The Complete Idiot's Guide to Middle East Conflict

by Mitchell G. Bard, Ph. D.

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  Ask the Sphinx

  Arab support for the Palestinians was mixed. Rhetorically, the Arab states denounced Israel and praised the Palestinians. Financially, less than 5 percent of the budget for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) that provides relief for the Palestinian refugees comes from the Arab states. The Arab states provided some aid to the Palestinian Authority, though a fraction of what the United States and Europe gave, and cut off this funding for a time to protest corruption in the PA. Terrorists and their families received more support. Saddam Hussein offered $25,000 to families of “martyrs,” and the Saudis held a terror telethon that raised more than $100 million for them.

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  Israel said that it was determined to root out the terrorists and it would spend as much time as necessary to do so. On the nightly newscasts, however, the image of Israeli tanks besieging Palestinian towns, combined with Arab and European demands for an end to the incursion, put pressure on the Bush administration to take action to rein in the Israelis.

  Arafat was trapped in his office and gave dramatic interviews appealing for help. Meanwhile, in Bethlehem, a group of Palestinian gunmen took refuge in the Church of the Nativity. Because of the sanctity of the church, the Israeli forces were not prepared to storm the building or take actions that would endanger the shrine, and a tense standoff ensued that attracted the world’s attention.

  Ending the Siege

  Although the Israeli operation did not completely stop the suicide bombings, it significantly reduced the number. Under growing international pressure, especially from the United States, Israel gradually withdrew most troops from the territories. It kept forces in Ramallah, however, insisting that the men responsible for the assassination of Minister Ze’evi and the financier of the Karine-A be turned over to Israel. In Bethlehem, Israel also insisted that the gunmen surrender before they would lift the five-week siege on the Church of the Nativity.

  After intense negotiations over many days, compromises were finally worked out for both standoffs. Israel and the Palestinians agreed to allow U.S. and British personnel to guard six Palestinians wanted for various offenses in a jail in the Palestinian territories. In exchange, Israel withdrew its forces from Ramallah and allowed Arafat to leave his compound and travel freely in the West Bank and Gaza.

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  Tut Tut!

  During the siege at the Church of the Nativity, press reports suggested that the holy shrine was being seriously damaged. After the Palestinian militants inside left and the Israelis withdrew, the church was found to have no serious damage.

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  The deal in Bethlehem was more complicated and took longer to reach. Israel said that 13 wanted terrorists among the people holed up in the church had the choice of facing trial in Israel on terrorism charges or going into exile. Ultimately, the European Union agreed to accept them, and on May 10, the men left the church and were subsequently flown to seven different countries. Israel then withdrew from Bethlehem.

  Israel’s “Operation Defensive Shield” had a number of important ramifications. First and foremost, it seriously damaged the terror infrastructure in the West Bank. Many terrorists were killed and captured, weapons were confiscated, and bomb factories destroyed. Although the number of attacks declined, they did not cease altogether. The fact that no Arab state came to the Palestinians’ rescue, as Arafat had expected, showed how thin the support for them really is in Arab capitals. Arafat’s prestige was also severely damaged.

  Reshuffling the Palestinian Deck

  The decline in Arafat’s popularity was reinforced by Israel’s refusal to negotiate with him and the United States’s insistence that the Palestinian Authority institute reforms. In response, Arafat reshuffled his cabinet and promised to hold new elections. (The first and only ones were held in 1996 and were supposed to be held again three years later.) Arafat’s actions were still being viewed both by Palestinians and others as suspect because the cabinet changes did not reflect any meaningful shift in power, and his promises to hold elections were almost immediately conditioned on a complete Israeli withdrawal from territory in the PA they still controlled. The Bush administration sent mixed messages suggesting that Arafat walked like a terrorist and talked like a terrorist, but could not bring itself to label him a terrorist because Arab leaders insisted that Arafat was the leader of the Palestinians and had to be dealt with.

  Bush Has a Vision

  After being accused for most of his term of being disengaged from the Middle East and allowing events to spiral out of control, President Bush began to become heavily involved in Middle East diplomacy in the spring of 2002. After consulting with the key leaders in the region, the president was preparing to propose a new peace initiative.

  The announcement of the plan was delayed after two horrific suicide bombings in Jerusalem—the seventieth and seventy-first in 20 months. Then, on June 24, Bush laid out a plan that called on the Palestinians to replace Arafat as their leader, reform the governmental institutions of the Palestinian Authority and adopt democratic and free-market principles, and end terrorism. He called on other Arab nations to end their support of terrorism and normalize relations with Israel. He said that Syria should close its terrorist camps and expel terrorist organizations. Israel was not required to do anything until the violence ceased, but then Bush expected Israeli troops to withdraw from the Palestinian Authority and to negotiate on the basis of UN Resolution 242 a final settlement that would include a withdrawal to secure and defensible borders. The president said that if the Palestinians fulfilled their obligations he would support the creation of a “provisional” state of Palestine after three years, with the expectation that the state’s final borders and complete sovereignty would be resolved in negotiations with Israel.

