Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs - Jerusalem Viewpoints
No. 503 4-18 Elul 5763 / 1-15 September 2003

TEN YEARS SINCE OSLO: THE PLO'S "PEOPLE'S WAR" STRATEGY AND ISRAEL'S
INADEQUATE RESPONSE
Joel S. Fishman

Israel and the PLO have been confronting each other according to completely
different paradigms of conflict.

Since the late 1960s, the PLO has adopted a "people's war" paradigm that
continued to guide its policies even after the signing of the 1993 Oslo
Accords.

According to the "people's war" paradigm, borrowed from Marxist-Leninist
traditions in China and Vietnam, conflict is waged on both the political and
military levels, but for militarily weaker guerilla groups, political
conflict is more important, especially the delegitimization of an adversary
and the division of his society.

Prior to 1993, Israel largely responded to the PLO militarily as a terrorist
threat, but not politically. After 1993, with the PLO "renouncing"
terrorism, Israel embraced the PLO leadership and ignored the signs that the
PLO was still engaged in political warfare against it (incitement,
reluctance to alter PLO Covenant, UN votes, textbooks). Israeli governments
later complained about these symptoms of political warfare, without
identifying the cause.

Established Israeli traditions place undue emphasis on the narrowly-framed
military approach to the detriment of the political, which leaves Israel
particularly vulnerable to broad-based strategic deception. Israeli
policy-makers must reexamine the assumptions upon which they have based
political and military policy over the last decade.

Misunderstanding the Enemy's Strategy

What is of supreme importance is to attack the enemy's strategy.
- The Art of War, Sun Tzu1

On September 13, 1993, the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Chairman
Yasser Arafat shook hands on the White House Lawn. Shimon Peres for the
State of Israel and Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) for the PLO signed the
Declaration of Principles, while President Clinton, Secretary of State
Christopher, and Russian Foreign Minister Kozyrev looked on. The purpose of
the Declaration of Principles (DOP) was to initiate a peace process between
the State of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. A decade has
passed since that optimistic event, and Israel has suffered 1,080
casualties: 256 from the signing of the DOP in September 1993 to September
2000, and 824 from September 2000 until June 1, 2003.2 Proportionately to
its population, this number would represent the equivalent loss for the
United States of about 49,000 citizens. The human cost to Israel of the
adventure of the Oslo Accords has exceeded the War of Attrition on the Suez
Canal (1968-1970). A protracted condition of war has dealt a devastating
blow to Israel's economy. It has permanently changed many lives and
aggravated social tensions. These facts compel us to ask serious questions.
Is Israel better or worse off for having entered into this arrangement? Has
there been a policy failure? If we do not have peace, then what do we have,
and where is it leading?

Israel's misfortune stems from a failure to understand the enemy's strategic
goals and its choice of means and methods. In retrospect, it is clear that
Israel's leadership has seriously underestimated its adversary's consistency
of purpose and commitment. Speaking frankly and for the record, several
members of the Palestinian leadership have stated that they entered into the
peace process in bad faith.3 One example will suffice. The late Faisal
Husseini (1940-2001), whom the media fondly designated a "Palestinian
moderate," declared in an interview on June 24, 2001, in the Egyptian
(Nasserite) newspaper Al Arabi, that the Oslo Agreements constituted a
"Trojan horse," whose essence was deception. He said in clear language that
the PLO had entered an agreement for the purpose of gaining a foothold in
the Land of Israel from which it could wage a sustained guerilla war that
eventually would destroy the Jewish state and replace it with an Arab
Palestine. On this occasion, Husseini gave a faithful restatement of the
Phased Strategy that the PLO adopted in June 1974. This program, known also
as the Strategy of Stages, calls for the establishment of a Palestinian
state in any part of the country that becomes available, if necessary
through a negotiated process.4

"You are dragging me into talking about what we refer to as our "strategic"
goals and our "political" goals, or the phased goals. The "strategic" goals
are the "higher goals," the "long-term goals," or the "unwavering goals,"
the goals that are based on solid pan-Arab historic rights and principles.
Whereas the "political" goals are those goals which were set for a temporary
timeframe, considering the [constraints of] the existing international
system, the balance of power, our own abilities, and other considerations
which "vary" from time to time.
When we are asking all the Palestinian forces and factions to look at
the Oslo Agreement and at other agreements as 'temporary' procedures, or
phased goals, this means that we are ambushing the Israelis and cheating
them [author's emphasis]....
Our ultimate goal is [still] the liberation of all historical Palestine
from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea, even if this means that
the conflict will last for another thousand years or for many generations."
5

Any intention of becoming "partners for peace" or a future good neighbor is
not to be found here. It is noteworthy that this naked declaration of bad
faith did not stimulate serious discussion in Israel nor did it have a
lasting impact. On the one hand, Israeli policy-makers, by not taking such
clear statements at face value, were in denial. On the other hand, the type
of government that the PA has become may explain the occurrence of such
statements. The PA is not a democracy but rather a totalitarian state in the
making.6 Hannah Arendt has written that one of the characteristics of this
type of regime is that, while it operates in many respects like a secret
society, it is absolutely frank about declaring its true goals.7

Despite such disturbing events like the occasional bus bombing and the
ongoing anti-Semitic incitement, it has been generally assumed that, with
the signing of the Declaration of Principles in 1993, the PLO initiated a
new era by renouncing terror, accepting the reality of Israel, and engaging
in the constructive enterprise of state-building. Israeli and American
leadership could not face up to the frequent recurrence of terror, regarding
it as an act of nature, such as a thunderstorm or an earthquake, about which
nothing could be done. One could not formally recognize the "inconvenient
reality" of terror without calling into question the entire "peace process."
Furthermore, coming to terms with reality would imply adopting a course of
action other than maintaining the status quo. Because of this entrenched
mindset and patterns of political correctness, one would hardly dare raise
the possibility in public that acts of terror and violence perpetrated
against Israel's civilians and society were an integral part of Palestinian
strategy - the rule rather than the exception.

During the period that has been referred to as the "Total Liberation Phase"
(1969-1974), the PLO culturally and politically found its place in the ranks
of other socialist anti-colonial liberation movements.8 As Barry Rubin has
pointed out, the organization wanted to wage a "people's war," following the
example of Marxist-Leninist guerillas in China, Cuba, and Vietnam. He
described the goals of this people's war and how the PLO understood its
strategic goal at that time. The following statement is remarkably
consistent with Feisal Husseini's views, expressed above:

The PLO's target in Israel, however, was not merely a government but the
people themselves. Thus, since the PLO was at war with a society - not an
army or simply the post-1967 occupation - every aspect and member of Israeli
society was a legitimate target. The PLO's aim "is not to impose our will on
the enemy," explained the PLO magazine Filastin al-Thawra in 1968, "but to
destroy him in order to take his place...not to subjugate the enemy but to
destroy him."9

