Nope. I am suggesting, very strongly, that Israel should address those grievances despite the terrorist attacks.
Instead of making stupid demands that no talks can go forward until all the attacks have ceased for so many days (or weeks or months)–so that any damned-fool, hate-filled individual in the occupied Territories can bring the whole thing to a halt, regardless of the desires of the majority of the Palestinians–Israel should demand that real talks continue to take place continually until some workable agreement can be ironed out.
The Israelis have continuously put conditions on the discussions, from the day after the conclusion of the Oslo talks. They have created the impression in the minds of the Palestinian people that they will never bargain in good faith. Some small group from within the Palestinian people has used that increasing suspicion to further their own agenda and garner increasing support from the larger body of Palestinians. If Israel declared that they were going to bargain despite the fringe element and then proceded to bargain in good faith, the Palestinian people would slowly come to see that they might actually achieve independence some day and the support for the terrorists would dwindle.
Would the terrorist attacks cease? No. But they are not stopping now, and Israel’s intransigence on the issue promotes the terrorist’s cause among the Palestinians.
In a (not perfect) analogy, Spain has been dealing with the Basque separatists for a long time. Once Franco died, King Juan Carlos surprised a number of people by leading the country away from the right-wing militarism of Franco. The Basque ETA stepped up attacks in the hopes of spurring an insurrection. Under the urgings of Juan Carlos, the Spanish government did not resort to reprisals, instead attempting to deal with ETA attacks through the normal legal processes. As a result, the ETA has become more and more marginalized. There is still a strong Basque separatist movement, but they are following only peaceful, democratic processes. The ETA still performs assassinations and terrorist attacks (and the government occasionally responds with a heavy hand), but the ETA attacks are more clearly desparate attempts to provoke unwarranted reprisals as they see their influence waning in the Basque community. In contrast, Hamas and Islamic Jihad are becoming more and more mainstream and finding greater support.
As long as any wound-up zealot can construct a bomb, no one, Israeli or Palestinian, can prevent suicide attacks. Dealing with the Palestinians as people with legitimate goals and grievances will reduce the number of Palestinians willing to blow themselves up to prove some vague point that they hate Israelis.
Really bad analogy, milroyj. I did not say, you will note, that Israeli intransigence promotes terrorism. I said it promoted the cause among the Palestinians.
The fact that Israel has repeatedly demanded conditions on discussion that the Palestinians believed were past the “conditional” stage since Oslo promotes distrust of the Israelis.
The fact that in the last couple of years the Israelis have repeatedly demanded that they would not talk as long as there were attacks tells the average Palestinian that the Israelis simply choose to not talk.
The Israelis (with all their intelligence and military resources) cannot prevent any given attack. Any nut can launch an attack. The Palestinians know that it only takes one nut anywhere in the Occupied Territories to launch an attack to bring the talks to a halt. Since the overwhelming majority of Palestinians know that they cannot prevent all the attacks, it is clear to them that the Israelis are making a demand that cannot be met. Since the Israelis are making a demand that cannot be met, more Palestinians see the demands as unrealistic and they are more likely to offer support (either physical, vocal, or for morale) to the terrorists. The terrorists claim that the Israelis never intend to conduct talks and the Palestinians, at large, increasingly agree with that assessment.
The Israelis, by allowing the terrorists to dictate the Israeli response, are actually surrendering the propaganda war to the terrorists.
Tom,
Bulldozing a house that you believe is used as a base of terroist operations or planning is not terroism. It is not a primary civilian target, even if civilians are hurt. The motive is not to instill fear in a general population, but to impede specific operations. This is not to say that such activities are right; they do not do as much to avoid civilian harm as should be done. But they ain’t terroism. The fair hypothetical poll would be asking Israelis if blowing up an Arab school bus as the intentional target with no military significance was terrorism. According to the poll, a majority of Palestinians would say that blowing up an Israeli school bus is not terrorism; the majority of Israelis, I would hazard a guess, would say that blowing up the Arab school bus would be terrorism and would demand punishment of those culpable.
collounsbury,
“Myopic ahistoricism”?! I like it. But I’m afraid that you are the one treating your myopia with rose-colored glasses. We should ignore the past because “the Arab world has come a long distance since 1993”? Sorry. Jordan and Lebanon are not “peaceful” with Israel because of economics or anything intrinsic to Arab society; they are not at war because they lost after many attempts and have reluctantly accepted that Israel will not be beaten by traditional military means. There is nothing in the past or the present that makes one believe that the PA has any ability or desire to control its “radical” elements. There is no reason, from past actions, that informed self interest will motivate control of the violence. Right now, as in the past, hate and revenge outweigh any practical gains. I know your view of Sharon, but he has been standing against his own Far Right wing and showing relative restraint for a while now. The Gaza incursion was delayed, and responses to the latest series of mass murders has been fairly subdued. Practical self interest would have Arafat respond with the arrest of some of those involved in the recent wave of attacks. That action would help to bootstrap a series of events including Israeli support for a PA that could be a security partner rather than a terror facilitator. It would give the Palestinians an edge in negotiations and allow the US (and Labour) to exert effective pressure on Sharon. But it is an opportunity that will soon pass by. Sharon can only hold off with another major offensive so long. If Arafat doesn’t respond with some show of action against those directly responsible soon, then Operation Defensive Shield - The Sequal, will be opening in his town soon.
tomdebb - I never thought I would agree so exactly with you on this - but I do! For the sake of both sides there has to be a continued effort for peace talks - without unrealistic “demands” on either side before those talks happen.
