To End the Violence

By Robert V. Keeley

In its May 20 op-ed piece, “To End the Violence,” The Washington Post offered a forum for Dennis Ross to provide his analysis of the situation between Israel and the Palestinians. After a decade of failure to convert the “peace process” into “peace” while trying to keep it alive as a mere “process,” Ross’s views are definitely passé. Furthermore, his op-ed piece demonstrated the uneven-handedness of our approach to the problem for the past decade and beyond.

The fundamental flaw in his presentation was to posit an equivalence between the violence attributed to the Palestinians and the violence engaged in by Israel. Both sides are supposed to renounce violence and get back to the peace table. Renouncing it or denouncing it would be fine, but ignores the differences in motivation between the two sides.

The Palestinian violence is an expression of the extreme frustration that drives people to extreme actions such as suicide bombings after decades of suffering occupation, oppression, and destructive violence by the occupiers of their territory, who are seen and experienced as nothing but oppressors and violators of their human and property rights.

Terrorism is a tactic that is resorted to out of weakness, by people who have no other means of expressing their extreme frustration. Any potential terrorist would much rather be able to mount an F-16 and shoot rockets at his perceived enemy, but that option is not available to him. He would much rather invade his perceived enemy’s territory with a tank and shoot up a police station than blow himself up at a bus stop. Terrorists targeting civilians are seeking revenge, admittedly, but the means they use are not because they are deranged, but because they have no better choice.

This terrorism is the work of individuals and groups who are not under the control of the Palestinian Authority. If they were wise they would realize that their actions are not advancing the cause of the Palestinian people but are rather resulting in further oppression of their fellow civilians. But after so many years of suffering oppression they are beyond wisdom.

Arafat cannot stop suicide bombers from blowing themselves up.

It is thoroughly misguided for officials like Ross and their sympathetic pundits to argue that Arafat is condoning the violence by his side in an attempt to force concessions from the Israeli side, or to pressure the international community “to intervene and rescue him.” Arafat cannot end the violence by his side. Given the frustration of his people, he would be overthrown—probably killed—if he seriously tried to stop the violence. One major fallacy of the Oslo accord is that by it Israel tried to force Arafat and his Palestinian Authority to police the occupied territories, as well as to prevent frustrated Palestinians from attacking Israelis inside Israel, when Israel itself, with all of its police and military assets and firepower, had been unable to do so during the previous intifada. That was an unrealistic requirement.

By contrast, the Israeli violence against the Palestinians, presented as an effort at deterrence, is similar, though not equivalent, to what it is receiving—that is, “retaliation” if one wishes to be polite about it, “revenge” if one does not. It is not proportional to what it has been receiving, not solely in terms of the numbers killed, but in terms of firepower directed at civilians.

The most fundamental point, however, is that it is state-initiated, state-directed violence using the armed forces of the state to inflict the violence. Thus it is totally controllable by the authorities, not uncontrollable as in the case of Arafat. It is not the expression of frustrated Israeli citizens (except in fairly rare cases such as Baruch Goldstein’s attack on the worshippers in Hebron’s Ibrahimi mosque). And when it includes using air power in often successful attempts to assassinate individuals on the Palestinian side, we are dealing with state terrorism and war crimes.

This is where people like Ross ignore the great disparity between Palestinian violence and Israeli violence. There is no equivalence, either in motivation or in execution. Sharon confirmed this when he offered to stop the violence on his side if the Palestinians would reciprocate. The point is he can order it to be stopped by his side, because his armed forces are his; Arafat cannot, because he does not command the suicide bombers on his side. He could tell kids to stop throwing rocks, but he cannot stop suicide bombers from blowing themselves up. The only equivalence is that the Israeli government could not stop a fanatic from assassinating Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Means to an End

Ross was correct that Israel’s primary goal is to “get security and a normal life” for its citizens (but in fact Israel wants a lot more than that). Israel already has the means to achieve that primary goal, and without reaching any bargain with the Palestinians. However, it is unrealistic to expect that to happen under the current regime in Israel. The following would achieve that Israeli goal immediately: cease the occupation of all of the Arab territory occupied in the 1967 war (Gaza, the West Bank—including East Jerusalem—and the Golan), withdrawing all of its armed forces, dismantling the settlements and repatriating all of the settlers back to Israel. It could then close its borders to all of its neighbors, including the Palestinians, and, if necessary, build a wall or a fence to keep them out.

Israel would then become an isolated enclave in the Middle East—but that is what it has already become, through its own actions and its unwillingness to reciprocate the acceptance of its existence by Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinians (in the Oslo accord). This would be a tragic outcome, but if all Israel wants is security and a normal life, that is the way to achieve it. If it wants acceptance, then it must learn to respect that its neighbors have rights as well.

The fact is Israel has no right to hold on to any of the territories occupied in the 1967 war. Journalists would do well not to adopt, as they have, the Israeli term “captured,” as if that meant that the Israelis now possessed this land—that is, owned it—and could dispose of it as they wished. It is “occupied,” not “captured,” land, and there is no justification for staying there, annexing parts of it, changing the demographics through massive settlement of their own people, and even claiming the right to negotiate its future sovereignty. These are actions prohibited by international law as well as by U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which has been the basis for all efforts to resolve the conflict, and which includes the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force of arms.

Israel’s contention that these territories are “disputed” also won’t wash. Only they are disputing the ownership. No one else is. If they wish to insist on that point, then the Palestinians would be justified in “disputing” the ownership of the land of Israel itself. In sum, Israel has no right to decide the ultimate fate of the occupied territories.

The actions proposed above—ending the occupation, withdrawing from the occupied territories, and dismantling the settlements—would not only give Israel security and a normal life for its citizens, but they would fully implement what international law and the international community have long called for. There is no need for negotiated agreements with any other parties. Unilateral actions by Israel would solve the problem once and for all. The Arabs have learned that Israel is too strong militarily to be challenged by armed force, and they would leave her in peace. The Palestinian grievance dating from 1948 would be dissipated, and everyone in the region could get on with their lives.

Utopian? Hardly. The now defunct “peace process” was utopian, in trying to resolve in any other way the inevitable struggle over ownership of a small piece of land by two peoples, each having what they believed to be a legitimate claim to the exclusion of the other.

Robert V. Keeley is a retired U.S. ambassador and former president of the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC. This article was initially submitted as a letter to the editor of The Washington Post on May 23, 2001. Additional letters which The Post has declined to print may be viewed on the Web site http://www.watchpost.org.