Lessons of the Socialist Liberation Movements

The PLO looked to the examples of other liberation movements in its endeavor
to find allies, expertise, and arms, particularly within the socialist
world. The experience of China, Cuba, and Vietnam were of special
importance. They drew inspiration from the Algerian revolutionary experience
and received expert advice in presenting their case.10 Until they had
consulted with the Algerians, the main Palestinian propaganda theme was
"throwing the Jews into the sea." Under Algerian guidance, they introduced
different terminology and themes. Further, although the French army had won
the war against Algeria, "the Algerian victory over France was to a
considerable extent achieved as a result of public opinion in France itself
and in major NATO countries turning against the French in Algeria - in
response to a remarkably skillful propaganda campaign carried out by the
FLN."11 This was an example of the effective use of propaganda as a tool of
political warfare (which resembled the Vietnamese model, described below).
After the Six-Day War, Muhammad Yazid, who had been minister of information
in two Algerian wartime governments (1958-1962), imparted the following
principles to Palestinian propagandists:

"Wipe out the argument that Israel is a small state whose existence is
threatened by the Arab states, or the reduction of the Palestinian problem
to a question of refugees; instead, present the Palestinian struggle as a
struggle for liberation like the others.
Wipe out the impression...that in the struggle between the Palestinians
and the Zionists, the Zionist is the underdog. Now it is the Arab who is
oppressed and victimized in his existence because he is not only facing the
Zionists but also world imperialism."12

During the 1970s and 1980s, the elite of the PLO developed close ties with
the Soviet Union and with countries of the Eastern Bloc, such as the German
Democratic Republic and Romania.13 The relationship between the PLO and the
Soviet Union was somewhat different, because of Moscow's objective of
penetrating and increasing its political influence in the region.14 Although
the relationship between the PLO and the USSR dated from the 1960s, it was
only in 1974 that the PLO formally opened an interests office in Moscow. In
exchange for Soviet aid, the PLO extended its full support to Moscow, which
later included public approval of the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan.15 Many
Palestinians received training in warfare, espionage, and indoctrination in
Communist countries.16 One notable example, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), the
current Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, received his doctorate
from Moscow's Oriental College in 1982.17 While it may not be possible to
ascertain the exact type of training each individual may have received in
these socialist countries, their collective experience left them with
commonly held views regarding military doctrine, which they continue to
hold.

In 1970, while the PLO's relations with the Soviet Union "remained distant
and marked with suspicion," China and Vietnam "reached out" to the PLO,
inviting Yasser Arafat and Abu Iyad for a discrete visit. Zhou Enlai (Chou
En-Lai) received the two in China and granted them his country's full
support.18 In Vietnam, where they remained for two weeks, their gracious
host was General Vo Nguyen Giap (b.1912), the master of insurrectionary
warfare of his generation. It is reported that Abu Iyad asked the Vietnamese
why public opinion in the West considered the Palestinian armed struggle to
be terrorism, while the Vietnamese struggle enjoyed praise and support.

In response, the Vietnamese counseled the PLO to work for their goals in
phases, which would conceal their real purpose, permit strategic deception,
and give the appearance of moderation.19 They also coached the Palestinians
on the manipulation of the American news media.20 Giap exhorted Arafat:
"Fight by any method which can achieve victory.... If regular war can do it,
use it. If you cannot win by classical methods, don't use them. Any method
which achieves victory is a good one. We fight with military and political
means and with international backing."21 With these words, General Giap
described the essence of a people's war.

This was not the first high-level Palestinian visit to North Vietnam. In
1964, Fatah, before its takeover of the PLO, sent Abu Jihad, the man who
would eventually head the PLO's military operations, to China and North
Vietnam, where he studied the strategy and tactics of guerilla war; he
testified that these visits affected his military thinking for years to come
to such an extent that he later preached the need for "a people's liberation
war."22 It is noteworthy that Fatah translated the writing's of General Giap
into Arabic, as well as the works of Mao and Che Guevara.23 Similarly, the
PFLP, which would also merge with the PLO, included the writings of Mao and
Giap as part of the military training of their fedayeen in the late 1960s.24

People's War: Military Operations as an Adjunct to Politics

According to Stefan Possony, a highly influential American strategist, a
people's war is a "clash of societies" which includes both political and
military dimensions, having violent and non-violent manifestations. Possony
had a significant influence on President Ronald Reagan, through his
identification of the strategic vulnerabilities of the Soviet Union and how
they could be exploited (see Appendix). His insight was that a "people's war
is a political conflict, with military operations an adjunct to politics."25

The means and methods of a people's war are probably the finest available
for asymmetrical warfare, which enable an insurrectionary movement to fight
against a militarily superior adversary. It is a matter of vital importance
that Israeli policy-makers understand its principles and operative doctrine,
because it is this type of war which the Palestinian Authority has been
waging against Israel. The signing of the Oslo accords brought no break with
the Palestinians' violent past, but rather there was a distinct continuity
of thought, goals, and tactics. In this discussion, special attention will
be devoted to the subject of people's war and the evaluation of the relative
strengths and weaknesses of each side.26

The Historical Background of a People's War

In order to understand the nature of a people's war, it is necessary to
describe its origins and development. The doctrine of people's war rests on
a foundation of Soviet military theory to which Asian thinkers added their
own innovations and refinements. The successful application of this doctrine
ultimately resulted in the victory of the Chinese Communists over the
Nationalist Chinese and the birth of the People's Republic of China. A
generation later, Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap, who defeated both the
French and the Americans, made his own contributions.

Harriet Fast Scott and William F. Scott have analyzed Soviet
(Marxist-Leninist) military theory and its special terminology.27 This body
of thought provides a structured ideological framework that binds the main
political objective to its military implementation. In Soviet theory, the
broadest category of basic thought, called "doctrine," forms the ideological
foundation from which policy and implementation are derived.28 Although this
system of structured thought first was set in place in the early 1920s, it
served as the basis of military theory even after the Soviet Union became a
superpower with a large conventional and nuclear capability. While Soviet
communism may not be a world force today, the legacy of its military
doctrine is alive and well. The Soviet Unified Military Doctrine, which also
reflects the influence of German military thought,29 runs on two tracks:
political and military, with the political taking precedence over the
military. Its major political objective, it should be recalled, was the
victory of communism over capitalism.

When, in the 1920s, the Soviet Union exported this model of military
doctrine, it was based on the idea of mobilizing the support of the urban
proletariat. This approach did not work in China where this population group
was very small, and the Nationalist government (KMT-Kuomintang), which had
the advantage of a well-trained conventional army (with German advisors),
was generally able to hold the important cities. After suffering serious
losses in Hunan in August and September 1930, Mao Tse-tung made the "single
most vital decision in the history of the Chinese Communist Party." He
dropped the line laid down by Moscow in favor of a new approach.30 Unable to
confront his adversaries by conventional means, Mao Tse-tung decided to
mobilize the peasants, move the war to the countryside, and preserve his
forces through mobility and retreat.

