Reflections on Israel/Palestine-Gaza-West Bank
8/29/2006
Nearly a third of lawmakers in Israeli jails
August 26, 2006
RAMALLAH,
West Bank -- The Palestinian parliament was scheduled to meet this week
to grapple with a packed agenda, including an update on the 2006
budget, a discussion about a new contemporary-affairs textbook for
public schools, and a vote on supporting the marketing of Palestinian
olive oil. But with nearly one-third of their fellow members in Israeli
jails, lawmakers suspended the meeting, unsure whether they would be
able to muster enough votes to approve even routine legislation.
``Our
council is becoming ineffective because we can't do our normal work,"
said Azam al-Ahmed, parliamentary chief for the Fatah party. ``The
Palestinian situation is frozen." During the two months since
Palestinian militants kidnapped an Israeli soldier near the Gaza Strip,
Israeli forces have carried out a far-reaching and punishing military
offensive against the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, knocking out a
power plant and bombing bridges, roads, and government offices in
In the West Bank, where Israeli forces move freely,
has taken a different approach. In sweeping raids, Israeli troops have
rounded up and jailed Hamas officials, charging them with membership in
an illegal terrorist organization.
is holding five members of the Palestinian Cabinet -- including the
deputy prime minister -- and more than two dozen other lawmakers.
Combined with the 14 lawmakers who were already in prison, 39 of the
132 elected council members are behind bars, Palestinian officials said.
``I think
wants to send a message that the authority means nothing to them," said
Hasan Khreisheh, 51, who became acting speaker of the legislative
council after the arrest in August of Aziz Dweik, the council speaker.
``They can change the rules of the game. They want to humiliate us."
An
independent who ran with Hamas during the elections, Khreisheh was
arrested by Israeli police in July, when he returned from a business
trip to
tough measures against the Palestinians, however, have done more than
humiliate the Palestinian Authority. Already battered by a six
-month-old international economic blockade, the Hamas-led government
has largely stopped functioning. Workers have not received full
paychecks in six months. Hospitals are running out of basic supplies.
Most ministries lack the foreign financial grants they have long
depended on to continue with their duties.
It's now one year since
withdrew from the Gaza Strip, ushering in hopes of restarting the peace
process, but poverty is rising, and Palestinians express little
confidence that a peace agreement will be reached any time soon.
``The authority is a facade, basically," said Ali Jirbawi, professor of political science at
in Ramallah. ``Society is moving by its own inertia. People for the
past six months haven't got their salaries and still they go to work,
but what do they deliver?"
At the
Palestinian Legislative Council headquarters on Wednesday, about two
dozen council staff members sat at their desks reading newspapers or
surfing the Internet. Others smoked and drank tea in the office of one
of the jailed lawmakers.
The
council chambers are themselves a protest on behalf of the jailed
lawmakers, the empty council seats crowded with photographs of the
missing lawmakers. ``We can't do anything. Everything has stopped,"
said Aisha Naser, 35, director of the planning and development unit for
the council. She spends her days studying for a graduate degree in
economics, she said.
One of
the few government offices that still appears busy is the Ministry of
Education, where officials are preparing for the opening day of school
in September. But ministry officials worry that they might not be ready
to provide students with classrooms, teachers, or books.
``It's really a mess," said Basri Saleh, a spokesman for the Ministry of Education.
___
Statement on
http://ochaonline.un.org/DocView.asp?DocID=4775
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From Tikkun / July 13, 2006
Understanding
Views
on how to end the crises, along with analyses by Tanya Reinhart,
Yitzhak Frankenthal, Michael Rubin, David Horowitz, Arik Diamont (of
Courage to Refuse,) Robert Fisk, and others.
The
views we print in Current Thinking do not necessarily represent the
views of Tikkun, the Network of Spiritual Progressives or The Tikkun
Community. Unlike many other publlications on the right, left and
center, we believe in John Stuart Mill's view of the deep value of
conflicting views in the marketplace of ideas--because we think truth
is most likely to emerge from that perspective. In Tikkun magazine as
well we print views which we find offensive, but nevertheless
stimulating and forcing us to think about ideas that we might otherwise
ignore. In fact, we believe that without this kind of exchange, people
fall into an intellectual deadness that ensures that their ideas become
stale and irrelevant. So, if you want the positions of Tikkun, read our
Core Vision and read the editorials by Rabbi Michael Lerner in the
magazine, and in his books like Healing Israel/Palestine and The Left
Hand of God, and in the works of
Gabel (particularly his articles in the magazine). But to get other
views, read our articles in the magazine and some of what we put on our
website. So you will see below that the views being presented are in
conflict with each other--and that is what is needed at this moment to
help all of us think through the current realities.
*******************************************************************************************
Ending the crisis without killing anyone
Gershon Baskin, Hanna Siniora, Khaled Duzdar, Yossi Ben Ari
Thursday, July 13, 2006
The
most desired end of the current crisis would be a return of the Israeli
kidnapped soldiers from Lebanon and Gaza, the release of prisoners in
Israeli jails, an end to cross border attacks, including rockets ñ in
both directions ñ on the Israeli-Gaza border and the Israeli-Lebanese
border, and the strengthening of moderates and the weakening of
extremists.
The
current strategy to end the crisis employs extreme long-term violence
and escalating threats against civilians that may or may not end with
the release of the kidnapped soldiers and prisoners in Israeli jails. It
may or may not end the cross border attacks; it will most likely
strengthen extremists and weaken moderates and will cause vast damage
and human suffering.
At
times when anger rules, it is difficult to think logically,
nevertheless; there is a more rational course that could be advanced
that might have a better chance of achieving the desired results
written above. Our proposal is as follows:
Prime Minister Olmert will immediately meet publicly with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and tell him the following:
1. Once Corporal Gilead Shalit is released from
2.
