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Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April 2008, pages 67-68 Waging Peace Charles Enderlin on Peace in the Middle East
CHARLES ENDERLIN presented a synopsis of his recent book, The Lost Years: Radical Islam, Intifada and Wars in the Middle East 2001-2006, at a Jan. 15 event cohosted by the Foundation for Middle East Peace and the Middle East Institute at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC. The French-born Enderlin has lived in Israel for more than 40 years working as a journalist and French TV correspondent. The Lost Years describes the era from Ariel Sharon’s rise to power in February 2001 to the war in Lebanon in July 2006 as the most deadly years of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Enderlin’s earlier book, Shattered Dreams: The Failure of the Peace Process in the Middle East 1995-2002, included interviews and first-hand accounts of key political figures of the time. His aptly titled latest book bears testament to cease-fire failures and “almost no real negotiations” from 2001 to 2006 during the ongoing second intifada. Outlining Israel’s implementation of new tactics, Enderlin described the first phase as political in nature, with a focus on “leverage,” targeting leaders and putting pressure on the Palestinian National Authority (PA) and the Fatah Party. Israel also used “conscious engraving,” a doctrine adopted by the Israeli army to use lethal force against Palestinians and send a message to “engrave in the consciousness of Palestinians that violence does not pay.” At the same time Israeli intelligence increased its efforts to unearth networks, disrupt plans, and find explosives and laboratories in the West Bank. Enderlin said he does not foresee Israeli military and intelligence lightening its grasp on the West Bank. Its military checkpoints and separation wall, ostensibly built to provide security, actually stunt development of a Palestinian economy by preventing free movement of people and merchandise. In the meantime, Enderlin said, Israel has become “a success story,” boasting 5.4 percent economic growth, decreased unemployment, one year without any local attacks, excellent bilateral agreements with Europe, and a shekel holding stronger than both the U.S. dollar and the Euro. “Israelis have consciously or unconsciously forgotten about Palestinians,” Enderlin stated flatly, noting that there are no news stories in Israel reporting on Palestinian unemployment, hunger, and denial of health care. As long as Palestinian struggles remain far removed from Israelis’ everyday lives, Enderlin is pessimistic about change, concluding that “the two nations almost don’t know each other anymore.” But Israelis are the only people who will give a state to Palestinians, he pointed out, and it’s necessary that “Israeli public opinion believes peace and two states are needed.” Palestinians are living what Israel is “forgetting,” Enderlin continued, and their life circumstances, combined with TV reports showing soldiers at checkpoints and helicopter gunships, impact young Palestinians. Enderlin described young Palestinians who are a “completely different generation” from their parents. Their elders want peace, he noted, but “we are breeding a new generation of crazy Palestinians” who want to fight and employ extremist rhetoric. “The window of opportunity is closing in the Middle East,” Enderlin warned. President G.W. Bush’s proposed one year of peace negotiations gives one year to “extremists in the area to kill it,“ he noted, adding that a strong American president could push leaders and advisers to make an agreement a reality, with no waiting. Ultimately, Enderlin predicted, the PA and Fatah will be dissolved, either spontaneously or as a result of decisive action. This will lead right back to “square one,” Enderlin concluded, to 1993’s end of the first intifada and the failure of the Oslo accords. —Nina Hamedani |
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