Mao advocated prolonged war because "there was no other reliable way to
weaken and exhaust a stronger opponent."31 Here, the human dimension becomes
paramount. Good strategy and tactics would compensate for relative weakness,
and the contribution of a talented general could tip the balance. In
contrast, the tendency in the West has been to consider military advantage
in the form of hardware and firepower, which is not always a reliable
indicator of real strength.32 Lin Piao (1907-1971), who until his death was
Mao's designated successor, further developed the idea of people's war by
advocating the application of its principles on a global scale, namely,
laying siege to the world's capitalist countries by taking over the world's
countryside. According to this view, North America and Western Europe
represented the cities of the world, and Asia, Africa, and Latin America,
the world's countryside.33

The Vietnamese, particularly under General Giap, remained within this basic
tradition of guerilla warfare but were more pragmatic. Giap did not
automatically accept the Chinese approach and ideological constraints.34 In
a retrospective interview, he stated that guerilla warfare was only one
aspect of people's war. In his personal understanding of the term, "A
people's war is characterized by a strategy that is more than simply
military. There is always a synthesized aspect to the strategy, too. Our
strategy was at once military, political, economic, and diplomatic, although
it was the military component which was the most important one."35

One of Giap's innovations was the manipulation Western news media in a
manner that turned the freedom and vulnerability of open democratic
societies to his advantage. He grasped that the impact of events viewed
through the prism of the media could be decisive. For example, in 1954, only
four percent of the French forces in Indochina were defeated at Dien Bien
Phu. However, the shock of this setback in metropolitan France - as
distinguished from the event itself - shattered domestic support for the
French war effort.36 Although the 1968 Tet Offensive was a Vietcong defeat,
and American casualty rates were relatively low, its manipulation in the
American media had a strategic impact very similar to that of Dien Bien
Phu.37 Further, General Giap adeptly utilized the medium of television (with
the aid of eager American helpers) in order to undermine domestic American
support for the Vietnam War. He said: "In 1968 I realized that I could not
defeat 500,000 American troops who were deployed in Vietnam. I could not
defeat the Seventh Fleet, with its hundreds of aircraft, but I could bring
pictures home to the Americans which would cause them to want to stop the
war."38

In this review of Marxist-Leninist military thought, we have noted the
precedence of political over military doctrine. As noted above, the major
political objective of the system that produced this type of warfare had
been to ensure the victory of communism over capitalism. However, in 1988,
the Soviet Union officially decided to repackage and disguise its major
political goal. The faithful would no longer speak of the "class struggle."
Instead, they would use a deceptively elegant new term for the same thing,
the "struggle for peace."39

People's War and Its Operative Doctrine

In 1970, Stefan Possony described the characteristics of people's war as
follows:40

"People's war is a long drawn-out or protracted revolution. Its unavoidable
duration is exploited by guerillas to bankrupt their opponents politically,
morally, and economically.41...The most practical objective of guerilla
warfare is to create chaotic conditions in the target country and prevent
effective, efficient, and good government.

The key concept of a people's war is to build up dual power by means of
guerilla warfare. Dual power means the existence of two sets of power
institutions, authorities, and government-like administration functioning
side-by-side competitively.

The transition of power from government No. 1 to government No. 2 is to be
accomplished by withdrawing the loyalty of the population from the
pre-existing government and bestowing it on the emerging government, while
simultaneously providing it with legitimacy. This transition constitutes the
revolutionary process.

Victory means that one or the other government prevails. Defeat means that
one or the other government (or regime) disappears [author's emphasis]. The
transfer of loyalty depends in large measure upon the success of violent
guerilla operations." 42

Some of its tactical methods include:

The use of propaganda to deprive its enemy of its legitimacy and outside
support....Propaganda, especially if it is attended by conquest, is the
prime method through which legitimacy is withdrawn and attributed to a new
power elite.43 In this context, propaganda has a special purpose: "As the
war appears and disappears from the news but for years continues to rage,
world public opinion is being conditioned to accept rebel victory as
inevitable and pre-destined."44

Destroying the enemy's economy.

Promoting anti-militarism and encouraging defections from the army,
stimulation of desertion and mutiny.45

Mass terror as a "psychological" operation to weaken the enemy's forces and
morale, and strengthen the guerillas.46

Securing intelligence and denying intelligence to the enemy.47

Beyond these specific tactics, there are several basic principles which an
insurgent group must observe: 1) staying in existence; 2) modifying the pace
of hostilities; and 3) securing and maintaining safe sanctuaries and
mobility. The foremost aim of an insurgent force, whether it is violent or
non-violent, is to avoid annihilation, for which purpose it must avoid
visible organization, concentration, and battle. The insurgent force is not
interested in speed, but in long-term survival and growth - it must reckon
in decades.48 With regard to the pace of hostilities, "the war goes away and
returns. Strategic management can be improved by alternating the centers of
gravity, re-escalating and de-escalating, multiple diversions, changes of
targets, and through concealment and propaganda."49

Manifestations of the Palestinian "People's War"

The present conflict with the Palestinians has the basic characteristics of
a people's war. It is part of the original Phased Strategy. Based on an
extended time-frame, its method is to defeat Israel by demoralizing its
citizens and undermining its ability to fight, by attacking the rear
(civilian society), destroying its economy, and promoting dissension in
order to undermine its moral and social cohesion. Therefore, let us devote
some attention to the varied effects of a people's war upon Israeli society
and its ability to stand up to this type of insurrection.

The Use of Economic Warfare to Bankrupt an Adversary

While evidence of Israeli economic hardship appears daily in the news media,
there is little awareness that the current adversity results only partially
from the world economic crisis or local mismanagement, but rather has been
caused intentionally. News reports warn of the collapse of the public health
system and statistics show the rising number of unemployed. A decade ago, it
was assumed that the "peace process" would foster ties of economic
interdependence that would establish the foundation of future peace and
prosperity. The Palestinian violence that began in September 2000 has had
serious economic consequences, including the closing of businesses and
factories, the near collapse of tourism, and the ruin of joint investment
projects which were designed to provide a livelihood for Palestinian wage
earners.50

Terror and Internal Mobilization

According to Possony, "terror is the second most important guerilla
operation. Selective terror hits the enemy's muscles, nerves, and brain. The
terrorization of the civilian population as a mass is aimed at achieving
cooperation and support, and at obtaining recruits. Mass terror is a
'psychological' operation to weaken the enemy's forces and morale, and
strengthen the guerillas."51

During the implementation of the Oslo Agreements in the 1990s, Israelis
frequently complained about incitement in the Palestinian media and the
hatred of Israel contained in Palestinian textbooks. From the perspective of
a "peoples' war," incitement in the media and schools is part of the
internal mobilization of Palestinian society for continuing long-term
conflict and preparing it to make sacrifices associated with war.
Palestinian incitement and schoolbooks were thus indicative of the intent of
the Palestinian leadership to wage continuing conflict and were not simply
an aberration of the peace process.

In fact, the process was accompanied by continuing terrorism. According to
the Israel Defense Forces' spokesperson, from September 2000 until the end
of June 2003, there were 18,000 terrorist events in Israel, including
unsuccessful attempts52 - an average of eighteen attempts a day. If the
illegal weapons shipments on the captured Santorini and Karine-A ships and
other arms deliveries had reached their destinations, the Palestinians would
have been able to neutralize the effectiveness of tanks and certain types of
aircraft, and duplicate the missile threat under which the Hizballah has
placed northern Israel.53 This worst-case scenario represents the real war
from which Israelis have been sheltered thus far. While guerilla forces,
making use of low technology, can and have scored decisive victories,54 the
technological ability of the PA has been steadily improving.