If the Palestinians adhere to a ceasefire on their side, effective for
all of the factions, after one month of full ceasefire,
3. Olmert will also tell Abbas that if the two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hizballah will be released,
According to this plan, there are no negotiations and there are no mediators.
can take the initiative, strengthen Mahmoud Abbas, weaken Nasrallah and
Mashal, bring the soldiers home and achieve a ceasefire. It
is cheaper than any military plan, it doesnít kill anyone, and it has
the chance of ending the crisis faster than any other possible way.
**************************************************************************************
WHAT ARE THEY FIGHTING FOR
Tanya Reinhart
A
shorter version of this article was scheduled to appear Thursday, July
13 in Yediot Aharonot, but postponed to next week because of the
developments in
Whatever may be the fate of the captive soldier Gilad Shalit, the Israeli army’s war in
is not about him. As senior security analyst Alex Fishman widely
reported, the army was preparing for an attack months earlier and was
constantly pushing for it, with the goal of destroying the Hamas
infrastructure and its government. The army initiated an escalation on
8 June when it assassinated Abu Samhadana, a senior appointee of the
Hamas government, and intensified its shelling of civilians in the Gaza
Strip. Governmental authorization for action on a larger scale was
already given by 12 June, but it was postponed in the wake of the
global reverberation caused by the killing of civilians in the air
force bombing the next day. The abduction of the soldier released the
safety-catch, and the operation began on 28 June with the destruction
of infrastructure in
In Israeli discourse,
when it evacuated its settlers from the Strip, and the Palestinians’
behavior therefore constitutes ingratitude. But there is nothing
further from reality than this description. In fact, as was already
stipulated in the Disengagement Plan,
view exempts it from the occupier’s responsibility to maintain the
Strip, and from concern for the welfare and the lives of its million
and a half residents, as determined in the fourth Geneva convention.
does not need this piece of land, one of the most densely populated in
the world, and lacking any natural resources. The problem is that one
cannot let
they are given freedom, they would become the center of Palestinian
struggle for liberation, with free access to the Western and Arab
world. To control the West Bank,
Besieged
occupied people with nothing to hope for, and no alternative means of
political struggle, will always seek ways to fight their oppressor. The
imprisoned Gaza Palestinians found a way to disturb the life of the
Israelis in the vicinity of the Strip, by launching home-made Qassam
rockets across the
wall against Israeli towns bordering the Strip. These primitive rockets
lack the precision to focus on a target, and have rarely caused Israeli
casualties; they do however cause physical and psychological damage and
seriously disturb life in the targeted Israeli neighborhoods. In the
eyes of many Palestinians, the Qassams are a response to the war
said to the New York Times, “Why should we be the only ones who live in
fear? With these rockets, the Israelis feel fear, too. We will have to
live in peace together, or live in fear together.” (2)
The mightiest army in the
has no military answer to these home-made rockets. One answer that
presents itself is what Hamas has been proposing all along, and Haniyeh
repeated this week - a comprehensive cease-fire. Hamas has proven
already that it can keep its word. In the 17
months since it announced its decision to abandon armed struggle in
favor of political struggle, and declared a unilateral cease-fire
(“tahdiya” - calm), it did not participate in the launching of Qassams,
except under severe Israeli provocation, as happened in the June
escalation. However, Hamas remains committed to political struggle
against the occupation of
In Israel's view, the Palestinians elections results is a disaster,
because for the first time they have a leadership that insists on
representing Palestinian interests rather than just collaborating with
Israel's demands.
Since ending the occupation is the one thing
is not willing to consider, the option promoted by the army is breaking
the Palestinians by devastating brutal force. They should be starved,
bombarded, terrorized with sonic booms for months, until they
understand that rebelling is futile, and accepting prison life is their
only hope for staying alive. Their elected political system,
institutions and police should be destroyed. In
The
Israeli army is hungry for war. It would not let concerns for captive
soldiers stand in its way. Since 2002 the army has argued that an
“operation” along the lines of “Defensive Shield” in Jenin was also
necessary in
Exactly a year ago, on 15 July (before the Disengagement), the army
concentrated forces on the border of the Strip for an offensive of this
scale on
But then the USA imposed a veto. Rice arrived for an emergency visit
that was described as acrimonious and stormy, and the army was forced
to back down (3). Now, the time has finally came. With the Islamophobia
of the American Administration at a high point, it appears that the USA
is prepared to authorize such an operation, on condition that it not
provoke a global outcry with excessively-reported attacks on
civilians.(4)
With
the green light for the offensive given, the army's only concern is
public image. Fishman reported this Tuesday that the army is worried
that "what threatens to burry this huge military and diplomatic effort"
is reports of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Hence, the army would
take care to let some food into Gaza. (5) From this perspective, it is
necessary to feed the Palestinians in Gaza so that it would be possible
to continue to kill them undisturbed.
******************************************************************************************
Yitzhak Frankenthal
The Arik Institute For Reconciliation, Tolerance and Peace,In Memory of Arieh Zvi Frankenthal. (הי"ד)
Seeking peace; forced to fight.
Lebanon,
by abducting two Israeli soldiers, firing at Israel and killing eight
Israeli soldiers, has this morning declared war. Such attacks, when
carried-out from within Lebanese sovereignty, can be seen as nothing
but a declaration of war.
