An Israeli Leftist Opponent

Oslo Agreement Makes PLO Israel's Enforcer

By Dr. Israel Shahak

The Oslo agreement between Israel and the PLO has to be understood in the context of the more than 26 years of Israeli occupation of the territories. The occupation can be divided into two periods, before and after the outbreak of the intifada in December 1987.

The first period was a time of "easy conquest," when Israel kept in the territories an average of 10,000-15,000 military occupiers. However, during the heyday of the intifada, in mid-1988, the number of troops was 180,000.

This year, in the first weeks after the territories were closed off in the spring of 1993, it was about l00,000 Since much of the routine civil administration work that used to be performed by Palestinian clerks now is performed by military and civilian officials, this increase, too, has been burdensome to the Israeli government.

Equally important are two further changes which the intifada brought about and which greatly impair Israel's ability to rule the territories easily. Before the intifada, the single instance of resistance which swept through all of Palestinian society in the territories occurred in 1969 in protest against the arson at the Al-Aqsa mosque. All other protests were either geographically or socially limited. Many of them were confined to the Gaza Strip refugee camps. Calls for strikes or other forms of protest were not widely observed. Many villages, which Israeli authorities described as "loyal," had never participated in any protest before the inception of the intifada.

Therefore, before the intifada, Israeli Jews enjoyed freedom of movement within the territories. This freedom extended even to Gaza Strip refugee camps, where no Israeli now will venture unless accompanied by Palestinian guides. Stone throwing was infrequent, and quite unknown in most villages. It is hard to recall now, but before the intifada, Israeli reserve soldiers would frequently celebrate the end of their service in the Gaza Strip by holding a party in a restaurant in the midst of a city or even in a refugee camp.

Before the intifada, Israel could find Palestinian, collaborators to rule the territories on its behalf. Such collaborators were publicly known for their good relations with the Israeli authorities. They were employed by other Palestinians to obtain favors. In return, they used their social and political influence in Israel's interest. The method operated best in Moshe Dayan's time, from 1967 to 1974, when the so-called "notables," those figures influential in Palestinian society even before the conquest, played this role.

Between 1981 and 1983, Ariel Sharon demolished the power of the notables and tried to replace them with his "Village Leagues," often composed of the dregs of society. After the start of the intifada, however, this method failed. Israel had to undertake the task of ruling the Palestinians on every level by use of its own manpower. This form of direct rule was much less efficient and more corrupt and burdensome. The Israeli establishment has wanted for quite some time to restore the old method of indirect rule, especially in the Gaza Strip, on Israeli terms.

This is the real meaning of the Oslo Agreement as Israel perceives it. The PLO, or rather the part of Fatah with an absolute loyalty to Yasser Arafat, is intended to fill the role which the notables performed under Dayan, and "Village Leagues" under Sharon, but more efficiently. It will be rewarded by a lot of money, by a much greater degree of honor than the notables enjoyed, and by some vague verbal concessions that will lead to further stalemates in negotiations. Neither party to the agreement intends to carry it out as it stands.

The crucial point, namely that Palestinians are to be given only strictly limited powers in order to use this power on Israel's behalf, is an important point used as an argument to sway the Israeli Jewish public in favor of the agreement. For this reason, Rabin reiterates it often.

In one such explanation quoted in Yediot Ahronot of Sept. 7, Rabin stated:

"The four crucial issues around which negotiations with the Palestinians have revolved are: united Jerusalem, the fate of the settlements, the redeployment of the Israeli army and the enforcement of domestic security in the Gaza Strip."

He then boasted of his victories regarding all of them: "The entire united Jerusalem will be outside the autonomy. We ourselves obtained this concession from the Palestinians—from those with whom one should make such deals—without any American promises as in the Camp David agreements. Jewish settlements will be placed under an exclusive Israeli jurisdiction; the Autonomy Council will have no authority over them. The forces of the Israeli army will be redeployed in locations determined only by us, unlike the Camp David agreements which mandated a withdrawal of the Israeli army forces. In the agreement we reached we didn't consent to use the formula 'withdrawal of Israeli army forces' except when it applied to the Gaza Strip. In application to all other places the only term used is 'redeployment."'

Discussing the issue of "Gaza [Strip] and Jericho first," Rabin said: "I prefer that the Palestinians cope with the problem of enforcing order in the Gaza [Strip]. The Palestinians will be better at it than we were because they will allow no appeals to the Supreme Court and will prevent the [Israeli] Association for Civil Rights from criticizing the conditions there by denying it access to the area. They will rule there by their own methods, freeing—and this is most important—the Israeli army soldiers from having to do what they will do.

"All Gaza Strip settlements will remain where they are. The Israeli army will remain in the Gaza Strip to defend them, and to guard all confrontation lines. It will also control the Jordan River end to end, and all the bridges on it."

But if Arafat and his henchmen really hope that, in return for doing efficiently the job Rabin had assigned them, they will be treated as the rulers of a sovereign state, they are deluding themselves and their people. On this point, one can cite the countless declarations of Rabin, Peres and other Israeli figures to the effect that Israel will never allow the formation of a Palestinian state, but only of "an entity" which will lack all outward signs of sovereignty.

The express condition that "the Palestinian police will not have powers to detain any Israeli citizen" in any part of the autonomous area will always remain as a visible sign of the inferiority of autonomy's powers compared with those of a nominally sovereign state. Arafat's police will not have such powers. As Israeli commentator Uzi Benziman put it in Ha 'aretz of Sept. 3, "If Arafat wants to call the resulting entity 'a state,' it is his own business," but it will not be a state.

Another advantage which Israel will get from the Oslo agreement is lucidly explained by Danny Rubinstein, also in Ha'aretz of Sept. 8. He points to the fact that under the present conditions the Israeli authorities are responsible, at least formally, for the living conditions and welfare of the territories' population. They have to worry about the increase of the population which is "one of the greatest in the world" and which has increased even more because of "the influence of the intifada and the recent closure, which limit the freedom of movement of the inhabitants."

Once the territories are separated from Israel, such issues will not concern it. In Rubinstein's view—with which I concur—the separation had already occurred with the imposition of closure, which, it can be assumed, will continue under the autonomy.

"Of course, Israel should make every effort to procure maximum international aid for the Gaza Strip and other autonomous areas so as to eradicate poverty, unemployment and despondency," Rubenstein writes. "Otherwise, unrest will be inevitable, with outbursts bound to affect Israel's security adversely."

This is why Israel is prepared to allow some of the "Palestinians wishing to settle in the autonomous territories rather than in any other Arab country" to do so, since "their problems will be theirs alone: to be solved by themselves or by the Palestinian Council to be set up in the territories,' Rubenstein writes.

The deeper intention of the agreement is to create an apartheid regime in which the Autonomy Council in the territories remaining under Israeli sovereignty will in effect relieve Israel from any duties toward the population. The efficiency of this apartheid regime will be assured by the PLO, on the one hand, and by the international financial aid which will be given it on the other.

Dr. 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.