Doc's Talk: The Tactics of "Symmetrical Negotiations" May Not Work in "Asymmetrical Conflicts"

Monday, January 26, 2009

The Tactics of "Symmetrical Negotiations" May Not Work in "Asymmetrical Conflicts"

Lenny Ben-David

* The appointment of former Senator George J. Mitchell as Middle East envoy was warmly received in Washington, Jerusalem, and Ramallah. Yet, the Middle East that Mitchell will confront today is much changed from the one he wrestled with eight years ago as chairman of the 2001 Sharm el-Sheikh Fact-Finding Committee, which was created to investigate the outbreak of the Second Intifada. * The 2001 Mitchell Report was seen as an "even-handed" document, reflecting President Clinton's directive to "strive to steer clear of...finger-pointing. As a result, the committee attempted - even at the risk of straining credibility - to split the blame for the crisis. The Mitchell Committee could not ignore Palestinian terrorism and the Palestinian use of civilians as human shields. Israel's transgression - and there had to be one to balance Palestinian sins - was its settlement activity. The committee recommended a "freeze [of] all settlement activity, including the ‘natural growth' of existing settlements." Israelis objected that the freeze - never mandated in the interim stages of the Oslo Accords - would serve to reward the Palestinians' terrorism.

* The committee was appointed before the 9/11 al-Qaeda attack. Its report came prior to the capture of two weapons-laden ships bound for Gaza - the Santorini in May 2001 and the Karine A in January 2002 - and prior to President Bush's 2004 recognition of "new realities on the ground [in the territories], including already existing major Israeli populations centers." Bush continued: "[I]t is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949."

* The 2001 Mitchell Report was issued years before Hamas' coup in Gaza. Hamas remains dedicated to Israel's destruction. Its alliance with Iran and its affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood mark Hamas as an enemy of moderate Arab regimes. Hamas may yet prove to be a fatal flaw to Mitchell's axiom that "there is no such thing as a conflict that can't be ended."

President Barak Obama's appointment of former Senator George J. Mitchell as Middle East envoy was warmly received in Washington, Jerusalem, and Ramallah. Over the years, Mitchell, a respected judge, legislator and negotiator, has been tasked by presidents to broker a peace agreement in Northern Ireland, explore paths to peace in the Middle East, and even chair a commission to investigate steroid use in Major League Baseball. "The Conciliator" was the apt moniker given to Mitchell by one British newspaper.

The Middle East that Mitchell will confront today is much changed from the one he wrestled with eight years ago. And the parties to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict bear little resemblance to the antagonists he dealt with in Northern Ireland.

Mitchell chaired the "Sharm el-Sheikh Fact-Finding Committee," mandated by a Sharm el-Sheikh summit in October 2000 to investigate the outbreak of the "al-Aqsa Intifada" one month earlier and to recommend ways to stop the violence. His committee, which also included Senator Warren Rudman and three European statesmen, presented its findings to the new Bush administration on April 30, 2001. Its recommendations were then incorporated into the April 2003 " Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict," drafted by the Quartet of the UN, European Union, United States, and Russia.

In 2003, Mitchell distilled his vision of the Middle East conflict: "Palestinians will never achieve a state if Israel does not have security. Israel will never get sustainable security if the Palestinians don't have a state." Based on his experience in reaching the Northern Ireland "Good Friday" peace agreement, Mitchell expressed his belief in 2003 and again in December 2008 that "there is no such thing as a conflict that can't be ended."1

The Mitchell Report was seen as an "even-handed" document, reflecting the fact that the committee was directed by President Clinton to "strive to steer clear of any step that will intensify mutual blame and finger-pointing between the parties....The Committee should not become a divisive force or a focal point for blame and recrimination but rather should serve to forestall violence and confrontation and provide lessons for the future. This should not be a tribunal whose purpose is to determine the guilt or innocence of individuals or of the parties."2

As a result, the committee attempted - even at the risk of straining credibility - to split the blame for the crisis. "Some Israelis appear not to comprehend the humiliation and frustration that Palestinians must endure every day as a result of living with the continuing effects of occupation," the report wrote. "Some Palestinians appear not to comprehend the extent to which terrorism creates fear among the Israeli people and undermines their belief in the possibility of co-existence."