A
distinction must be made here, between Lebanon and other sovereign
states, and the Palestinians. The Palestinians are fighting occupation,
the worst form of terror, and the occupier. If I was a Palestinian I
would undoubtedly be struggling for my independence and vigorously
opposing the occupation. To do so is the natural duty of every
Palestinian. Opposing the occupation and struggling for independence
can be done in numerous different ways, however. Personally, I would
have chosen to oppose it by massive demonstration
(hundreds-of-thousands' of Palestinians), without letting up until
Israel ceased its occupation of my lands and my people. I would not use
force of arms or suicide bombers for a number of reasons, not the least
of which being:
a. Israel is incomparably stronger, especially in contrast to the Palestinians.
b. Terrorizing
Israel will not force Israel into surrender, as no nation can afford to
give in to terrorism. Palestinians as well, cannot afford to despair
and surrender in the face of Israeli terrorism.
c. Those
who take part in terrorist activities inevitably reduce themselves to
the level of those who they are fighting with just cause – ultimately
placing themselves in the wrong.
d. Terror
aimed at civilian populations is justly perceived by the world as an
illegitimate form of warfare. Without support from the free world,
establishing a sovereign state is impossible.
True,
in this regard we can see a great degree of hypocrisy in the world:
despite Israel's incessant terrorizing of the Palestinian population,
the world does not look upon Israelis as terrorists. When Palestinians
terrorize Israel on the other hand, they are unjustly equated to
fundamentalist Muslim terrorists such as Bin Laden.
The
events which occurred this morning on the Israeli-Lebanese border are
an act of war. Israel has an obligation to retaliate and defend itself.
Lebanon, unlike the Palestinian population, is an autonomous country.
The Hezbollah in this case is of no interest to me. Only the Lebanese
government, which cannot control the armed factions within it, is of
interest to me - a government that cannot control the armed forces
within-it is nothing but a government of puppets.
Within
reason, I would be willing to do anything to achieve peace. As an
Israeli, however, I cannot tolerate a self-governing country attacking
mine. If I was the Prime Minister of Israel today, faced with the
events of this morning, I would give Lebanon an ultimatum by which to
return the abducted Israeli soldiers to Israel - alive and in one
piece. If they failed to fulfill this deadline, I would begin bombing
infrastructures in Beirut, starting with the electricity. If the
soldiers are still not returned, I would destroy every bridge in
Lebanon - and if the Lebanese government remained stubborn, I would
have Lebanese soldiers, dignitaries and Hezbollah operatives captured -
only to be released in return for the Israeli soldiers.
I am
not playing games… As much as I want peace, I want my fellow Israelis
to live securely in their country. No more fooling around with Lebanon.
Gentlemen,
peace is realized in order to live peacefully. We have had no quarrels
with Lebanon for the past few years. The ruthlessness and belligerence
of the various terrorist organizations there do not interest me. I
don't recognize the Hezbollah. It does not interest me. What interests
me is the Lebanese government, as it is solely responsible for
maintaining peace along its borders.
I
cannot emphasize enough the fact that there is a significant difference
between the Lebanese government and the Palestinian population - the
Palestinians are justified in their battle against the occupation and
the occupier. The Lebanese/Hezbollah are nothing but a gang of brutes
which Israel has an obligation to defend itself against.
I
would not be surprised if Syria is backing the Hezbollah. Syria has a
right to fight Israel in order to re-possess the Golan Heights, which
were occupied by Israel – especially in light of the fact that the
Syrian President has repeatedly addressed the Israeli government
calling for peace, given the return of the Golan Heights to Syria. For
Syria to attack Israel via Lebanon, however, would be a first-class
case of malevolence. The Lebanese have suffered more than enough and if
they controlled the terrorist enclaves in their own territories,
deserve to live in peace and quiet.
In
summary, I think it is entirely possible that we will go to war with
Lebanon over what happened this morning. It would be a very
unfortunate, a very regrettable war, but an entirely justified one. We
cannot let terror - be it Lebanese, Israeli or Palestinian - win.
To be
able to differentiate between the different varieties of terror we must
be able apply a healthy dose of common sense. I hope that wisdom will
soon reach our region – we all deserve to live in peace and security.
Yitzhak Frankenthal
Mailing address:
4 Hameyasdim St.,
Jerusalem 96224,
Israel.
Tel: +972-2-643-7248
Cell: +972-546-602369
Fax: +972-3-725-6236
Email: frank211@netvision.net.il
Website: http://www.arikpeace.org/eng
************************************************************************************************
Political Strategies to Counterterrorism
by Michael Rubin and Suzanne Gershowitz
The Evolving Threat: International Terrorism in the post 9-11 Era
July 12, 2006
http://www.meforum.org/article/974
Terrorism
is a growing threat. The September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade
Center and subsequent attacks on Madrid's Atocha train station and the
London underground signaled that 21st century terrorism was not a
problem that could be localized to the Middle East and South Asia. As
the terror threat grows and groups like Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah
demonstrate worldwide reach, democracies fumble not only for an
effective political strategy to combat terrorism, but also for a
definition. In order to protect pet interests or excuse specific
groups, diplomats and officials complicate what should be a simple
definition. Whether in Berlin or Beirut, the definition should be the
same: Terrorism is the deliberate targeting of civilians for political
gain. Any nuance or justification of the targeting of civilians for
political gain merely undercuts efforts to eradicate terrorism.
To
combat terrorism effectively, political leaders and diplomats should
look not at the terrorists' goals, but rather at their success. After
all, terrorism is only a tactic. Adversaries commit terrorist acts when
they win more than they lose. Some commit terrorism for publicity,
others for ransom, and still others for concession. The key to defeat
of terrorism is not through diplomacy, but rather through strategies
more forceful and less compromising. Terrorism will only cease to be a
useful tactic only when its costs become too great for terrorists and
their sponsors to bear.
Is Terrorism Ever Legitimate?
Terrorism
should never be legitimate. While European politicians, conflict
resolution specialists, and some journalists counsel diplomats to
address root causes, any group utilizing terror, regardless of their
goal, makes their cause illegitimate. The greatest handicap to
defeating terrorism today is the assumption that addressing root causes
will mitigate the problem. Many seek to twist counter-terror efforts to
their own pet cause. Some, for example, say poverty breeds terrorism.