According to plan, the building of a conventional army is the stage which
follows guerilla warfare. The people's wars in China and Vietnam began as
guerilla operations, but conventional armies ultimately finished the job.
The PLO's 1974 Stages Strategy was based on the premise that in its final
stage the PLO will induce the Arab states to join a wide coalition of
conventional armies that will attack and vanquish Israel. This scenario
repeated itself years later. Just before the 1982 Lebanon War, the PLO began
organizing its units in southern Lebanon into regular military formations,
indicating their readiness to shift from guerrilla warfare to conventional
military organization.55 These Palestinian formations were to be a part of
an Eastern Front coalition including Jordan, Syria, and Iraq. In the 1990s
and today, television news programs show the PA forming such an army, this
time under the pretext of building a force to fight against terror. The
Palestinians have admitted to 39,000 in the Palestinian police, well above
the 30,000 limit, and it is probable that the numbers are much higher. The
commander of the Palestinian police in the West Bank was the same Haj Ismail
who headed the PLO's military formations in southern Lebanon in the early
1980s. The Americans and Europeans have financed the project, and the CIA
has provided expert training that ultimately was and may again be used
against Israel in the Palestinian people's war. (In this respect, the
precedent of America's training of Islamic fighting forces in Afghanistan
should be borne in mind.)

Propaganda

The delegitimization of Israel has been a central motif of Palestinian
propaganda in international bodies, such as the United Nations, starting
with Yasser Arafat's first address to the UN General Assembly in 1974 and in
the campaign to seek UN adoption of the infamous 1975 "Zionism is Racism"
resolution. As mentioned above, the purpose of the propaganda struggle is
the ultimate transfer of legitimacy from the State of Israel to the
Palestinian state, namely, the process of "replacement." Indeed, in his
first UN address, Arafat systematically attacked the legitimacy of Israel as
a "racist entity" that was founded in the "imperialist-colonialist concept."
He then proceeded to talk repeatedly about the legitimacy of the PLO.

This was reminiscent of a much earlier struggle that the Jewish people
faced. The Church Fathers developed the principle of supersessionism, with
the Church, the "New Israel," replacing the "Old Israel," namely, the Jewish
people and religion which, according to their teachings, had become obsolete
and its covenant, abrogated.56 The "Palestine Covenant," whose goal is to
replace the Jewish state, is a hateful expression of recycled
supersessionism. Ironically, while both Protestant and Catholic churches
have rejected supersessionism and anti-Semitism, Palestinian agitators and
apologists have become eager cultural scavengers. An extension of
supersessionism may be found in Palestinian fabrications of a counterfeit
historical narrative of the ancient and recent past in order to claim the
legitimacy that rightfully belongs to the Jewish people.57

Finally, it was already clear in 1993 that the PLO was going to continue its
political war to delegitimize Israel, regardless of any bilateral agreement
between the two sides. Within three months of the signing of the Declaration
of Principles in 1993, the PLO renewed its assault on Israel at the United
Nations General Assembly with nearly twenty anti-Israel resolutions. For
those pursuing a "people's war" strategy, negotiations are just an extension
of continuing conflict and not an opportunity for two peoples to reach a new
rapprochement. This process was epitomized at the UN Conference Against
Racism at Durban (September 2001), where the supersessionist principle
played a role in the larger Palestinian project to delegitimize Israel by
eliminating references to the Holocaust and replacing them with Palestinian
suffering under Israeli "Nazi-like oppression."58

Anti-Militarism

While peace movements reflect a legitimate expression of opinion in all
democratic societies, the Israeli peace movement was of particular interest
to the PLO. Each side, however, viewed the other party very differently. On
many occasions, while Israeli peace movements sought to open a genuine
dialogue to explore ways of ending the conflict, Palestinian leaders
frequently admitted that helping those peace movements was a way of
promoting anti-militarism and dividing the society of their Israeli
adversaries. Mahmoud Abbas told Israeli Arabs after the outbreak of
Palestinian violence, "If you want to help us, do it by providing supplies
[to the PA] and by [holding] peace demonstrations with the Israeli peace
movements.59

Securing Intelligence and Denying Intelligence to the Enemy

In the conduct of a people's war, an insurgent group must have excellent
intelligence in order to operate effectively. The PLO has displayed
resourcefulness in gathering intelligence and acquiring a sophisticated
understanding of Israeli society.60 It used Israeli-Arab politicians, like
Ahmad Tibi, as advisors to Yasser Arafat. PLO leaders maintain close ties
with Israeli NGO's and former Israeli officials from both the civilian and
military sectors. On many occasions, PLO leaders have received advice from
these Israelis on how to deal diplomatically with Israeli governments. At
the same time, they dealt ruthlessly with Palestinians suspected as
"collaborators," who were frequently executed in public lynchings by groups
like the Tanzim, in order to set an example.

Competing Loci of Authority

The PA has endeavored to undermine Israeli sovereignty via competing bodies
of authority, most notably in the Arab towns and cities of the Galilee,
areas under full Israeli sovereignty.61 Many have become unsafe for Jews
and, for reasons of security, government agencies frequently cannot provide
services.62 The wave of illegal construction in Jerusalem, organized in part
by the Palestinian Authority, with the Saudis paying for the legal defense
of the offenders, represents a similar challenge.63 Orient House served as
the PA's quasi-municipal offices in eastern Jerusalem, enjoying a type of
immunity and protected by its own guards, until closed by the Israeli
government. It gave the PA a semi-official presence where foreign
dignitaries could be received and contacts with Israeli sympathizers
maintained.

Establishing Secure Sanctuaries and Building Mobility

The IDF has made considerable efforts to prevent the enemy from achieving
secure sanctuaries and building mobility. Accordingly, the closing of
Dahaniya Airport and the Port of Gaza, erecting the barrier fence, reducing
the number of VIP passes for PA dignitaries, as well as the extensive use of
roadblocks, have been and are crucial for Israel's security. Such defensive
measures were not intended to inconvenience the civilian population but
became necessary when Palestinian leaders did not honor their obligations.

Israel's Response to the "People's War"

While Israel has done remarkably well in facing the military challenge, its
political performance has been lacking. Israel does not have a
well-developed political tradition with regard to the conduct of affairs of
state, including foreign affairs, often following Moshe Dayan's dictum that
"Israel does not have a foreign policy. It has only a defense policy."64
Unfortunately, its enemies have taken advantage of this vulnerability. Its
major weakness results from the absence of well-defined political goals and
political talent to match its military capability. This situation derives in
part from an out-dated view that security is primarily a military matter.
Thus, while the PLO waged its struggle according to a "people's war"
paradigm, which gave primacy to the political struggle with Israel over its
terrorist campaign, Israel responded only militarily to the PLO until the
signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993. After 1993, the Israeli government
embraced the PLO because it declared its renunciation of terrorism, even
though it was still committed to its program of political warfare against
the State of Israel.

