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July 12, 2003

Give 'em What They Want

Note: this is a post recovered from my old blog, before it died of an insufficient backup. Any comments/trackbacks on it have not been brought over, but can be seen with the original. The date is that of the original posting.

Michael Totten has a Tech Central Station column up, in which he asks if it is possible - or at least wise - to allow any measure of victory for the Palestinians. If we give the Palestinians anything that can be interpreted as a victory, doesn't that simply encourage their tactics, particularly suicide bombings?

Ordinarily, I'd say "yes." However, I've been thinking a lot about this problem, and I think that the answer is actually "yes, but..." In order to show why that is, I'll have to start with some axiomatic statements. If you disbelieve any of the following list, then my conclusion will make no sense to you. The axioms of the Israeli-Palestinian situtation are:

• The aim of the Palestinian and other anti-Israeli terrorsts, and in particular of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Fatah (including the Al Aqsa Brigade) and possibly the Palestinian Authority as a whole, is to defeat Israel. While the Palestinians would like to live in peace, this is less important to them than victory.
  
• The Palestianians, at least the very large fraction represented by the groups named above, define victory as minimally including the destruction of Israel, and the creation of a Palestinian state in the entire area encompassed by Israel, the West Bank of the Jordan River, and the Gaza Strip. Some groups (including Fatah) appear to define victory as the victory of Arab Nationalism, with them at the head of the Arab nation. (In this way, they are not unlike the Ba'athists of Syria and Iraq, Moamar Gadafi, or the former Nasser regime in Egypt. Each of these groups want or wanted the formation of a single Arab nation, under their leadership and control.)
  
• The Palestinians don't state this as their goal very often. Instead, they state their goal as a fully autonomous and contiguous Palestinian state in the entire Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with a Palestinian-controlled corridor through Israel, connecting Gaza to the West Bank, and without any remaining Israeli settlements or other presence; the return of refugees from the Israeli War of Independence and their descendents to Israel proper, along with restitution, support from the welfare state, restoration of their former property, and eligibility for Israeli citizenship - including most importantly free movement and voting rights; release of all Palestinians held by Israel on "political" charges (that is to say, for killing or attempting to kill Israelis); the formal establishment of a legal right for Palestinians to work in Israel; and destruction of any physical barriers between Israel and the putative Palestinian state.
  
• The Palestinians are incapable of imposing their will on Israel by force of arms, and thus attempt to obtain victory (in the more expansive sense) by baby steps, using international pressure, easily-duped NGOs, and Israeli reluctance to fully engage, in order to make it more expensive to Israel to continue the current situation than it would be to give in to Palestinian demands.
  
• The Israelis would love to live in peace, but it is more important to them to simply live.
  
• If the Israelis met the demands of the Palestinians, Israel would cease to exist. The "right of return" would ensure that the Jews would become a minority in Israel in very short order, at which point the Palestinians would use their electoral power to take control of, and thus destroy, Israel. (If Israel denied returned Arabs the vote, they would have destroyed themselves as a representative democracy.) The return to 1967 borders would ensure that Israel would be unable to defend against conventional military threats, while also cutting large parts of Jerusalem (including Israel's only international airport) off from Israeli control. The destruction of physical barriers between Israel and the putative Palestine would ensure easy access for terrorists into Israel, and the "right to work" would ensure that Palestinians would not be unusual inside Israel, thus allowing terrorists to work with much less chance of drawing attention to themselves. This is precisely the point, from the Palestinian point of view, to their demands. These are not unintended side-effects.
  
• Israel could, of course, defeat the Palestinians utterly and in short order, by the use of overwhelming military might against the Palestinian terrorists wherever and whenever they are found, without regard to Palestinian civilians in the area. This would be met with utter revulsion by Israelis, and any government which attempted it would be unceremoniously booted from office. Further, such actions would almost certainly cause the US to cease open support for Israel, while Europe would almost certainly institute a boycott against Israel similar to what the US maintains against Cuba. This would economically devastate Israel, as well as sapping their morale and weakening them militarily. Thus, Israel will not take this tack.
  
• Israel could, of course, defeat the Palestinians by the simple means of annihilating Gaza City, Ramallah, Jenin and one or two other cities with nuclear weapons. This would have effects not dissimilar to the previous option.
  
• Israel could, of course, defeat the Palestinians by deporting every single Palestinian from the West Bank, either to the Gaza Strip or simply by forcing them into Jordan. The damage to the Israeli psyche of seeing Israeli troops loading people into boxcars to be shipped out would be incalculable.
  
• As a result of all of this, the Israelis do not see a way of defeating the Palestinians, nor of giving in to their demands. Israel's strategy is, therefore, to try to keep the violence in Israel proper at the lowest possible level, for the lowest possible cost, while at the same time trying to find a way to change the situation by getting the Palestinians to, in essence, take somewhat less than their critical demands. In particular, Israel would be willing to grant something akin to the offer made by Ehud Barak - a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, with no right of return, borders altered from 1967 to allow Israel a defensible border and control of most of Jerusalem, no guaranteed right of Palestinians to enter Israel, and with security corridors to allow Israel to defend the Jordan River.
  
• This strategy depends on the Palestinians being willing to accept less than 100% of what they are asking, and the Palestinians refused an offer to meet 98% of their demands. The situation for the Palestinians is improving, as European money (in particular) flows in, and the US exerts pressure on Israel to bend further and further. The Palestinians, therefore, have no incentive to agree to any concessions at all.
  

