Settling the West Bank and Israeli Domestic Politics

By Israel Shahak

The inescapable fact of Israeli domestic politics is that Palestinian demands, no matter how minimal, can command no Israeli majority, let alone an Israeli-Jewish majority. I don't speak here of Palestinian self-determination, or the right to their own state, which is now opposed by at least 103 Knesset members and supported by only 5, whereas 12 Meretz MKs say different things at different times, avoiding any public commitment in favor of this right.

What I have in mind are such immediately urgent rights as the rights of the Palestinians in the territories (and for that matter within Israel) not to be officially discriminated against, or have their land taken away from them for the exclusive benefit of Jews, or the right to protection of their property from the daily acts of vandalism committed by the settlers. Only a small minority of Israeli Jews consistently support such rights, and this minority is by no means coextensive with the "peace camp," which usually tends to ignore such matters. Instead, this minority for the most part comes from the politically powerless center of the Israeli political spectrum.

The opposition of a great Israeli majority to Palestinian demands clashes with Palestinian hopes to win some rights through the Oslo process. Since any government wants to stay in power and be re-elected, the Oslo style "peace process" can only be carried out by means of deceiving both the Israeli Jews and Palestinians, the latter with the help of Yasser Arafat. This deception now is wearing thin.

Although the Israeli masses still are being deluded by official reassurances that the Oslo-style "peace process" is continuing, in January 1995 the elitist daily Ha'aretz started disclosing that the heads of the Labor Party (and therefore the heads of state) already were admitting that the Oslo "peace process" is dead.

In the Jan. 13 Ha'aretz, Orit Galili admits that the majority of active Labor Party branch members oppose it firmly. When former "Peace Now" leader Tzali Reshef joined the Labor Party's ranks, he encountered, according to Galili, the relentless hostility of its members when "he attacked the increasing construction of housing units in the territories and proposed to dismantle at least a few settlements."

Interestingly, Labor Party Secretary-General Nissim Zvili admitted that "in order to reach a logical solution in the West Bank, it would be necessary to remove 60,000 out of the 130,000 Jewish settlers from there, except that nobody in the party has the courage to say this," because it could only contribute to a major electoral defeat.

According to Galili's sources, Rabin and Peres hold similar views. "One of the best guarded secrets in the Labor Party is that Yitzhak Rabin is already contrite about his support for the Oslo Agreement," Galili writes. "This makes some party seniors sad and disappointed. The first to feel it recently was the foreign minister, Shimon Peres. He recently told his friends how the entire government already was dissociating itself from the agreement and accordingly doing nothing to advance it."

"Rabin is already contrite about his support for the Oslo Agreement."

Galili adds that Rabin has never supported the Oslo Agreement wholeheartedly. Since he also "has emotional problems in talking to the Palestinians, he granted Peres the requisite, even if always limited, powers to negotiate the implementation of the agreement." Lately, however, "whenever Peres submits to Rabin any practical proposal devised to forward negotiations about granting more powers in the West Bank to the autonomy authorities, Rabin vetoes the idea. As a consequence, the talks with the PLO not only have not progressed, but since the conflict over the hill confiscated from Al-Khader village they have regressed."

All Laborites interviewed by Galili admit that their party's standing in the eyes of the Israeli public is very bad and that in all the polls Rabin's ratings are considerably lower than Netanyahu's. According to Galili, most Labor leaders are convinced that the only salvation is to find somebody from the outside with personal prestige high enough to remedy the party's plight. The two names mentioned in this context are the present secretary-general of the Histadrut, Haim Ramon, expelled from the party last April, who nevertheless told Galili that he would be quite willing to come back; and the ex-chief of staff, Ehud Barak.

Election by Deceit

Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin, who is rightly perceived as Labor's greatest dove, thinks that "Labor might win in the 1996 elections by reaching a solution with Syria and Lebanon and advancing a permanent solution with the Palestinians." At the same time he proposes that "Ehud Barak should join the Labor Party without wasting a single day." However, Barak's notions of a "permament solution with the Palestinians" are a sheer impossibility, and his views concerning the solution with Syria and Lebanon would not be easy to reach. In general, the sole aim of all important Labor Party leaders seems to be to win elections by deceiving the voters about peace.

Senior Labor leaders are not alone in expressing their opposition to the Oslo Agreement. Prestigious Israeli military commentator Ze'ev Schiff wrote in Ha'aretz on Jan. 20, two days before the Beit Lid terror attack in which 20 Israelis were killed, that "although the word 'veto' was not used" in talks Israeli senior army officers had with Rabin and the government, "what they said could be construed as a warning that under certain conditions the Israeli army might refuse to accept responsibility for security of Israelis who travel to the West Bank and its settlements."