Humiliation is rarely fatal; terrorism usually is.

While the Mitchell Report did not blame Israeli Prime Minister Sharon for the outbreak of the Second Intifada,3 nonetheless, it sought to evenhandedly spread the responsibility for the violence, ignoring the evidence of Palestinian incitement. In response to Israeli claims that the violence was planned by Arafat and the Palestinian Authority, the committee declared, "[We were not] provided with persuasive evidence that the PA planned the uprising. Accordingly, we have no basis on which to conclude that there was a deliberate plan by the PA to initiate a campaign of violence at the first opportunity."

Subsequently, the real causes for the violence were exposed by a Palestinian minister in Yassir Arafat's government. Palestinian Communications Minister ‘Imad al-Faluji admitted in the Lebanese daily al-Safir on March 3, 2001: "Whoever thinks the Intifada broke out because of the despised Sharon's visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque is wrong....This Intifada was planned in advance, ever since President Arafat's return from the Camp David negotiations." Even earlier, al-Faluji had explained that the Intifada was initiated as the result of a strategic decision made by the Palestinians.4

The Intifada's premeditation is seen in the training and indoctrination of 25,000 Palestinian youth in summer camps even while Arafat was engaged in negotiations at Camp David.5

The Mitchell Report's Recommendations

In its recommendations to the two sides, the Mitchell Committee could not ignore Palestinian terrorism and the Palestinian use of civilians as human shields. It issued these recommendations:

The PA should make clear through concrete action to Palestinians and Israelis alike that terrorism is reprehensible and unacceptable, and that the PA will make a 100 percent effort to prevent terrorist operations and to punish perpetrators. This effort should include immediate steps to apprehend and incarcerate terrorists operating within the PA's jurisdiction. The PA should prevent gunmen from using Palestinian populated areas to fire upon Israeli populated areas and IDF positions. This tactic places civilians on both sides at unnecessary risk.

According to the committee, Israel's transgression - and there had to be one to balance Palestinian sins - was its settlement activity. "The Government of Israel," the committee recommended, "should freeze all settlement activity, including the ‘natural growth' of existing settlements."

Two years later, the Roadmap would cite the Mitchell Report in its call for a settlement freeze in Phase I of the Roadmap. "Israel also freezes all settlement activity," the drafters instructed, "consistent with the Mitchell Report" (emphasis added).

Israelis objected to the draconian call for a freeze. Sharon asked Secretary of State Colin Powell, "What do you want, for a pregnant woman to have an abortion just because she is a settler?"6 Moreover, Israelis objected, the freeze - never mandated in the interim stages of the Oslo Accords - would serve to reward the Palestinians' terrorism.

A Changed World Since the Mitchell Report

The Mitchell Report was drafted relatively early in the Palestinian Intifada, when it was believed by some that the Palestinians' violent outbreak was actually a spontaneous reaction to Prime Minister Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount in September 2000. As mentioned above, the world today knows otherwise.

The committee was appointed before the al-Qaeda attack on September 11, 2001, and the revelation of hostile international Islamic terrorism. The report was issued prior to the capture of two weapons-laden ships bound for Gaza - the Santorini in May 2001 and the Karine A in January 2002 - and the surfacing of proof of the grand battle Arafat was planning against Israel. (The Grad rockets, explosives, mortars and anti-tank weapons on the ships would find their way into Hamas arsenals in Gaza five years later through tunnels from the Sinai Peninsula.)

