Incoherent policies have undermined Israel's ability to confront Arab terror, and the United States is now showing signs of similar incoherence as it picks and chooses among terror groups to accommodate such remarkable "coalition partners" in the war against terror as Syria. Clearly incoherence is far more dangerous to Israel, its survival hanging in the balance, than to the United States. But Israel's bewildering policies reinforce the incoherence of American policies, in both cases making it unlikely that anti-terror policies will achieve their desired ends.

The most obvious incoherence in Israeli policy stems from the open conflicts between Prime Minister Sharon and Foreign Minister Peres. Indeed, at a press conference in Washington D.C. on October 23, Peres declared: "I don't deny that the government has two views and eventually two voices." Two voices are already being heard. Sharon calls Arafat "our Bin Laden," while Peres continues to call him a "peace partner" who, at worst, has made "mistakes." Sharon demands that negotiations with Arafat cease until terror stops, while Peres insists that negotiations continue no matter what. An "information team" being groomed in October for a trip to the United States complained that they did not know what their message should be: they were briefed in diametrically different ways by the Foreign Office and the Prime Minister's Office.

There is the additional incoherence that comes from the Prime Minister's failure to put his words into action. As Aaron Lerner of Independent Media Review and Analysis (IMRA) has said: "If Arafat is Bin Laden then you don't negotiate with him--you take him out. If the PA is a terror state then you don't lift security restrictions to make it easier for them to arm and attack. If you say there is a red line and mumble when that line is crossed, your red lines have no meaning."

This kind of incoherence becomes striking when government spokesmen are pinned down. On October 15, for example, IMRA's Lerner asks the Prime Minister's spokesman Ra'anan Gissin about the government's policy in Hebron. After repeated attacks on Jewish homes from the Abu Sneina hills, the government had finally taken the hills and shortly afterward announced it was leaving them--but would return if a single shot was fired.

Gissin: There is a model in Beit Jallah that has been implemented already and we are taking the same model. In this model it is explicitly said that as long as there is complete quiet under the supervision of the Palestinian Authority security forces, there is no reason that we should go back in again. To the extent that the cease-fire is violated and the cease-fire is not honored and there is fire, then we will immediately go back in. The same thing that is in effect in Beit Jallah will be in effect in Hebron. The same model....

IMRA: There is an agreement in principle on this from Shimon Peres?

Gissin: What? Shimon Peres is the architect of the Beit Jallah agreement.

IMRA: The other side of the coin has never been tried in that understanding.

Gissin: Because for the time being they are honoring it.

IMRA: Exactly. So it is not known if shooting did take place if Israel would actually return.

Gissin: But there isn't any difference between Peres and the Prime Minister on this matter...

IMRA: Over the past week there was a tremendous difference between what you put out to the press --that it isn't quiet--compared to what Shimon Peres thought--that there was tremendous progress towards quiet.

Gissin: Each looked at his half of the cup....

IMRA: I am referring to Hebron.

Gissin: It is clear that the moment that they open fire we go back in. They know this.

Sharon calls Arafat "our Bin Laden," while Peres continues to call him a "peace partner."

The Palestinian Authority was not impressed. Within a week, its forces had opened fire from Beit Jallah (on the Jewish community of Gilo) and renewed its firing from the Abu Sneina hills in Hebron. The government went into Beit Jallah (and pulled out again) and simply ignored its pledge to seize the Abu Sneina hills.

But the fundamental incoherence lies in Sharon's core policies. Sharon says that the Oslo agreements were a disaster, that Arafat remains a terrorist dedicated to Israel's destruction, and yet Sharon's policy is that after seven days of quiet, Israel will resume the "peace process." What is more, Ha'aretz reports (October 25) that Sharon plans to offer the Palestinians a "demilitarized" state while "postponing" the issue of final borders, Jerusalem, and the "right to return" of Arab refugees. In other words, Arafat would obtain major new concessions in exchange for another empty ceasefire. Moreover, as Lerner points out, there is no such thing as conditional sovereignty--a Palestinian state can do what it pleases, including making security agreements with foreign countries and bringing in unlimited weapons. Israel would have to resort to diplomacy (a laughable idea) or to force. Directing force against a sovereign state would provoke even greater international pressures than

November 2001               - 3 -               Outpost