Schiff comments that "some may see it as an instance of the army's pressure on the political system, or even a case of the army's indirect veto in a matter of military competence. But the Israeli army's view is: 'It is our duty to point out military implications of a decision. If that decision is the government's, we will be bound by it, even if we perceive it as very difficult to execute.'" Such an overt attempt by the army to determine policy has not occurred in Israel since May 1967, when for the sake of preparing a military attack on Egypt, army generals led by the current President Ezer Weizman and seconded by Matti Peled practically forced Levi Eshkol to terminate diplomatic attempts to solve the crisis.

According to Schiff, the army's pressure on Rabin "has already yielded results. Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres are currently trying hard to convince Arafat that the redeployment of the Israeli army in the West Bank needs to be postponed. The real reason for postponement is the need to complete construction of the bypassing roads and other fortifications which is what the Israeli army demands." In other words, Schiff admits that Rabin and Peres routinely deceive Arafat.

Schiff adds that "the realists among the most senior commanders of the Israeli army wonder whether even under the present circumstances the army can guarantee security of Jewish settlements and of all Israelis traveling in the West Bank without fail. The army claims that it would not have the requisite manpower, even if it sent all its soldiers to police the West Bank."

Shortage of manpower in the largest army in Israel's history stems from the absurdly exaggerated demands of the settlers for protection by soldiers under all imaginable circumstances. Rabin gives in to such demands for political reasons. Schiff mentions one such instance. "A platoon of soldiers is now assigned every day to escort a single small girl from one settlement to another where she insists on taking recorder lessons." The army says that under present circumstances it hardly succeeds in meeting all such demands, but "if the number of terrorist assaults grows, larger numbers of reservists would have to be called up."

In fact, the Israeli army can cope with the settlers' demands because in the recent period assaults on the settlers have been rare. The casualties they sustained have been much lower than casualties inflicted on Israelis in Israel. But as a result of Rabin's contrivance, a high proportion of religious settlers hold fictitious government jobs. Accordingly, they have plenty of time and can instantly react to each assault on them with violent demonstrations in front of Rabin's residence or government offices in Jerusalem. The inhabitants of Tel Aviv, by comparison, need to work. Accordingly, they cannot spare much time to demonstrate even after many of them are killed in a terror assault. The burden the army complains so much about therefore results from Rabin's policies.

Political vs. Military Decisions

Schiff says that the Israeli army is going to tell the government that "as long as Palestinian terror goes on, in matters of strictly military competence, the army may be unable or hardly able to meet what is being demanded of it." As usual, the army will also exploit this opportunity to complain that it does not receive all the money it asks for. Schiff's own conclusion is that "Israel needs political rather than military decisions. The prime minister and his government should take full responsibility for their decisions. Nevertheless, it would be something exceptionally rare in Israel's history if a government, especially one with a [Knesset] majority as slim as this government has, dared to force the Israeli army to follow a decision running against the latter's firm preference." In my view the army has realized for some time that Rabin would not dare to do it. This is one of the reasons why, in Galili's words, "Rabin is contrite about his support for the Oslo Agreement."

According to Aluf Ben (Ha'aretz, Jan. 24), "senior officers of the Security System [i.e., army, Shabak and Mossad] attending a special government session convened to discuss the Beit-Lid terrorist assault accused the Palestinian Authority of doing hardly anything against either Hamas or the Islamic Jihad." The new chief of staff, Amnon Shahak, said that "the Palestinian Authority is not honoring its obligations. The Gaza Strip and Jericho turned out to be sanctuaries for terrorists."

Shabak's head, who also blamed the Palestinian Authority, used the occasion to propose expulsion of the entire families of the suicide bombers as a deterrent measure. But it seems that Shabak's chief relies even more on aggravated torture, hypocritically called in Israel "moderate physical pressure." Tova Tzimuki reports in Yediot Ahronot of Jan. 24 that a ministerial committee for Shabak affairs, headed by Rabin (with Yossi Sarid of Meretz as a member) permitted "unlimited use of drastic methods" against "extremist suspects," in addition to "some which cannot even be described." Those which can be described include "total blindfolding, extreme humiliations, total isolation, unlimited use of sacks [covering the upper part of the body], protracted sleep deprivation, protracted standing position, protracted denial of access to toilets, long-term denial of the right to see a lawyer, etc." In his capacity as the health minister, Efraim Sneh said in a speech to high school students: "We permitted Shabak to do what it wanted" (Davar, Jan. 24).