By 2003, George Mitchell was refocusing his attention on the threat of terrorism. In a commencement address at MIT in June 2003, he stated, "Our committee's report was very tough on terrorism. We branded it morally reprehensible and unacceptable. It is also politically counterproductive. It will not achieve its objective. To the contrary, with each suicide bomb attack, the prospect of a Palestinian state is delayed. Such tactics also are destructive of Palestinian civil society and the reputation of the Palestinian people throughout the world."

Nevertheless, Mitchell repeated at MIT his opposition to Israel's settlement policies, in keeping with the "long-standing opposition to the government of Israel's policies and practices regarding settlements. That U.S. opposition," he continued, "has been consistent through the Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush administrations; just as consistent has been the continued settlement activity by the Israeli government."

The U.S. position toward settlements, of course, underwent a major change under President Bush in April 2004 when he assured Prime Minister Sharon: "In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949."7 The universal interpretation of Bush's letter was that settlement blocs would remain under Israeli sovereignty.

Lastly, the 2001 Mitchell Report was issued years before Hamas' coup in Gaza and its open fealty to Iran. Hamas remains dedicated to Israel's destruction. Its alliance with Iran and its affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood mark Hamas as an enemy of moderate Arab regimes such as Egypt and Jordan. As such, Hamas cannot be compared to the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which wanted to throw the British out of Northern Ireland but had no aspirations to capture London. Moreover, while the IRA had limited international contacts, it was not a part of a European-wide network and was not backed by a petrodollar-rich, oil-producing country like Iran, which was also on the verge of obtaining nuclear weapons, and thereby emboldening its regional surrogates. In short, Mitchell will be conducting diplomacy under completely different strategic circumstances than he did in the 1990s. Indeed, Hamas may prove to be a fatal flaw to Mitchell's axiom that "there is no such thing as a conflict that can't be ended."

* * *

Notes

1. Commencement address at MIT, Cambridge, Mass., June 9, 2003.

2. Mitchell Report, April 30, 2002.

3. Ibid. "The Sharon visit did not cause the ‘Al-Aqsa Intifada.' But it was poorly timed and the provocative effect should have been foreseen; indeed, it was foreseen by those who urged that the visit be prohibited. More significant were the events that followed: The decision of the Israeli police on September 29 to use lethal means against the Palestinian demonstrators; and the subsequent failure, as noted above, of either party to exercise restraint."

4. Al-Ayyam, December 6, 2000.

5. New York Times, August 3, 2000.

6. BBC News, May 12, 2003.

7. Letter from President Bush to Prime Minister Sharon, April 14, 2004.

* * *

Lenny Ben-David served as deputy chief of mission in Israel's embassy in Washington. He blogs at http://www.lennybendavid.com/.

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The IDF’s Minorities in Numbers and Pictures

In honor of IDF Diversity Week, we present diversity through numbers and pictures. Each year, more and more Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouin and immigrants from around the world take on the responsibility of defending Israel.

MUSLIMS:

Muslim Arab Israelis are not required to draft in the IDF, but there are many who volunteer. In 2013, there were over 200 Muslims serving in the IDF and over 300 in the reserves.

Bedouins:

Bedouins are nomadic Muslims who were in Israel when modern borders were set in place and are now considered Israeli citizens. They are not required to draft but a growing number choose to enlist. In 2012, there were over 1,400 Bedouin Muslim soldiers doing regular IDF service and almost 1,500 in the reserves.

Read more:http://www.idfblog.com/2014/02/27/truth-idf-numbers-pictures/#more-34027

Are you aware that in 2013, Middle class taxes go up-significantly?

In January of next year, the federal income tax rate for middle-class taxpayers is scheduled to rise from 25 percent to 28 percent, and the payroll tax is scheduled to rise from 13.3 percent to 15.3 percent… This drives the marginal tax rate based on the aforementioned three taxes to 48.12 percent. Add in state and local property, corporate, excise, and other state and local taxes, and the percentage of each additional dollar that is taxed hovers around 50 percent… When half of each additional dollar earned is taxed away, taxpayers experience a disincentive to start businesses or expand existing ones. This leads to fewer jobs being created.

