Unfortunately, it should hardly come as a surprise that it took about a day into what most of the world press called a cease-fire – though the principals were careful not to use the word – for the first fatality to occur by gunshot. According to the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, "Gunfire from the Atzmona settlement in the Gaza Strip killed a Palestinian man Wednesday. … The 22-year-old man was shot in the abdomen while walking near the Atzmona settlement on the border with Egypt, the [Palestinian] officials said."
Israeli Defense Forces sources said warning shots had been fired when four young Palestinians came within 50 meters of a security fence near the settlement. In addition to the 22-year-old dying, the body of a Hamas militant, with arms blown off and burns on his chest and face, was found near the Khan Yunis refugee camp. Hamas said it was a "work accident," but the wounds suggest he was probably building or assembling a bomb.
These incidents may turn out to be minor aberrations in a truce that actually holds for a while. There is evidence that, at least on the official level, Hamas and Islamic Jihad plan to honor the truce, at least for the time being, although some Palestinian militants – I don’t mind calling many of them terrorists, but understand that I believe the State as an institution is the most notable terrorist organization of our time – say they want to talk with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, before they reach a formal cease-fire agreement.. And even an imperfect truce, from the perspective of somebody who is not intimately involved but hates to see people killed in political struggles, is better than a fairly constant low-level insurgency-cum-military-campaign.
Lofty Hopes
But the early news following the "summit" at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheik hardly validated the lofty rhetoric various leaders there used. During that meeting, which included Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and Jordanian King Abdullah II, Mr. Abbas (who also has gone by the nom de guerre of Abu Mazen) waxed almost utopian. "The calm which will prevail in our lands starting from today is the beginning of a new era," he said. He promised "to protect this emerging opportunity for peace."
Mr. Sharon was hardly less effusive, speaking of an opportunity "to disengage from the path of blood and start on a new path." Hosni Mubarak nearly trumped both of them, declaring, "The Palestinian and Israeli peoples equally deserve a life they dream of – a stable and secure life that the coming generations enjoy in permanent peace, a peace based on the power of right, justice, and international legitimacy backed by the ties of good neighborliness."
Well, such high hopes are the stuff of summits. And there is just a chance that the passing of Yasser Arafat, combined with war-weariness on both sides – along with the fact that George W. Bush is beginning a second term and, along with Condoleezza Rice, seeking a legacy – will lead to the beginning of something resembling a peaceful settlement between Israelis and Palestinians. But even before the news of the first fatalities, I had decided not to call a travel agent to book a trip to view how two states were living peacefully and amicably side by side, and write about how they had managed the transition.
If I had five bucks for every time, over the past 25 years or so, that I have interviewed or written about some development in the Palestinian-Israeli that seemed to augur a renewed chance for eventual peace, I probably could have retired by now. But I’m far from making retirement plans.
Unresolved Issues
Behind the happy faces at Sharm el-Sheik lies the unfortunate reality that few if any of the underlying issues that keep the dispute simmering no matter what the current level of overt violence may be are even close to resolution.
I called Leon Hadar, former UN correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, research fellow at the Cato Institute, and author of Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East, due out in June from Palgrave-Macmillian. He told me that "the core issues – right of return for Palestinian refugees, Israeli West Bank settlers and settlements, the eventual status of Jerusalem – remain as far from resolution as ever."
He didn’t mention the gigantic wall the Israelis are building, some of it on land that is internationally recognized as Palestinian, but that’s a continuing sore point also. All in all, Mr. Hadar said the situation on the ground is less favorable than just before the 1999 Camp David meeting that ended in such disappointment. That hardly seems like a propitious atmosphere for eventual peace.
I can retain some hope, despite the opinion of some that the conflict has been relatively low in intensity and that plenty of people on both sides still have a greater interest in conflict than in an end to conflict, that enough Israelis and Palestinians alike are sick enough of the violence to let their leaders know in a reasonably effective way that they’ve had enough. But it will take overwhelming sentiment from below – maybe even enough to threaten the continuance in office of a leader – to lead to more substantial progress toward peace.
