The Last Crusade

In the last few weeks, the Palestinian and Israeli disagreement has evolved into open hostilities. The present round of the Palestinian and Israeli conflict started with the ill advised visit of Ariel Sharon, in Jerusalem, to a religious site revered by both the Jews and the Muslims. Sharon's visit was a highly symbolic act disowning the validity of the Oslo Accords and in the process, suggesting that Tel Aviv's definition of Israeli security was predicated on non-diplomatic avenues. In many ways, Sharon's visit finally removed the façade from the Israeli diplomacy and made it clear that Israel, despite all its lip service to the cause of a lasting peace in the region, was not willing to seek a peaceful settlement with the Palestinians. In that the sense, Sharon should be thanked for lifting the veil from the eyes of the Palestinians and the Arabs by ending their disillusion that Israel was interested in a peaceful end to the problem.

Israeli policies towards the Palestinian territories is solely fixated, and guided, by the Clausewitzian premise that war is the continuation of politics by other means. The main raison d' etre of the Israeli policies is the preservation of its citizens and the Jewish settlements in the region and Israeli will never compromise on these two issues, because they are invariably linked with its security concerns. No Israeli government, regardless of its political leanings, can be seen as capitulating and facilitating an agreement, which seeks to negotiate a settlement based on the principle of "land for peace". In this sense, Israel will never return the Golan Heights to Syria. The Syrians used to shell Israeli farms and the placement of Syrian artillery on those heights, commanding the high ground, was always a military threat to the security of Israeli settlements. In a similar sense, the Israeli annexation of Jordanian East Jerusalem offered the Israelis a strategic depth, thus making the defense of Israel more feasible against an attack.

Israel, as a nation, is surrounded by countries, whose avowed aim is to seek its destruction and consequently, Israel is wary of "land for peace" political settlements. According to the Israelis, "land for peace" does not necessarily change the mental perception of its Arab neighbors towards the state of Israel. Israel is inclined to opt for a military response to its political problems, because it does not have any trust in the political veracity of the Arab commitment towards a peaceful co-existence. Tel Aviv is fully aware that most of the Arab governments in the Middle East are autocratic and that there is a distinct polarization, between the interests of the Arab governments and their citizens. In other words, the Arab governments in the region are not interested in safe guarding the rights of their fellow co-religionists and compatriots, as they are in preserving their special economic/political interests with west, notably the United States.

The underlying implication of this, which the Israelis have understood, is that most Arab governments in the region are solely interested in perpetuating their rule and that the real threat to Israel's security does not come from Arab governments, but from its citizens. The Arab governments, in the region, are generally autocratic, because they realize that the vast majority of their citizens do not support their policies of appeasement to the west and they need dictatorial means to curtail the popular opposition to their rule.

Out of the total of some 35 odd hijackers, who piloted their planes into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon, in Washington, D.C. in September 2001, 19 were Saudi Arabians. What this fact suggests is that Arab resentment against the United States manifests itself, because of their governments policies of capitulation before the United States and in suppressing the political rights of their citizen in order to please the political and economic interests of the United States.

Consequently, Israel is not interested in a "land for peace" political settlement with its Arab neighbors, because it realizes that Arab governments do not represent the popular views of their citizens. The Israelis know that any such peace is contingent upon the longevity of the Arab governments in power; in itself a risky proposition given the levels of dissatisfaction, which exist in Arab nations against their own governments. Once those government cease to exist, popular opinion might not favor the continuation of a peace settlement with Israel on terms that benefit Israel at the cost of the Arabs in the region. This fact makes the Israelis wary of entering into political agreements with the Arab governments in the region.

Sharon's visit to the Muslim mosque in Jerusalem was an indication of this Israeli sensibility and also, was an implication that the Oslo Accords, based on the presumption of "land for peace" had failed to provide any security to the Israeli settlements or the state of Israel itself. The Oslo Accords were a political boon for the Palestinians, because it recognized the defacto existence of a Palestinian homeland in the Israeli occupied territories of West Bank. The Oslo agreement gave the Palestinians a nucleus of independence and a geographic expression, in the guise of Palestinian administrated territories, which could possibly be parleyed into an independent state at a later date. Unfortunately, the Oslo Accords did not legitimize a Palestinian homeland and nor did it proclaim the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, but left the matter to be decided via a Palestinian-Israeli dialogue.