Why is HAMAS Inside Tampa Schools?

Clare Lopez

Kelly Miliziano, who teaches history classes at Steinbrenner High School in the Tampa, Florida area apparently thinks it’s perfectly OK to invite a senior official of a HAMAS-affiliated organization into her classroom to discuss Islam with her students. According to local media reports, not only has this been going on for years, but in spite of the civil and criminal proceedings that could result from such reckless negligence, the Hillsborough County school superintendent, Mary Ellen Elia, and the chairman of the school board, Candy Olson, also expressed approval for students under their responsibility to be exposed repeatedly to guest speaker, Hassan Shibly, who is the Executive Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the Tampa area.
More...

Did You Know... Ignoring the Call to Islam will Bring Jihad

‘Conquest through Da’wa [proselytizing] that is what we hope for. We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through sword but through Da’wa.’
-- Yousef al-Qaradawi , Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader The Arabic word ‘Da’wa’ means the “call to Islam.” But do not think that Da’wa is the same thing as an invitation to an optional holiday event. The classical Islamic doctrine of jihad mandates that enemies must be given the opportunity to convert to Islam or pay the jizya tax before it is permissible to attack them.
Clare M. Lopez

Who is being discriminated-facts tell the truth

Religious bias

Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,409 offenses reported by law enforcement. A breakdown of the bias motivation of religious-bias offenses showed:

65.4 percent were anti-Jewish.
13.2 percent were anti-Islamic.
9.5 percent were anti-other religion, i.e., those not specified.
4.3 percent were anti-Catholic.
3.8 percent were anti-multiple religions, group.
3.3 percent were anti-Protestant.
0.5 percent were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2010/narratives/hate-crime-2010-incidents-and-offenses.

On March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview

with PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

In March 1977, Zahir Muhsein, a PLO executive, said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism."

"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

The Arab Apartheid

Ben-Dror Yemini
In 1948, the Arab countries refused to accept the UN partition proposal and they launched a war of annihilation against the State of Israel which had barely been established. All precedents in this matter showed that the party that starts the war - and with a declaration of annihilation, yet - pays a price for it. Between 550,000 and 710,000 Arabs fled because of the war and a larger number of 850,000 Jews were expelled or fled from Arab countries (the "Jewish nakba").
Population exchanges and expulsions were the norm at that time, occurring in dozens of other conflict points and affecting about 52 million people. In all the population exchange precedents that occurred during or at the end of an armed conflict, there was no return of refugees to the previous region, which had turned into a new national state.
Only the Arab states acted completely differently from the rest of the world. Instead of assimilating the refugees, they crushed them despite the fact that they were their coreligionists and members of the Arab nation - instituting a regime of apartheid. So the "nakba" was not caused by the actual dispossession, which had also been experienced by tens of millions of others. The "nakba" is the story of the apartheid, oppression, abuse and denial of rights suffered by the Arab refugees at the hands of the Arab countries. (Maariv)

International Law and Military Operations in Practice - Col. Richard Kemp

"Islamist fighting groups study the international laws of armed conflict carefully and they understand it well. They know that a British or Israeli commander and his men are bound by international law and the rules of engagement that flow from it. They then do their utmost to exploit what they view as one of their enemy's main weaknesses. Their very modus operandi is built on the correct assumption that Western armies will normally abide by the rules, while these insurgents employ a deliberate policy of operating consistently outside international law. "

Lost Historical Moments

What Rabin’s last Knesset speech really said:repudiation of a Palestinian state

Rabin ruled out a fully sovereign Palestinian state :

“We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority.”

Rabin ruled out a total withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and thus a return to the pre-June 1967 borders :

“The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”

Rabin ruled out withdrawing form the Jordan Valley:

“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”

Rabin ruled out uprooting settlement blocs, like the Gush Katif bloc in Gaza (which was subsequently uprooted by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon):

“The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.

