Stonewalling too far

By Graham Usher

Yet recent events in Israel and the Occupied Territories suggest that the Israeli premier may have taken his strategy of stonewalling a step too far.

One is the unprecedented crisis of faith Oslo's 15-month imbroglio has caused between Netanyahu and Israel's President Ezer Weizman. The second is last week's stand-off between Israeli and Palestinian Authority (PA) military forces in Gaza, which, but for the rapid intervention of American, Egyptian, British and French mediators, could have erupted into a full scale confrontation along the lines of September 1996, when 80 Palestinians and 15 Israelis were killed in clashes after Netanyahu's decision to open a tunnel in Jerusalem's occupied old city.

Such developments are entirely predictable. Whatever the flaws of the Oslo Accords, they have bequeathed new realities which make any return to the pre-Oslo status quo of direct Israeli rule in the Occupied Territories untenable. If Oslo really is exhausted as a means to realise a political solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the alternative is going to be political polarisation in Israel and military conflict in the West Bank and Gaza.

The domestic Israeli crisis was set off on 29 June when Weizman called publicly for early elections in Israel as the only way to solve the impasse in the peace process. Worse, as far as Netanyahu was concerned, were the reasons Weizman said had compelled him to make such a call. "I am not willing to help Netanyahu any longer," the ceremonial president told Israel's Channel 1 and 2 TV stations. "It is not possible that everyone is angry at us (the US, Europe, President Mubarak, King Hussein), and only we are right. The peace process is not going anywhere, and no one should try and tell me otherwise."

After a show of initial restraint, Netanyahu went on the offensive. Appearing on Israeli TV on 30 June, he charged that "the president [has] placed himself at the head of the left wing and openly called for toppling the elected government." He added, "at a critical stage of sensitive negotiations, he is essentially placing himself on the side of [Palestinian leader Yasser] Arafat and [Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak."

Such vitriol had not been heard in Israeli politics since the months prior to the assassination of Yitzak Rabin. Many Israeli commentators pointed out that Netanyahu's words were sailing perilously close to incitement. This, certainly, appeared to be the way Weizman read the attack. "We have never seen the president so angry," the Israeli daily Ma'ariv quoted one presidential aide as saying. In response, Weizman called a press conference where, said the aide, he would "take the gloves off and tell the whole truth about the prime minister."

The press conference never took place. Due to some last- minute diplomacy by Likud's coalition chairman Meir Sheetrit, Netanyahu and Weizman instead held a "long and difficult discussion" at the president's office on 1 July and agreed to have regular weekly meetings and not to trade recriminations "in public".

Not a single Israeli commentator expects the "cease-fire" to last. According to the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot, no sooner had Weizman left his "reconciliation" rendezvous with Netanyahu than he was on the phone with "political figures", imploring them to work for early elections "in light of the grave situation we've gotten into due to Netanyahu's refusal to make the necessary decisions in the peace process."

The situation became graver and even more incendiary the next day in the Gaza Strip. The spark there was the Israeli army's refusal to allow PA Supplies Minister Abdel-Aziz Shahin and a convoy of 22 Palestinian vehicles to travel along a coastal road that runs between the Egyptian border and Gaza City. The army said the convoy had no authority to use the road, part of which, according to Oslo, falls under Israel's control. Shahin countered that Palestinians had been using the road for the last two months without hindrance. His response was to stay put in an abandoned restaurant beside the road for "as long as it takes to solve this problem."

What happened next reveals the absolute crisis of trust that currently exists between Israeli and Palestinian forces. In response to the Shahin-army stand-off, Palestinian police closed off intersections leading to the Jewish settlements of Gush Qatif, Netzarim and Moraj, causing massive tailbacks of traffic on Gaza's main arterial roads. The Israeli army retaliated by closing off the entire Gaza Strip and digging in behind fortified positions.

The army also accused the PA and Shahin in particular of orchestrating the confrontation. The PA countered that its actions were defensive, bolstered by the belief that "Israel was preparing for war", as one PA security official quoted in Ha'aretz on 5 July put it. He pointed out that as soon as the confrontation erupted, Israel began airlifting settlers out of Gaza and bringing into the Strip "a huge number of military vehicles."

Whatever the cause, the showdown lasted some 12 hours, ending at around 4am Friday morning with the army allowing the convoy (but not Shahin) to use the contested road. In exchange, the PA withdrew its forces from the intersections. The fact that the resolution of the crisis required the personal intervention of Israel's Defence Minister Yitzak Mordechai, PLO chief negotiator Mahmoud Abbas and US special envoy Dennis Ross is a measure of just how frayed Israeli/PA "security arrangements", that are supposed to underpin the new realities of Oslo, have become.