During the two decades which preceded Oslo, the PLO, with the coaching of
socialist politicians such as Chancellor Bruno Kreisky of Austria, worked
purposefully to acquire the attributes of political respectability. On
November 13, 1974, Yasser Arafat addressed the UN; in July 1979, Kreisky
received Arafat in Vienna as a chief of state; and, in December 1988,
Kreisky, with the tacit support of the U.S. State Department, organized a
meeting for Arafat with several American Jewish leaders in Stockholm.65
After 1993, Arafat became a frequent visitor to the Oval Office and in
December 1994 he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon
Peres. While Israel's prestige seemed to improve globally as well, this
proved to be only temporary. The moment the PLO created an impasse in the
negotiating process, Israel's diplomatic position worsened, while
Palestinian achievements accumulated.

At the same time, Israel's political posture was weakened by two
self-inflicted disabilities: the decision to stop defending Israel's case
abroad and to downgrade the traditional relationship with diaspora Jewry. A
decade ago, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres formally decided to end whatever
information policy Israel may have had.66 As a result of this decision,
Israel dropped its weak defenses, while the Palestinians made effective use
of the considerable expertise and sophistication they had gained over the
years. Seizing this opportunity, they intensified their own aggressive
efforts to destroy Israel's legitimacy by using propaganda as a "method of
political warfare."

Furthermore, the Oslo process resulted in denigrating the support and
lobbying efforts of diaspora Jewry. It became conventional wisdom that the
diaspora was no longer important for Israel, as leading Israeli author A. B.
Yehoshua told American Jews: "We don't need you."67 Similarly, Dr. Yossi
Beilin of the Foreign Ministry informed an American audience, "You want me
to be the beggar and say we need money for the poor people. Israel is a rich
country. I am sorry to tell you."68 This change of attitude showed neglect
and contempt and helped erode one of the Jewish state's traditional pillars
of political support. Nearly a decade later, Professor Steven Windmueller
described the effects of this program of deconstruction:

"Following the Oslo Accords, a [new] reality became significant. A number of
Jewish civic and community relations' organizations began to dismantle the
institutional infrastructures that traditionally lobbied for Israel. The
effect of these structural changes in the mid-1990s can best be understood
in the context of a whole generation of young American Jews unable to
effectively articulate the case for Israel to their peers. Possibly more
disturbing...is the corresponding decline in the levels of commitment on the
part of this generation of American Jews, who are increasingly unwilling to
view Israel as an integral component of their Jewish identity and focus for
communal responsibility." 69

An additional reason for Israel's political weakness may be related to the
heavy representation of former generals in the political decision-making
apparatus. Many of these men have neither served an apprenticeship in the
civil service, business, academe, nor have acquired the skills, knowledge,
experience, and accountability demanded of civilian political leaders.
Having spent their adult lives waging war, some retired generals desperately
want to conclude their careers as peace-makers, and some have tended to act
unilaterally without consulting seasoned and experienced political figures.
Occasionally, they have shown a serious disregard for the democratic
process.

When dealing with the Palestinian challenge, Israeli policy-makers focused
narrowly on military aspects of the threat they faced, like dismantling the
terrorist infrastructure or collecting illegal firearms. However, Israeli
leaders did not respond to the political challenge that the PLO posed with
its continuing use of a strategy of stages. And while Israeli military
intelligence repeatedly warned about Arafat's failure to dismantle Hamas and
Islamic Jihad, until early 2001, any questioning of the PLO's intentions to
reach real peace (as opposed to its sticking to the 1974 Strategy of Stages
for Israel's eventual elimination) was seen as a minority view.70

Over the past decade, the great hope of most Israeli policy-makers has been
to reach a settlement with the Palestinians at all costs, to prefer a "bad
peace" to a "good war," even at the price of "painful sacrifices."71 It
seems that they have considered a settlement to be a type of panacea.
Further, Israel's policy, based on short-term improvisation, has not taken
into account the likelihood of a "protracted conflict," while the doctrine
of people's war makes skillful and deliberate use of the dimension of time.
As a result, a decade later, Israel's human and economic capital has been
considerably depleted, while the enemy has augmented its political and
military strength. By following such a policy, Israel has also been put at a
serious disadvantage by forfeiting much initiative to others, while Arafat
and his organization have been following a plan and have demonstrated
consistency of purpose.72 In this context, Hannah Arendt offers a valuable
insight:

"It has been one of the chief handicaps of the outside world in dealing with
totalitarian systems that it ignored this system and therefore trusted that,
on the one hand, the very enormity of totalitarian lies would be their
undoing and that, on the other, it would be possible to take the Leader at
his word and force him, regardless of his original intentions, to make it
good. The totalitarian system, unfortunately, is foolproof against such
normal consequences; its ingeniousness rests precisely on the elimination of
that reality which either unmasks the liar or forces him to live up to his
pretense." 73

The role of the United States in Israel's current predicament must come
under consideration. Writing just after the end of the Clinton
administration and at the beginning of the Bush presidency, Barry Rubin
described American policy which in the short term appears to be neutral, but
over the longer term fails to advance the cause of peace and stability in
the region:

In terms of long-term strategy toward the region, it is fair to say the
United States has remained largely in what may be called a
mediation-of-peace-agreements-mode despite abundant evidence that such
agreements may not be achievable in the foreseeable future (and, if
achieved, cannot be expected to be honored by the leaders with which Israel
negotiates).74

The American policy of condemning the "cycle of violence," claiming to be
"even-handed," and "pressuring both sides," represents a moral compromise
and the propagation of a fiction necessary to keep a bad piece of business
going. Although such things are never admitted publicly, the implied price
of this approach could well be tolerating some "acceptable level" of Israeli
civilian terror victims. The main beneficiary of this approach is the
Palestinian Authority and not Israel, for the very basic reason that they
are reaping the benefits of a fraudulent transaction. Just as the U.S.
pressured Israel to accept Egyptian violations of the armistice agreement
after the War of Attrition in 1970, namely, moving missile launching pads
closer to the Suez Canal, the American administration has followed this
paradigm with the Palestinians in the Oslo era.75

Oslo Gave the Palestinians a Territorial Base

"We adopt the experience of another people to our own particular
circumstances. The topographical conditions here are not the same as in
Algeria or Vietnam. We should not leap beyond the limitations imposed on us
by the military, material, and natural conditions, but we can overcome these
limitations, and we shall do so if we adapt our strategy to them."
- Yasser Arafat, late 1960s.76

Since its early days, during the "Total Liberation Phase" (1969-1974), the
PLO did not have the viable option of waging a sustained guerilla war
against Israel. The main accomplishment of the Oslo accords was to give the
PLO a territorial base that provided a viable option for waging a sustained
guerilla war against Israel for the purpose of achieving its strategic
objective. "Victory, in this contest," it should be recalled, "means that
one or the other government prevails. Defeat means that one or the other
government (or regime) disappears."77

In view of this new situation, it is necessary to reevaluate the basic
assumptions of Israel's policy. The fact that Israel faces a people's war
means that there is no "peace process" in the generally accepted meaning of
the term, nor is a genuine settlement in prospect. There is no deal to be
done. Instead, there is a condition of a protracted, decades-long war whose
purpose is to weaken the Jewish state in order to destroy it. Negotiations
and occasional pauses take place mainly as a tactic subordinated to the
enemy's greater goal and to enable it to take territory without a
struggle.78 As David Makovsky wrote, the consequences of this type of
encounter, as in the case of the Taba negotiations, have been to raise the
cost to Israel of a settlement in a future negotiation. This is called
"moving the concessionary baseline."79 Such negotiations also provide the
other side the opportunity to consolidate gains and the legitimacy of being
in the company of respectable partners.

