U.S. Sticks to "Positive Reinforcement" As Netanyahu Sabotages Peace

by Rachelle Marshall

In the days preceding and immediately following Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's meeting with President Clinton on April 7, a truck carrying Israeli troops was firebombed near a Palestinian refugee camp, Israeli soldiers shot to death five Palestinians, and settlers killed one Palestinian and seriously wounded two others. Four Palestinians died in a car bombing that each side blamed on the other. The week before, three Israeli women and a Palestinian were killed and scores wounded when a Tel Aviv café was bombed, a crime Israeli and Palestinian police believe was the work of the military wing of Hamas.

Throughout this period thousands of Palestinians turned out daily to protest Israel's construction of a new Jewish settlement on Jabal Abu Ghneim, a hillside near Bethlehem that the Israelis have renamed Har Homa. Confrontations between stonethrowing youths and Israeli soldiers armed with steel-cored rubber bullets resulted in injuries to hundreds of Palestinians, yet the protests continued. The new outbreak of turmoil is the predictable result of Israel's abandonment of the peace process and the Palestinians' belief that resistance is now their only hope.

Although international attention focused on Har Homa, Israel at the same time began construction of 3,000 apartments for Jews elsewhere in East Jerusalem. Three days before Netanyahu left for Washington, Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai announced that "thousands more" apartments would be built on the West Bank, where there is already a 12 percent vacancy rate in housing for Jews. In response to speculation that Clinton would urge him to stop expanding settlements, Netanyahu declared, "We will continue to build in Jerusalem. We will continue to build in settlements period."

Netanyahu's decision to proceed with Har Homa stripped away any remaining doubts about his intentions, revealing him as the rigid ideologue he has always been, committed to Israel's permanent control of the occupied territories and with only contempt for the Palestinians and their leaders. Just as his mentor former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir tried to do, Netanyahu has gone through the motions of negotiating while proceeding as fast as possible to populate the West Bank with Jews in order to prevent the emergence of a Palestinian state. With verbal attacks and provocative actions, Netanyahu has reignited the hostility between Israelis and Palestinians that had begun to dissipate after Oslo, so that once more they are bitter adversaries rather than partners in peace.

Under Netanyahu, according to an unnamed U.S. official, "The Israelis are every day sending signals that the land the Palestinians now have is all they are going to get, and the Palestinians are never going to accept that. That's what it comes down to. All the rest is fluff."

It was an indication of Netanyahu's mindset that on the day he arrived in Washington to discuss how best to revive peace talks, The Wall Street Journal reported that work at Har Homa "is now running around the clock."

Shamir was brought down by the efforts of then-President George Bush, who threatened to withhold approval of $10 billion in loan guarantees unless Israel pledged to build no new settlements. Shamir refused to yield and was voted out of office.

Only similar action by Clinton will force Netanyahu to change his policy, but the president gave no sign of taking such action even after Netanyahu turned down requests that he make some conciliatory gesture to the Palestinians. As if to underline his defiance, Netanyahu emerged from the White House to give what The New York Times called a "pugnacious and finger-pointing" press conference in which he again accused Palestinians of fomenting terrorism and violating the Oslo accords.

If justice were the chief consideration of U.S. foreign policy, the Clinton administration would have greeted Netanyahu with an ultimatum as soon as he walked through the door: Either abide by international law and the Oslo agreements by stopping construction at Jabal Abu Ghneim and at all other settlements in occupied territory or face an immediate cut-off of aid.

But although U.S. officials had "demanded" that Arafat stop Palestinian violence, Clinton only "delicately implied" that Netanyahu should make concessions to the Palestinians in return, according to The New York Times. The State Department welcomed as a "positive step" Netanyahu's statement that he would build housing for Arabs in East Jerusalem, even though it was a promise Israelis have made and broken before. No administration official called on Netanyahu to condemn settler violence, which has taken the lives of scores of Palestinians.

Clinton fortunately showed little interest in Netanyahu's proposal that the two sides move immediately to final status talks, skipping the interim steps called for by Oslo and instead trying to reach agreement within six months on major issues such as Jerusalem, Jewish settlements, Palestinian refugees, and the amount of land Israel would return to the Palestinians. The president may have realized that the Palestinians would never accept it.

