A year after Arafat’s death and two months after Israel’s disengagement from Gaza, not a thing has changed. It’s the same cycle of violence and retaliation, with the prospect of peace fading into the distance, right…?
No - not right at all. In my opinion, there are factors in place now that will make the drive toward a negotiated settlement much harder to derail than in the past.
A week ago in the Tulkarm refugee camp on the West Bank Israel killed Luay Saadi, a young Islamic Jihad leader who was at the top of its “wanted” list. Evidently Saadi was a rising star of the Jihad’s military arm, the Quds Brigades (not to be confused with the Al Quds Brigades, a Fatah offshoot).
Saadi was reportedly responsible for a bombing in Netanya in July. He also carried out a nightclub bombing in Tel Aviv in February that undermined a ceasefire agreement to which Islamic Jihad had agreed. According to the Palestine News Network:
Saadi was accused of being the mastermind behind the operation. However, more importantly, it became clear that Saadi was not committed to the truce, which was agreed on among all the factions, including the Islamic Jihad. So when the Quds Brigades declared its responsibility for the operation, it surely must have embarrassed the political leadership.
Saadi was a big fish in Jihad. The group vowed, and took, revenge, detonating an explosive by a Falafel stand in the Israeli town of Hadera. Five people were killed. For good measure, it also fired off some more missiles from Gaza.
How does this differ from previous cycles of retaliatory violence? For one thing, it is clearly being carried out by renegade groups, and is out of accord with the Palestinian popular and political consensus.
Arafat cultivated an ambiguous position with regard to bomb attacks on Israel. He usually issued statements in English condemning them; but it is also clear that he secretly enabled attacks by militant groups within his own party and did little to halt those by other factions.
Abbas, in contrast, has worked assiduously to establish and maintain a ceasefire. Israel’s military establishment feels he has not been aggressive enough in containing militant violence, and considers this week’s events to be ample proof - but even allowing this, the Palestinian Authority under Abbas has taken a clear, consistent position against militant attacks on Israel.
Furthermore, as I noted last week, polls indicate that the majority of Palestinians are with Abbas on this. They support the ceasefire. The armed struggle against Israel has taken a back seat to issues of state-building for the first time in five years.
Islamic Jihad has become something of a fringe group, at the far end of the Palestinian political spectrum. The Dutch Strategic Assessment Initiative group had this to say about it in their pre-Disengagment paper on the Palestinian security situation:
Islamic Jihad members are often perceived as the ‘intellectual’ counterpart to Hamas. Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) was created in the early 1980’s as a splinter group from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, under the ideological influence of Iran. Its stated objective is the liberation of Palestine and, contrary to Hamas; it does not seek to challenge Fateh power. This strategic difference is reflected in PIJ’s structure: PIJ is mainly a middle class vanguard and, unlike Hamas, has not mobilized popular support through grassroots activities. However, PIJ is present all over the Palestinian Territories and is particularly strong in the Gaza Strip and the Jenin district. Its leadership is based in Syria and has strong control on local groups…
PIJ has less to gain politically than Hamas, since it lacks Hamas’ grassroots support and organization. Therefore, it is more likely that PIJ may continue operations against Israeli targets, possibly during the process of disengagement… Unlike Hamas, PIJ is not ‘constrained’ by popular pressure to turn into a political party.
Note the Iran angle. I wonder if this helps explain other event that riled Israel this week: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made a speech in which he quoted the Ayatollah Khomeini’s call for Israel’s destruction. Islamic Jihad is an Iranian client. Did the timing of the speech have anything to do with Saadi’s death?
It’s interesting to read the full text of Ahmadinejad’s remarks. His main point was that Palestine can overthrow an oppressive U.S.-supported regime Just as Iran did. But the media picked up on the most inflammatory section:
Our dear Imam said that the occupying regime must be wiped off the map and this was a very wise statement. We cannot compromise over the issue of Palestine. Is it possible to create a new front in the heart of an old front… Our dear Imam targeted the heart of the world oppressor in his struggle, meaning the occupying regime. I have no doubt that the new wave that has started in Palestine, and we witness it in the Islamic world too, will eliminate this disgraceful stain from the Islamic world. But we must be aware of tricks.
