The Complete Idiot's Guide to Middle East Conflict
Page 37
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Mysteries of the Desert
Jericho is located in the Jordan Valley, north of the Dead Sea and west of the Jordan River. It is roughly 800 feet below sea level, making it one of the lowest cities in the world. Jericho is also believed to be one of the oldest cities in the world, dating back as far as 8000 B.C.E. From 1948 to 1967, the city was under Jordanian control. Israel captured it in the Six-Day War.
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Sage Sayings
The settlers are not welcome, and the Israelis know that. They must leave.
—Nabil Shaath, Palestinian negotiator
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Another reason for meeting Arafat face to face was to give him a clear message that the Palestinians should stop raising unreal expectations about the accord. Specifically, he told Arafat to stop saying that the agreement would lead to a Palestinian state and the readmission of hundreds of thousands of refugees. Israel opposed both positions, and Rabin feared that by raising false expectations, Arafat was sowing the seeds of future disaffection with the agreement.
Meanwhile, Israel agreed to release Palestinian prisoners gradually, beginning with a group of more than 600. Arafat reportedly was focusing on the prisoner release to quickly demonstrate that his actions had resulted in tangible gains for his people.
The Slippery Slope Toward Statehood
The interim period was meant to build confidence. The Palestinians were to obtain more responsibilities in other parts of the West Bank if the Gaza/Jericho experiment succeeded. The hope was that the Israelis and Palestinians would become comfortable with the idea of coexistence over the next three years. If the period was tranquil, attitudes on both sides could be expected to change by the time permanent status issues were negotiated.
In the short run, the opposite happened. The Palestinians flouted most of the provisions requiring concessions on their part, and violence against Israelis escalated. The Israelis, meanwhile, responded to Palestinian noncompliance by not carrying out their obligations, or delaying doing so. Although not barred by any agreement, Israel’s continued building of settlements in the territories and actions in Jerusalem angered the Palestinians.
Despite Israeli objections, Arafat sold the agreement to his people as a step toward statehood. This shouldn’t have surprised anyone because it was unreasonable to expect him to advertise it as an abandonment of Palestinian aspirations. Besides, Arafat most likely reasoned, after the Palestinians gained control of their administrative affairs and built the foundations of a state, it would be difficult for Israel to prevent them from ultimately declaring their independence. This was always the risk of autonomy. Many people argued that Begin had set the wheels in motion for the creation of a Palestinian state by accepting this concept.
Threats Posed by a Palestinian State
Prior to the Oslo talks, Israel officially opposed the establishment of a Palestinian state because of the conviction that such an entity would pose a mortal danger to its existence. The fear was (and even today remains) that the PLO might seek to carry out its phased plan (restated by Arafat on Jordanian television the day the DoP was signed), which calls for the creation of a state in the territories first and then the liberation of the rest of “Palestine.”
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Tut Tut!
The Oslo agreement did not grant the Palestinians any power to conduct foreign policy, but the PLO already had a quasi-diplomatic representation in more than 100 nations. Israel had no way to prevent the PLO–administered Gaza-Jericho council from disseminating its views through these envoys.
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The Israelis also worried about an increase in terrorism, the possibility of Islamic radicals wresting control from Arafat by bullet or ballot, and the potential for a coalition of Arab forces to ally with the Palestinians in a future war. Moreover, if Israel were to withdraw to borders approximating those of 1967, most of its population and industry would be within 9 to 13 miles of hostile forces.
Stimulating the Arab States
Camp David placed a greater emphasis on the roles of Egypt and Jordan than on the Palestinians. The DoP invited Jordan and Egypt to play a role in the peace process and to promote greater cooperation among all the parties. As was the case after Camp David, however, the expectation was that the momentum created by reaching an agreement with the Palestinians would stimulate other Arabs to make peace with Israel.
In 1979, the hope was dashed when the Arab League ostracized Egypt. Though the Israeli-Palestinian agreement did not win widespread approval in the Arab world, it did not provoke the outcry that Egypt’s actions had more than a decade earlier.
Israel and Jordan Shake on It
In fact, the agreement paved the way for the signing of an agreement between Israel and Jordan the day after the Israeli-Palestinian accord was initialed. This document laid out an agenda designed to lead to a peace treaty. The substance of this agenda was agreed upon at the end of 1992. The implementation was delayed by King Hussein’s unwillingness to sign an agreement with Israel before the Palestinians did.
In practice, Israel and Jordan have been at peace since 1967, and many quiet cooperative activities were already undertaken. Still, it was a positive step to get the Jordanians on public record as prepared to sign a treaty. Rabin praised King Hussein’s statesmanship and called on him to negotiate the agreement himself.
The Jordanian prime minister said that his country would be willing to normalize relations with Israel in stages, even before a final peace treaty was signed. Shimon Peres and Crown Prince Hassan held the first high-level public meeting between a Jordanian and Israeli official at the White House at the end of September 1993. Peres subsequently held a secret meeting with King Hussein to discuss details of a peace agreement.
