At first sight it may not seem so momentous. Arafat embarked on his tried and true strategy: soften Israel up for more concessions by a little violence. True the violence has been more extensive than that he unleashed following the opening of the Hasmonean tunnel in September 1996 (which won Arafat the Wye agreement), but the operative principle is the same as is the result: Israeli capitulation. Barak announced a 48 hour ultimatum -- stop the violence or else -- which simply disappeared when the time was up. He employed minimum force, not enough to deter the Arab street but just enough to produce a small steady stream of casualties to feed the ravenously anti-Israel international media. On October 10, after over a week of Arafat-instigated attacks, lest anyone imagine the government had engaged in any fundamental rethinking, the cabinet issued a communique affirming that its allegiance to the peace process was intact: "Diplomatic negotiations with the Palestinian Authority on substantive issues related to the permanent settlement will resume after the violence of the last ten days has ceased."
At Clinton's insistence, with Mubarak as withering "host," simply to win Arafat's grudging promise to reduce violence, Barak made more concessions at what the press called "the Egyptian city of Sharm el Sheikh," a fitting reminder to Israel of former territorial concessions producing only more enmity. As Aaron Lerner of IMRA (Independent Media Review and Analysis) has pointed out, the Accord's three main points grandfathered in the tens of thousands of illegal Fatah militia (Tanzim) forces, responsible for most of the violence, as long as they existed prior to the recent outbreak. (Indeed Arafat bluntly told Clinton he had no plans to disarm them and they were an "internal affair.") Nor was anything said of the return of Hamas prisoners to jail. No mention of Joseph's Tomb (torn down to become a mosque). And Barak professed willingness, at Clinton's discretion, to continue the Camp David negotiations (presumably from where they left off) in a matter of weeks. Later, Barak called for a "time out"; apparently he thinks he is in the middle of a ballgame.
In the style pioneered by Netanyahu, the government issued a multi-page analysis of all the violations of which Arafat had been guilty, citing chapter and verse of every interim agreement, agreement and note for the record (e.g. Wye River Memorandum, Article II.A.1d.e) as if "the international community" had any interest in such legalisms given that Israel had not the slightest intention of enforcing the provisions of any agreement with Arafat.
But even should the violence taper off, the negotiations resume, and Israel's media revert to their peace mantras, below the surface there will have been a sea change. The explosion of Arab hatred and the government's response to it has acted as a national anti-psychotic medication, awakening the Israeli public from its dual hallucinations of power and of peace.
When Israel embarked upon Oslo, the key reassurance offered by the government was the country's power. That the reassurance was offered by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, victorious general in the Six Day War, gave it special credibility. When Oslo was launched, its promoters repeatedly pointed out that Israel had nothing to lose since, given its huge military prowess, it could simply move in should Arafat not turn out to be a real peace partner. But now, in the midst of the violence, Barak announced that the government had "no alternative" to the peace process. Every government has contingency plans, but now it was out in the open that the Israeli government had none for this most fateful of all policies.
The Arab uprising unleashed by Arafat in the wake of Camp David II is a watershed event.
Arafat had contingency plans and made no bones about it: if he didn't get what he wanted as fast as he wanted it he turned to armed force. As PA Minister of Planning Nabil Sha'ath said in an interview on October 7 on ANN, an Arabic language, London based satellite TV channel: "The Palestinian people never ceased during seven years of negotiations from bursting out into 'intifadas' against Israel and from saying its words in ways different from the way of the negotiation table." Nor is violence Arafat's only additional option. At any time he thinks ripe, Arafat can declare unilaterally the state of Palestine and be confident in short order of its all but universal recognition (including by the United States). Israel will doubtless issue an even longer-than-usual manifesto about how many roman numerals have been violated in how many interim, permanent and side agreements -- and go back to some hastily arranged American negotiating table to sign more roman numerals. (For the implications this will have on the settlements, see "The Fate of Jewish Settlements" in the August-September Outpost.)
But if Arafat pursues alternatives and Israel
has none, that means Israelis in effect are in an Arab pale
of settlement: Arabs launch pogroms, and Israelis lick
their wounds. True, in contrast to the Jews of nineteenth
century Russia, Israelis have armaments, plenty of
them. But their very power has turned out to be a trap,
robbing them of the ability to use it against "weak"
opponents. They have relied on rubber bullets and bombing build-
[(Continued on p.4)]
November 2000 - 3 - Outpost