"It ignores all the outstanding issues in the interim agreement," PLO negotiator Ahmed Qurei said of the plan, referring to the fact that Israel has failed to open the Gaza airport and seaport, allow free passage between Gaza and the West Bank, free Palestinian prisoners, and open the borders so that Palestinians can get to their jobs and conduct business. President Yasser Arafat insists that before the Palestinians resume negotiations Israel must immediately freeze settlement construction and the confiscation of Palestinian land, conditions that Israel has flatly rejected.

Another idea Netanyahu floated was the formation of a national unity government. Joining forces with Labor would presumably allow him to make concessions to the Palestinians without having to fear loss of support from right-wing members of the Knesset, but some Israelis feared it would also silence criticism from the left. The idea met with sudden death when Israeli police recommended felony indictments against Netanyahu and three of his closest aides on charges of fraud and breach of trust stemming from Netanyahu's appointment last January of Roni Bar-On as attorney general. Bar-On, who clearly was unqualified for the job and withdrew after a day, was a crony of Shas Party leader Aryeh Deri, who is currently on trial for misappropriation of state funds. Shas holds a crucial 10 seats in the Knesset, and Deri allegedly offered to guarantee their support for Netanyahu's agreement to withdraw troops from Hebron in exchange for Bar-On's appointment.

After a week of deliberation, Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein and Prosecutor Edna Arbel issued charges of fraud, extortion, and obstruction of justice against Deri but said there was only "tangible suspicion" that Netanyahu either knew or closed his eyes to the connection between Deri and Bar-On when he made the appointment. They called for further investigation of Avigdor Lieberman, director of the prime minister's office. As left-wing Labor members announced they would appeal the decisions to the Supreme Court, Netanyahu immediately went on the offensive, attacking the opposition and the news media for attempting to "overthrow the Government" because they disagree with his opposition to a Palestinian state and his determination to build settlements and "protect Jerusalem."

His rhetoric was at least partly aimed at holding the allegiance of ultra-Orthodox and ultranationalist members of the Knesset, whose support he will need more than ever now that a shadow hangs over his administration. Nonreligious members of his coalition who had threatened to bolt the government if Netanyahu were indicted are likely to insist that Israel continue to expand Jewish settlements and hold on to the 70 percent of the West Bank territory presently under Israeli control.

Outrageous Actions

Meanwhile extremist religious parties will continue to press for actions in Jerusalem that are certain to outrage Muslims and other Palestinians. Since Netanyahu shares most of these goals and is determined to hold his government together, he will undoubtedly bow to the demands of the far right, regardless of their effect on negotiations with the Palestinians. As a result, without strong, unequivocal pressure from the U.S., the peace process will be a futile exercise.

Netanyahu has already undermined that process by taking a sledgehammer to the delicate structure of trust that Israeli and Palestinian negotiators managed to build under the leadership of Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. Netanyahu not only refused to honor the agreements reached by his predecessors, but also took unilateral actions he knew would arouse Palestinian fury without consulting President Arafat.

Netanyahu's provocations included opening a new entrance to an archeological tunnel that runs close to Muslim holy places, building Jewish housing in the heart of Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, defaming Arafat and other Palestinian leaders by accusing them of plotting terrorism, and mocking the Hebron redeployment agreement reached last March by withdrawing from only an additional 2 percent of the West Bank.

Equally inflammatory but far less publicized was his decision in mid-March to allow Jewish religious extremists to pray near Al-Aqsa mosque. Such groups had previously been banned from the site because of their repeated attempts to blow up the mosque. Ikrim Al-Sabri, the mufti of Jerusalem, warned of the anger Netanyahu's ruling would arouse and concluded, "He seems determined to lead the whole region to disaster."

If any further evidence was needed of Netanyahu's intent to alienate the Palestinians, his reaction to the bombing of the Tel Aviv café provided it. Netanyahu seemed exultant at the opportunity to brand Arafat as a supporter of terrorism. Before the bombing, knowing that his actions had created a situation ripe for violence, Netanyahu had accused Arafat of giving "a green light" to terrorist groups, an accusation he repeated endlessly afterwards.