According to this analysis, Israel's policy-makers have seriously
underestimated the determination and ability of the enemy and have viewed
relative strength too much in terms of hardware. If one takes into account
the opposing strategy with its integrated military and political doctrine,
Israel's advantage seriously weakens. If Israel wants to assure its own
survival, it must defeat the enemy's strategy and its people's war.
Specifically, there is an urgent need to reassess the threat facing Israel
and to prevent the enemy from augmenting its strength and implementing its
strategy. Israel must meet the challenge by devising its own unified
doctrine with clearly defined and stated political and military goals. Some
of these should be: 1) to assure the survival of the State of Israel as a
Jewish state and to protect its citizens; 2) to defend its legitimacy
proactively, and; 3) to complete the process of integrating the Jewish state
into the structure of the democratic world.

Appendix: The Strategic Thought of Stefan T. Possony

This essay has made extensive use of the writings of Stefan T. Possony
(1913-1995), a little-known but extremely important American strategist.
Born in Vienna in 1913, he received his doctorate there in 1930 in history
and economics. He moved to Paris in 1938, the year his first major book,
Tomorrow's War, was published, and he worked as a psychological warfare
advisor to the French Foreign Ministry and as an advisor to the French Armed
Forces. Advance units of the Gestapo briefly captured him when Paris fell,
but he escaped, fleeing across the Pyrenees and then to the United States in
1940, where he initially worked at Princeton University alongside Einstein
at the Institute for Advanced Studies. Possony studied a broad a range of
twentieth-century problems, including communism, psychological warfare, and
strategic targeting.80 During the Second World War he was aware that Nazism
would be defeated, and that communism was the next challenge. He played a
key role in the process of influencing Emperor Hirohito to agree to Japan's
surrender, thus overruling the military caste of Imperial Japan. While
Director of International Studies and Senior Fellow at the Hoover
Institution at Stanford University, where he was affiliated from 1961, his
ideas of space-based systems of anti-missile defenses and the use of
directed-energy weapons from space caught the imagination of then Governor
Ronald Reagan of California, who adopted them when he was elected president
in 1980. (Possony and his coauthor, Jerry Pournelle, a writer of science
fiction, published The Strategy of Technology which directly inspired the
Strategic Defense Initiative.81) One of Possony's proteges, Richard Allen,
became National Security Advisor to Reagan in 1981. He was the contact for
Possony in the White House.82 (White House Chief of Staff and later
Secretary of State Gen. Alexander M. Haig, Jr., was another former Possony
protege.) President Reagan adopted Possony's view that the U.S. and the West
should use their technological supremacy to work for victory in the Cold
War.83 Other Possony ideas are clearly recognizable in the Reagan
administration's comprehensive strategy for the deconstruction of the Soviet
Union.84 His analysis of insurgent warfare and communist military doctrine
has been of particular relevance here.

* * *

The author wishes to acknowledge the kind help of: Gregory Copley (Defense
and Foreign Affairs Publications, the International Strategic Studies
Association, Washington, D.C.); Cecil B. Currey (Lutz, Florida); Rivkah
Duker Fishman; Manfred Gerstenfeld; Raanan Gissin (Prime Minister's Office);
Amnon Lord; Zvi Marom; Moshe Yegar; Jerry Pournelle (Los Angeles); Michelle
Ben-Ami, Librarian, American Jewish Committee, Jerusalem; staff of the
American Cultural Center, Jerusalem; and Linda Wheeler, Reference Librarian,
Hoover Institution (Stanford, California).