The violence will continue. It will continue before, during and after the talks. There will probably always be separatist dissenting groups. But if the majority can be brought into some sort of truce, at least the continued dissenters will be increasingly a minority that doesn’t garner such huge international support.
An excellent post. Sparc. I promise to try all the harder to understand your POV and to make my POV clear.
Regarding the idea that understanding is needed to solve conflicts: No doubt all Dopers favor greater understanding. But, a plea for “understanding” is sometimes used as an excuse for inaction against people doing bad things.
In the case at hand, who has a greater need for understanding – Palestinians or Israelis? I’d say the Palestinians have a substantially greater need, because their education isn’t as good. Furthermore, a number of Middle East groups appear to lack understanding of what the West considers proper warfare. So, we see examples of what the West would consider war crimes, such as suicide bombings, hiding bombs in ambulances, or using children as soldiers, to name three.
But, few of those calling for “understanding” mean that we should take steps to improve Arab understanding. So, I favor “understanding,” but maybe not in the same way as you do.
Couldn’t agree more. For anyone who lives in the real world where everyone wears grey hats and there’s no black and white ones to be seen this is the only way forward.
It’s what happened in Northern Ireland after years and years of intransigence led to countless pointless deaths and hardship on both sides. Then things started to move and with the help of Bill Clinton and George Mitchell and many many more we finally started moving forward. Now we have a situation that is by no means peaceful but it’s a lot better than it was and hopefully a true peace isn’t that far away. It did take the following things however
:- Power Sharing with people who were viewed(some of them were active) as former terrorists
:- Release of all terrorist prisoners from both sides of the divide
:- Movement on talks/ concessions without decommissioning of arms
:- A whole new police force
any many more things. All these things have been done to a backdrop of republican dissidents carrying out a bombing campaign in NI and the UK BTW but still it moves forward.
From what some people in this thread have said if they where in power in the UK they would not have made these concessions as it would be giving in to terrorists. You’d be wrong and could be costing the people who voted you into power their lives.
tom and yojimbo,
I agree that it is foolish to let a few control the actions of the many by holding any talk hostage to all terror activity being stopped. But, the Israelis need to know two things, or it doesn’t pay to talk: those putatively in charge are making incremental steps to decrease the violence and they have the ability to deliver the goods. In Ireland continued talks were contigent on progress to decreased violence, with steps such as decomissioning an integral part of further progress. And the Brits knew that the IRA could deliver the goods. Do these conditions exist between the Israelis and the PA?
Just to further clarify what riles some of us about sparc’s assertion … here’s from the poll -
Meanwhile, how does the Israeli public view comparable acts against Arabs? See here for how.
There are Israelis as full of hate and thirst for vengence as any Arab extremist. They are allowed to express their views. But those planning or attempting attacks comparable to what the Palestinians do virtually every week are arrested and tried in Israel. Terrorism is called terrorism in Israel whether it is an Arab act or an Israeli one. Please let me know when the PA starts similarly arrested Arabs planning and attempting terror acts against Jews.
Wonderful excuse making. The fact is the house destruction policy, along with bulldozing P’s orchards, etc. etc. has been used with some liberalality for quite some time now with oft but the assertion that so-and-so cousin of Abdel-so-and-so was harbored there (which given rules of hospitality and ordinary familial relations, might well be true in a very broad sense). To excuse this sort of policy as ‘fighting terror’ is to do nothing but give carte blanche to blanket reprisals against the occupied population. It is indeed a form of terror, the intention is to terrorize the population into not supporting the forces opposing the occupation and has existed long before suicide bombings. Now, you correctly not that Israeli society holds itself to higher moral standards that the Ps – of course I do recall the response of … damn I forget the name of the FLN leader in la bataille d’Alger when asked if the FLN would cease using ‘basket bombs’ in Algiers, he replied ‘If you give us your bombers, we’ll give you our baskets’ – and laudably has resisted, for the most part, the most negative responses despite great provocation. However there comes a time when one has to reexamine a policy.
The clear origins of the policies are rooted in collective punishment, which when the Palestinian populations were largely organized on tribal or quasi-tribal bases and established methods of social control within the society sanctioned collective punishment. Typical tribal law, if your cousin does something, you’re as responsible as he. Gives you an incentive to police your folks in a society before modern police etc.
