The election process went smoothly and, despite Palestinian predictions of Israeli interference, international observers reported that Palestinians were not obstructed by Israel from participating in the election. In fact, Palestinian and Israeli officials were said to have worked well together to facilitate voting.
* * *
Sage Sayings
Free elections can only take place in societies in which people are free to express their opinions without fear.
—Natan Sharansky, Israeli minister and former Soviet refusenik freed by the United States from the Soviet gulag in an exchange for a Soviet spy
* * *
Immediately after the election, 46 officials from the PA Central Election Committee resigned, confirming suspicions of voting irregularities and fraud. Nevertheless, virtually all Palestinians, the Israelis, and the international community recognized Abbas as the legitimately elected leader.
And the election of Abbas was universally welcomed. Israeli prime minister Sharon immediately congratulated Abbas and announced plans to meet with him.
Expectations were high that Abbas could radically alter the policies of his predecessor, consolidate his power, reform the Palestinian Authority, and put an end to more than four years of senseless violence.
After some violent incidents in the first days of his regime, Abbas began to take aggressive measures to consolidate his power. He initiated talks with Hamas and Islamic Jihad to achieve a cease-fire, ordered Palestinian security forces to stop attacks by Palestinian militants on Israelis, and sent a police contingent to the Gaza Strip to impose order. Israel took the position that it would give Abbas time to prove he was willing and able to stop the violence. The official position was that while Israel understood he might not be able to stop 100 percent of the incidents, Abbas was expected to demonstrate a 100 percent effort to try to stop them.
* * *
Mysteries of the Desert
Many people are under the false perception that the militants cannot be stopped because of their numbers. Although it is true that the Islamic terrorist groups enjoy broad popular support, mainly in the Gaza Strip, the actual number of forces under arms is estimated to be no more than 1,500. Moreover, the terrorists’ identities and locations are known. The PA has an estimated 40,000 policemen and multiple security services, more than enough to disarm and arrest anyone who illegally possesses weapons and threatens or engages in violence.
* * *
Abbas made a number of positive statements about ending violence and confiscating illegal weapons. He also took steps to end incitement, particularly in the Palestinian Authority–controlled media.
Meanwhile, Israel also took steps to build confidence and shore up support for Abbas. One of the most important gestures was to release several hundred prisoners (though not as many as the Palestinians wanted). Israeli troops also began withdrawing from parts of the territories and said they would turn over responsibility for security of Palestinian cities to the PA as its forces established control.
Mutual Engagement
Israel’s principal argument for its plan to unilaterally disengage from Gaza was that it had no Palestinian partner with whom to negotiate. Abbas appeared to be willing to break with Arafat’s longstanding refusal to negotiate an end to the conflict and, therefore, Israel agreed to discuss the disengagement, and to work together to make the transition orderly and prevent any violence that could disrupt the withdrawal.
On February 7, 2005, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak hosted a summit at Sharm el-Sheikh attended by Abbas, Sharon, and Jordan’s King Abdullah. At the end of the meeting, Abbas and Sharon declared an end to hostilities.
Trouble on the Homefront
A potentially severe problem was the growing militancy of Jewish residents in the territories. Some Orthodox rabbis issued rulings that it would violate Jewish law to evacuate parts of the Land of Israel. A small minority of soldiers said they would not follow orders to remove settlers, mirroring a movement by soldiers earlier who had refused to serve in the territories.
Most of the opponents of the disengagement plan used Israel’s democratic process to voice their opinion. Many called for a referendum to let the public decide whether to stay or go. Some protests turned violent and extremists issued dire warnings of a civil war.
In the meantime, the Knesset approved the decision to disengage as well as a plan to compensate the Jews who were to be evacuated for the loss of their homes, businesses, and lands. Residents of communities were being encouraged to move en mass to towns inside Israel and some were planning to do so. The average family was slated to receive about $214,000, and the total cost of the evacuation was expected to exceed $870 million.
Despite the threats and opposition, Sharon scheduled the evacuation to begin in July 2005, with the expectation that it would be completed within a few weeks.
The Least You Need to Know
The United States, European Union, Russia, and the United Nations developed a road map to a peace agreement that placed obligations on both Israel and the Palestinian Authority that remain unfulfilled.
The growth of the Palestinian population has forced Israel to confront the dilemma of how to control the West Bank and Gaza Strip and remain both a Jewish state and a democracy. The inability to solve it is a motivation for withdrawal from all of Gaza and part of the West Bank.
Prime Minister Sharon decided that Israel should unilaterally evacuate the Gaza Strip and four West Bank communities, confounding critics who believed he would never dismantle any settlements or give up territory.
Following Arafat’s death, Mahmoud Abbas was elected as his successor, and generated optimism that a change in Palestinian leadership might reinvigorate the peace process.
