The road to hell
On the morning of 1 January 1997, an Israeli soldier started shooting at Palestinians in the Hebron marketplace. He wounded six persons, one seriously. Tikva Honig-Parnass analyses the timebomb inherent in an agreement that leaves 300 settlers in the center of Hebron. An Israeli army officer managed to overpower the soldier, but the incident could easily have ended as a massacre. Broad circles within the Shabak (General Security Services), and among senior political commentators in the press, are well-aware that there is no realistic way to prevent such a massacre, which would be liable to destroy the Oslo process in its wake.
Shabak reports have outlined the likely profile and family background of such a potential murderer: a religious youth with Messianic tendencies who sees the Oslo process as a national disaster. According to sociologist Nissan Reuven, there is a large periphery of Israelis who believe that "the State is a divine event and see the assassination of Rabin as a miracle".
The factory which produces such fanatics is the extremist religious-Zionist camp, the right-wing yeshivot (institutes of higher religious studies) and Gush Emunim, the right-wing religious settlers' movement. The educators and spiritual leaders of this camp define the politicians who are implementing the Oslo Accords as "traitors, informers and persecutors". Some of them have even issued religious rulings encouraging soldiers to disobey orders to evacuate territory in the West Bank (including Hebron).
Many of the Israeli officers who serve on the West Bank are settlers who share the far Right ideology. The real dispute: further redeployments
American mediator Dennis Ross is still attempting to bring about the signing of an agreement on Hebron. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, with the backing of Egypt, has recently stiffened his opposition to the new demands presented by Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu.
The current agreement being tendered for signing is almost identical with the agreement worked out by Labour leader Shimon Peres and Arafat last winter.
The real dispute is no longer Hebron, but the continued implementation of the Oslo Accords. Especially the Palestinian demand that Israel commit itself to specific dates for the three further Israeli redeployments in the West Bank, as mandated by the Taba Interim Agreement. Egypt has pressured Arafat into delaying signing the Hebron agreement because it tears that, unless Israel is forced to explicitly re-commit itself, Netanyahu will postpone the implementation of the Oslo Accords as a whole.
The Taba Interim Agreement requires that Israel redeploy in the West Bank in four stages. The first stage was carried out a year ago, with the evacuation of six Palestinian cities and the removal of the daily presence of Israeli troops from about 400 Palestinian villages
The three next phases of 'further redeployment' were supposed to have been implemented at six month intervals, starting on 7 September 1996. But Israel has frozen its implementation.
The Interim Agreement provides that the Israeli army must redeploy to "specified military locations" on the West Bank, to be determined at the time of the redeployment. But the amount of territory from which Israel is supposed to withdraw in each phase is not specified. And the term "specified military locations" is so vague that it could allow the Israeli army to remain in any West Bank site that it defines as "military"
Oslo loyalists on the Zionist Left claim that this is a malicious interpretation which violates the spirit of the agreements. But those who signed the agreements should have known that good intentions can never provide a secure basis for future claims. They are more likely to pave the road to hell. "Do not pass go":
Netanyahu wants to move directly to final status talks. He is prepared to fix a date for the first additional redeployment, at the end of February. He knows that this phase is mainly symbolic: limited to a few small territories in Area C that will receive the status of Area B.
But Netanyahu is refusing to set a date for further redeployments, in order to avoid having to carry out more significant withdrawals before the commencement of the negotiations on the final settlement, in which Israel will be able to exert pressure for the acceptance of the Beilin-Abu Mazen plan.*
But how can Arafat be pressured into waiving the implementation of the Interim Agreements and agreeing to the immediate commencement of the final settlement negotiations? By conditioning any Israeli commitment to further redeployments on impossible commitments from Arafat.
For example, it has been decided that the Hebron agreement will be accompanied by an American letter containing two itemized lists of claims: one Israeli and one Palestinian. The Palestinians will be required
taly's Refounded Communist Twe vowe meton gagauo
The new Combatedmen
• to extradite to Israel people involved in military activity against Israelis, • to confiscate the weapons in the possession of the Islamic Jihad and Hamas, • to ensure the dismantling of these groups ideological and organizational infrastructures, and • to end all "incitement" (sic) against Israelis in the Palestinian media and in the mosques.
Netanyahu knows that Arafat will sooner or later realise that accepting these demands means political suicide. The Palestinian leader will thus have no choice but to agree to skip the interim phase and enter immediately into negotiations on the final settlement. The national consensus: a state minus, autonomy plus'
Netanyahu recently began hinting that he might accept limited sovereignty for the Palestinian entity. His senior policy advisor and chief press officer, David Bar Ilan says Israel is likely to agree to the establishment of a Palestinian entity which will be "an autonomy plus or a state minus".? "What Netanyahu is talking about is limited sovereignty: whether you call it a state or not is not really important... ." Bar Ilan added: "What is the "state minus" [to which Netanyahu refers]? It would have 60% less than the powers of a sovereign state."
Underlying all these assertions is Netanyahu's acceptance of the Oslo Accords. As Bar Ilan put it: *Nobody has suggested expanding settlements. Within the existing municipal boundaries of every settlement, we can triple the population without adding one square inch to the settlements..."
The first sprouts of "moderation" have even appeared in the National Religious Party (NRP) - which over the past decade has been transformed into the ideological home of most of the settlers. In the last week of
December, NRP Knesset Member Avraham
Stern caused a tempest in his party when he expressed support for the idea of a Palestinian state with limited sovereignty.
Immediately after the signing of a Hebron agreement, he argued, the final settlement negotiations should open in earnest. In anticipation, a broad consensus on the parties on the final settlement should be achieved, which he asserts "would not be far from the
Beilin-Abu Mazen plan"
Bar Ilan and Stern have joined their voices to those of others in the Likud and other parties in the governing coalition, such as The Third Way and Gesher, who no longer refrain from stating in public that a Palestinian state is "inevitable" and should not be considered "taboo".
The joint document worked out by Beilin and Abu-Mazen is increasingly the basis for a new "political center" in Israel, drawing in portions of the Right and most of the Zionist
Left.
David Ramati, a settler from Kiryat Arba and a Likud member, says he supports Beilin,
"an avowed supporter of the settlement in
Hebron, and that makes him our ally"
Meanwhile Dr Yael Tamir, one of the leaders of Peace Now, says she will support the candidacy of Ehud Barak (who hardly represents the 'dove' camp)
for the leadership of the Labor Party, because of the Beilin document, which finally convinced her of "the irreversibility of both the settlements and of the Oslo process... Thus, the area remaining for maneuver is small indeed. Between 'autonomy plus' and
*state minus' there is only one solution, with minor variations in nuance." She must mean the Beilin-
Abu Mazen plan.? *
Notes
1. Ha'aretz, 3 January 1997).
2. Area A (Jenin, Nablus, Tulkarem, Kalkiliya,
Bethlehem and Ramallah): in which the PA bears responsibility for both civil matters and internal security.
3. Area B: Israel retains responsibility for security matters.
4. News From Within, December
1996, p.4
5. Ha'aretz, 3 January 1997
6. News From Within, January
1997
7. Jerusalem Post, 20 December
1996
8. Kol Ha'ir, 27 December 1996
9. Ha'aretz, 26 December 1996).
Source: News From Within,
January 1997. For subscription details see page 36.