From arens@ISI.EDU Sun Oct 2 02:26:30 1994
Received: from quark.isi.edu (quark.isi.edu [128.9.208.208]) by point.cs.uwm.edu (8.6.9/8.6.4) with SMTP id CAA06012 for <bashar@point.cs.uwm.edu>; Sun, 2 Oct 1994 02:26:28 -0500
Received: by quark.isi.edu (5.65c/5.61+local-16)
id <AA03789>; Sun, 2 Oct 1994 00:26:13 -0700
Date: Sun, 2 Oct 1994 00:26:13 -0700
From: arens@ISI.EDU (Yigal Arens)
Message-Id: <199410020726.AA03789@quark.isi.edu>
To: bashar@point.cs.uwm.edu
Subject: 115-Expulsion_and_OT_12_92
Status: O
Report No. 115 Israel Shahak, 23 December 1992
The Occupied Territories at the Beginning of the Sixth Year of the
Intifada and the Meaning of the Expulsion of the 415 Palestinians
Through the 5 years since the Intifada began in December 1987, the
situation in the Occupied Territories has changed in many respects.
In one respect, though, things seem to stay as they did in December
1987. The conduct of the Israeli government is as disgraceful now as
then. The chief culprit is Yitzhak Rabin, responsible for the
Territories then and now, even if then he was not yet a Prime
Minister as well. As the well-informed Na'omi Levitzki reports
(Yediot Ahronot, December 16, 1992), the weekly meeting of the
Israeli government held on Sunday, December 13, was planned to
celebrate the supposed triumphs of Rabin's policy in the
Territories, and give a signal to the media to exult in those
triumphs. "Scheduled for the meeting was a general discussion of
terror, following the submission of evidence of the government's
successes in confining it to the Territories, and in freeing Israel
itself from the fear of it. Stabbings in Bat Yam or in the streets
of Jaffa have occurred no more, even though Shamir was no longer in
power. Rabin said he considered it his great accomplishment. But he
scarcely managed to finish that sentence, when somebody entered and
handed him a note about the kidnapping of Nissim Toledano".
Rabin's boastfulness was in fact quite imprudent, as it came only
a week after the killing of 3 soldiers in the Gaza Strip which
brought to the surface the grumbling of the soldiers about the
Strip's "Lebanonization". (The term has an ominous meaning in
Israel.) It seems that the kidnapping convinced Rabin that his
attempts to vaunt his security-enhancing achievements, in which he
takes so much pride, cannot be "sold" to the Israeli public. He
probably has also realized that his various symbolic "gestures"
intended to conceal his actual policies in the Territories (which
remain no different from Likud policies) only offend the Israeli
Jewish public to the point of precipitating his downfall. This is
why the turn-about in Israeli policy can be attributed both to the
situation in the Territories and to its repercussions on the Israeli
domestic scene. This report will first deal with the immediate
causes of this turn-about and the unprecedented decision to expel
415 alleged Hamas militants and attempt to explore the deeper
background of this decision, in terms of the military situation and
its repercussions on Israeli domestic politics.
While describing the mentioned government meeting, Levitzki notes
that "although the poker face of Rabin never shows his feelings,
those who know him well could notice he was in distress". His
distress can be presumed to be caused by his sense of failure. Rabin
is callous and unfeeling to the Jews, let alone toward the non-Jews.
He must have been concerned about the evident collapse of his
policies, rather than about the kidnapping as such or the suffering
of its victims. Crucial must have been for him that it occurred in
Lydda, deep enough inside Israel to make the comparison with Bat Yam
inescapable. In actuality, deadly terrorist assaults did occur
within the last 5 months also within Israel, but in uninhabited
areas. As such they didn't have the same shocking effect on a
urbanized Jewish population as the assaults in the midst of cities.
Toledano, a Borderguard Regimental Sergeant Major, was kidnapped
right from a city, after information about him had been gathered by
Hamas most carefully. From the Israeli point of view, this is much
worse than stabbing a haphazardly chosen girl in Bat Yam, which
nevertheless, as pointed out in reports 102 and 105, sufficed to
contribute decisively to Rabin's subsequent narrow electoral
victory. Report 102 argued that although Labor exploited that
stabbing to its electoral advantage, anti-Arab riots which followed
the stabbing could have been seen as a shift to the right in the
Israeli Jewish electorate's mood. Report 105, by quoting profusely
Rabin's own electoral expert adviser, concluded that Rabin owed his
victory to his success in manufacturing for himself an image of a
"true-blue successor of Begin". The same report also predicted that
Rabin's policies would be shaped in accordance with this image. Yet
the conventional wisdom was claiming the reverse of what these
reports said. Many, the Palestinians included, would be deeply
impressed by the delusory "gestures" of Rabin, oblivious of the fact
that nothing thereby changed in the real situation in the
Territories. The assumptions of both reports about Rabin's policies
and the nature of the electorate which assured his return to office
have been amply corroborated by recent developments. In the end,
Rabin's boasts about his successes in containing terror lost all
credibility after an event regarded by Israeli public as far worse
than the Bat Yam stabbing.
But an even greater fiasco was to come. Although Levitzki doesn't
report for how long did Rabin speak about his "successes" in
containing terror, she does say that another government meeting was
convened by him the same evening, this time for discussing the
recent events rather than Rabin's delusions of grandeur. Although
the Chief of the Police and the Chief of Staff delivered their
reports at that meeting, "the person the ministers really wanted to
hear was the Chief of Shabak. All eyes turned to him. The Chief of
Shabak was of course asked to report, but all he said, in quite
apologetic tone, was more or less this: `Ladies and gentlemen, so
far we have learned nothing. We still know nothing about the
kidnappers. It is as if they vanished from the earth's surface. We
don't even have information which would point to a beginning of our
search". (Report 111 dealt with Shabak's ineptitude.) Given the
still rampant cult of Intelligence, Israeli Jews expect Shabak to
know everything. In fact, the truthfulness of the Shabak's chief's
candid acknowledgement of ignorance was confirmed by subsequent
developments, e.g. by the fact that Toledano's corpse was found by
sheer chance. For a government priding itself in its superiority
over its predecessor in handling the security, the implications
could only be catastophic: especially after Toledano's funeral, at
which the crowds furiously scolded the government for its already
too evident impotence.
