the jaws of victory

By (Likud MK) Moshe Arens Ha'aretz 14 November 2000


A straight line leads from the agreements concluded by the Rabin government
with the PLO at Oslo eight years ago to the Al Aqsa Intifada Yasser Arafat
has been waging against Israel these past few weeks, using guns Israel
provided him as part of the Oslo deal.Moshe Arens: From Oslo to the Al Aqsa Intifada - defeat being pulled from
the jaws of victory

By (Likud MK) Moshe Arens Ha'aretz 14 November 2000


A straight line leads from the agreements concluded by the Rabin government
with the PLO at Oslo eight years ago to the Al Aqsa Intifada Yasser Arafat
has been waging against Israel these past few weeks, using guns Israel
provided him as part of the Oslo deal.The line passes through the Hebron and
Wye agreements concluded by the Netanyahu government; the first leaving the
Jewish community in Hebron dangerously exposed to attack from Palestinian
gunmen in Hebron, the second providing for excessive U.S. involvement in the
Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, eventually leading to U.S. support for
Palestinian negotiators, eventually leading to U.S. support for Palestinian
demands.

The line continues to the far-reaching concessions Ehud Barak presented at
the recent Camp David summit, called at his behest, and terminates with
nightly attacks against Gilo, the Jewish quarter of Hebron, and the
settlement of Psagot. At all of the stations along this line Arafat's
perception that Palestinian use of force was effective in making Israel
retreat was reinforced. That Israelis were desperately eager for an
agreement with the Palestinians, that they did not have the staying power
for a prolonged confrontation, and that therefore the ultimate Palestinian
goals were attainable by a staged process that would involve negotiations
alternating with the use of violence and terror against Israel.

It is useful to view the developments of the past few years against the
background of the history over a hundred years of Jewish-Arab conflict, and
in particular in light of the consistent Israeli victories against repeated
Arab attempts to destroy the Jewish state during the first 25 years of its
existence, culminating in the Egyptian-Syrian attack against Israel on Yom
Kippur of 1973, and the subsequent defeat of the Egyptian and Syrian armies
by the IDF. There is little doubt that as a result of this defeat some in
the Arab World, Egypt first and foremost, concluded that Israel could not be
toppled by force and that there was no alternative to a negotiated
settlement. There followed the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty of 1979.

There is little doubt that the IDF's operation in Lebanon in 1982, that led
to the expulsion of Yasser Arafat and his PLO forces from Lebanon and their
transfer to far-away Tunis, even if it did not lead to the realization of
all of Israel's goals at the time, reinforced the Arab perception of Israeli
strength and the limitations of Arab military capabilities in matching that
strength.

The Intifada that broke out in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza in 1987 - an
insurrection by Palestinian civilians against Israeli rule in the
territories - was a clear indication that the Palestinians there had
despaired of effective assistance by the armies of the neighboring Arab
states. They decided to take matters into their own hands in the hope that
Israel would find it difficult to contend with confrontations with the
civilian population. In the first years of the Intifada they were proven
right. International television coverage showing Palestinian civilians, many
of them women, facing Israeli soldiers in full battle dress naturally
aroused world sympathy, including in Israel itself, for the Palestinian
cause. Rabin's policy, calling on Israeli soldiers to break the bones of the
Palestinian demonstrators, was brutal, crude, ineffective, and finally
counter-productive. It was only when he was succeeded at the Defense
Ministry by myself in 1990 that Israeli tactics became more sophisticated
and more effective. By the summer of 1992 the Intifada was over - it had run
out of steam and exhausted itself.

It was at this point, the insurrection defeated, Arafat and his PLO cohorts
in faraway Tunis, that the Israeli architects of the Oslo accords decided to
pick the defeated and exhausted Arafat off the floor, extend to him Israel's
recognition as the partner for negotiations and thus foist him and his
associates on the Palestinian population in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, while
giving implied Israeli recognition to his demand for the "right of return"
for his Palestinian Diaspora constituency. There is probably no example in
history to equal this case of defeat being pulled from the jaws of victory.

From thereon it was downhill all the way for Israel. The hasty withdrawal of
the IDF from the security zone in Lebanon and abandonment of the SLA under
pressure of the Hezbollah militia was further indication that Israel's
military prowess could be worn down and defeated by sustained guerrilla
activity carried out by small militia forces. What the Hezbollah had
succeeded in doing in southern Lebanon, the Palestinians were going to try
to achieve on home ground.

Barak's offer of large-scale concessions at the Camp David summit was the
last straw. Here was a clear indication that Israel had no stomach for
further confrontations with the Palestinians. That with sustained pressure
they would be able to be granted all their wishes. That now was the time to
leave the negotiating table and resume violence.

That is where we are at the moment. Should we not be able to prove that
Arafat will gain nothing by the use of violence we may be in for far worse
in the future.