceived many moderates, as it
is designed to do.
No compromise. Abu
Mazen's argument for inertia is that given time
he will grow strong enough to arrest the killers and
shut down their bomb factories. History is
instructive here. In its 10 cease-fires since 1993,
Hamas used the time to regroup and rearm after an
exhausting confrontation with a more powerful foe,
usually Israel but on one occasion the Palestinian
Authority. Hamas and Islamic Jihad have never
accepted Israel. Hamas leader Abdul Aziz Rantissi
recently said: "We reject the two-state
solution proposed by Bush. There are no ifs and buts
about our position. . . . There can be no
compromise."
President George W. Bush by fax: (202) 456-2461, (Andrew Card, Chief of Staff)
or by e-mail.
Dr. Condoleeza Rice, National Security Advisor, FAX (202) 456-2883, PHONE (202) 456-9491
Mr. Elliot Abrams, the Director for Near East and North African Affairs, at FAX (202) 456-9120, and by phone through his secretary Joanna, (202) 456-9121
Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, 1000 Defense Pentagon, Washington, DC 20301-1000 or by e-mail form:
http://www.defenselink.mil/
Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense, 1010 Defense Pentagon, Washington, DC 20301-1010 or by e-mail form
http://www.defenselink.mil
Taking him at his word,
Israelis are right to believe that left with their
arms the terrorists will sooner or later use them to
kill innocent Israeli citizens and will use the
temporary cease-fire to regroup, rearm, and
re-enlist new suicide bombers. An endorsement of
this view comes in a sinister interpretation of Abu
Mazen's behavior by no less than Arafat's
henchman Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian legislator, who
said Abu Mazen is aiming to get Hamas and Islamic
Jihad to agree to wait until the Palestinian state
is declared before attacking Israeli targets. The
sad reality is that Arafat remains the power--the
rais--the undisputed ruler with the same kaffiyeh
and olive uniform, while Abu Mazen is seen as a
lightweight leader imposed from the outside.
Arafat
works publicly and behind the scenes to undermine
Abu Mazen to prove that nothing can happen without
Arafat. Arafat retains control, as noted here
before, of most of the government institutions, such
as the Palestine Liberation Organization's
Executive Committee and the Fatah Central Committee,
five of the seven security organizations, including
the Army and its commanders, and the fighters of
Tanzim, Fatah, and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, and
most of the administrators in the region. As one
Israeli analyst put it, when Abu Mazen's
government was born, Arafat made sure "it would
be castrated." No one should doubt that
Arafat's means to his political ends include
terrorism.
The Israelis have bent to American
pressure and accepted the temporary cease-fire, but
only as a prelude to a showdown between Abu Mazen
and the terrorists. It is understandable that the
Bush administration is willing to give Abu Mazen
this chance, but it must be with eyes wide open. If
the Bush administration lulls itself into accepting
the current calm as the equivalent of confronting
terrorism, it will reap the whirlwind of an even
bloodier scene when the terrorists have recovered
their strength.
Another disturbing feature of
the administration's current stance is that as
well as indulging Abu Mazen, it is exhibiting a lack
of understanding about why the Israelis are building
a security fence. Bush recently said, "It is
very difficult to develop confidence between
Palestinians and Israelis, with a wall snaking
through the West Bank." What could this mean?
Let us make another statement: It is very difficult
to develop confidence between the Israelis and the
Palestinians when Abu Mazen says that even if the
terrorists break their commitment to a temporary
cease-fire he will not confront them, search their
houses, or take their weapons. Surely the history of
violence and treachery supports Israeli prudence.
The Palestinians have never lived up to their
promises to confront terrorism. In this, they are
supported by popular opinion. More than 60 percent
of the Palestinians support violence, and in a
recent survey by the Pew Global Attitudes Project,
80 percent asserted they don't believe
"that a way can be found for the State of
Israel to exist so that the rights and needs of the
Palestinian people are met."