* * *

Notes
1. Sun Tzu, Art of War, Samuel B. Griffith, tr. and ed. (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1963), p. 77.
2. http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH0cc40. Between September 29, 2000,
and June 1, 2003, Magen David Adom treated a total of 5,456 casualties as
follows: 688 killed, 478 severely injured, 685 moderately, and 3,605 lightly
injured, among them 11 MDA staff members;
http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH0ia50.
3. E.g., Arafat's speech of May 10, 1994, in a Johannesburg mosque. Yossi
Melman, "Don't Confuse Us with the Facts," Haaretz, August 16, 2002. Also,
Yael Yehoshua, "Abu-Mazen: A Political Profile," MEMRI Special Report 16
(April 30, 2003).
4. Yossef Bodansky, Arafat's "Peace Process," ACPR Policy Paper 18 (1977):4.
5. http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP23601.
6. The PA has not held general elections since 1996. The Israeli-Palestinian
Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, signed in Washington
on September 28, 1995, specifies in Chapter I, Article III, Paragraph 4:
"The Council and the Ra'ees [President] of the Executive Authority of the
Council shall be elected for a transitional period not exceeding five years
from the signing of the Gaza-Jericho Agreement on May 4, 1994." It should be
noted that in January 1996 Arafat was elected by a majority of 87.3 percent,
which was exactly the same percentage as the January 1947 Communist election
victory in post-war Poland. After he took power in 1959, Fidel Castro also
promised democratic elections in three years.
7. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2nd ed. (New York:
Meridian Books, 1959), p. 378.
8. Hussam Mohammad, "PLO Strategy: From Total Liberation to Coexistence";
http:/pij.org/site/vhome.htm?g=a&aid=4282. See also Gerard Chaliand, The
Palestinian Resistance, trans. Michael Perl (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972).
9. Barry Rubin, Revolution until Victory? The Politics and History of the
PLO (Cambridge, Mass.: H.U.P., 1994), p. 24.
10. Raphael Danziger, "Algeria and the Palestinian Organizations," in The
Palestinians and the Middle East Conflict, Gabriel Ben-Dor, ed., (Tel Aviv:
Turtledove, 1979), p. 348.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid., pp. 364-365. See particularly the subsection, "Some Diplomatic
and Propaganda Techniques," of Richard Pipe's chapter, "Some Operational
Principles of Soviet Foreign Policy," in M. Confino and S. Shamir, The USSR
and the Middle East (Jerusalem: Israel Universities Press, 1973), pp, 18-20.
13. See Baruch Hazan, "Involvement by Proxy: Eastern Europe and the PLO,
1971-1975," ibid., pp. 321-40.
14. See Ion Mihai Pacepa, "The Arafat I Know," Wall Street Journal, January
10, 2002.
15. Neil C. Livingston and David Halevy, Inside the PLO (New York: Morrow,
1990), p. 141.
16. Yuval Arnon-Ohana, The PLO: Portrait of an Organization (Hebrew) (Tel
Aviv, 1985), p. 107. "Muhammad A-Sha'ar, PLO representative in Moscow,
declared in February 1981, 'many hundreds of Palestinian officers at the
rank of division commanders have graduated Soviet military academies.'"
17. See "Palestinian Leader: Number of Jewish Victims in the Holocaust Might
be 'Even Less Than a Million...'," MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis Series 95, May
30, 2002; http:memri.org/bin/opener.cgi?Page=archives&ID=IA9502.
18. Abu Iyad [Salah Khalaf] with Eric Rouleau, My Home, My Land, trans.
Linda Butler Koseoglu (New York: Times Books, 1978), pp. 65-67.
19. Ibid., 69, and Yossef Bodansky, "Arafat's 'Peace Process,'" p. 4. In
June 1974, the PLO adopted the "Phases Program/PhasedPlan" in a series of
resolutions at a meeting of the Palestine National Council held in Cairo.
Bernard Lewis, "The Palestinians and the PLO; A Historical Approach,"
Commentary 59 (January 1975):45, 48.
20. Abu-Iyad, p. 69, as quoted by Yossef Bodansky, p. 4.
21. Al-Dustur (Amman, Jordan), April 14, 1970, quoted by Cecil B. Currey,
Victory at Any Cost; The Genius of Viet Nam's Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap
(Washington: Brassey's, 1997), p. 277. See also Joseph Farah, "Vietnam All
Over Again in Mideast?" WorldNetDaily, December 17, 2002;
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30025.
22. See entry of Khalil al-Wazir in Guy Bechor, ed., The PLO Lexicon (Tel
Aviv: Ministry of Defense, 1991), p. 90. See also "Biography of Khalil
al-Wazir (Abu Jihad)," Encyclopedia of the Palestinians, Philip Mattar, ed.
(New York: Facts on File, 2000).
23. Y. Harkabi, "Al Fatah's Doctrine," in The Israel-Arab Reader: A
Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict, Walter Laqueur and Barry
Rubin, eds. (New York: Penguin Books, 1991), p. 395.
24. Chaliand, The Palestinian Resistance, p. 158.
25. Stefan T. Possony, People's War; The Art of Combining Partisan-Military,
Psycho-Social, and Political Conquest Techniques (Taipei: World
Anti-Communist League, 1970), p. 85 [Hereinafter, P.W.].
26. See Sun Tzu, Art of War, p. 84, "Offensive Strategy," verse 31:
"Therefore I say: 'Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles
you will never be in peril.'"
27. Harriet Fast Scott and William F. Scott, eds., The Soviet Art of War;
Doctrine, Strategy and Tactics (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1982. For a
modern and recent history of the Soviet Union, see Mikhail Heller and
Alexandr Nekrich, Utopia in Power; The History of the Soviet Union from 1917
to the Present, trans. Phylis B. Carlos (New York: Summit Books, 1986).
28. Marshal A. A. Grechko has defined military doctrine as "an officially
accepted system of views in a given state and its armed forces on the nature
of war and methods of conducting it and on preparations of the country and
army for war." Scott, Soviet Art of War, p. 4.
29. Mikhail V. Frunze (1885-1925), who became chief of staff of the Red Army
in May 1924, had described the Unified Military Doctrine in a publication
that first appeared in June 1921. Scott reports that he had been strongly
influenced by the writings of the German generals Paul von Hindenburg and
Erich Ludendorff, ibid., p. 28. See also, "Some Soviet Techniques of
Negotiation," in Philip E. Mosely, The Kremlin in World Politics; Studies in
Soviet Policy and Action (New York: Vintage, 1960), p. 40. Mosely wrote in
1951: "Through Lenin and Stalin, Soviet thinking has fully absorbed the
Clausewitz maxims that national strength and strong alliances determine the
effectiveness of national policy in peace, and that in war one must never
lose sight of the aims of policy for which it is waged."
30. Mao Tse-tung on Guerilla Warfare, trans and ed., Samuel B. Griffith (New
York: Praeger, 1961), p. 16-17, and Art of War, p. 47. Mao and Chu Teh, with
whom he founded the Red Chinese Army, made this decision together.
31. Stefan T. Possony, A Century of Conflict (Chicago: Regnery, 1953), p.
235. With regard to this principle, Mao drew on the thinking of Mikhail V.
Frunze and Mikhail N. Tukhachevsky, Marshal of the Soviet Union (1882-1945).
32. Scott, Soviet Art of War, p. ix.
33. "Lin Piao on "Strategy and Tactics of a People's War" (1965), in Martin
Ebon, The Life and Writings of China's New Ruler; Lin Piao (New York: Stein
and Day, 1970), pp. 228-29. This passage may be found in Lin Piao's key
policy statement, "Long Live the Victory of the People's War!" (1965). Sun
Tzu had written: "The worst policy is to attack cities. Attack cities only
when there is no alternative." Art of War, p. 78. See also Conor Cruise
O'Brien's comments on Lin Piao, On the Eve of the Millenium; The Future of
Democracy Through an Age of Unreason (New York: Free Press, 1994), p. 138.
34. Currey, Giap, pp. 319-21. For historical background, see Ho Chi Minh,
"The Party's Military Work among the Peasants; Revolutionary Guerilla
Methods," in Armed Insurrection, A. Neuberg [pseud.], ed. (New York: St.
Martin's 1970), pp. 255-71. This title was first published in 1928 as Der
bewaffnete Aufstand.
35. "Interview with Vo Nyugen Giap, Viet Minh Commander,"
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/peoplescentury/episodes/guerillawars/giaptrasnscript
/html.
36. Currey, Giap, p. 204.
37. "While in Hanoi, Abu-Iyad was also educated about the strategic impact
of the 1968 Tet Offensive - a major military defeat of the Vietcong and
North Vietnam that was transformed into a major strategic victory of Hanoi
through the sophisticated exploitation and manipulation of Western,
particularly American, media and public opinion." Yossef Bodansky, "Arafat's
'Peace Process,'" p. 4.
38. Raanan Gissin, "Low Intensity Conflict with High Resolution: Can We
Win?" Justice 31 (March 2002):15-16.
39. David Binder, "Soviet and Allies Shift on Doctrine," New York Times, May