But ineptitude of the intelligence was aggravated by ineptitude of
the army. In vain the army has tried to conceal it by lying and
witholding information. Widespread corruption in the army ranks
which could no longer be concealed from public eyes has had its
impact upon the masses of Israeli Jews who serve in the reserves.
The most extensive description of these realities, assessed from the
military point of view, can be found in two articles, authored
respectively by the military and intelligence correspondents of
Hadashot, Alex Fishman ("We should have left Gaza [Strip] long ago",
December 8) and Aharon Klein ("`I think next time I am going to
refuse to serve here'", December 11). Fishman accused the Chief of
Staff, Ehud Barak, of misleading the public by reporting "that
`about 20 instances of firing' [by Palestinians] on Israeli forces
have occurred during the past month in the Gaza Strip". Fishman
retorted: "Let me tell you Mr. Chief of Staff, that in a single
district within the Gaza Strip alone, 25 attacks on our forces have
occurred last month, involving either Molotov cocktails, or grenade
throwing or firing". And while providing further gruesome details
about such incidents, Fishman also gainsaid some rather obviously
fabricated stories, which the Israeli army and Shabak had leaked to
the press about the perpetrators, all the while admitting their
ignorance of the latter's identities. According to one such story,
"the killing was something extraordinary, an effect of exceptionally
long training and targeted intelligence collection by a special
Hamas commando unit". Fishman retorted that "such talk is sheer
nonsense. The killing was done by an armed unit seated in a Peugeot
car with local license plates. Such units do have plenty of weapons,
from hardly anywhere else than the Israeli army's stores. The killed
soldiers were randomly chosen as their target. A lonely jeep
happened to be spotted at dawntime and attacked with sustained long
bursts of automatic fire". Fishman also pokes fun at the army's
responses: "The army's instinctive reaction was to order that no
military vehicle was to drive alone, even at nighttime and on
highways. This is like trying to cure a serious illness with
aspirin. The army resorts to such remedies frequently, for example
in its new precautionary regulations to forestall training
accidents. Sealing off the entire Gaza Strip was another case of the
same, and so was the announcement that a total curfew was under
consideration. Had the matters been not as sad as they are, we could
only laugh at such remedies. Only a day before the 3 were killed,
the army announced that it was considering the cancellation of
all-night curfew in the [Gaza] Strip [imposed at the beginning of
the Intifada and never lifted since]. Instead, this morning the
soldiers went on errands to notify the inhabitants that they were
prohibited to go to work. The result is predictable. Resentment of
the population is going to grow and find outlets, the army will
oppress the inhabitants even more harshly in retaliation, and so on
in a vicious circle. Clearly, no seal-off can prevent the bands of
the wanted from continuing to attack the army, just as no previous
seal-offs have produced any such effects".
Aharon Klein says even more. He quotes "soldiers from a reserve
battalion doing their stint in Khan Yunis who no longer are ashamed
to admit how scared they are". They compare their service with their
service in Lebanon. One of them, Eitan, says: "While serving here,
all I want is to survive... I am afraid. I don't think any soldier
serving here could not be afraid... I feel that the service here is
even worse than it was in Lebanon, because in Lebanon, when Israeli
army cars were driving, no civilians were allowed to drive the same
road. But here you cannot paralyze the life of an entire population
by forbidding them to move".
Very minor restraints still imposed on Israeli soldiers in the
Gaza Strip generate a lot of resentment. The same soldiers who want
Israel to get out from the Gaza Strip as soon as possible, are also
in favor of subjecting the civilian population to restrictions even
harsher than those now in force. They resent the army orders
forbidding entry to some locations in the Gaza Strip in order to
avoid unnecessary clashes with either the civilians or the
guerillas. They favor much tougher military reprisals, not only
against the guerillas but also against the civilians. Fishman also
notes the resentment of "army officers who keep complaining that the
soldiers need an express permission of the battalion's commander to
open fire, even with plastic bullets, in response to a barrage of
stones in densely inhabited areas they happen to be patrolling".
Amnon Abramovitz ("To leave Gaza [Strip] right on!", Maariv,
December 8) pokes fun at such views by arguing that "continuous
presence of the army in the towns of the Gaza Strip, especially in
their narrow alleys, is making it easy for the guerillas, while
placing enormous burdens on the soldiers. Every innocuously looking
Peugeot car can suddenly spit out fire. A patrolling army jeep
cannot prevent it by opening fire on each and every innocuously
looking Peugeot car". Yet this is what many soldiers want, the way
they learned to in Lebanon, before they would leave the Gaza Strip.
The fact that the guerillas get their weapons "from the Israeli
army's stores", has been confirmed by Avirama Golan ("They get their
weapons with ease", Haaretz, December 9). She records the
impressions of a reserve officer named Gideon N. (exact identity
known to the editors) who "at the beginning of November received a
call-up order to do his reserve duty in the Civil Administration
Headquarters in Gaza". He is reported as saying that "the premises
looked unkempt, and the morale of soldiers was low. Hordes of Gaza
Arabs, employed there in cleaning jobs, were lingering idly about.