The firmest supporter of these and even more brutal measures is "the architect of Oslo" and recipient of a Nobel Prize for Peace, Shimon Peres, who alone among Israeli decision-makers still has remained Arafat's patron. Nahum Barnea and Shimon Shifer (Yediot Ahronot, Jan. 27), who report the responses of senior Israeli ministers to the Beit-Lid terror assault, write that Peres firmly supported Shabak's chief on the use of torture and the expulsion of the entire families of the suicide bombers.

Peres also turns out to favor "assaults on Muslim clergymen" and the "forceful entry and closure of mosques." Moreover, he proposes that "Israel deal with Iran and Syria at once," because "we should never tolerate a mini-Iran right next to us." Peres, described by the Hebrew press as the best friend of Nabil Shaath, reiterated his unconditional opposition to dismantling even a single settlement, and his support for the bypassing roads "and for all other needed security means in the West Bank." He anticipates that the Palestinian Authority will accept such measures if only the negotiations are not formally terminated and if some money continues to flow to its coffers.

Lawless Settlers

Widespread lawlessness does not only exist under the autonomy. The settlers, particularly the religious ones, also operate as a Lebanese-style militia, and the Israeli government has encouraged their lawlessness for years on end. On Jan. 1, Ha'aretz correspondents Uri Nir and Nadav Shraggai reported: "On the morning of Dec. 30 Jewish settlers from the Jordan Valley demolished the foundations of a gas station owned by Jonas Hantuli, the head of the council of Silt A-Dahar village located in the West Bank, near Jenin. The demolition took place in daytime and lasted several hours. That gas station was located near the settlement of Mehola...Alice Shazar, the spokeswoman of Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria, said that Hantuli had indeed obtained all the permits required to operate his station...For long years Hantuli has been on the best of terms with the Israeli authorities. Five months ago he received from the Civil Administration the permit to build a gas station. Two weeks ago he began to prepare the ground at the site...

"The Civil Administration spokeswoman said that on Dec. 29 the Mehola settlers asked for a meeting with the head of the [Civil] Administration, Colonel Gadi Zohar. The purpose was to protest the construction of the station. She says that an appointment was made for the beginning of the next week. Without waiting for the meeting, the settlers demolished the foundations of the station the next day...The Mehola settlers argue that the permit for the station was not discussed with them, and that the presence of Palestinians in their vicinity lowers considerably the quality of their life." Let me comment that the phrase "for long years Hantuli has been on the best of terms with the Israeli authorities" can only mean that he has been a collaborator and he got his permit as a reward for his collaboration.

Yet, interestingly, as of Jan. 30 nothing had been done by the police or any other Israeli law enforcement agency to investigate the affair. Clearly, the Israeli authorities do not intend to depart from a sacred principle of theirs and prosecute Jewish settlers for nothing more than damaging Palestinian property. Rabin and Peres, normally far from being reticent, preferred saying nothing about the subject. And so did Arafat, even though Hantuli is now his supporter.

Wrote Uzi Benziman in the Jan. 1 Ha'aretz, "For the time being Israel has agreed to grant the Palestinians only a limited autonomy. The idea of an autonomy was invented by Menachem Begin and is now accepted by an overwhelming majority of the Right. Certainly, the Left is not against it either: it even expects a more comprehensive arrangement developing on its foundations. However, the settlers cannot stomach the idea of the autonomy even in its most circumscribed version. What can autonomy mean if a Palestinian cannot build a gas station near an Israeli settlement? Israeli authorities in charge of keeping law and order in the territories in fact tolerate the hooliganism of the Jordan Rift settlers."

Concluding, Benziman wrote: "Like so many among us, Rabin is addicted to the opium of the occupation; 27 years of rule over the Palestinians have generated attitudes and behavior patterns which can take into account nothing apart from what is narrow-mindedly perceived as an Israeli interest. All needs and all points of view of others are totally ignored. Such thinking is unimaginative enough to lead to claiming ownership of the occupied territories (according to the Right-wing version) or their considerable part (according to the concept of territorial compromise professed by the Labor movement). This thinking constantly finds its manifestations in the attitude of the Israelis toward the Palestinians, in the manner the Civil Administration deals with the applications of the West Bankers, in the sophistry which Israel uses in the negotiations with the PLO and in the style of the personal contacts between Israeli and Palestinian politicians."

More to Israeli Racism

Yet there is more to Israeli racism whose two most important characteristics Benziman fails to mention. The first is that settlers are never punished for breaking the law, except (and rarely) when they wound or kill people by shooting. The second is that Israeli security forces never open fire at the settlers. The Rabin government did not even contemplate any changes on these two counts in the first weeks after Oslo. Yet only by recognizing these two points can we understand how come the settlers can be so cocksure that they may act with total impunity.