AND

Rabin ruled out removing any settlement before coming to a full peace agreement with the Palestinians:

“I want to remind you: we committed ourselves, that is, we came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”

Rabin insisted on Israel retaining full security control of the borders with Egypt and Jordan, contrary to Israel’s relinquishment of the Philadelphia Corridor on the border with Egypt:

“The responsibility for external security along the borders with Egypt and Jordan, as well as control over the airspace above all of the territories and Gaza Strip maritime zone, remains in our hands.”

Correcting Oslo Myths-Part 2

3) Kuttab laments that the post-1993 Oslo process resulted in a Palestinian Authority "whose ministers and legislators are not guaranteed passage between Gaza and the West Bank ...."

Before free passage or other perquisites, PA leaders were obligated, among other things, to eliminate the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, end anti-Israeli, antisemitic incitement in schools, mosques, and communications media, and resolve all outstanding issues through peaceful negotiations. They met none of these commitments, sometimes bolstering terrorism and greatly increasing incitement.

4) Kuttab complains that under Oslo the PA got "lightly armed police ---- but no real sovereignty over the land or contiguity between our communities in Gaza and the West Bank."

Oslo agreements repeatedly were revised, regardless of Palestinian non-compliance, until the authorized number of police grew from 8,000 to 40,000. Though they were to be the only armed forces in the territories, Israeli estimates early in the second intifada put the number of gunmen - police, "security services," terrorists, and armed gangs - at 85,000. Their armament reportedly included not only heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, but also anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

Sovereignty was to be negotiated in the envisioned 1998 "final status" talks - after a five-year period of confidence-building. Palestinian leadership chronically undermined the process. Palestinian terrorism made the 1993 - 1998 Oslo period more deadly for Israelis than the 15 years preceding it.

The United States doesn't have contiguity between the lower 48 states and Alaska and Hawaii; territorial contiguity between the West Bank and Gaza Strip - that is, through the 20 miles of Israeli territory between them - was never promised and would destroy Israeli contiguity.

5) "Palestinians have been made to endure hundreds of checkpoints in the West Bank, an eight-foot wall deep in our territories, and tight Israeli control over borders."

The security barrier is not "deep in Palestinian territories," but rather encompasses less than 8 percent of Judea and Samaria, and is mostly a fence, rarely a wall; the land in question is not "our [Palestinian] territories" but disputed territory to which, according to the authors of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, Jews as well as Arabs have claims; and there are no international borders, only the 1949 armistice lines with Jordan. Under 242, borders remain to be negotiated. As for checkpoints - like the security barrier and "tight Israeli control" - Palestinian Arabs precipitated these measures themselves. No terrorism and there would be no fence or tight Israeli control and few checkpoints - like before the first intifada.

Correcting Some Oslo Myths

1) In Oslo "Israeli, Palestinian and other world leaders promised that ... Palestinian sovereignty would be solidified."

No, they didn't. The 1993 Declaration of Principles and subsequent Oslo agreements outlined a process by which final status negotiations about the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be reached. The process required an end to anti-Israel terrorism and incitement and a commitment to peaceful negotiations. The PA, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other terrorist groups, sabotaged the process from the start.

2) "The reality is that, in defiance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which states that it is inadmissible to occupy land by force, Palestinian territories are still under foreign military occupation."
Wrong again. Resolution 242 (1967) does note "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war." It also affirms the right of every state in the area "to live in peace with secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." There were no "Palestinian territories." Jordan occupied the West Bank, Egypt controlled Gaza. Israel did not have "secure and recognized boundaries," so retention of some of those territories was possible under 242. Israel is not a "foreign" military occupier in the West Bank but, pending final negotiations, the lawful military administrator as a result of a successful war of self-defense.

Doc's Talk