Some soldiers who served in those Headquarters for a longer time
told us that at some time even raising the flag each morning had
been assigned to Arab employees, simply because the soldiers were
too lazy to appear on parade. Some Arabs employed in guarding the
stored heavy mechanical equipment at nighttime would sleep on the
premises. They have access to weapons and can know everything about
when the sentries are being replaced. Other Arabs sleep in a
building separated from the Headquarters' weaponry storeroom only by
a wall of bricks". One can only comment that in bases of the Israeli
army's administration, the purpose of guarding such equipment is to
prevent its thefts by the soldiers, which are quite common. But in
the Gaza Civil Administration Headquarters not only the common
soldiers are suspected of dishonesty. Gideon N. says that "in the
unit I served, the commander and his deputy were shortly before
dismissed, after numerous instances of serious corruption were
discovered in the Civil Administration. It seems that the dismissals
and the still continuing investigation of bribetaking was affecting
adversely the soldiers serving in those Headquarters". Michal Sela
(Davar, December 11) tells the story of this investigation at a
greater length. She informs that "the corruption was discovered by
the Israeli Income Tax authorities which noticed that some
officials, after serving for few years in the Gaza Strip in either
of the two Administrations, had built palatial houses for themselves
in Israel. Thereupon the Coordinator of the Activities, general
Rotschild, [who controls both Administrations] rushed to Gaza,
assembled all the officials and reassured them that, regardless of
how the Income Tax investigation might end up, he was `for prestige
reasons' resolved `to resist to death' the prospect of putting the
corrupt officials on trial for bribery or similar offenses". Sela
and others have been able to disclose the whole tariff of bribes
respectively demanded for a permit to build a house, or for a
driving license, or for clearance to leave the Gaza Strip or to move
undisturbed within its area. No wonder, therefore, that the
militants from any guerilla organization can move freely wherever
they like. No wonder also that Gideon "heard from senior officers
with serving experience there, that in their seasoned judgement none
of these roadblocks, whether inside the Strip or separating the
Strip from Israel, were of any use to the army... All of them just
bred hatreds". Since, as explained in report 111, such permits or
licenses usually need to be approved by a local Shabak agent, one
can only assume that Shabak men receive their no mean share from
corruption rampant in all Israeli conquered Territories, but
especially in the Gaza Strip.
The soldiers serving in the Strip are the first to know such
facts. But their opinions are even more decisively influenced by the
spectacles of military ineptitude which at the beginning of December
became particularly flagrant. By now, these opinions are apparently
shared by an overwhelming majority of reserve soldiers serving
there. As Gideon describes them, "all reserve officers serving with
me in that unit, regardless of their political opinions, returned
home with a feeling that Israel should dump away the keys to the
Strip and forget it forever". While interviewing the younger cohort
of reserve soldiers, Klein could find no more than one single
soldier in the entire battalion who would insist that Israel stay in
the Gaza Strip "because it is a part of the Land of Israel which
belongs to the Jews". Fishman, normally far from being a dove,
recalls that "two last Defense ministers made statements pointing to
the way out. One day before resigning, Arens from Likud said that
Israel should leave the Gaza Strip at once. And a few months ago
Rabin from Labor said that, as far as he was concerned, the entire
Gaza Strip could drown in the sea. Where is their conscience, then,
when they keep sending the soldiers to a territory they want to
relinquish? The quoted statements reflect the truth that the State
of Israel has no national interest in occupying the Gaza Strip any
longer. It is a pity, therefore, that manpower and resources keep
being allocated, and the soldiers' lives risked for nothing of any
use or purpose. In view of the absence of national interest in our
presence in Gaza, we should have left it long ago. This conclusion
is dictated not by defeatism, but by sense of responsibility".
Abramovitz, also quite hawkish, opines that "the continuing futile
method of policing the cities of the [Occupied] Territories have
taught the Israeli media community to adopt a bunker-like
mentality". A case in point was that "in all the interviews and
official commentaries after the deadly armed clash in which soldiers
were killed in Gaza, there was one question repeated with automatic
regularity: Why was the jeep neither accompanied nor guarded by
other [military] units?" He argues that in case this suggestion were
logically followed up, "no one will be left in the broadcasting
studio to ask questions, because we will all be called up to do our
reserve duty in the Gaza Strip". He concludes by reminding that
"before the last Knesset elections the Labor party promised to
separate the Gaza Strip from Tel Aviv. Woe to it and woe to all of
us, if it now fails to separate the Gaza Strip from Tel Aviv and the
army from the Gaza Strip".
Among prestigious commentators who have spoken up in support of
the unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, let me yet
mention the veteran Israeli journalist Dan Margalit, who after being
dismissed from the editorship of Maariv, recently resumed writing
for Haaretz. In that paper's December 11 issue ("Let them govern
themselves") he drafted a detailed plan of how the Israeli
unilateral withdrawal could proceed. In essence, the plan envisaged
that Israel would announce its decision to withdraw from the Strip
in 18 months' time, and erect an electrified barbed-wire fence
circling the area. Once its construction is completed, the Gazans
would be denied entry to Israel, except in convoys under guard in
transit to Jordan. In Margalit's opinion, their freedom to travel by
land to Egypt and Jordan, and by sea anywhere else will then enable
them to find employment opportunities. Responsibility for their
welfare will then rest on the shoulders of the Arab states and the
international Community. In any case, believes Margalit, "the
prolongation of the status quo, pending a resolution of negotiations
with the Palestinians and the Syrians, is more dangerous than any
risks a unilateral withdrawal might entail. Increasing numbers of
Israeli politicians realize it already, but are willing to say it in
the open only after leaving the government, as Dayan and Arens have
done. As soon as they join the government, they follow in the
footsteps of the Foreign minister, Shimon Peres, who this week took
the stand against unilateral withdrawal from Gaza [Strip]", even
though a few months ago he had spoken in its favor.
But the present government, its Meretz members included, firmly
opposes Israeli withdrawal from anywhere. Moreover, that government
is unanimous in advocating tougher Israeli reprisals in the
Territories, in particular mass-expulsions, on the sole condition
that those reprisals are presented as "advancing the peace process".
Avraham Tamir, an erstwhile top rank adviser of Sharon during the
invasion of Lebanon, and currently a member of Ratz, (i.e. the
strongest party within the Meretz bloc) recently received from his
close friend MK Yossi Sarid an affectionate appellation of "Meretz's
Mr. Security". In the capacity of the thus certified security expert
of a supposedly dovish party, Tamir wrote (Yediot Ahronot, December
14) that "until a stable peace is concluded, Israel should continue
to rule all the Territories", and that "no Israeli settlements in
the Gaza Strip should ever be abandoned". According to Tamir, this
is an imperative dictated "by the experience of 1956". Had Israel
continued "to occupy all the Gaza Strip and most of Sinai" after
that year's war, the Six Day War would have been averted. In Tamir's
notion, his "stable peace" would have to consist of the Arab states
forsaking not only terror, but also "all conceivable armament
pursuits", and recognizing the State of Israel not only as a
sovereign state, but also "as a Jewish state"; in addition to
"recognizing Israel's right to permanently station its troops on
borders of the security areas conquered during the Six Day War".
