Europaworld 21/12/2001 Israel's Strategy: Sparking a Palestinian Civil War

As world attention focuses again on the Middle East and measures to end the escalating violence and terror, Ahmed Bouzid asks whether Israel's current actions are in line with their stated goals, and suggests there is an alternative agenda being pursued. The author is President of Palestine Media Watch.

Those who intimately follow the Israeli media know that Alex Fishman, the security commentator for Yediot Achronot, Israel's largest circulation mass newspaper, is no soft dove. Reflecting the overwrought, frustrated mood of most Israelis, Fishman has been a solid supporter of Sharon's policy of assassination from day one. And yet, two days following the assassination of Hamas leader Mahmud Abu Hunud, and one week before the suicide bombings of Jerusalem and
Haifa, Fishman denounced the killing of Hanud as "a dangerous liquidation".

He wrote in his commentary - which was given a very conspicuous place, in a box on the paper's front page - that, "whoever gave a green light to this act of liquidation knew full well that he is thereby shattering in one blow the gentleman's agreement between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority; under that agreement, Hamas was to avoid in the near future suicide bombings inside the Green Line, of the kind perpetrated at the Dolphinarium [discotheque in Tel-Aviv]." Predicting what was to follow with deadly accuracy, Fishman wrote, "we again find ourselves preparing with dread for a new mass terrorist attack within the Green Line [Israel's pre-'67 border]".

Fishman then goes on to ask: "But does this string of operational successes serve any political aim, any strategy leading anywhere? Do 20 liquidations or 50 make any substantial difference, either in the campaign against terrorism or in the political arena?"

Fishman asks his question rhetorically and simply to illustrate what he believes is the 'irrationality' of Sharon's actions. But let us take the question seriously: could Ariel Sharon perhaps be acting rationally, after all, deliberately, within the framework of his own long-term agenda?

Some basic observations are in order.

If Ariel Sharon's motivation were only to press Arafat to reign in radical militants, then why does he make it politically -- and now physically -- impossible for him to do so, by humiliating him, denouncing him as the Bin Laden of Israel, and physically dismantling his security apparatus and the infrastructure of his authority? As Fishman notes, Arafat was relatively successful in reigning in Hamas during the months preceding the assassination, and had even begun arresting some Hamas activists. Why then did Sharon engage in an action he knew full well would only
destroy any fragile balance Arafat was slowly building with the militants?

A second observation: Israel has been 'cracking down' on terrorism for three decades now, and yet to this day suicide bombings continue to take place. Under Sharon, as Fishman observes, "the number of "special operations" in the Gaza Strip - i.e., secret penetrations into the [Palestinian-controlled] 'A' area for the purpose of prevention, arrests, ambushes and liquidations - has arisen by 400% in the past three months." And yet, Israel is now reeling from the most horrific string of suicide bombings against Israeli civilians since 1996. If Sharon is, as he must be, well aware that "cracking down" on terrorism has never succeeded in bringing the violence down, but only in increasing it, then why does he continue to pursue that deadly policy?

A third observation: Ariel Sharon has never minced words about his long-term vision for Israel and the future he has in store for his Palestinian neighbours. Asked in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz back in April of this year, only a few weeks after becoming Prime Minister, "Would you be ready to evacuate settlements as part of a non-belligerency agreement?", Sharon answered bluntly: "No. Absolutely not."

"Not even isolated settlements like Netzarim in the Gaza Strip?", the interviewer followed up; "No. Not at any price," Sharon answered. "Why do we have to evacuate Netzarim? For what?"

And fourth: between 1993 and 2000, a period during which Israel was expected to withdraw from the occupied territories, the size of Israeli settlements and the population that came with it doubled. If Israel were truly serious about ending the occupation, then why did its occupation expand and not retract?

Given these realities, let us go back to Fishman's rhetorical question: "But does this string of
operational successes serve any political aim, any strategy leading anywhere?"

The answer is a resounding, 'yes.'

As demonstrated by Camp David, the Palestinians are not willing to settle for anything less than a
sovereign Palestinian state, and the Israelis are not willing to offer anything resembling a sovereign Palestinian state. The Palestinians, militarily no match for the Israelis, have time and again pleaded for an unconditional return to the negotiation table. The Israelis, holding the military upper hand, have decided that negotiations are a dead end for attaining
their goal of a semi-autonomous, physically dismembered, Bantustans-cum-Palestinian state, and have instead opted for the time-tested strategy of divide and conquer: spread civil strife among the Palestinians, establish a state of chaos, so that Israel is no longer faced with solving a political problem, but rather with confronting a security crisis, and then move in to further dismember, annex, and tighten control over the remaining Palestinian territories. The maps since 1947 tell the whole story so far, and the story has yet to change.