This is false. Mali, one of the world's poorest nations is, according
to Freedom House, the most democratic Muslim country. It does not
produce terrorists.
Nor
does lack of opportunity cause terrorism. Most of the September 11,
2001 hijackers were well-educated. Many were engineers. Many suicide
bombers likewise have received high school and, in some cases, even
university education. Indeed, a twenty-first century Modest Proposal
might interpret data collected about perpetrators of suicide bombings
to suggest that stymieing rather than creating educational
opportunities could better inhibit recruitment of terrorists.
A
third root cause cited by diplomats and scholars is the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The lack of a final status peace accord,
the argument goes, is what causes terror. This too is disingenuous.
Terrorism has spiked every time negotiators appear on the brink of
Arab-Israeli peace. It was during a declared Palestinian truce, for
example, that terrorists sought to import 50 tons of Iranian weaponry,
a shipment only stopped when the Israeli navy intercepted the Karine-A.
Likewise, Usama Bin Laden started planning the September 11, 2001
attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon just before the Camp
David II summit, at a time of great optimism in the peace process.
Discussion
of root causes can blur the immorality of terrorism and actually
encourage the act. No where was this more evident than when, on April
15, 2002, France, Belgium and four other European Union members
endorsed a UN Human Rights Commission resolution condoning "all
available means, including armed struggle" to establish a Palestinian
state.[1] While publicly declaring their opposition to terrorism, six
EU members joined the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Conference to
legitimize suicide bombing, at least in certain circumstances.
Political
adversaries take advantage of the Western obsession with root causes.
Terror sponsors extend an olive branch on one hand, but seek to advance
their own goals by terrorist proxy on the other. In the midst of
Arab-Israeli negotiations in 1993, the Syrian government encouraged
Hezbollah to attack Israeli forces in Southern Lebanon.[2] While
Iranian president Muhammad Khatami won plaudits in Western capitals for
his talk of civilization dialogue, for example, his government
continued to fund proxy groups like Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah which
worked to advance the Islamic Republic's desire to export revolution
and undermine the Middle East peace process.
Legitimizing Terror
Too
often Western powers try to make negotiating partners out of dictators
and terrorists. Seldom does this curb terrorism. Prior to the September
11, 2001 terrorist attacks, senior State Department official Robin
Rafael, for example, counseled the U.S. government to accommodate the
Taliban.[3] Diplomatic promises are as ephemeral as terrorists'
sincerity. The Taliban embraced engagement to entrench. The Palestinian
Authority embraced engagement to rearm. Meanwhile, the Taliban's regime
facilitated al-Qaeda and Palestinian Authority leader Yasir Arafat
equipped his proxy militias with far more lethal weapons, explosives,
and missiles.
The
refusal of Arafat to acknowledge agreements made by his negotiators
further showed the fallacy of embracing dictators and terror sponsors.
The Palestinian Authority made no secret of its willingness to win
concession through terror. While Western powers trained the Palestinian
police to keep order and prevent terrorism, Palestinian Police
Commander Ghazi Jabali told the Palestinian Authority's official
newspaper, "The Palestinian police will be leading, together with all
other noble sons of the Palestinian people when the hour of
confrontation arrives…."[4] On the month anniversary of the collapse of
Camp David II, Palestinian Authority Justice Minister Freih Abu
Middein, demanding further Israeli concessions, declared, "Violence is
near and the Palestinian people are willing to sacrifice even 5,000
casualties."[5]
Some
in the international community risk replicating the mistake with
outreach to Hamas. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's
decision to receive a senior Hamas delegation prior to that group's
renunciation of terrorism legitimatized both Hamas and its tactics.
Indeed, the Kurdistan Workers Party [PKK], as vicious in its targeting
of civilians as Hamas, seized upon the precedent established by
Erdoğan. "Is it not blood that is shed in the fighting between the
Turkish army and the Kurdistan freedom movement, just like the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict?" asked senior PKK commander Murat
Karayilan.[6]
Erdoğan's
decision has both undercut both the Turkish government's own fight
against terrorism as well as Ankara's diplomatic leverage should
officials in Athens, Nicosia, or other European capitals seek to engage
the PKK. He not only legitimized terrorists as negotiating partners,
but reaffirmed that the path to political recognition was through the
murder of civilians.
The
U.S.-led Coalition's willingness to negotiate with terrorists in Iraq
has likewise backfired. Between April 6 and April 30, 2004, U.S.
Marines surrounded the hotbed town of Fallujah. European officials and
human rights groups condemned the U.S. siege. Facing growing
international pressure, U.S. forces compromised: They empowered
insurgent leaders into a Fallujah Brigade. U.S. Secretary of State
Colin Powell explained, "We want peace in Fallujah, not war in
Fallujah. And we won't have to take this to a military climax."
Islamists interpreted events differently. Minaret-mounted loudspeakers
lauded "victory over the Americans." Rather than bring peace, the
decision to compromise sparked an upsurge in violence. The Jihadists
learned that violence brings concession. While there were five car
bombings during the siege, in the same period following its lifting,
there were 30. For the car bombers of Fallujah, the gains of their
terror far outweighed its cost.
A
Western desire for compromise can also backfire for the simple reason
that, while Western officials see their intercession as central to
almost every conflict, terrorists do not. At times a groups' decision
to engage in terror is due as much to local power politics as outside
grievance. During the Second Intifada, groups such as Force-17 and
Tanzim took the lead in launching attacks against Israeli targets. The
reason was not enhanced grievance relative to other terror groups, but
rather a desire for local legitimacy. While the first Intifada raged,
Yassir Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization remained in Tunisian
exile. Many West Bank and Gaza Palestinians subsequently resented
Arafat's henchmen as illegitimate interlopers imposed on them by
outside powers. Arafat used the second Intifada to win local legitimacy
through a contest to draw Israeli blood.[7]
A
similar dynamic is at work with Hamas now. Hamas rose to popularity in
the Gaza Strip and the West Bank as a result of its terror attacks.