Apparently Tamir's switch from friendship with Sharon to friendship
with Sarid hardly affected his views. Israeli withdrawal from
Lebanon was, prior to June 1985, opposed with the same arguments
that Tamir voices now, and the anti-withdrawal arguments voiced
before October 1973 were no different either. At the same time
however, Tamir also urges the government to negotiate openly with
the PLO, which in his view can alone be expected to consent to
autonomy on Israel's terms. This subject will yet be discussed
below.
Nahum Barnea ("A Somalia in the Gaza Strip", Yediot Ahronot,
December 7) points out that "piles of classified documents are at
the ministers' disposal. All they need is to ask [an official] to
take a look at a given document. Nonetheless not a single Meretz
minister requested access to the complete minutes of the
[Washington] talks. Meretz, for which peace negotiations are
supposed to be a matter of life and death, is not overly interested
in what is being said behind the closed Washingtonian doors. The
party contents itself with short summary reports, drafted by Rabin
and his officials for delivery at government meetings. I was
astonished hearing this, until a Meretz minister uneasily admitted
this fact to me". Barnea concludes that "for all intents and
purposes, Meretz has turned its back on the Territories". I refrain
from reporting here the articles supportive of Rabin's policies, in
particular those which advocate holding the Gaza Strip and
strenghening the settlements there. Such articles have been quite
numerous, usually authored by various Labor party pundits, most
prominent among them general (reserves) Orri Orr, the chairman of
Knesset Committee of Foreign and Defense Affairs.
Still, opponents of withdrawal have had problems in arguing their
case. In military terms, holding on to the Gaza Strip has become
exorbitantly costly, much more so than to the West Bank. For the
Israeli Jewish public such considerations tend to be decisive.
Barnea tells how "a commander in charge of the Gaza Strip said this
week that in order to dominate the Strip, the Israeli army would
have to reconquer it house by house. But", adds Barnea, "there is
another option. Israel can offer the Palestinians an autonomy in the
Gaza Strip, effective at once. Either option is loaded with
consequences difficult to anticipate. But nothing can be worse than
a Somali-like anarchy which is increasingly the case there". He
rightly traces the development of the present quandary there to "a
decision by the Israeli army. Anxious to minimize the incidence of
clashes, it virtually retreated from large chunks of the
Territories. Conditions in the Gaza Strip show it best. Its major
part is controlled by armed Palestinians". As noted by Fishman
(Hadashot, December 18), the decision referred to was taken by Arens
in July 1991. (I discussed its consequences in report 20.)
The difficulties of reconquering the Gaza Strip were lucidly
described by Shlomo Gazit ("This is a transition to war - nothing
less than a war", Yediot Ahronot, December 15). He deplores that in
Hamas' operations, "the targets more and more frequently are
military or security-related", rather than "innocent Israeli
civilians but soldiers or policemen. We can no longer denounce their
struggle as immoral or unjust". Referring to the kidnapping of
Nissim Toledano and keeping him as a hostage before killing him,
Gazit wonders why "they have reached this point only after 25 years
of Israeli rule... They could have learned from the example of the
resistance of Jewish undergrounds against the British. In the summer
of 1947, when this resistance was at its peak, three IRGUN [Etzel]
fighters were hanged. The next morning two British sergeants, who
had been caught and held by IRGUN as hostages, were hanged likewise.
This retaliation by IRGUN put end to executions of Jewish
underground fighters".
Noticing the advances in the Palestinian military performance,
Gazit, while arguing against any deal with Hamas, concludes that "if
we really want to radically change the existing situation, we have
two options. Both are utterly taxing and near-impossible for us to
embark upon.
* The first option is to rely on collective and location-related
punishments on a scale well-calculated to effectively deter the
Palestinian organizations. The experience of some other conqueror
regimes from not too remote past prove that this is possible. After
the Japanese conquered the Far East, there was no "Intifada", no
demonstrations, no stones thrown and hardly any acts of terror.
Still, reliance on similar methods didn't succeed to exterminate the
[anti-Nazi] partisans in large areas of Russia and Yugoslavia. Yet
it can be reasonably supposed that reliance on this kind of
oppression could bring Palestinian violent resistance to a halt.
* The second option is political. Palestinian terror can be halted
if Israel concludes with the Palestinians an agreement which would
amount to a political solution. If so, the sooner it is done the
better, because otherwise a Palestinian leadership we can talk to
may no longer exist".
"A solution which the Palestinian leadership will be able to
present as its accomplishment will entail the delegitimization of
the ideological authority of the leadership which at present directs
the struggle against Israel. This is because the burden of
exterminating the terror bands will then rest on whatever
Palestinian power elite comes to the fore. This elite cannot shirk
its responsibility for using for that purpose to exactly those
methods we are now finding it difficult to use". It should be noted
that both options of Gazit involve unspeakable atrocities which
Israel would either commit itself or dictate to others. The
difference between them lies in the identity of the perpetrators.
Gazit, a former Commander of the Military Intelligence, tends to
belong to what in Israeli notions is considered the
left-of-the-center. He supports an autonomy plan far more generous
than that which Rabin's government currently offers to the
Palestinians. He also foresaw Rabin's concessions to religious
settlers and warned against making them. If this is what he intends
to do, one can imagine what the hawkish ultras around Rabin intend
to do!
The ruthless expulsion of 415 Palestinians followed up by high
Palestinian casualties, also among children, some of them victims of
deliberate shooting, can therefore be regarded as modelled after the
Japanese (or the Nazi) methods of conquest. The crucial aim of this
wave of reprisals is not to suppress Hamas which, as many Israeli
commentators observed, can only gain from them, but to derail the
"peace process". The idea is to destroy Palestinian organizations
unlikely to agree to "autonomy" on Israeli terms, or else to
initimidate them into accepting those terms. In either case it would
mean using brute force for the sake of undermining whatever popular
support they may still enjoy. After all, the Japanese repression in
China, which effectively prevented a Chinese "Intifada", at least in
the cities, also undermined the prestige of the China's pro-Japenese
puppet regime. Likewise, as soon as the Nazis unleashed their
reprisals against the Norwegians, the pro-Nazi Quisling regime found
itself in complete isolation from Norwegian society.