  Israelis reacted to the plan with glee. The president had agreed with their view that Arafat had to be replaced and that the terrorism had to end before they were required to act. In addition, Bush had laid out clear requirements the Palestinians had to fulfill before they could get even provisional statehood, and that was put off for a longer period than they could have hoped for. The Arab states were unhappy that the onus had been put on the Palestinians rather than the Israelis. They also did not support Bush’s call to replace Arafat and would not agree to the president’s suggestion that they normalize relations with Israel and end their support for terrorist groups. The Palestinians were angry and felt betrayed. They did not believe the United States had the right to tell them who their leader should be, and continued to insist that Israel had to withdraw from all the territories before they would end their violent struggle.

  Despite the Palestinians’ response, the Bush plan and growing international pressure stimulated changes in the Palestinian Authority. Palestinians who had been cowed into silence by Arafat’s unquestioned authority for the first time began to speak out about the Palestinian Authority’s corruption and the need for changes.

  Desperate to hold on to power, Arafat offered a reform plan and a timetable for new elections. The U.S. hope was that Arafat’s political authority would be transferred to a prime minister, and that Arafat’s position as president of the Palestinian Authority would become largely ceremonial.

  Instead, Arafat turned Bush’s hope on its head. He appointed Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) to be the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority. Israel was hopeful that Abbas would consolidate his power, reform the Palestinian Authority, and put an end to the senseless violence that was claiming hundreds of innocent lives. Soon, however, it became clear Abbas did not have the authority to carry out the steps required by both Israel and the Bush administration to resume the peace process. Arafat retained all the power and made Abbas the figurehead.

  Abbas lasted less than six months before resigning in frustration. He was replaced by another Arafat loyalist, Abu Alaa, who was given no more power than his predecessor.

  The Least You Need to Know

  Israeli prime
minister Ehud Barak made an unprecedented offer to withdraw from most of the territories and create a Palestinian state, but it was rejected by Arafat.

  After President Clinton failed to mediate a peace agreement, violence escalated as the Palestinians launched a new uprising that featured the use of suicide bombers against Israeli civilians.

  Israel’s countermeasures against terrorists made life even more miserable for Palestinians, who began to question Arafat’s leadership.

  President Bush called on Palestinians to replace Arafat and reform the Palestinian Authority.

  Chapter 29

  Mapping the Road to Peace

  In This Chapter

  A road map for peace

  Israel builds a fence

  A plan to leave Gaza

  The end of Arafat

  Even after Israel launched its military operations in the Spring of 2002 to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure, attacks on Israelis continued. One of the most horrific occurred on July 31 when a bomb exploded in the cafeteria at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, a place where Jewish and Arab students had always coexisted. Nine people, including 5 Americans, were killed and 85 injured. A few days later, 9 more Israelis were killed and 50 wounded when a suicide bomber blew up a public bus in northern Israel. Israel responded to the attacks with counterattacks against Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank and Gaza and a renewed military presence in several Palestinian towns.

  The escalating violence increased the level of tension for both the Israelis and Palestinians and made everyone’s life more difficult. And so long as the violence continued, Israel refused to engage in negotiations on the substantive issues of the conflict.

  The Quartet Steps In

  With the parties unable to break out of the stalemate, a groundswell of international opinion began to support the idea of going beyond the plan outlined by President Bush in June 2002, and establishing a more specific series of steps, and a timeline, for the parties to follow to achieve a final settlement that would lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state beside Israel. In April 2003, the European Union, Russia, the United States, and the United Nations—called “the Quartet”—presented a so-called “road map” to the Israelis and Palestinians to achieve this objective.

  The principal obligations under the road map for the Palestinians are to…

  Issue an unequivocal statement affirming Israel’s right to exist in peace and security.

  Call for an immediate and unconditional cease-fire.

  Take substantive and visible actions to stop terrorists and dismantle terrorist infrastructure.

  Confiscate illegal weapons.

  Consolidate Palestinian security organizations.

  Cut off public and private terror funding.

  End incitement against Israel emanating from Palestinian institutions.

  Appoint an empowered and independent interim prime minister and cabinet.

  Israel’s obligations are to…

  Affirm its commitment to a two-state vision.

  Dismantle settlement outposts erected since March 2001.

  Freeze settlement activity.

  Withdraw the army from parts of the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

  End actions considered to incite Palestinians and undermine trust.

  Work to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the West Bank.

  Like the Oslo accords, the road map puts off the resolution of the most difficult issues—borders, refugees, settlements, and Jerusalem—until the end. The sponsors envisioned an international conference to support the negotiation of these issues. The road map also calls for the entire Arab world to recognize Israel. Egypt and Jordan remain the only Arab nations to have done so. Moreover, the Arab states were called on to stop all funding and support of terrorist organizations, something they have thus far been unwilling to do.