While some diplomats may also point to its Saudi-subsidized social
service network, the fact remains that non-governmental organizations
which operated similar programs did not win populist support because of
their failure to bomb buses. Hamas terrorism was meant not only to kill
Israelis, but also to bolster its own popularity vis-א-vis its rivals.
The movement craved publicity, and it received it. It is loathe to lose
its populist card.
Rewarding Violence
Further
undercutting the fight against terrorism has been Western officials'
desire for a peaceful solution regardless of provocation. Even
Jerusalem's no-nonsense approach to terrorism has frayed in the face of
equivocation and compromise.[8] Any solution short of a violent
response to terrorism is akin to rewarding it.
Rewarding
violence always backfires. On May 25, 2000, the day after Israel
withdrew from southern Lebanon, Shaikh Hassan Nasrallah, the
secretary-general of Hezbollah declared, "The road to Palestine and
freedom is the road of the resistance and the intifada!"[9] While
European and U.S. officials hoped and predicted that withdrawal would
curb violence on the south Lebanon-Israeli border, the reality was far
different. Hezbollah refused to accept the UN ruling that Israel was in
full compliance with UN Security Council Resolution 425 and, instead,
simply added new demands.[10]
More
importantly, the precipitous withdrawal demonstrated that Western
democracies were weak and would concede to violence. Two months after
Israel' pullback, Arafat turned down Israel's offer of a Palestinian
state with its capital in Jerusalem, on 97 percent of the West Bank and
Gaza and three percent of Israel proper and launched a war designed to
strike not only in the West Bank and Gaza, but also in Israel. And so
was born the second Intifada. The impact of the Israeli withdrawal from
southern Lebanon went beyond Israel and its neighbors, though. The
willingness of a Western democracy to make concessions to improvised
explosive devices and mortar attacks has subsequently inspired
terrorists in Iraq, Turkey, and India.
Unfortunately,
the West has not learned its lesson. While Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon argued that Israel's unilateral disengagement was a move for
peace, various Palestinian and terrorist groups portrayed Israel's
withdrawal as a victory. Former Palestinian Authority security chief
Mohammed Dahlan explained, "Hizbullah turned Israel's retreat from
southern Lebanon into victory. The withdrawal of the Israeli army from
the Gaza Strip and some West Bank settlements is one of the most
important achievements of the Intifada."[11] Hamas spokesman Sami Abu
Zuhri similarly proclaimed, "All the Israeli statements about a
withdrawal from the Gaza Strip are due to the Palestinian resistance
operations. We are completely confident that as the Hezbollah
Organization managed to the Israeli forces out of Lebanon, the
Palestinian resistance will kick them out of the Palestinian
territories, and we will continue our resistance."[12] Hamas put a
video on its official website which showed footage of the Israeli
withdrawal from Gaza accompanying singing of "The army of the Jews has
been defeated. The home and homeland is returning through blood. Not
through negotiations, surrender or promises." The "homeland is
returning" is sung over a photo of Haifa.[13]
Indeed,
like the aftermath of Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon, the Israeli
army's Gaza evacuation promises to spark more violence. Already
Hezbollah has set up a forward base in Gaza from which to operate cells
in the West Bank.[14] On March 2, 2006, Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas raised concern of al-Qaeda infiltration into Gaza and the West
Bank.[15] Indeed, while some U.S. and European officials believe that
Israeli occupation of disputed territories is a root cause of terror,
the fact is that their prescription of more concession and/or
withdrawal will increase rather than decrease international terrorism.
While
terrorists consider Israel vulnerable, they realize that its defeat
will require protracted struggle. From the Palestinian perspective,
Israel's surrender in Gaza occurred after 35 years of constant
struggle. Terrorists see Israel as vulnerable, but recognize that the
Jewish state still has a residue of strength. Not so Europe. In the
wake of the Atocha station bombing, the Spanish electorate ousted Prime
Minister Jose Maria Aznar. Their perceived ability to swing an election
convinced terrorists that Europe was both weak and malleable. The
decision of Aznar's successor Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to withdraw
immediately from Iraq guaranteed Europeans to be in terrorist
crosshairs for years to come. Islamists use terrorism because it works.
Zapatero demonstrated that at very little cost, terrorists could win
tremendous result.
Just
as damaging was Philippine President Gloria Arroyo's July 2004 decision
to comply with terrorist demands to evacuate Filipino troops from Iraq
in exchange for a Filipino truck driver's life. Terrorism and
hostage-taking subsequently skyrocketed. Foreign workers are dead
because Arroyo's decision to comply with the kidnappers' demands
convinced terrorists that their aims could be achieved through violence.
Ransom and Hostage-Taking
Hostage-taking
has become a particularly effective tactic. Terrorists crave an
audience. With the spread of terrorism in the late twentieth century,
audiences became inured to violence. Suicide bombings which might once
have garnered headlines and commentary for a week now pass with bare
mention. For a bombing or slaughter to win significant public
attention, it must target children (the Palestine Liberation
Organization's slaughter of school children in Ma'alot in 1974 or
Chechen Jihadists' seizure of a Beslan school thirty years later);
shock (Black September's 1972 massacre of the Israeli Olympic team or
the 2006 bombing of the Askariya mosque in Samarra); or result in
several thousand casualties, such as occurred on September 11, 2001.
Planning and execution of such attacks is difficult and costly. As
audiences become increasingly inured to violence, the ability to shock
and achieve aims through terror becomes harder. Each incident must
surpass the last or it will simply fade into background static. While
the Western media once covered every car bombing in Iraq, explosions
which claim several dozen lives now seldom get more than a brief
mention on television or a couple lines of newspaper print.