The Israeli conquest regime, whether in Rabin's or Sharon's style,
has always been interested in nothing apart from creating
Palestinian or Lebanese Quislings. Whether the scheme was that of
the "Village Leagues" or of "autonomy", the purpose has been the
same, however the methods might have differed. The specificity of
Sharon (and of Likud in general) was to pay its collaborators as
little as possible, especially in the domain of public honors or
outward symbols of authority. This strategy derived from Likud's
belief in a potency of symbols for boosting the morale. This is why
Likud is so inflexible about prohibiting displays of any non-Jewish
emblems or ensigns in the Land of Israel. On Likud's priority scale,
this issue ranks no lower than any material considerations. As a
consequence of this attitude, Likud had to recruit its collaborators
from the dregs of the Palestinian society, since Palestinian elites
invariably insist on bestowal of honors for themselves and on
visible symbols of that honor.
Labor, however, is much more pragmatic than Likud, and alert to
the need to solicit foreign aid with the help of delusory
appearances and even downright theatrical gestures. This is why
Labor has always been prepared to seek out more respectable
Palestinians to deal with, and to pay them back in outward honors,
on strict condition that they collaborate with the Israeli
authorities. As for the Palestinian masses, they are anyway now
shown in no uncertain terms, who their master is.
Israel makes the granting of autonomy for the Palestinians
conditional on remaining the exclusive "source of sovereignty", to
be exercised by the military governors (not residing, however, in
the centres of the cities), in the same way as it has been done
since 1967. Israeli proposals mention only the transfer of authority
from the Civil Administration to the autonomous authority, without a
single word about the analogous transfer of authority from the
Military Administration. The concept of "the source of sovereignty"
implies that Israel retains its powers to legislate as it pleases
without any constraints. Precisely such powers were used for the
sake of expelling the 415 Palestinians. Their use in this particular
case was not a matter of chance. Expulsion procedures prior to
December 1992 became cumbersome because of the right of appeal to
the Supreme Court, and that precluded the possibility of instant
execution of expulsion orders. To avoid any thus incurred delays,
the Israeli government instructed its military governors to
legislate a new offense, as liable to instantaneous punishment. By
insisting on the "source of sovereignty" formula, Israel wants to
keep for itself the same powers also over the area to be granted
autonomy. The case of the 415 was apparently intended to underscore
that demand. It means that the membership of the "autonomous
administrative council" is going to be liable to expulsions under
the legal formula used in the case of the 415, or any other legal
formula to be yet made into a law of the land by the military
governors. The same may apply to the "transfer" of all the
Palestinians from the Territories. Right now, Israel seeks out
Palestinians willing to content themselves with vacuous honors, such
as the right to invite visiting Foreign ministers to "Orient House",
while "the minister's country's little flag on his car is fluttering
in the air". Moreover, Palestinian unarmed guards are authorized to
perform searches on other Palestinians. Also, the mailbags of the
Palestinian delegation to the negotiations have diplomatic status
and cannot be inspected. All such honors are bestowed generously, in
expectation of reciprocal recognition of "the source of sovereignty"
formula.
However, as Danny Rubinstein astutely observes ("The days of fire
and fury", Haaretz, December 20), none of these honors and
concessions have been bestowed in form of guaranteed rights. It is
because granting the Palestinians any rights would be irreconcilable
with the principle of the "source of sovereignty" as resting in
Israeli hands. According to Rubinstein, "some PLO militants and some
members of the Palestinian delegation who still live in the
Territories" have not been overawed by receptions in their honor in
Washington or in Tunis, and they realize the stakes. "They
acknowledge that Rabin's government adopted in recent months certain
measures benefitting the inhabitants of the Territories, but they
deplore the fact that those measures did nothing to enhance the
status of the PLO and of the Palestinian delegation", because all
them "stemmed from a deliberate oversight" rather than from a formal
right. "For example, the members of the Palestinian delegation can
now freely and openly maintain contacts with the PLO leadership in
Tunis while Israel turns its eyes away. Had the Israeli team of
negotiators announced to the chairman of the Palestinian delegation,
Dr. Haidar A-Shafi, that from now on he and his colleagues can visit
Tunis and consult Arafat as they please, he could cite it as an
accomplishment of the Palestinian delegation and of the peace talks.
But this is what Israel refused to do". Rubinstein lists some
Israeli concessions, among them the relaxation of censorship of the
Arab press of East Jerusalem, the permission to hold political
meetings in the open, and the cessation of house demolitions. But
since all this was done in the form of a dictator's good will
gestures, nothing stands in a way of withholding such favors at any
moment in the future, as long as "the source of sovereignty" remains
in Israeli hands. And indeed, the demolition of houses was resumed
already at the beginning of December.
Concessions proposed by Meretz in a letter to Rabin (Haaretz and
other Hebrew papers, December 23) are also envisaged as favors.
Meretz is very careful not to acknowledge that Palestinians may have
some human rights, even individual, let alone national. All its
proposals imply that all the power continues to be safely ensconced
in the hands of the military governors, which actually means in the
hands of Shabak. For example Meretz requested Rabin to let return to
the Territories those deportees "who were expelled many years ago,
and who already are too old or sick to pose any threat". The
disgusting implication is that a young deportee would according to
Meretz have to wait in exile before he would qualify to beg Rabin to
let him be readmitted. But even apart from this implication, the
Meretz proposal clearly assumes that it would be up to Israel
(really Shabak) to determine not only who may "pose any threat", but
also who is "old or sick" enough to qualify for readmission on
Meretz's terms. With all that, Meretz letter containing these
proposals was a sheer exercise in futility. Rabin is not about to
accept even such token and contemptible suggestions, because he can
take it for granted that Meretz leaders will stay loyal to him,
regardles of what he may yet do. In all probability, the letter was
a mere Public Relations ploy.