In this sense, what the Oslo Accords were tacitly implying was that agreement was not signed as the first stepping stone towards a Palestinian homeland, but were signed to end the Palestinian uprising against Israel, which began in 1987, and secure the political and territorial integrity of the Jewish state. The Oslo Accords were signed in the aftermath of the Gulf War against Iraq and at that time, most of the Arab governments favored the accords. The reason behind the regional Arab government favoring the Oslo agreement, was not due to its political sense of fairness, but stemmed from the Arab governments' own sense of political gratitude to the Americans for protecting their interests in that particular conflict. Since the Oslo Accords was signed with the blessings of the United States, the Arabs went along as not to offend the United States.

Another reason for the Arab apathy towards the plight of the Palestinians is that majority of the Arab governments in the region have no political affinity for the Palestinians. The Palestinians know this and the Palestinian historic memory still remembers the actions of the Jordanian monarchy in 1970 in the forceful eviction of the Palestinians from that nation. The events of the Black September proved to the Palestinians that, when necessary, the majority of the Arab nations would not hesitate to sacrifice Palestinian interests if those interests ran contrary to the interests of the host Arab governments that support the Palestinians. Therefore, the Palestinian acceptance of the Oslo Accords was achieved under duress. The Palestinians were aware of the fact that their cause was not supported by the majority of their allies and friends and that they had to accept this agreement, or risk losing whatever support they might have with the Arab governments.

It was this fact, the lack of genuine Arab concern towards the Palestinians, which the Israelis exploited to prolong the discussions after Oslo. This, to a significant degree, explains why the Israelis felt that they could adopt an inflexible attitude towards the Palestinians without incurring any political costs. The Wye Agreement proved this hypothesis correct. The Wye Agreement was flawed in the sense that it perforated the Palestinian administrated area with "islands" of Israeli settlements and in doing so, effectively ended the idea of a semi-autonomous Palestinian territory as envisioned in the Oslo agreements. The Palestinians refused to accept the Wye Agreement, because of its subtle intention of undermining the political authority of the Palestinian territories. The Palestinians were forced to accept the "reasonable" Wye Agreement, not so much due to the American influence, but due to the Jordanian pressure. King Hussein of Jordan wanted the Palestinians to accept the Wye Agreement, because the alternative would have been the re-location of the Palestinian homeland back to Jordan and that was simply unacceptable to Jordan.

In this sense, the Saudi Arabian peace proposal floated by Prince Abdullah is doomed to be a failure, because like a bad habit, it too hopes to reach a peace settlement with the Israelis in exchange for the return of Arab lands annexed by Israel in the 1967 war. Another reason, which undermines the genuine intention of the Saudi Arabian peace plan is that it was motivated, not by the Saudi concern for the Palestinians, but as a Saudi attempt to shore up its declining fortunes with the Americans. In the wake of September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States and the fact that mastermind behind the attacks was Osama Bin Ladin, a Saudi national, the Saudi Arabian royal monarchy risked losing its influence with the Americans. In order to repair its tattered image, the Saudis suggested this proposal and had the situation been not so drastic, they would have never have suggested this idea. The Saudi peace plan is not so much geared towards settling the regional problem, between the Arabs and the Israelis, but is designed to prevent the erosion of the Saudi Arabian influence within the United States' Middle East policies.

The Saudi peace plan follows a similar logic as the Tenet and the Mitchell plans and though all the three plans may be politically feasible, their ultimate success depends on the Israelis' political willingness to accept their conclusions. The final peace in the Middle East is predicated on the willingness of the Israelis to be flexible and not on the diplomatic acumen of the Arab governments. The Palestinian response to the Israeli inflexibility, vocalized through suicide bombings, is a sign of a political frustration. Palestinians have lost all hopes of reaching a modus vivendi with the Israelis and have resorted to these desperate acts, because they feel that they have nothing to lose. In this sense, the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis originates, because in a Realpolitik environment it takes two parties, and not one, to compromise. Palestinians have politically compromised all that they could with the Israelis and tragically, Israeli inflexibility has convinced the Palestinians to adopt the Israeli Masada Complex as a means to their political ends.

The Palestinian suicide bombings, which are a direct result of the Palestinian frustration with the peace process in the Middle East. Without getting into the ambiguous definitions of the term "terrorist acts", Palestinian suicide attacks on the Israelis can never be justified as morally correct, no matter what the political provocation. What is of concern, in this latest round of conflict, and what turns this crisis into a potential disaster waiting to happen, is that both the Israelis and the Palestinians have adopted the attitude of rogue states. Neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis feel to be constrained by international law and are openly engaged in abusing the morality of international law by acts of political desperation.