When Arafat immediately condemned the bombing, saying, "There must be absolutely no doubt in the minds of friends or enemies of peace, the Palestinian Authority is unalterably committed to preventing such acts," Netanyahu dismissed the statement with a shrug. "Of course we hold them responsible," he said.

His deputy education minister, Moshe Peled, went so far as to accuse Arafat of involvement in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York, and other Israeli officials said Arafat's Fatah movement had training bases in Sudan and were working closely with Iran. But a U.S. counterterrorism official pointed out that the Israelis were confusing Fatah with Abu Nidal's Revolutionary Council. "No doubt there are terrorist groups training in Sudan," he said, "but Fatah isn't one of them."

The relentless verbal attacks on Palestinian leaders by Netanyahu and his colleagues have made good faith give-and-take negotiations impossible, a situation that Netanyahu may have aimed at creating from the start. The fact that the prime minister of Israel has sabotaged a peace process that the U.S. was a party to has left the Clinton administration in a state of denial.

Saying that it is now solely up to Israel and the Palestinians to find a way to resume negotiations, Clinton shirked responsibility for an impasse that U.S. policy makes possible. Israeli obstructionism is supported and financed by the U.S. Clinton may murmur polite objections to Israel's continued construction of settlements, but it is U.S. aid that helps pay for them, since Israel uses most of the aid in whatever way it wishes.

In early March the Israeli Ministry of Trade and Industry announced that six Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza would receive a share of $33 million in U.S. funds earmarked for improving infrastructure and promoting small business in Israel. After Clinton had criticized Israel's decision to build on Jabal Abu Ghneim, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright reassured delegates of major Jewish organizations that the U.S. commitment to Israel remains "without parallel." "The United States stood by Israel and will continue to stand by Israel," Albright said. In other words, no matter what Netanyahu does, he can be sure the money will continue to flow and the U.S. will continue to defend Israel before the U.N. Security Council.

Reporters were not permitted to cover the two-hour discussion between Netanyahu and Clinton, but press accounts afterwards made it clear that Netanyahu had rebuffed the president of the world's only superpower on every score, from halting construction on Jabal Abu Ghneim to consulting with the Palestinians on further troop withdrawals.

Nevertheless, according to The New York Times, White House officials said that "Mr. Clinton thinks Mr. Netanyahu will move farther with 'positive reinforcement' than with criticism from Americans." The statement reflected Clinton's need for continued Jewish support more than it did effective strategy. Over the past 48 years the U.S. has provided Israel with "positive reinforcement" amounting to nearly $78 billion in aid (see "A Comprehensive Guide to U.S. Aid to Israel," by Shawn Twing in the April 1996 issue of the Washington Report), with no effect on Israeli policy. Only when President Eisenhower threatened to cut off aid in 1956 did Israel agree to withdraw from its invasion of the Sinai.

The continuing protests in the West Bank, with their mounting fatalities, should be a danger signal to Washington and the international community that only outside intervention will prevent even greater tragedy. As the Palestinians' hopes for an independent state fade, many see no other option but mass protests.

The Center for Palestine Research and Studies reported recently that 68 percent of Palestinians now favor intifada-style confrontations and 38 percent support "armed attacks." Although these options will only harden Israeli intransigence and exact a heavy cost in human life, they are inevitable unless the U.S. uses all the pressure at its command to force Israel to stop taking Palestinian land, freeze settlement building, and recognize the Palestinians' right to an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

An editorial in the March 14 issue of the Jerusalem Times reminded readers that the U.S. is a signatory to almost all of the agreements reached by Israel and the Palestinians since Oslo. "It is really baffling," the editorial continued, "why a superpower such as the U.S. is choosing to appear so weak when it comes to Israel. No one expects the U.S. to take action against Israel as it did against Iraq for invading Kuwait. But everyone expects it to at least honor its signatures on the agreements. President Arafat is asking for the intervention of the peace sponsors to salvage the peace process. This is the time for the sponsors to act before it is too late."

The editorial's final sentence expresses the fear many Palestinians have that the end of the current peace process will lead to an eruption of violence that could delay future peace efforts for years to come. Such an outcome is almost certain if the U.S. sticks to its policy of scolding the Palestinians while vetoing U.N. resolutions critical of Israel. Nor will gentle pleading work with Netanyahu: Israeli bulldozers will stay on the job as long as we continue to pay the bills.