Kidnapping
allows terrorists to bypass this dynamic. Hostage-taking extends media
attention and allows reporters to humanize the victim. For journalists,
an assassination or bombing is anti-climatic; the press only begins its
coverage after the operation has ended. But uncertainty about whether a
hostage remains alive creates the suspense necessary for a good story.
Terrorists have repeatedly used videos of hostages pleading for their
lives in order to seize headlines. The plight of freelance journalist
Jill Carroll captivated audiences as each video is released and
deadline passed.
While
negotiating may successfully address the short-term objective of
freeing the hostage, without exception, it causes terrorism to
proliferate. Dialogue is dangerous. The very act of negotiating,
whether directly or through intermediaries, legitimizes the
perpetrators and the act. On the twenty-fifth anniversary of the U.S.
embassy seizure in Iran, many former hostages reflected upon their
ordeal. According to David Roeder, one of the captives, "If we had done
something other than just walked away [from Iran at the conclusion of
the ordeal], I keep thinking maybe, just maybe, we wouldn't have
planted the seed that terrorism is a profitable thing."[16] Terrorism
has been very profitable. Kidnapping of Westerners in Lebanon increased
in the 1980s after the U.S. and Iran entered into secret talks to win
their release.[17]
Governments
have made matters worse by engaging hostage-takers and, in some cases,
even paying ransom. The Philippines had previous experience with high
profile hostage seizure. In March 2000, for example, Libyan leader
Muammar al-Qadhafi paid an estimated $25 million ransom to win the
release of priests, teachers, and children seized from a school on
Basilan Island. While the ransom may have solved a short-term problem,
it compounded the long-term terrorist threat. Within months of
receiving the ransom, Abu Sayyaf expanded from a couple hundred to more
than a thousand members. The group used the influx of cash to upgrade
their equipment. The ransom paid for speedboats and weapons used in
subsequent kidnappings.[18]
The
pattern is international. In April 2003, Ammari Saifi, the "Bin Laden
of the Desert," seized 32 European vacationers in the Algerian desert,
holding them captive for 177 days. He released them only after the
German government paid a five million euro ransom. Rather than settle
for peace, Saifi used the money to buy new vehicles and better
weapons.[19] He remains at large and a threat to stability across the
Sahel.
In
Iraq, hostage negotiation has sparked a kidnapping industry. The French
and Italian government's decision to ransom its hostages has encouraged
further hostage taking. In August 2004, the Iraqi Islamic Army seized
two French journalists. Contradicting official denials, a high official
in the Direction Gיnיrale de la Sיcuritי Extיrieure, France's secret
service, confirmed that ransom had been paid.[20] Serge July, editor of
left-leaning Liberation questioned whether the cost of Chirac's
political gestures was too high.[21] The Italian government did little
better. While the Italian government denied the payment of any ransom
for kidnapped Italian journalists Simona Torretta and Simona Pari,
Gustavo Selvo, the head of an Italian parliamentary foreign affairs
committee, said that there had been a payment of $1 million. He told
France's RTL radio, "The lives of the girls was the most important
thing. In principle, we shouldn't give in to blackmail, but this time
we had to."[22] The terrorists rightly calculated that European leaders
were weak. They were right.
How
then should Western governments respond to the seizure of hostages?
With firmness calculated to defend the long-term safety of both their
own citizens and Iraqis. Terrorists do not employ ineffective tactics.
The key to defeating the scourge of kidnapping is to make it
unprofitable. Sometimes long-term victory trumps short-term tragedy.
The Importance of Ideology
The
belief that engagement can moderate terrorists is naןve, for it ignores
the importance of ideology. Too often, political correctness undercuts
the war on terrorism. It has become fashionable to suggest that
religion does not motivate terrorism.[23] The statements of many
terrorists--and the last will and testament of the 9-11
hijackers--undercuts such a belief. While foreign policy realists pride
themselves on their practicality, they often adhere blindly to the
belief that diplomacy and negotiation can resolve any conflict. They
may be sincere, but their analysis is undercut by mirror imaging. When
Islamist terrorists kidnapped and later beheaded Wall Street Journal
reporter Daniel Pearl, their goal was to humiliate, not negotiate.
Sheer brutality is effective. The video of the beheading of U.S.
traveler Nicholas Berg circulated around the world shocking the Iraqis
and Westerners alike. There were no demands for his life.
Often
terrorists are either unwilling to compromise upon ideology. Sheikh
Omar Abdel Rahman, mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing,
declared, "There is no truce in Jihad against the enemies of
Allah."[24] In other instances, the price of accommodation is too high.
In a video tape aired on January 23, 2005, al-Qaeda-in-Iraq leader Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi declared "We have declared a bitter war against
democracy." To engage Zarqawi would be counterproductive. No government
should be willing to sacrifice democracy for peace. Still, many in the
West try, especially when the negotiating chit is not their own
society. This too backfires. Engaging ideologues not only legitimizes
extremism, but may actually encourage it. If the natural inclination of
Western diplomats is to compromise with any demand, why not stake out
even more extreme positions?
What does Hamas believe? Article 13 of its Charter makes clear:
[Peace]
initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international
conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the
beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement. For renouncing any part of
Palestine means renouncing part of the religion; the nationalism of the
Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its faith, the movement educates
its members to adhere to its principles and to raise the banner of
Allah over their homeland as they fight their Jihad.
It
should simply never be acceptable to open negotiations with any group
whose goal is the destruction of a state or a people. Unfortunately,
the willingness to engage Hamas politically--or, in the case of Jacques
Chirac's government--financially[25] has undercut the moral clarity of
the fight against terrorism and encouraged more. Unfortunately, here
Hamas is more the rule rather than the exception. European governments
and self-described peace activists still continue to engage Hezbollah,
even after the group's leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, declared, "If
they [the Jews] gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going
after them worldwide."[26] It does not make sense to excuse an
organization that stands by such principles in the midst of a battle
against terror and a fight for peace.