All well and fine for 1960. But this is not 1960, the society has changed. It is urbanized, no longer tribal in any meaningful sense and highly radicalized by nearly 30 years of occupation, meaning the overwhelming majority of the population has known nothing but occupation and the society which grew up under such pressures. Collective punishment clearly no longer works. Indeed it strikes me as quite clear – having some small acquaintance with the history of colonial rule and the early history of post-1948 that much of Sharonista policies are driven by a frozen image of Arab society as it existed 30-50 years ago, and the same colonialist sorts of mentalities.
Now as for this, you’re wrong: collounsbury,
“Myopic ahistoricism”?! I like it. But I’m afraid that you are the one treating your myopia with rose-colored glasses.
[/quote]
Me, rose colored glasses? That is laughable at best.
Really, well nice spin but that’s not quite true.
Let us review if we may the facts. Most importantly in re Lebanon. I am sure you are somewhat aware of that blinding success of use of force, that brilliant maneuver called the occupation of Lebanon and the great peace it brought, the valiant victory of the IDF? Ah, I’m sorry in fact that did not happen. What did happen was a long grinding war of attrition, above all with Hezbollah, winning lots of battles but losing the war.
What is also clear is that Hezbollah, after winning a military victory – by guerrilla warfare standards, stood down, ex-the Chabaa’ farms issue which is a legit point of dispute. With new stability in Lebanon, a new social compact and rebuilding, and having regained their lands – and one should recall the initial Israeli incursion was welcomed with roses, the occupation bred Shi’a hatred of the Israelis – and with something to lose (threat of new incursions etc.) along with a new political maturity which at least for an influential segment of the population is willing to recognize Israel at some level, there has been peace.
In the case of Jordan, we have the clear evolution of a society which has gone from being in a cold war with Israel since its last military defeat (a goodly number of years ago) to one which has evolved to the point that in the 1990s actual cooperation on a security level and an economic level began. The QIZ projects, the inter-security projects
You can hand-wave this away as the product of defeat in a war decades past – or one can recognize the evolution in the political and socio-political stance which is rather independent from the armed conflict of the 1950s and early 1960s, and up to the 1970s if one allows for guerrilla. The changes in attitude and actual substantive policy
Rather revisionist my dear fellow, rather revisionist. In fact 1993-2000 indicates that there is some reason to believe that a Palestinian Authority with a population which has some modicum of confidence that the Greater Israel faction is not preparing to fuck them up the ass again with ever more qualifications, conditions etc. for going ahead with final settlement can and will control the extreme fringe.
Of course, if the Sharonista response to any Jihadist provocation is to automatically blame Arafat et al, attack his compounds and staff, jail folks who have explicitly said that with a fair deal in the OT that they want to recognize 1967 Israel and yet leave strangely untouched the super-Radicals in Hamas (do recall a Sharoni permitted organization in its early years as a play against the PLO) and Islamic Jihad while piously and illogically demanding Arafat’s crippled organization move against them, then of course there will be no trust and no fucking peace.
[quote
There is no reason, from past actions, that informed self interest will motivate control of the violence.
[/quote]
An assertion false on its face.
Bullshit. That’s a bloody motherfucking fantasy. PA folks has not a basis to believe –note my analysis above, and also Tom’s—that the Sharonistas are playing a fair game. Everything about his government’s policies suggest that while throwing the occasional sop to the Labor and moderate members of the government, that a policy of trying to set up a Palestinian Bantustan is the actual objective. A freeze on settlement expansions, end to illogical “conditions” and attacks on PA institutions when Islamic Jihad or Hamas try to blow up the process, that would give some confidence.
You can define destroying a few trees as terror if you like.
I have no disagreement that occupation in Lebanon was an unproductive tactic, but that fact is irrelevant. It is not “hand waving” to realize that organized military efforts and coordinated bomb attacks by Arab governments stopped only because they failed. So the attacks against Israel switched to guerrilla and terrorist tactics. You are right that guerrilla tactics were effective Lebanon.
You’ll have to explain the “changes in attitude” to me. I have no doubt there have been some, but I have great doubt that they are changes that would give Israelis confidence that an Arab country sharing a long border populated by a majority who feel that blowing up school children and nightclubs is justifiable and who feel that even after getting a negotiated settlement that kids should still be taught that Israel has no right to exist, would be a great idea until trust is earned that security will be assured.
BTW, I have no fantasy about fucking any mother other than my wife … and certainly none that involve blood. Bleh.
I’d still love to hear more about the “changes in attitude” collounsbury.
Seriously.
Not that I think that any of these changes would make Israelis reassured (as said above), but visavis your take in how to capitalize upon these changes to facilitate reforms and work towards social justice within those Arab countries where great inequities exist. Because as I understand matters, these intra-Arab inequities are more of the root cause of international terrorism than is the situation with Israel.