Broadcasted worldwide, this evoked condemnations from the U.S., Europe and the U.N. (Sharon noted that “for the first time in years, ‘the United Nations is standing against extremist countries like Iran and Syria that threaten the region.’).
In any case, while the speech fueled Israel’s longstanding existential paranoia, it also highlighted the thaw in its relations with the Islamic countries. Qatar is talking about diplomatic relations. Pakistan has held informal meetings with Israeli officials. Afghanistan (albeit now something of a U.S. vassal) recently said it would recognize Israel if a Palestinian state came into existence. There’s talk in Kuwait of normalizing ties.
Ahmadinejad was at pains to promise hellfire and damnation for those Islamic states that broke ranks:
Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation’s fury; any (Islamic leader) who recognizes the Zionist regime is acknowledging the surrender and defeat of the Islamic world.
But the days of monolithic non-recognition of Israel by the Arab world may be coming to a close. The Arab states simply ignored the speech. The government of the Palestinians, for whose benefit the call to arms was presumably issued, firmly refused the offer:
(Ahmadinejad’s) statement was widely reported in the Arab world; leaders there reacted for the most part with silence. Most Arab countries have no diplomatic relations with Israel. But the Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said, according to the Associated Press: “We have recognized the state of Israel and we are pursuing a peace process with Israel, and . . . we do not accept the statements of the president of Iran. This is unacceptable.”
Like Islamic Jihad, Iran may soon find itself promoting a fringe position with regard to Israel.
To paraphrase Kahlil Shikaki, last week’s bombing was a tree, not the forest. Groups like Islamic Jihad are seeing the Palestinian leadership and people turing away from armed combat. They are feeling pressure from the PA, from Israel, and from the international community, including some countries that were previously supporters. They have, as it were, their backs against the wall - and will use violence liberally if necessary to defend themselves. But hopefully there is also a perception among their leaders that, in the long term, a different (i.e. non-violent, political) strategy may be needed.
Hamas, and probably groups like Islamic Jihad, have their fingers to the wind. If momentum builds for a political solution to the conflict, they want to be in a position to participate; if a political solution fails, they will resume their place in the vanguard of the armed struggle.
As for Abbas, he needs to establish the Palestinian Authority firmly as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian People, before he can crack down on militant groups (see my post on Palestinian Politics After the Disengagement for more details). The January legislative elections are essential. If they are fair and above-board - regardless of the outcome - the Authority will be in a much better position to tackle the militias.
This may not make the Hadera deaths any easier to take. But it seems to me that Israel, even if only for strategic reasons, would do well to parse its response to such attacks with a finer knife than it has used in the past. The process taking place in the territories now, if it continues in the direction of statehood, will eventually eliminate armed splinter groups by a combination of assimilation to the political process and coercion where the former fails. But Israel could easily undercut this transition by the indiscriminate use of force, which will harm and alienate moderate Palestinians.
Could Israel’s leadership be thinking along the same lines? YNet, presumably passing on information from military sources, reported shortly after the Hadera bombing:
The IDF is preparing to operate like it did during Arafat’s days, even at the price of hurting the Palestinian Authority, Palestinian civilians, and the diplomatic process.
But, as far as I can tell, operations so far have been directed mainly at militants. I have not seen reports of large-scale anti-civilian violence and collective punishment. Also, the Hadera bombing did not stop Israeli cabinet ministers from approving a proposal to re-open the Rafah crossing under European Union supervision - a critical step for Gaza’s economic viability.
Israel wants the Europeans to have greater authority than observers and be able to intervene in dangerous security situations, while the Palestinians want more limited authority for the EU. Israel is also demanding that it receive information in real time from the border control authorities via cameras filming those who use the Rafah crossing, to which the Palestinians object. Nonetheless, Israel would not have control over who crosses the border.
The Palestinians rejected the cabinet decision on Tuesday, but Israeli security officials said Israel may reopen the Rafah crossing earlier than the target date, which isn’t for another six months, in an effort to strengthen Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
Israel has reaped some unexpected diplomatic benefits from the Disengagement and Sharon has staked his political career on it. I think Israel would like to see an end to the conflict. It is thus exercising some caution to avoid escalating the violence or undercutting the PA.