Roadblock in Damascus
Israeli progress with the Palestinians dampened expectations of an agreement with Syria. Rather than make a bold gesture, Syrian president Hafez Assad chose to complain that he was not consulted about the Oslo agreement. He also allowed radical Palestinian and Lebanese groups to increase terrorist activities against Israel in an apparent effort to sabotage the Israeli-Palestinian agreement.
Although the American administration became almost obsessively focused on making progress on the Syrian track, at least partially to compensate for its lack of involvement in the agreement with the Palestinians, Israel was in less of a hurry. Given the difficulty of selling the agreement with the Palestinians to his country, Rabin didn’t want to deal with opposition to concessions on the Golan Heights. The prevailing school of thought was that Israel would be in a stronger bargaining position after it implemented the DoP and signed a peace treaty with Jordan.
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Ask the Sphinx
In October 1994, it was disclosed that 3,800 Jews had left Syria since 1992, when Assad lifted travel restrictions. Roughly a third of these Jews secretly went to Israel. Only about 230 Jews were believed to remain in Syria.
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After the Soviet Union collapsed, Syria no longer had its primary sponsor and arms supplier. However, the Israelis still worried that Assad might try a quick military campaign to grab the Golan Heights before Israel could react—and then try to hold on to the territory in the political arena. Although Syria periodically rattled its saber, the last military confrontation with Israel occurred during the early stages of the Lebanon war. After that, the likelihood of war diminished.
The Economic War Continues
Perhaps the most discouraging development following the signing of the Israeli-Palestinian accord was the refusal of the Arab states to lift their boycott of Israel. During the debate over American loan guarantees to help Israel absorb refugees from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia (see Chapter 21), Secretary of State James Baker claimed he’d gotten a commitment from the Arab states to end the boycott if Israel stopped building settlements. Rabin essentially froze settlement activity, but the Arabs continued the economic war.
In
fact, Syria called on the other Arab states to intensify the boycott until Israel returned the Golan Heights. And, despite Oslo and all that had transpired afterward, the PLO said it should remain in place until Israel withdrew from all occupied territories, including East Jerusalem.
A Jewish Extremist Sets Off More Violence
After the DoP was signed, weeks of difficult negotiations followed to determine how it should be implemented. On February 25, 1994, in the midst of these delicate talks, an Israeli extremist named Baruch Goldstein walked into the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron and opened fire on the Muslim worshipers there with an assault rifle, killing 29 Palestinians before committing suicide. This was by far the worst act of terrorism ever committed by an Israeli, and it naturally inflamed the Arab world.
Violence escalated as Arab terrorists used the Goldstein attack as a pretext for their own atrocities. The Islamic radical organization Hamas, for example, bombed a bus in northern Israel on April 6. The following day, Islamic Jihad, another militant Muslim group, attacked a group of soldiers at a bus stop. And on April 13, Hamas bombed a bus in Hadera. The 3 attacks killed 14 people and wounded 80.
Gaza and Jericho First
In early May 1994, Israeli-Palestinian negotiations culminated in the signing of the Gaza-Jericho agreement. This laid out a timetable for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from those two areas and established the framework for Palestinian self-rule. The idea was to give the Palestinians authority over part of the occupied territories first to help build confidence on both sides. The Palestinians would see that Israel was sincere about its willingness to withdraw from parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the Israelis would have a chance to judge whether the Palestinians posed a threat to their security before turning over more land.
Israel maintained control over the border and responsibility for the security of the Jewish settlements in Gaza, but the new Palestinian Authority was given power to deal with virtually every other matter relating to the Palestinians living there.
On May 18, the IDF completed its withdrawal from Gaza and Jericho. The next several months were devoted to negotiations over the transfer of additional territory. On August 29, an agreement was reached under which Israel transferred control of education and culture, health, social welfare, taxation, and tourism to the Palestinian authorities.
The Palestinians were not satisfied, however, with the slow pace of Israel’s withdrawal and persistently demanded that the IDF be redeployed outside the major West Bank cities. They also wanted Palestinian prisoners, including Muslim extremists convicted of terrorist atrocities, released from prison. Because of continuing terrorism, however, Rabin refused to make any further concessions.
Meanwhile, some progress was made in the multilateral peace talks that originated in the Madrid conference. At the environmental talks in Bahrain, the parties agreed to a code for protecting the environment, and Egypt, Jordan, and Israel agreed to work together to control pollution in the Red Sea. The panel on water issues agreed to create a desalination research center in Oman. The working groups on refugees and regional economic development also initiated cooperative projects. The most striking development, however, was the fact that these meetings were held in countries such as Qatar, Tunisia, Bahrain, Oman, and Morocco—none of which had ever had relations with Israel. Little more ever came from the multilateral talks, which were later abandoned.
Syria Doesn’t Budge
Israel and Syria continued to negotiate, primarily through the Americans. The two sides’ positions took on a chicken-and-egg quality. Assad insisted that Israel agree to a complete withdrawal from the Golan Heights before he would commit to revealing what concessions he would make in return. Rabin hinted at a willingness to give up part of the Golan, but only in exchange for concrete assurances about what sort of peace Israel could expect, making clear that he wanted full normalization of relations, similar to those between Israel and Egypt.