25, 1988.
40. Stefan T. Possony, People's War.
41. Ibid., p. 86.
42. Ibid., pp. 87-88. "In this sense, a people's war is less a seizure of
power than a building of revolutionary power and the gradual weakening,
perhaps the destruction, of the anti-revolutionary establishment, notably
its armed might" (ibid., p. 39).
43. Ibid., p. 44. For background information on the subject of propaganda,
see E. H. Carr, "Propaganda in International Politics," Oxford Pamphlets on
World Affairs 16 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1939); and Philip M. Taylor,
"Propaganda from Thucydides to Thatcher,"
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/ics/arts-pt1.htm.
44. P.W., p. 44.
45. Anti-militarism includes breaches of military discipline, disobedience,
desertion, and mutiny, ibid., p. 34.
46. Ibid., p. 21. See Richard Pipes, "Some Operational Principles of Soviet
Foreign Policy," pp. 13-15.
47. Ibid., p. 22.
48. Stefan T. Possony, Waking up the Giant (New Rochelle: Arlington House,
1974), pp. 679-80. "All the guiding principles of military operations grow
out of the one basic principle: to strive to the utmost to preserve one's
own strength and destroy that of the enemy." Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung,
vol. 2 (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1967), p. 81.
49. P.W., p. 45.
50. Amos Harel, "Major General Yaakov Orr," Haaretz, July 13, 2001. See J.
S. Fishman, "The Broken Promise of the Democratic Peace: Israel and the
Palestinian Authority," Jerusalem Viewpoints 477, May 1, 2002.
51. P.W., p. 21. "Propaganda is indeed part and parcel of 'psychological
warfare'; but terror is more. Terror continues to be used by totalitarian
regimes even when its psychological aims are achieved; its real horror is
that it reigns over a completely subdued population....Propaganda, in other
words, is one and possibly the most important instrument of totalitarianism
for dealing with the non-totalitarian world; terror, on the contrary, is the
very essence of its form of government." Hannah Arendt, The Origins of
Totalitarianism, p. 344.
52. "Zochrim et Mitchell Techilah?" ["Remember Mitchell at the Start?"]
Mekor Rishon, June 27, 2003 (Hebrew).
53. During the Oslo years, the Palestinian leadership was in material breach
of the military clauses of the interim agreement, seeking to import weaponry
like SA-7 shoulder-fired, anti-aircraft missiles and manufacturing Qassam
rockets. The Karine-A weapons ship contained a ton and a half of highly
potent C-4 explosives, long ranger mortars (120 mm), and 20 kilometer-range
katyusha rockets (122 mm). Dore Gold, "Defensible Borders for Israel,"
Jerusalem Viewpoints 500 (June 15-July 1, 2003).
54. "For the remainder of his life, Giap would laugh at a small joke which
Ho Chi Minh made about the outcome of the battle. 'At Dien Bien Phu,' Ho
chuckled, 'Giap lost not a single tank or airplane.'" Currey, Giap, p. 204.
55. "In the four years leading up to the 1982 war [in Lebanon], it [the PLO]
proceeded to upgrade its forces in the south in terms of weaponry and
numbers, and transformed them into something closer to a regular army."
Rashid Khalidi, Under Siege: PLO Decision-Making During the 1982 War (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1986).
56. For a definition of supersession, see James Carroll, Constantine's
Sword; the Church and the Jews (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000), p. 633, n.
1.
57. On anti-Jewish teachings of Palestinian Christian leaders, see Yitzhak
Sergio Minerbi, "Palestinian Christians Ignite Religious Controversy"
(Hebrew), Kivunim Hadashim 8 (April, 2003):70-82.
58. Anne Bayefsky, "Terrorism and Racism: The Aftermath of Durban,"
Jerusalem Viewpoints 468 (December 16, 2001).
59. "Abu Mazen in Gaza: Stop the Armed Operations," MEMRI, Special Dispatch
449, December 2002.
60. For an example of the activities of Peace Now in monitoring and
reporting on Jewish settlement activity, see Aviv Lavie, "No Mountain Too
High," Haaretz Magazine, June 20, 2002, pp. 8-11.
61. See, for example, Etgar Lefkovits, "Five Held for Trying to Reestablish
Jerusalem PA Security Force," Jerusalem Post, August 19, 2003.
62. Moshe Katz, "It is Also Dangerous Here," Mekor Rishon, Yoman Shevi'i,
July 4, 2003 (Hebrew).
63. Justus Reid Weiner, "The Global Epidemic of Illegal Building and
Demolitions: Implications for Jerusalem," Jerusalem Viewpoints 498 (May 15,
2008).
64. Conor Cruise O'Brien, The Siege (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986), p.
508.
65. Sten Anderson disclosed Kreisky's role in altering Swedish policy in
favor of the PLO at the end of 1974 and in involving American Jews in talks
with Arafat. Moshe Yegar, Neutral Policy - Theory versus Practice;
Swedish-Israeli Relations (Jerusalem: W.J.C., 1993), pp. 153-54.
66. Yoram Hazony, The Jewish State; The Struggle for Israel's Soul (New
York: Basic Books, 2000), p. 66.
67. Jerusalem Post, April 5, 1996, quoted by Steven T. Rosenthal,
Irreconcilable Differences? (Hanover: Brandeis, 2001), p. 175.
68. Washington Post, February 20, 1994, quoted by Rosenthal, ibid.
69. Steven Windmueller, "September 11: Its Implications for American Jewry,"
Jerusalem Viewpoints 492 (February 16, 2003). One result of the process
described above was that many young Jewish individuals possessing a strong
sense of social justice and idealism but weak ties of identification were
left vulnerable to the approaches of pro-Palestinian groups which targeted
them for recruitment.
70. Lt. Col. Jonathan D. Halevi, "Understanding the Breakdown of
Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations," Jerusalem Viewpoints 486, September
15-October 1, 2002. In the original Hebrew version of this article, that
appeared in the IDF military affairs journal Maarakhot 383, May 2002, it is
noted that this analysis was written on the basis of an IDF document called
"The Other View," which the author prepared in August 2001.
71. In contrast, Harold Nicolson, author and diplomatist who was a member of
the British Delegation in Paris after World War I, wrote, "it is a bad peace
which settles nothing. We must see to it, therefore, that at the end of this
war [WWII] we do not make a bad peace. We must learn from past
experience."Why Britain is at War (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1940), p. 113.
72. "In a post-Camp David whirlwind diplomatic tour, Arafat stopped in
Jakarta on August 16, 2000, where Indonesia's former president, Abdurrahman
Wahid, urged him to end the conflict with Israel. The reply? 'Arafat
confessed to me that in a hundred years, Israel will disappear. So why hurry
to recognize it?'" Yediot Ahronot, May 10, 2002, as cited by David Makovsky,
"Taba Mythchief," The National Interest (Spring 2003):128.
73. Hannah Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism, p. 384.
74. Barry Rubin, "From One U.S. Administration to the Next; Similarities and
Differences in the Push for Arab-Israeli Peace," AJC Israel/Mideast Briefing
(July 3, 2001).
75. Dr. Steven Plaut, "The Third Worst Middle East War," (November 27,
2003); http//chronwatch.com/features/contentDisplay.asp?aid=961.
76. Danziger, "Algeria and the Palestinian Organizations," p. 348.
77. P.W., pp. 87-88.
78. "Such negotiations are not originated by revolutionists for the purpose
of arriving at amicable arrangements with the opposition. Revolutions rarely
compromise; compromises are made only to further the strategic design.
Negotiation then, is undertaken for the dual purpose of gaining time to
buttress a position (military, political, social, economic) and to wear
down, frustrate, and harass the opponent." Griffith, Mao Tse-tung on
Guerilla Warfare, Introduction, p. 16.
79. David Makovsky, "Taba Mythchief," pp. 119-29.
80. "His work in the field of strategic targeting was pioneering. Before
that, almost all targeting in air warfare was considered a tactical
function." "Stefan Possony; Pioneered Air War Strategy in WWII," Los Angeles
Times, May 3, 1995.
81. "American defense policy at the time was one of deterrence by the
development of overwhelming offensive force which would make either side
think twice before deploying it. This was appropriately named mutually
assured destruction (MAD). Possony argued that this strategy was
insufficiently flexible. 'To stay ahead in the decisive technological war,'
he wrote, 'The United States must strive for a real option of assured
survival.' Though little of the necessary technology then existed, Possony
postulated the very anti-missile ideas including high-energy laser beams
fired from satellite battle stations in orbit, advanced satellite radars to
give early warning, and a range of decoys which were later to be develop