Chapter 30
Waiting for the Messiah
In This Chapter
Tough issues ahead
Oil and water don’t mix
The biological, chemical, and nuclear threats
One of the great things about writing about the Middle East is that it is never boring. Nearly every day, and certainly every week, you can count on incidents to occur—which can have a profound influence on the region’s future. For example, in the course of revising this book, Yasser Arafat died; the United States, the Palestinian Authority, and Iraq held national elections; Israel’s Knesset approved Sharon’s disengagement plan; a popular former Lebanese prime minister was assassinated; and the peoples of countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia began to openly demand changes in their governments.
More changes are on the horizon as a new generation of leaders comes to power. The region’s longest-serving leader, King Hussein of Jordan, died in 1999 and was replaced by his 37-year-old son Abdullah. Hafez Assad, the longtime strongman in Syria, died in 2000 and was succeeded by his 34-year-old son. Yasser Arafat died and was replaced by another aging Palestinian leader, who will likely be succeeded by someone from the young guard. Saddam Hussein was deposed and replaced by a democratically elected president. In Israel, 77-year-old Ariel Sharon is one of the last of the founding fathers. Saudi king Fahd is 82. Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak is 77.
No one can predict what the region will look like when these men, who have influenced events for decades, pass from the scene. All of the peoples in the region look forward to the day when peace will be the normal state of affairs, but the turmoil rooted in centuries of political, ideological, geographic, historic, religious, and psychological disputes is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. In fact, a number of factors, including Islamic extremism, terrorism, declining supplies of oil and water, and nuclear proliferation, increase the probability of new conflicts. And even if disengagement goes smoothly, Israel and the Palestinians will still have to resolve the same major (final status) issues that have been put off since Oslo—borders, settlements, refugees, and Jerusalem (as discussed in Chapter 24).
The Oil Weapon Is Sheathed
When the Arabs launched their oil embargo in 1973 to protest U.S. s
upport for Israel in the Yom Kippur War, the Western world was thrown in a tizzy. Days and nights of long lines at gas stations were followed by dire predictions about the reserves of oil drying up by the end of the century or slightly afterward. Up to that point, the United States and other Western nations were largely dependent on the goodwill of the Arab oil producers of OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries). Israel’s friends feared that a new, powerful weapon had been unsheathed and that oil interests would counterbalance their lobbying efforts.
Today the embargo is largely forgotten. The long gas lines have disappeared. But after prices briefly dropped below $1/gallon for the first time in years in 1999, they have now risen above $2/gallon, and the oil producers have enjoyed a windfall of tens of billions of dollars.
Today the United States is also less dependent on Arab oil producers, importing only about 22 percent of its oil from Persian Gulf sources. Canada has replaced Saudi Arabia as the leading supplier to the United States, and other countries outside the Middle East have proven to be more reliable suppliers. Still, oil prices, and hence the world economy, continue to be influenced by changes in production by OPEC.
The clout of oil producers could grow in the future since the greatest oil reserves are located in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, and the UAE. Russia is next on the list, but its proven reserves are less than one quarter of the Saudi total. Paradoxically, the 1973–74 oil embargo had some benefits. It forced Americans to think more about conservation, encouraged automakers to produce more fuel-efficient cars, stimulated research on alternative energy sources, and provoked Congress to create the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The SPR can hold 1 billion barrels, making it the largest emergency oil stockpile in the world. Still, oil is a finite resource, and approximately 65 percent of the known reserves remain in the Gulf region. At some point in the future, the need for oil might once again put the Arab countries (and Iran) in the driver’s seat.
Thirst for War
Water is a matter of life and death and war and peace for the peoples of the Middle East. This is not hyperbole. To give just a few examples…
Israel and Syria clashed several times in the 1950s when Syria tried to stop Israel from building its National Water Carrier. They fought again in the prelude to the Six-Day War in 1965–66, when Syria tried to divert water from the Jordan River.
Iraq rushed troops to its border in 1975 and accused Syria of cutting off the flow of the Euphrates River.
In 1990, Turkey cut off the flow of the Euphrates to fill the Ataturk Dam, provoking war threats from Iraq and Syria.
* * *
Sage Sayings
[The one issue that] could bring Jordan to war again is water.
—Jordan’s King Hussein
* * *
The situation is growing more dangerous each year as the population of the region continues to grow.
The problem is most acute in Israel, Jordan, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon also face potentially serious shortfalls in the near future. The situation is exacerbated by pollution and the disproportionate use of water in low-value agriculture.
A mountain aquifer that lies under the West Bank provides 40 percent of Israel’s agricultural water and 50 percent of the nation’s drinking water. The Palestinians maintain that it should come under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, but Israel disagrees and refuses to concede control over such a vital source of its water. The Declaration of Principles signed by Israel and the Palestinians in 1993 did not decide who will control water resources in the interim period and leaves the resolution of the issue to the final status negotiations. Israel has expressed a willingness to reach a water-sharing agreement with the Palestinians, as Israel did with Jordan, and efforts to protect water supplies was one of the few consistent areas of cooperation during the last Palestinian uprising.