The settler militia is by no means confined to the territories. It has a large following within Israel and is on the best of terms with the Israeli army and Shabak. This can be best seen from the report of Nadav Shraggai in Ha'aretz of Dec. 16, who spoke to the present militia commander Nissan Slomiansky. Slomiansky is a rabbi who serves as chairman of the local council of the settlement of Elkana in the West Bank and who "was the first secretary-general of Gush Emunim. He heads the operations division of the Judea and Samaria Council and drafts various plans and memoranda for that council's directorate. Only a few of these plans have been implemented to date, because Slomiansky is an ardent devotee of the deterrence school. In his view, in most cases there is no need to put a plan into practice as long as the government cooperates with the settlers. It is sufficient if the plans are known.

"Slomiansky passed his first major test long ago. After the Patriarchs' Cave massacre, Yitzhak Rabin considered evacuating the neighborhood of Tel-Rumeida in Hebron...Today Slomiansky reveals that as soon as the evacuation would have begun, 'someone would have simultaneously started to evacuate the Arabs from Hebron. There were specific and detailed plans for doing it at the time,' he said, refusing to elaborate. Slomiansky says the tactic of counter-evacuation of Arabs, 'regardless of how many,' could again acquire relevance whenever the ministers contemplate 'shrinking' the settlements into enclaves. 'In my terminology this amounts to an evacuation.' In Hebron, Slomiansky and his comrades organized 15,000 people during the Passover week. They worked hard behind the scenes, met with ministers and Knesset members, warned and sounded alarms. The Jewish residents of Hebron made their own contribution. Noam Arnon spoke about booby-trapped gas tanks...In Kiryat Arba, said Slomiansky, everybody knew where he was supposed to be in an hour of a real emergency.

"'We have a hard core, numbering hundreds of people, who are prepared to reach the site in minimum time. They are ready to do things that an average Jew is not yet prepared to do...In order to consolidate the hard core, I now meet every night with groups and representatives of various organizations. If, heaven forbid, Rabin again considers evacuation of Netzarim or any other Jewish spot in order to accelerate the peace process or to please Arafat, there are people who will quickly appear on that spot to resist. This will just be the first batch, allowing us to gain time before a crowd of our followers arrives...' As far as possible Slomiansky tried to evade the subject of the envisaged nature of the planned resistance. He limited himself to presenting the case of the Brakha settlement, near Nablus, as a 'theoretical' model. 'There is only one road linking it. I assume there are people ready to make that road impassable, either by barricading it, or by demolishing it by explosives. At the first stage we will just want to gain time. But simultaneously we will bring to the site thousands of volunteers who will foil the evacuation with their own bodies...There may also be people who will simultaneously evacuate an Arab village. We will also activate our city headquarters. We now have 90 city headquarters all over Israel. They will block major highway intersections with the effect of paralyzing the whole country. Whoever remains stuck in his car thus unwillingly helps us to maintain the blockade. And if they nevertheless succeed in evacuating [a settlement], we will return to its site time and again.'"

This is not a unique story. There have been many others of roughly a similar kind in the Hebrew press. They all show what was already known to anyone who refused to delude himself: that no Israeli withdrawal, even from one single settlement, is possible without a civil war fought by some Israeli Jews against others.

In view of the facts discussed above, the much publicized issue of the West Bank lands which continue to be confiscated now appears to me as already rather secondary in importance. In the first place, most of the West Bank lands (70 percent by my estimate, 73 percent by that of Orient House) were confiscated before the Oslo Agreement. The Oslo Agreement contained no provision for returning even the still unused part of these lands (54 percent by my estimate) to their rightful owners; nor did it challenge the rule that they could be used only by the Jews. After the protests of Al-Khader villagers against the robbery of their land for the sake of extending the settlement of Efrat, a committee of ministers was set up, with the supposed chief dove of Rabin's government, Shulamit Aloni, among its members.

The committee arranged a "compromise" whereby the hill in question, a small chunk of land robbed from Al-Khader and other Palestinian villagers, will be turned into an army fortress, whereas the extension of Efrat will be built on another hill. Thus the once-confiscated land will never be returned. No wonder MK Hanan Porat, a rabid Gush Emunim leader, hailed Aloni's consent to this "compromise" as a major victory for the settlers.

The Al-Khader affair was followed by the Hebrew press investigations of the Rabin government's conduct in the West Bank. It was not hard to discover that Rabin had been systematically deceiving the public about his settlement policies. In 1994 the Israeli government spent 70 percent more on settling the West Bank than in 1993. Under the Labor government "Greater Jerusalem" is expanding much faster than it ever did under Likud.

Israel Shahak, a Holocaust survivor and retired professor of chemistry at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, is chairman of the Israeli League of Human and Civil Rights.