  Tracking Performance

  Many of the obligations required of Israel have already been met. For example, Prime Minister Sharon has said he supports the creation of a Palestinian state, and Israeli institutions have never been engaged in incitement against Palestinians. In the short run, Israel expressed a willingness to ease the plight of the Palestinians.

  Israel was less forthright in fulfilling its obligations regarding outposts and settlements. Though it did begin to remove some of the illegal outposts, more kept springing up. Though this angered Bush, the decision not to confront the settlers in these small, isolated hilltops may have been a smart one from Sharon’s own domestic political vantage because it avoided having to fight dozens of battles with settlers over relatively unimportant outposts at a time when he was preparing for more dramatic confrontations with thousands of residents in longstanding settlements.

  As to the freeze in settlement activity, Israel argued it was not building any new settlements, only allowing for natural growth in existing communities. Moreover, Sharon maintained that violence had to end first before Israel was expected to implement this step.

  Israel also expressed a willingness to withdraw its troops “as security performance moves forward.” Each time, however, that Israel had withdrawn in the past, new rounds of terrorism followed.

  You Go First

  The Palestinians’ performance was also problematic. First, and foremost, the Palestinian Authority failed to stop the violence and pointedly refused to dismantle the terrorist networks or confiscate the illegal weapons. Palestinian terrorists rejected the road map and declared their intention to use violence to sabotage peace negotiations, and they did just that, launching more than 200 attacks between May 2003 and July 2004.

  Equally serious was the continuation of incitement by the PA. Weekly sermons broadcast on the PA television station, for example, would be blatantly anti-Semitic and call for Israel’s destruction. Textbooks in Palestinian schools rarely made any reference to Israel’s existence (Israel appears on none of their maps) and tried to minimize or erase the Jewish connection to the area.

  The Quartet had what most observers considered an overly optimistic timetable of reaching a final agreement in just three years. For Israel and the United States, the key element in the road map is that a two-state solution “will only be achieved through an end to violence and terrorism, when the Palestinian people have a leadership acting decisively against terror and willing and able to build a practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty.”

  Israel’s supporters noted that the Palestinians had made similar commitments in the Oslo agreements and now Israel was asked to make new concessions in exchange for the same unfulfilled promises the Palestinians had made a decade earlier. And when the Israelis saw no sign that Arafat or Abbas was prepared to stop the violence, they were unwilling to make any concessions. The Palestinians, not surprisingly, argued they couldn’t convince their people to end the violence as long as they saw no improvement in their lives and ongoing Israeli settlement in the territories.

  Fences and Neighbors

  After scores of suicide bombings and daily terrorist attacks against its civilians that have killed more than 1,000 people and wounded thousands more since September 2000, Israel’s government decided to construct a security fence near the northern part of the pre-1967 “Green Line” between Israel and the West Bank to prevent Palestinian terrorists from infiltrating into Israeli population centers.

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  Ask the Sphinx

  Israel already has barriers along its borders with Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. In fact, a noncontroversial fence has surrounded the Gaza Strip for years, and not a single suicide bomber has managed to get across the Gaza barrier into Israel.

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  The construction of the fence has been slowed by political divisions over the precise route. The most controversial aspects of the project are decisions regarding the inclusion of Jewish settlements. Israel wants to include as many Jews within the fence, and as few Palestinians as possible. To incorporate some of the larger settlements, however, it would be necessary to build the f
ence with bulges inside the West Bank.

  The original route was approximately 458 miles. However, the plan has been repeatedly modified and, in February 2005, the government announced its intention to shorten the route and move the barrier closer to the 1949 armistice line (in some places, the fence is actually inside the line) to make it less burdensome to the Palestinians and address U.S. concerns. The new route will include 7 percent of the West Bank on its “Israeli” side—as opposed to 16 percent in the original plan—and approximately 10,000 Palestinian residents. The changes will make the length of the barrier approximately 400 miles.

  Making Terrorism a Challenge

  While critics refer to the barrier as a wall, less than 3 percent or about 15 miles is actually a concrete wall, and that is being built in areas where it prevents snipers from shooting at cars. Most of the barrier will be a chain-link type fence similar to those used all over the United States, combined with other means of surveillance and detection.

  * * *

  Ask the Sphinx

  The security fence is the largest infrastructure project in Israel’s history. The cost of the entire fence is approximately $1.6 million per mile and, when completed, is expected to cost about $1 billion.

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  Before the construction of the fence, and in many places where it has not yet been completed, a terrorist need only walk across an invisible line to cross from the West Bank into Israel. Since construction of the fence began, the number of attacks has been reduced by more than 90 percent.