The Israeli-Lebanese talks continued to be held hostage to the negotiations with Syria. Israel could not hope to make any progress toward a peace treaty with the Lebanese government before reaching an agreement with Syria. The issues with Lebanon were straightforward and the Israelis did not anticipate any difficulty resolving them, but Assad would never permit any substantive discussions.
Meanwhile, Iran continued to pressure Israel by proxy. Iranian-backed Hizbollah militants were allowed to attack Israel with impunity from Syrian-controlled territory in Lebanon (and weapons and supplies were shipped from Iran via Damascus). Assad also reportedly used threats against Arafat and King Hussein in an effort to prevent the two leaders from signing agreements with Israel without Syria’s demands being met. Ultimately, the Palestinian and Jordanian leaders called Assad’s bluff and went forward without the Syrian dictator being able to stop them.
Big Day for the Little King
On October 26, 1994, Jordan became the second Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel. The Israelis had always believed it would be possible to reach an agreement with Jordan and viewed King Hussein as a reliable partner. But the king never felt secure enough to risk the anger of his people, the Palestinians, and his neighbors until Israel and the Palestinians reached their own agreement. The negotiations were also facilitated by the fact that King Hussein had developed a good relationship with both Rabin and President Clinton.
The peace treaty ended the state of war and formalized the borders between Israel and Jordan. Israel handed over 135 square miles of territory, and Jordan agreed to lease back some of the territory on which Israelis were living. They also made progress on a series of accords to promote tourism, trade, and other bilateral issues. Before the end of the year, Jordan had opened an embassy in Tel Aviv, and Israel had established one in Amman.
Although no other Arab states were prepared to sign formal treaties with Israel, several began to have business and diplomatic contacts. By the end of 1994, more than 150 nations had diplomatic relations with Israel—more than double the number only a decade earlier.
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Mysteries of the Desert
On September 30, 1994, the six Gulf Cooperation Council states announced that they would no longer bar trade with companies doing business with Israel. Since the peace agreements between Israel and the PLO and Jordan, the boycott has gradually crumbled. The Arab League was forced to cancel several boycott meetings because of opposition from Kuwait, Tunisia, and Morocco. The primary boycott—prohibiting direct relations between Arab countries and Israel—slowly cracked as Qatar, Oman, and Morocco began to negotiate deals with Israel. Few countries outside the Middle East comply with the boycott anymore, but it still technically exists. Several countries, most notably Saudi Arabia, continue its enforcement.
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Oslo II
Negotiations with the Palestinians were not nearly as successful. They proceeded in fits and starts, largely because of continuing terrorism. In January 1995, a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 21 Israelis, and a few months later, 7 more died in a bus bombing.
Finally, on September 28, Israel and the Palestinians signed a new agreement at the White House that came to be known as Oslo II. This interim agreement expanded the area of Palestinian self-rule beyond Gaza and Jericho. Israel agreed to withdraw its troops from six major West Bank cities: Bethlehem, Jenin, Nablus, Qalqilya, and Tulkarm. The Israeli Civil Administration that had governed the territories was to be dissolved and all practical governing responsibility turned over to an elected authority, the Palestinian Council. The Council was to be elected for an interim period of no more than five years (from the signing of the Gaza-Jericho Agreement), ending in May 1999.
The Palestinian Authority Emerges
The territory controlled by the Palestinians became known as the Palestinian Authority (PA). This territory was divided into three types of areas:
Area A was comprised of the six cities listed previously. The Palestinian Council was given complete responsibility for the civil administration
and internal security here.
Area B included towns in other parts of the West Bank in which roughly 70 percent of the Palestinians lived. The council was given civil authority, but Israel kept overall security responsibility for safeguarding its citizens and preventing terrorism.
Area C covered the Jewish settlements, unpopulated areas, and regions deemed strategically important. Israel retained full responsibility for security, but the Palestinian Council was given civil authority over health, education, and economics.
Israel agreed to a series of further redeployments at six-month intervals. It also agreed to free roughly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners from its jails. For their part, the Palestinians agreed that within two months of the inauguration of the Palestinian Council, they would revoke the articles in their charter calling for Israel’s destruction.
“Peace” Doesn’t Quiet Arafat
One of the biggest problems, from Israel’s standpoint, continued to be Arafat’s unwillingness or inability to prevent Arab terrorism. When it came to his political opponents, Arafat had demonstrated a ruthless competence, having them jailed or murdered. He was not prepared, however, to declare war on the Muslim extremists from Islamic Jihad and Hamas. This was usually explained by an alleged fear that this would provoke a Palestinian civil war, but it would become clear later that Arafat actually considered the groups allies.
Terrorism also remained a tool for Arafat to try to accomplish his political objectives. He often used inflammatory rhetoric, speaking, for example, of liberating Jerusalem or declaring a jihad. This showed his constituents that he had not lost his revolutionary zeal, and it frightened the Israelis who saw armed Palestinians on their doorstep. The Israelis also heard and read virulent verbal and written attacks against them in the Palestinian press and in the schools and school textbooks in the West Bank and Gaza.