The security
fence is no more than a response by the Israelis to
a thousand days of terrorism with over 800 civilians
killed--the vast majority women and children. It
symbolizes Israeli revulsion at a Palestinian
society that turns young people into time bombs and
delights in the murder of Jews. Such a fence is
hardly unusual. A similar fence has existed at the
Gaza Strip, and to date, not one suicide bomber from
this area has infiltrated, compared with 300 that
over the past three years have simply been able to
walk or drive into Israel from the West Bank. Along
most of this frontier there are virtually no
barriers of any kind. Israel has found it necessary
also to fence its frontiers with Lebanon, Syria, and
Jordan. America has fenced off many parts of the
Mexican border to deter illegal immigrants. There is
a wall between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots, etc.
The Palestinians have challenged this fence as
a "racist, Berlin Wall." It is an absurd
comparison. The Berlin Wall was imposed on one
people, Germans, by an alien power to stop East
Germans from fleeing to freedom and democracy in
West Germany. The Israeli fence will separate two
warring people in order to protect citizens of
Israel from being murdered and maimed by Palestinian
terrorists. It is a defensive weapon and will
undoubtedly be needed whether or not the end of
conflict is reached.
And what is this fence? It
is a combination of chain-link, barbed wire, and
concrete barriers, plus a high-tech system of ground
sensors, unmanned aerial vehicles, trenches, land
mines, and old-fashioned dirt paths that will be
swept clean each day so footsteps will show. Where
Jewish and Palestinian population centers are close
to each other, it will take the form of a high,
concrete wall, not only to prevent infiltration by
terrorists but also to give protection against light
gunfire from Palestinian towns. Throughout, there
will be passages permitted through guarded gates for
legitimate Palestinian workers and farmers.
This fence will not be built exclusively along the
1967 borders, for many reasons. Security first:
Every Israeli prime minister, from Yitzhak Rabin on,
and every military and national security official
have agreed that Israel can never go back to the
June 4, 1967, borders. Those proved too fatally
often that they did not meet the standard of either
secure or defensible borders--as called for in
United Nations Resolutions 242 and 338.
The
political reason for the fence line is that if it
followed the 1967 borders, that fact would then
become a source of international pressure on Israel
in the determination of the final borders.
Paradoxically, the Israeli right has long objected
to such a fence because it might also convey the
political message that Israel is willing to accept a
final border quite close to the 1967 "green
line," which would leave many Israeli
settlements on the wrong side of the fence,
vulnerable to Palestinian attacks.
But this may
be the best last resort. Every leading Israeli
points out that this fence can be moved or torn down
in the framework of a permanent agreement. Should
the Palestinians choose to live in peace with the
Jewish state, Palestinian people and goods could
move freely back and forth. But if they remain
committed to violence and unwilling to coexist, then
the barrier could be sealed. Simultaneously, it
might well induce Israeli settlers in isolated
settlements on the wrong side of the fence to yield
their homes voluntarily, given the new vulnerability
these settlements would be facing. Polls show many
Israelis are already uneasy with the costs and
benefits of these outlying settlements.
Trade-offs. The fence thus imposes security
benefits and political costs for the Israelis and
some political and diplomatic costs for the
Palestinians. The Palestinians have forfeited the
right to object since it is no more than the minimum
penalty for their unwillingness to live in peace
with their neighbor. Far from being criticized by
America, the fence deserves U.S. support. President
Bush has promised to support Israel's efforts
to defend the security of its people. Is it not
preferable to the justified but more damaging policy
of Israeli counterattack to acts of Palestinian
terror? Is it not preferable to Israeli military
occupation as the only other alternative to
containing Palestinian terrorism? Ten years of
funerals are surely enough.
What else is Israel
to do?
President Bush has been viewed by many,
including this writer, as the best friend Israel
ever had in the White House. President Bush's
June 24, 2002, Middle East speech, so widely praised
as the basis for his policy, has been substantially
reversed by the State Department in its "road
map" for Mideast peace. A key part of
Bush's speech was an unwavering demand for each
side to acknowledge the sovereignty of the other.
Israel has already accepted Palestinian statehood.
But there has been no corresponding acceptance by
the Palestinians of a Jewish state.
Where's the reciprocity? Until their right to
exist is made clear, the Israelis have a right to be
wary. Given the history of the Middle East, Mr.
President, whom would you trust with your safety:
the Palestinian Authority or an Israeli security fence?
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. JWR contributor Mort Zuckerman is editor-in-chief and publisher of U.S. News and World Report. Click here to comment on this column. © 2003, Morton B. Zuckerman | ||||||||||||