Throwing Gasoline
In addition to unresolved issues, of course, there’s the fact that people on both sides are capable of throwing gasoline on sparks. The Israeli defense forces are fairly disciplined, but that doesn’t rule out the possibility of a trigger-happy soldier setting off an incident. And when the time comes to pull Israeli settlers, some of whom won’t want to leave, from settlements in Gaza, the Israeli troops could be put to some difficult tests, which could create tensions that could lead to flare-ups.
Nobody seems to know for sure just how much, if any, actual control Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority have over groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, let alone Hezbollah, which is purportedly controlled ultimately by Iran, through Syria. Even if the leaders of such groups agree to a cease-fire with all sincerity, however, that doesn’t rule out individual members – or Palestinians who aren’t formally affiliated with any group but simply want to make an individual statement or wreck a peace process that is starting to look promising – from committing acts of violence.
One thing that struck me in the statements coming from Sharm el-Sheik, and the maneuvering leading up to it, was that instead of trumpeting what they planned to do for peace, both sides led with what they expected from the other side. Thus an Israeli spokesman said he expects Mahmoud Abbas to rein in Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other groups quickly and effectively. Mr. Abbas said he expects the Israelis to end military actions immediately, freeze new West Bank settlements, and make plans to pull back from some of them, and be prepared for high-level meetings soon.
The Israelis and Palestinians have been at this low-level form of conflict with occasional diplomacy for so long that they know the other side’s sensitivities perhaps better than they know their own. They know how to push one another’s buttons if they so desire. They know how to craft rhetoric that makes it seem as if a demand that they know is an absolute deal-breaker for the other side is nothing but the essence of sweet reasonableness. They know how to make a demand that might seem innocuous to an outsider but will elicit a knee-jerk negative response from the adversary.
So far, although there’s some evidence that for various reasons – wanting to please the Bush administration, with which they will have to deal for another four years; perhaps, more cynically, a desire for a lull during which regrouping, rearming, and retraining can occur; a legitimate response to war-weariness among the general population; a desire to get Arab governments into the game – both sides have some interest in at least a moratorium on violence, both sides are operating very much as they have in the past.
Sound accommodating and reasonable while pushing buttons. Demand that the other side show good faith through actions first. Reserve a large area of discretion in which resuming violence can be spun to seem like the only option available. You can see all these stratagems and more at work on both sides.
Disengaging for Peace
The conventional wisdom is that, given all this, only patient and continuing diplomacy, backed by the unspoken willingness to revert to force, by the United States, can cut through the hostilities and jump-start a possible peace process. Leon Hadar long ago convinced me – even apart from the fact that in most of the Arab world the United States is seen as an unconditional supporter of Israel and thus hardly an "honest broker" – that this is hardly the case.
The best bet for the United States, Leon said years ago, is to remember that the Cold War is over, which means that in terms of core American interests, the Israeli-Palestinian dispute – despite the emotional involvement many Americans have with both sides – is a regional dispute similar to dozens of regional disputes in other parts of the world. It is ineffably sad that such disputes occur, and any decent person wishes they would end. But their resolution one way or another – or continuance – does not affect the core interests of the United States.
In the present context, Mr. Hadar believes the United States would do well to step away from the situation and invite the Arab states and the European Union to take the lead in finding a settlement. Yes, call their bluff. If they succeed in finding a peaceful resolution, or even steps toward one, we can all cheer. If they fail, which is more likely, we can affirm that good people tried their best and did so without being stooges of the American Empire, but they just couldn’t get it done.
I talked to James Coyle, an old State Department hand with long experience in the Middle East who now heads Chapman University’s Global Education Program. He put it succinctly: "The only people who are going to make peace in the Middle East ore the inhabitants of the Middle East." That may be a tough pill for all the ambitious (and sometimes sincere) world-changers in the U.S. foreign policy establishment and the "world community." But it’s the beginning of wisdom.