I don't intend to describe how the expulsion proceeded, which is
relatively well known. Let me, however, point out some of its more
notable circumstances, in the first place the manner in which the
415 were selected. The selection was completely haphazard and
arbitrary, apparently made solely on the basis of "information" to
be found in Shabak's computers, which relies either on wild guesses,
or on denunciations by informers driven by spite or by wish to
swindle that utterly incompetent agency (see report 111). For
example, the Hebrew press reported that among the 415 was the entire
academic staff of the Islamic University of Gaza, as a result of
which the university had to shut down. Some expellees were fetched
from hospital beds, while others suffer from chronic illnesses.
Neither category was provided with medical treatment en route to
Lebanon, and all private medication possession was disallowed. One
expellee, badly suffering from diabetes, and from the thirst that
this illness induces, implored to be given some water to drink, when
no deportees were being provided with anything to drink or eat. As
evidence of "humane deportation procedures" an official communique
reported that "after a consultation on a high level, he was allowed
to be given some water".
Yoram Binur (Hadashot, December 21) shed an additional light on
the manner of selecting the deportees. He reports that an Armenian
resident of West Bank who happened to wear a long beard, was
arrested and almost deported: except that in the end he somehow
managed to convince the Shabak that he was Christian and not Muslim.
The case testifies to the degree of Shabak's competence. Binur
reported other interesting cases as well. In some cases it was the
Civil Administration, which was convinced that Shabak had made some
mistaken identity gaffs. Consequently, "it begged the Shabak for
mercy for people" who to its knowledge had nothing to do with Hamas.
(They may have worn beards, however.) Apparently a few mistaken
identity cases were subsequently rectified. One such case in point,
involving "a major Nablus merchant, Subhi Antabtawati" is described
by Binur in detail. "When the Civil Administration officials noticed
his name on the list of the expellees, they were just shocked,
realizing that his expulsion would have entailed the closure of
businesses providing lots of employment", with the result that his
former employees might join the demonstrators. "In the end, late in
the night, a Civil Administration jeep was dispatched full speed,
and it caught Antabtawati moments before his expulsion. Since no
expellees were formally charged with anything, he could be freed
next morning". I suspect that almost all expellees, although
described as "inciters to murder", really fell victim of racism and
incompetence of Shabak, and of obscene political manoeuvres of Rabin
and Meretz.
The expellees were assembled within the couple of hours. The
initial plan was to transport them by helicopters. Particularly
tight military censorship was to ensure that the expellees would
already be by the dawn beyond Israeli borders, and thus preempt
their appeals to the Supreme Court. (Since the jurisdiction of the
Supreme Court is territorial, it can hear no appeals submitted from
outside Israel.) There were hints in the press that other aircraft
was also to be used in the operation. If so, it would mean that
Israel initially planned to conquer a chunk of Lebanon, in order to
dump the expellees there and withdraw. (Without an aerial
protection, the troops performing this task would risk being engaged
with the Hizbollah.) Due to a raging storm, however, no aircraft
could be put to use. So the expellees, already assembled in one
place, apparently in the concentration camp of Ketzi'ot, were
instead tied hand anf foot and blindfolded, and thus loaded on to a
convoy of buses, which moved northward under the escort of a whole
legion of police vans. Unlike the helicopters, such a convoy
couldn't but be highly visible. With or without the possible leaks
by lower ranking army servicemen, the secrecy could not be possibly
maintained. The whole operation had to be stayed for 14 hours as a
result of desperate appeals to Supreme Court Judges submitted during
the night.
For several days in advance, the Hebrew press expected something
of the kind to happen, but due to an exceptionally tight censorship
clampdown, it could do nothing to alert its readers. The clampdown
extended to banning any mention of previous Israeli deportations, no
matter how long ago carried out. It was even forbidden to use the
word "deportation" in any context. Censorial manpower, reinforced by
call-ups, was instructed to see to it that these draconian rules be
followed to the letter. Rabin, other Laborites and Meretz ministers
had later nothing but words of warm praise for the work of the
censors, and they deplored the leaks.
The Supreme Court Judge Barak, wakened up in the middle of the
night by lawyers notifying him of the expulsion, was at first
reluctant to order staying it. His formal argument was that the
identities of all the expellees 415 were still unknown, some even to
their families and the lawyers. What made him eventually change his
mind, was the intervention of the highly respected Association for
Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) which persuaded him, not without some
difficulty, to issue a staying order. For doing so, the Association
was subsequently scolded by Rabin in a language Shamir had never
dared to use. He unleashed his rancor at the Association on several
occasions, among them on TV and in the Knesset. His acrimony
contained several points. The Association was guilty of obstructing
the salutary expulsion process, as "its interference upset the
army's schedules. Without it, the deportation could have been over
at dawn. Also, ACRI's arguments are being used by `certain elements'
abroad. Also, ACRI is no more than a voluntary association with a
political axe to grind. And finally, it has nothing to do with
democracy". This is just a sample of what Rabin said in the Knesset
Foreign and Defense Affairs Committee (Haaretz, December 23),
apparently provoked by the Association's defense by Yael Dayan
(Labor) and Na'omi Hazan (a Meretz MK who, unlike that faction's
ministers, is reported to have "mildly" opposed the expulsion.) The
only conclusion can be that Rabin and his Meretz lackeys nowadays
constitute a danger to Israeli democracy, even graver than Shamir
and the Likud ever did. And as far as the Territories are concerned,
the dangers they pose can be considered a foregone conclusion.