Yes, it would be unwise to give the Palestinians what they want, since that would mean the destruction of Israel in short order, and the use of suicide bombings en masse everywhere Muslims find themselves disputing with a non-Muslim foe in even shorter order. I think that up until this point, at least, Mr. Totten and I would be in agreement.

Where I take issue with Mr. Totten is with his plan. The steps he proposes are "First, defeat terrorism. Second, nurture democracy. Third, negotiate a settlement."

The first phase should be simple. Terrorism must be punished. And anti-terrorism must be encouraged. The Palestinian Authority should be given one last chance to eliminate terror. And if the PA refuses, the U.S. must do the following:

• Classify the Palestinian Authority as a terrorist organization.
  
• Declare "regime change" in the West Bank and Gaza the official United States policy.
  
• Support to the hilt every anti-terror operation by Israelis short of war crimes.

The first phase would not be complete until the enemies of peace are defeated, deported, imprisoned, or killed. These include Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Yasser Arafat's Fatah, the Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigades, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. It may also include the Palestinian Authority.

The Palestinian Authority will be no more hampered by being declared a terrorist organization than have Hamas or the PFLP. Arafat sees himself as a martyr - he wants to be a martyr - and would welcome a US attempt to depose him, which even (perhaps especially) if successful would actually strengthen the hand of the terrorists, by enraging the Palestinian population. The Israelis themselves cannot defeat the Palestinian terrorists, even if supported "to the hilt" by the US, as long as the Palestinians are essentially a subject population. This is because any actions Israel could take that would involve sufficient force to actually defeat the terrorists, would be impossible for the reasons given above.

There is, however, another way. This way would be risky, because it would give the Palestinians a temporary victory, and over the short term would almost certainly make use of the Palestinian suicide bomb tactics more prevalent. This would be to compel a Palestinian state along Israeli-determined lines. Specifically:

1. Israel should complete the fence between the West Bank and Israel proper, taking a path conducive to easy defense and walling off Jerusalem in such a way that Israel would have definitive control.
   
2. Then, Israel could declare that the settlements are not defensible, and tell the settlers that they have to return to Israel proper by a certain date, or the army will no longer be able to offer them protection. On that date, Israel should pull every soldier and policeman out of the territories.
   
3. One day later, Israel should declare that Israel has no presence in the Gaza Strip or West Bank, and has no interest in establishing one. Those areas would then be de facto under the authority of the Palestinian Authority. Israel should not recognize a Palestinian state formally, though of course much of the world immediately would, and Palestine would almost certainly be admitted to the UN within days.
   
4. Israel should not allow Palestinian workers into Israel in any way regardless of pressure to do so - there are plenty of others willing to work who would come to Israel for the low-wage jobs. Nor should Israel allow Palestinian refugees to return, nor should Israel in any way negotiate about the fences, or a land corridor between Gaza and the West Bank, or anything else. Simply declare that Israel has no interest in the West Bank and Gaza, and close the borders.
   

This would result in a non-viable Palestinian state. Without the job engine of Israel, Palestine is an economic basket case. The split territory, with no land connection between Gaza and the West Bank, would leave Palestine wholly dependent on Jordan for access, and it would be expensive and difficult to travel from one to the other. While the Palestinians would bitch about this, it is also true that the Europeans and even the US would pour in money in an attempt to make the Palestinian state work.

It is almost certain that the Gaza Strip would become, effectively, a separate state (though not in name) under Hamas control, with the West Bank being under PA control. This split leadership, combined with the difficulty of working together practically, would divide the Palestinians into two separate cases from Israel's point of view. It is possible that there could be bloody struggles for control in one or both Palestinian areas. It is certain that there will be massive political infighting to try to get control over all of the money coming in. All of this would tend to distract the Palestinians.

However, it is almost certain that within a short period of time, someone in one of the areas is going to try to attack Israel. Since the option of suicide bombing would be effectively foreclosed by the security fences, the attack would most likely either be by boat infiltration or by rocket/mortar attacks over the walls.

At this point, Israel could make a very effective demonstration. Since Israel no longer has any duty as occupier, the attack would be an act of war. Israel could invade, though doing so would not be very profitable. The better method would be to determine which region the attack came from (if there were any doubt), and take out some high-profile targets in that area. For example, let's say that the attack were by rockets from the area of Beit Hanun. OK, then the Gaza Strip loses the airport and seaport (assuming they'd been built by then) to Israeli bombers. Or if the attack were from the West Bank, the bridges over the River Jordan could be dropped by Israeli bombers. In either case, don't target the other area, because you want to show that peaceful coexistence doesn't invite attacks, while attacks invite immediate and disproportionate retaliation.

If both areas are involved in attacks, or if the strategy of bombing high-profile targets doesn't work, then the Israelis could send in ground troops, surround a Palestinian town, evacuate the residents, and then completely level the town with bulldozers, artillery, bombs or whatever method seemed best. The Israelis would then withdraw, leaving the Palestinians and NGOs to cope with the needs of the resulting homeless. While such an attack would not be politically possible now, since Israelis feel a duty to the Palestinians, this would likely not be the case once Israel was no longer in control of the Palestinians.

Ideally, the situation for Israelis would improve, and the Palestinians would find themselves prospering in exact proportion to how peacefully they acted towards Israel. Almost certainly, though, the Palestinian areas would fall into infighting and ruin, and would strike out at Israel. The ruin, infighting, and Israeli disproportionate retaliation could very well put paid to suicide bombings as a useful tactic in this situation.

In any case, it would be better than the other option for settling the issue, which is a genocidal attack on the Palestinians by Israel.

Posted by jeff at July 12, 2003 12:00 AM

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