Improved infrastructure increased efficiency, and the treatment and reuse of waste-water are vital to improving the water balance. But demand will still eventually exceed supply, and new sources of water will be needed. Experts agree that only two real options exist for ameliorating future water shortages: importing water and desalination.
The consensus view is that importing water is logistically difficult, politically risky, and potentially very expensive. Proposals have nevertheless been offered to ship water from one country to another or build pipelines from, for example, Turkey to Israel. Israel, however, is unwilling to rely too heavily on a foreign source for its water.
Desalination is a proven technique with more than 7,500 plants in use in about 120 countries, 60 percent of which are in the Middle East (Saudi Arabia has the world’s largest plant). To this point, however, the process has not been economically feasible in most cases because of the availability of cheap freshwater. The seriousness of the situation has, nevertheless, led Israel to begin constructing desalination plants.
If a solution is not found to this developing crisis, water might soon become a more valuable commodity than oil.
Armageddon?
With the coming of the millennium, some people expected the end of the world, but we survived that milestone unscathed. Although God’s wrath might yet bring the end of days, the more likely cause of a conflagration is the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Iraq had an interest in nuclear weapons, but, as you’ve read in earlier chapters, Saddam Hussein’s efforts to acquire a bomb were thwarted. Though no evidence was found after the 2003 war that Saddam had rebuilt his nuclear program, few doubt that he hoped to acquire a nuclear capability.
Ayatollahs with Nukes
By the mid-1990s, concern was growing about Iranian efforts to acquire nonconventional weapons. In 1997, Israeli officials offered the United States intelligence suggesting that Iran had acquired the capability to target Tel Aviv with weapons of mass destruction for the first time.
In 2002, two previously unknown nuclear facilities were discovered in Iran. In February 2003, Iranian president Mohammad Khatami announced the discovery of uranium reserves near the central city of Yazd and said Iran was setting up production facilities “to make use of advanced nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.” This was an alarming development because it suggested Iran was attempting to obtain the means to produce and process fuel itself, despite an agreement to receive all the uranium it would need for civilian purposes from Russia.
Further evidence of Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons was revealed when Pakistan’s top nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, admitted he provided nuclear weapons expertise and equipment to Iran, as well as to North Korea and Libya. After Iran pledged to suspend its nuclear program, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported in June 2004 that Iran was continuing to make parts and materials that could be used in the manufacture of nuclear arms. The report also cited continuing evidence that Iran misled inspectors with many of its early claims.
Impotent Inspectors
Defying a key demand set by 35 nations, Iran confirmed in May 2005 that it had started converting raw uranium into the gas needed for enrichment, a process that can be used to make nuclear weapons. Iran subsequently agreed to suspend its nuclear programs in exchange for European guarantees that it will not face the prospect of UN Security Council sanctions as long as their agreement holds.
Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani claimed a “great victory” over the United States after the UN said it would not punish Iran. In February 2005, Ali Agha Mohammadi, spokesman of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said Iran will never scrap its nuclear program, and talks with the Europeans were aimed at protecting the country’s nuclear achievements, not negotiating an end to them.
The U.S. State Department has long held out hope that reformers would come to power in Iran and end its “rogue” activities; however, that has not happened and does not appear imminent. Furthermore, the reformers have made clear it is a matter of national pride for Iran to have nuclear weapons and that th
ey would be no more willing to give up the capability than the current regime.
Osirak Redux?
The danger of a nuclear Iran has led to growing speculation that either the United States or Israel will have to take military action to stop or at least delay the Iranian program. To date, the European approach of trying to cajole the Iranians to give up their designs has been unsuccessful. In an effort to allay European concerns about a U.S. military strike on Iran, President Bush declared in February 2005 that it is “simply ridiculous” to assume that the United States has plans to attack Iran.
Earlier in the month, however, he seemed to suggest that the United States would understand if the Israelis took matters into their own hands. “Iran has made it clear that they don’t like Israel, to put it bluntly,” Bush said. “And the Israelis are concerned about whether or not Iran develops a nuclear weapon, as are we, as should everybody…. Clearly, if I was the leader of Israel, and I listened to some of the statements by the Iranian ayatollahs about—that regarded my security of my country, I’d be concerned about Iran having a nuclear weapon, as well. And in that Israel is our ally, and in that we’ve made a very strong commitment to support Israel, we will support Israel if their security is threatened.”
A military operation would undoubtedly be much more difficult than when Israel bombed Iraq’s reactor in 1981. Iran has spread its facilities around so it would take multiple strikes to affect its nuclear program, assuming the attacker could locate them all. Some analysts doubt a military option exists, but others say it is possible, and while a strike might not destroy everything, it could prevent Iran from building a bomb for at least several years. After it has the bomb, as we now see in the case of North Korea, it will be too late, and Israel’s Mossad chief has said the Islamic republic could be nuclear-armed within two years.
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Middle East Conflict Page 51