Effective Counterterrorism
How
then can governments counter terrorism? Ideologues ultimately must be
marginalized to the point of impotence, isolated, or eliminated. If
Western officials, diplomats, and self-described progressives engage
with terrorists, they empower them. Rather than be treated as
powerbrokers, Nasrallah and Hamas political bureau chief Khalid Mishaal
should be international pariahs. Likewise, engagement with Arafat
increased rather than diminished Palestinian terrorism.
Terrorists,
whether secular or religious, engage in terrorism for a simple reason:
They find it a useful tactic. If the West is to defeat terror, it must
raise the cost of terrorism beyond the endurance of terrorists. In
this, diplomacy and compromise can be counterproductive. The second
Palestinian intifada was sparked by Israel's willingness to engage in
diplomacy and withdrawal from southern Lebanon. It was ended because of
Jerusalem's willingness to engage in targeted assassination.
Such
forceful measures work on a number of levels. In the short-term, they
can disrupt planning for specific attacks. When the Israeli military
assassinated Hamas official Umar Sa'adah in July 2001, he was planning
a major attack at the Maccabiah Games, the Jewish Olympics. His death
foiled the attack.[27]
In the
long-term, disrupting leadership weakens terrorist organizations. When
terrorist leaders are eliminated, leadership struggles ensue. Rather
than spark a cycle of violence, a desire for revenge can exhaust it.
After Israel began targeting terrorist leaders, their deputies began
rushing revenge attacks. Many of these were ill-prepared and
accelerated the exposure and elimination of terror cells.[28] The
Israeli government raised the cost of engaging in terrorism beyond what
Palestinian supporters could bare. Only with unilateral disengagement
did the cost of engaging in terrorism again become worthwhile.
The
same logic works on a state level. Libyan leader Mu‘ammar Qadhafi
reduced terrorism--at least that directed against the West--after
President Ronald Reagan launched an air strike against the North
African state in response to a Libyan-sponosred Berlin disco bombing.
The Syrian government ceased sheltering PKK leader Abdullah ײcalan
after the Turkish military staged exercises along the Syrian border.
Likewise, a 1999 Turkish air strike on the Iranian border city of
Piranshahr convinced Tehran that using PKK fighters as leverage against
the Turkish state might not be in Iran's national interest. President
George W. Bush's willingness to oust the Taliban prevented attacks on
the U.S. mainland not only by denying al-Qaeda a safe-haven, but also
by giving pause to other potential terror sponsors.
Still,
many governments are afraid to take action. They fear a cycle of
violence. Terrorists do not need a reason to attack. The Clinton
administration's failure to respond to the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing
did not prevent the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings, nor did its
inaction against al-Qaeda after the 2000 USS Cole bombing convince Bin
Laden to call off the World Trade Center attack. Indeed, terrorists
feed off of diplomatic hand-wringing and fear of a cycle of violence to
amplify the cost effectiveness of their attacks.
It may
be difficult for democracies to take effective counter terror measures,
but it is necessary. Terrorists may exploit public opinion. As Israeli
Major General Dan Halouts said, "Israel's democracy is particularly
sensitive to the humanitarian aspects of the conflict, and is far more
exposed to the media than the regimes of its opponents."[29] The same
holds true in the United States, Great Britain, or France. Political
leadership should be about protecting national security, not just
winning popularity in the weekly opinion poll. Ultimately, investing in
short-term force can win long-term security and contain the terrorist
scourge. Democratic nations must not forget, though, that they are up
against an international community that accommodates terrorists and
blames the victims--Western democracies and Israel--for terrorists'
actions. If democracies do not defend their own legitimacy, no one will.
Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at AEI. Suzanne Gershowitz is a foreign policy and defense studies researcher at AEI.
This
paper is published as a chapter in The Evolving Threat: International
Terrorism in the post 9-11 Era (Rome: Globe Research, 2006), Nicola
Pedde, ed.
*********************************************************************************************
Moment of Truth
by David Horowitz, Front Page
Americans
need to take a hard look at what is going on in the Middle East,
because it provides the clearest picture possible of the war we are in.
On one side are al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hizbollah, Syria and Iran and their
allies: Russia, France, Greece, and the UN majority. On the other is
the only democracy in the land of Muslim and Arab terror. The origins
of this front in the war on terror are crystal clear: the desire of the
Muslim terrorists -- the elected majority among Palestinian Arabs and
the occupying Shi'ite army in Lebanon, backed by Syria and Iran -- to
destroy Israel and push the Jews into the sea.
The
war reveals the impossibility of a Palestinian state and the necessity
of a civilized occupying force in a region that is populated by a
people who have been terminally brainwashed into an ideology of hate,
which makes their self-government a crime waiting to happen.
There
were 10,000 Jews living in Gaza until recently. They were so creative
that while representing less than one percent of the population they
accounted for 10% of the entire gross national product of the country.
Productive and law-abiding as they were, their existence in Gaza
required a Israeli army presence to protect them. So uncontrollable is
the genocidal hatred of Palestinians for Jews (more than a million
Palestinians on the other hand live peacefully in Israel enjoying more
rights than any Arabs or Muslims living in their own countries). The
Israeli army in Gaza was also necessary to prevent genocidal
Palestinians Jew-haters from lobbing rockets into Israeli schoolyards.
Eventually,
the Israeli leadership made a decision to capitulate to Arab Jew hatred
and uproot the Jews living in Gaza, and to withdraw the forces that
protected Israel from being attacked by Arab criminals . In the months
that followed, the Arabs did nothing to improve their new homeland,
which they now controlled completely. Instead, they elected genocidal
terrorists to govern them. They destroyed the horticulture industry the
Jews had created and that provided 10% of their GNP. They lobbed 800 or
so rockets into Israel. During all this mayhem no word of condemnation
for the Gaza aggressors came from the UN, France, Russia and rest of
the Jew-hating, terrorist-appeasing and terrorist-supporting
international community.