International law is not perfect, and never has been, but international law is more concerned with preventing the break down of the international system than it is with dispensing justice. International law does not operate on the principle of moral reciprocity, but rather on the principle of political reciprocity. Nations follow the dictates of the international law and obey its strictures, because in violating them, they would be undermining their own interests. A nation that violates a tenet of international law opens itself up for a reciprocal action and in that mutual political reciprocity, conflict becomes probable, because the fear of retaliation is removed from the political equation of the crisis.

In this sense, it was the lack of international condemnation of the Israeli political gambits after Oslo, which encouraged a perception, within Tel Aviv, that it could be inflexible towards the Palestinians and not suffer the consequences. In articulating this perception into a policy, the Israelis misread the political environment. What the present crisis has impressed upon the Israelis is that Israeli security will not benefit from seeking confrontation with the Palestinians, because politically Israel has to live with its neighbors and cannot live in a political vacuum in the region by itself. Israeli policies of confrontation and military options to resolve political problems have failed to increase its security, because its security interests are better served in reaching a political modus vivendi with its neighbors. If Israel wants to secure its interests, it has to stop its present policies since they are only undermining its security interests by creating a new sense of political hostility towards it in the region.

The European Union's adverse reaction to the Israeli policies of re-occupation and the display of its military might stems from the fact that, in the recent past, the European Union has conducted its foreign policies in the light of presenting itself as an alternative to Washington. It was this European intention, which prompted President George W. Bush to dispatch Colin Powell, his Secretary of State, to the region. There is a growing realization in Washington that the Middle East is seriously complicating the administration's plans to attack Iraq and remove Saddam Hussain during Bush's first term. The Israeli actions in the Palestinian territories have created a situation, which is galvanizing the Arab opinion against the United States', because of its inability or apathy to stop the Israeli acts of against the Palestinians.

Even more than this, the United States is fully aware of the fact that its Arab allied governments, in the war on terrorism, are non-representative of their people's political views, who see the American war on terrorism as an act of unbridled hypocrisy. The United States' attempts to end the present conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis are based on the understanding that if the popular opinion in the Arab nations revolts against their governments, all would be lost. If this ever happens, the United States would not only lose in a strategic sense, but it would be unable to protect Israel in a strategic sense also. The United States is wary, in face of anti-American and Israeli opinion, to turn Israel into a garrison state, subsidized by the billions of American dollars annually with no end in sight. Also, what is even alarming as far Israel is concerned is that it losing what ever moral superiority it once had as a secular democratic nation in a sea of Middle Eastern theocratic autocracies.

The state of Israel was created as a response to the historical wrongs done to the Jewish people during the Holocaust and the Americans, because of this fact, have supported it throughout its political existence. Israel drew its legitimacy from this sense of moral superiority and it was this, which enabled the pro-Israeli lobbies to so effectively project its interests in Washington. However, the present situation has blurred this distinction, because the Israeli army's actions in Jenin were not too dissimilar from the actions of the German army against the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. Israeli policies of settlements in Palestinian lands, it is presently argued, are akin to the Adolf Hitler's policies of Lebensraum. What is even worse, is that in this present crisis, the Israelis have lost their claim to be a historical victim and have instead joined the ranks of the historical aggressors.

The Israeli government did the greatest damage to the security of Israel itself. What ever historic claims the Jews once had and whatever arguments they used to justify the historic wrongs done to them to justify their demand for Israel, the same arguments are now applicable towards the creation of a Palestinian state. It is this realization, which is causing the Americans concern, because they realize that there is no longer any valid reason to deny the creation of a Palestinian homeland. Secondly, the Americans are concerned, because the Israeli actions, in the Palestinian territories, are slowly turning their unconditional political support for Israel into a conditional support, based on Tel Aviv's willingness to stop its present policies and adopt a more compromising approach to the peace process in the region.

What changed this "hinge of fate" in the favor of the Palestinians was Ariel Sharon. Sharon has, by his acts, done more than all the Arab governments combined to make the idea of a Palestinian state into a reality. Sharon has done more to damage the security of Israel than all of its Arab neighbors could do to it since 1948. The emerging reality is that Sharon, in the pursuit of his politically xenophobic policies, is quite capable of destroying Israel and with Sharon in power, none of Israel's friends can protect Israel from destroying itself. In the past, Germany was ruined in order to destroy the evil of Hitler and it is hoped that Israel is not ruined in the process of destroying Sharon. The Jews have historically suffered a lot and it is a tragedy that they have to suffer Sharon, because they deserve some one better than him. It would indeed be a historical irony that the Jews failed to learn the lessons of their history; a history based on the identification with the victim and not the aggressor