The events under this report's discussion turned out to have many
domestic repercussions. In the first place, Rabin's and his
government's popularity increased, especially among the masses of
Likud and other right-wing voters. This phenomenon can be dealt with
rather briefly, since Rabin's domestic political profile has already
been discussed in these reports recurrently. The only possible
novelty was Rabin's capable manipulation of the state-owned
electronic media for the sake of swaying Israeli Jewish majorities
in his favor. In this, he has proven more capable than Shamir. But
Rabin also enjoys the support of the two daily newspapers, Yediot
Ahronot and Maariv, whose joint sales amount to about 85% of the all
the daily press. (Yediot Ahronot also controls some local Friday
papers whose role was discussed in report 114.) Taken together,
these factors may explain the reported support of 91% of "the
public" in favor of the expulsion, as found by the "Dahaf" poll
(Yediot Ahronot, December 18). The finding was sensational enough to
be promptly reported by foreign media. There are reasons, however to
take it with a grain of salt. In the first place, the poll was taken
on the very day of the expulsion, in the atmosphere of frenzy over
the whole affair. Moreover, the media, Israeli as well as foreign,
neglected to inform that the samples of the supposedly "nation-wide"
Israeli polls customarily comprise only the Jews. The Palestinians
who constitute 16.5% of the Israeli citizenry for sure didn't
support the expulsion, and they proved it by their general strike in
protest against it! Still, the poll could have possibly reflected
the authentic mood of Israeli Jewish public on that day, instigated
by all the media manipulation to which that public was exposed. But
the foreign media also failed to mention that the poll also
contained a second question: "How do you think will the expulsion
affect the terror?" The results were: "Will weaken it - 55%; will
not affect it - 18%; will strengthen it - 26%". It means that for
44% of Israeli Jews the expulsion had no meaning other than
vengeance. They supported it without seeing how anything might be
thereby gained. One may speculate that more, and even harsher
reprisals may be needed just to gratify this public's inclination
for vengeance. Barnea's observation ("The trouble with Meretz",
Yediot Ahronot, December 22) was in this context highly relevant.
"Rabin has no problems with ordering mass-expulsions, since he has
been advocating them for years. Most Labor ministers don't have any
qualms about them either. During the electoral campaign and even in
the [earlier] party primaries, they saw what popular masses wanted
and egged them on. Since then, they use street language, as if they
had their mouths in their underpants. Since then, they have also
learned to make decisions suiting the shifting mood of the gutter.
This is the first Israeli government which elevated vulgarity to the
rank of an ideology".
Amnon Denkner and Ron Miberg ("Ah dear, the doves went insane",
Hadashot, December 18) cast some light on the background of Yediot
Ahronot's and Maariv's support for the expulsions. "Their editors
and staffers are nice fellows as long as you sit with them in the
city's quiet pubs. But only until they return to their editorial
offices where they become epitomes of vulgarity". Both papers did
actually carry plenty of critical articles on their inside pages
where serious discussions of events normally appear. But on their
front pages little could be found apart from hate propaganda propped
by suitable manipulation of news. In my opinion, there was more to
it than plain profit motive through an expected rise in sales. My
point is that their owners must have felt some affinity for Rabin,
due to their shared involvement in the Irangate affair. The owner of
Maariv is the son of Ya'akov Nimrodi whose involvement in Irangate
was notorious. And Yediot Ahronot is owned by the Moses family,
which includes the widow of the no less notorious Irangate operator
Amiram Nir, Judith Moses, reputed to be particularly active in the
paper's affairs. The fact is that the military censorship clampdown
before and during the expulsion, described by Denkner and Miberg as
"not only brutal but also totally unrestrained", was followed by
nothing more than a perfunctory and courteous protest of the
Editors' Committee and only few protests from other sources, all
milder than those dealt with in report 114. The affinity with Rabin
on the part of the owners of the two papers may provide some
explanation why was it so.
Denkner and Miberg ask some cogent questions regarding this
government's deference to the mood of the masses. "What will happen
if another Jew is killed? What will the government then do? Will it
expel 800 or 8,000? What chunk of meat will then be tossed in order
to calm down people who get not only excited but also incited?" They
leave their questions unanswered. In my view this government is
perfectly capable of outdoing Shamir's. Also Barnea ("Rabin's
pronouncements were meant to influence the Supreme Court", Yediot
Ahronot, December 22), observes that "the hysterical nature of the
acts Rabin's government acts made people compare the functioning of
the present government with that of the previous one". But most
revealingly, Barnea also quotes Shamir's Justice minister, Dan
Meridor, who had succeeded in halting almost all expulsions Shamir's
government intended to effect. "Had a Labor government been in power
during the Gulf War, it would have bowed to pressures of the street,
and dispatched Israeli troops deep into Iraq, without bothering
about the likely consequences. Ehud Barak also submitted to the
government all kinds of proposals, except that my government had a
moral strength to say `no' to him". As is known, Barak, like Rabin,
has also "been advocating expulsions for years", except that, only
under Rabin, he can carry them out. A major war which, as described
in report 113, now has better chances to actually happening.
The second important domestic repercussion of the deportation was
the massive rebellion of the former Meretz sympathizers against the
role of Meretz's leadership in the affair. A majority of those
Israeli Jews who opposed the expulsion had, in the last election,
voted for Meretz. Hence the warm support for mass-expulsions on the
part of Meretz leaders was exploited by Rabin to "soften" all
opposition to those expulsions, whether in the ranks of Meretz
voters, or of liberally-minded foreigners. Now both feel betrayed.
It needs to be pointed out that the opposition to the expulsions,
far from being a sectarian phenomenon, encompassed a majority of
erstwile Meretz supporters, and was backed by a segment of media
community, once supportive of Meretz leadership.
The most ignominious role in disarming that opposition fell upon
the Meretz' Knesset faction chairman MK Yossi Sarid. As a
participant in numerous meetings and symposia attended also by PLO
bureaucrats, Sarid proclaimed himself to be a certified expert in
what the Palestinians "really want". In that capacity, he kept
assuring everybody concerned that the mass expulsion of Hamas
members was what the Palestinians deep down in their hearts "really"
desire. Barnea (Yediot Ahronot, December 18), quotes Sarid as
declaring that "an average Palestinian is by no means averse to
these expulsions", and as implying that the PLO leadership in Tunis,
after having "at its secret meetings" resolved to accept all Israeli
demands regarding the autonomy, passed to Israel a message to the
effect "that the moderate Palestinians in the Territories were
looking forward to merciless punishments expected to be soon
imposed" on Hamas militants. Naturally, Sarid was promptly exposed
as a liar. It can be presumed, however, that during the critical
days his statements must have carried a considerable influence on
Jewish public, and possibly also on the Supreme Court.
True, Meretz had betrayed its electoral platform principles also
before; but none of these betrayals was resented as much as this
one. Consequently, all major press commentators are now in agreement
that Meretz has lost the bulk of its popular support. As Barnea
("The trouble with Meretz", ibid) put it, "during their 5 months in
the government, they had been quite badly thrashed by lesser
scandals so no wonder they failed the test of a really fateful
decision. Instead of doing as their principles dictated, they
reneged on them, with the effect of utterly disgracing themselves.