Consequently,
the Hamas army command, based in Syria, authorized a further aggresion
-- a tunnel into Israel and the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier. For
good measure, Palestinians in the West Bank executed an 18-year old
Jewish hitch-hiker for the crime of being a Jew. Still no condmenation
of the Palestinians from the Jew-haters in France, Russia and at the
UN. This support encouraged Iranian-sponsored Hizbollah to iniitiate
another aggression, this time from the north.
The
goal of the United States and Israel and all freedom-loving and
civilized people in this war must be the destruction of the Hamas and
Hizabollah leadership, their military infrastructure and
capabilities.If there was a UN worthy of the name, it would expel Syria
and Iran from its body, and send a Security Council armed force to the
West Bank and Gaza to institute an occupation whose duration should not
be less than a generation. During this occupation, the hate schools of
the West Bank and Gaza should be revamped so that the children of
Palestinian Arabs are taught basic rules of civilized behavior --
tolerance instead of ethnic and religious hatred, condemnation of
suicide bombers instead of reverence for them as martyrs, and such
common decencies as regarding monsters like Samil Kuntar, a Palestinian
terrorist who took a father and child hostage and smashed the child's
head against a rock and who is regarded as a hero and official model
for Palestinian children as the monsters they are.
The
world will not be a safe place or a decent one until the present regime
n Gaza, the West Bank, Syria and Iran are gone. This is a war all
Americans must support.
***********************************************************************************************
Hundreds of Palestinian 'suspects' have been kidnapped from their homes
and will never stand trial
Arik Diamant
http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3271505,00.html
It's the wee hours of the morning, still dark outside. A guerilla force
comes out of nowhere to kidnap a soldier. After hours of careful
movement, the force reaches its target, and the ambush is on! In
seconds, the soldier finds himself looking down the barrel of a rifle.
A smash in the face with the butt of the gun and the soldier falls to
the ground, bleeding. The kidnappers pick him up, quickly tie his hands
and blindfold him, and disappear into the night.
This might be the end of the kidnapping, but the nightmare has just
begun. The soldier's mother collapses, his father prays. His commanding
officers promise to do everything they can to get him back, his comrades
swear revenge. An entire nation is up-in-arms, writing in pain and worry.
Nobody knows how the soldier is: Is he hurt? Do his captors give him
even a minimum of human decency, or are they torturing him to death by
trampling his honor? The worst sort of suffering is not knowing. Will he
come home? And if so, when? And in what condition? Can anyone remain
apathetic in the light of such drama?
Israeli terror
This description, you'll be surprised to know, has nothing to do with
the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit. It is the story of an arrest I carried
out as an IDF soldier, in the Nablus casbah, about 10 years ago. The
"soldier" was a 17-year-old boy, and we kidnapped him because he knew
"someone" who had done "something."
We brought him tied up, with a burlap sac over his head, to a Shin Bet
interrogation center known as "Scream Hill" (at the time we thought it
was funny). There, the prisoner was beaten, violently shaken and sleep
deprived for weeks or months. Who knows.
No one wrote about it in the paper. European diplomats were not called
to help him. After all, there was nothing out of the ordinary about the
kidnapping of this Palestinian kid. Over the 40 years of occupation we
have kidnapped thousands of people, exactly like Gilad Shalit was
captured: Threatened by a gun, beaten mercilessly, with no judge or
jury, or witnesses, and without providing the family with any
information about the captive.
When the Palestinians do this, we call it "terror." When we do it, we
work overtime to whitewash the atrocity.
Suspects?
Some people will say: The IDF doesn't "just" kidnap. These people are
"suspects." There is no more perverse lie than this. In all the years I
served, I reached one simple conclusion: What makes a "suspect"? Who,
exactly suspects him, and of what?
Who has the right to sentence a 17-year-old to kidnapping, torture and
possible death? A 26-year-old Shin Bet interrogator? A 46-year-old one?
Do these people have any higher education, apart from the ability to
interrogate? What are his considerations? I all these "suspects" are so
guilty, why not bring them to trial?
Anyone who believes that despite the lack of transparency, the IDF and
Shin Bet to their best to minimize violations of human rights is naïve,
if not brainwashed. One need only read the testimonies of soldiers who
have carried out administrative detentions to be convinced of the depth
of the immorality of our actions in the territories.
To this very day, there are hundreds of prisoners rotting in Shin Bet
prisons and dungeons, people who have never been –and never will be –
tried. And Israelis are silently resolved to this phenomenon.
Israeli responsibility
The day Gilad Shalit was kidnapped I rode in a taxi. The driver told me
we must go into
breaks and returns the hostage. It isn't clear that such an operation
would bring Gilad back alive.
Instead of getting dragged into terrorist responses, as Palestinian
society has done, we should release some of the soldiers and civilians
we have kidnapped. This is appropriate, right, and could bring about an
air of reconciliation in the territories.
Hell, if this is what will bring Gilad home safe-and-sound, we have a
responsibility to him to do it.
Arik Diamant is an IDF reservist and the head of the Courage to Refuse
organization
***************************************************************************************
Ad in Ha'aretz from the Israeli peace organization Gush Shalom:
Those who refused
To talk with
The Palestinian government
And declared a blockade
On the Palestinian people -
Got a conflagration in
The
Those who refused
A prisoner exchange
And sent tanks
Into
Got a conflagration
Both In the north
And in he south.
Those who refuse
To talk even now -
May get a conflagration
Throughout the
And in the end,
In spite of everything -
They will talk.
_______________________