The past champions of freedom of expression behaved like a herd of
frightened sheep... Any other party would have at least tried to
balance its support for Rabin by pressing him real hard for some
genuine concessions, in making the Israeli stand in negotiations
more flexible or in some relaxations in the conditions of the people
in the Territories. But Meretz confined itself to stammering,
without demanding a thing. They wanted to be raped by Rabin even
more than he wanted to rape them". Recalling how "once in the
Knesset Rabin boasted that he had demolished more [Palestinian]
houses, broken more bones, and expelled more inciters than any Likud
Defense minister", Khami Shalev ("They will be kicked out from the
left", Davar, December 18), concedes that "this government indeed
did what the Israeli Right had dreamt about, but never dared do".
Shalev also points to "the indisputable fact" that Rabin received
"the warmest possible support for the mass expulsion" from his
Meretz ministers. In general, the media were in no mood to spare
Meretz any of their disdain. This is why Barnea ("Rabin's
declarations... ibid) is right on the target with his paradoxical
prediction that Meretz is now bound to remain in the government
whatever Rabin may yet do. For, argues Barnea, "Meretz has already
been humiliated enough not to want to risk the further humilation"
of being kicked out from Rabin's government. And other columnists
have observed that from now on, no other Israeli party is likely to
follow Rabin's policies as blindly and unquestioningly as Meretz,
simply because Meretz alone is not in the position to confront its
former supporters while being in the opposition.
However, Meretz is not a party but a bloc of three separate
parties Ratz, Mapam and Shinui. Denkner and Miberg observe that
"Ratz contains a strong nucleus of activists toughened by years of
campaigning for human rights". No wonder in the ranks of Ratz the
rebellion broke out first. At the time of this writing it could
already claim some successes. After condemning the expulsions and
the party chiefs for supporting them, Ratz' "Youth Movement",
managed to force the party's Council (a rather sizable body by
Israeli standards) to meet the very next day. At that meeting, the
party chiefs were, after a fierce debate, condemned in a resolution
passed by a majority of 86 to 41. Unfortunately, that Council cannot
force the party's representatives to resign. In Mapam things have
been moving more slowly in the same direction, but not in Shinui.
Arguments which the Meretz chiefs adduced in favor of the mass
expulsion can be summed up briefly. Essentially, there were three
such arguments: that the expulsion was "good for the peace process",
that it "helped the PLO to outflank Hamas in competition for support
of Palestinian public" (or even "that it was requested by the PLO"),
and that "since something had to be done, we chose the least evil
among the possible options". But interesting facts came to light as
soon as the Meretz chiefs confronted their former supporters - who
of course refused to accept such arguments - in a debate covered by
the Hebrew press extensively. According to Barnea (Yediot Ahronot,
December 18), it then turned out that long before the formation of
Meretz, when Ratz was in the opposition, "MK Dedi Tzuker had been
running secret errands on Rabin's behalf", i.e. before March 1990.
But the story of the PLO request for some sort of Israeli reprisals
against Hamas militants may have some basis in facts. On Friday,
December 18 Israeli TV showed on its prime-time program a reel
containing an interview with Arafat in Rome about two weeks earlier.
In the interview, Arafat wondered why was Israel "punishing" only
the PLO militants while sparing the Hamas' ones. The authenticity of
the Israeli TV's reel was confirmed by some European spectators and
not denied by the PLO. Arafat's "wondering" has also been reported
by some Arab-language papers appearing in Europe, but passed in
total silence by East Jerusalem press. There are also reasons to
believe that some time ago some PLO figures from the Territories met
the Meretz chiefs in Sarid's Tel Aviv apartment, and that during
that meeting the former indeed requested some reprisals against
Hamas on Israel's part. Ziyad Abu-Ziyad, who is said to have
attended that meeting, was subsequently interviewed on the Israeli
radio. Without denying the story, Abu Ziyad confined himself to
blaming Meretz for breach of secrecy and for the leak to the media.
How can these reports be critically appraised? I find it downright
impossible to believe that any Palestinians might have requested
Israel for a mass expulsion. Also, any PLO militant could predict
that a mass expulsion of Hamas militants was liable to weaken the
PLO's standing in the eyes of Palestinian masses, as it indeed
happened in the expulsion's wake. But a segment of the PLO, from
Arafat down to those who met with Meretz chiefs, can by all means be
presumed to have asked Israel to punish the Hamas activists by
putting them under administrative detention. They must have assumed
that Rabin would go along with so obliging a suggestion, and let
them reap the benefits. PLO thinking on Israeli politics abounds in
delusions. As evidence, it is enough to cite the PLO's
pronouncements that by voting Rabin in Israeli Jewish majorities
proved that they wanted peace. Until the mass expulsion the PLO
perceived the Meretz chiefs and pundits (or other Zionist
"leftists") as their tutors in Jewish affairs. In effect, the PLO
let its ranks be easily penetrated and brainwashed. The PLO's
ignorance of Israeli Jewish society and politics, especially of its
Labor and Zionist "left" segment, helped them to fall prey to
deceptions.
Before concluding, I feel I must repeat something already quoted
in report 113: namely the opinions of the chief political
correspondent of Haaretz, Uzi Benziman, ("Diagnosis", November 13)
about the Israeli army and Intelligence. Speaking in the context of
Lebanese affairs, Benziman talks about "the time-honored assumption
that sheer intensity of firepower will make the South Lebanese
suffer hard enough to remember it forever: enough to vomit the
Hizbollah terrorists out of their midst rather than risk any more of
such suffering in the future". The attitude of the Israeli Security
System is toward the Palestinians no different than toward the
Lebanese. Truly, the high command of the Israeli army and the
Israeli Intelligence branches have learned nothing and forgotten
nothing. They have always acted on the assumption that "the Arabs
understand nothing but the language of force", and that all problems
could be resolved by stepping up the use of force. This made them
assume that the Palestinians could only be be cowed by mass
expulsions and the implicit threat of more to come. To all
appearances, this kind of crude racism is not going to wane, and
will continue to guide Rabin in his policy decisions.