1 - 7 November 2001
Issue No.558
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 1 - 7 November 2001 Issue No.558 |
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'No candidate for peace'
Israel lacks any culture of peace, and under the leadership of Sharon is bent, more than ever, on fuelling destruction, writes Ibrahim Nafie
As international attention is fixed on events in Afghanistan the Israeli government is persisting in its brutal repression of the Palestinian people. Not only is it pursuing collective punishment, economic blockade and assassinations as viciously as ever, it has made massive incursions into PA territories in area A, in violation of the Oslo accords, under the pretext of combating "Palestinian violence." Then, no sooner does it reach an understanding with the PA, whether directly or through US mediation, to withdraw from one area than it issues orders to invade another. And these incursions are not haphazard, but part of a plan to revert the reality on the ground to pre-Oslo conditions.
Sharon, as President Mubarak has frequently said, knows only the language of war, murder and destruction. It follows that his government is bent on subverting any prospects for peace. Rehavam Zeevi, the assassinated former Israeli minister of tourism, epitomised the mindless belligerence that now dominates Israeli policy making. When he announced his resignation 24 hours before his assassination, he said it was in protest against the decision to withdraw Israeli forces from areas occupied in Hebron 10 days earlier, a first step, he feared, towards resuming negotiations.
Such a government, headed by a notorious war criminal, is no candidate for a partner in a peace process aimed at reaching a lasting solution to the long and complex Arab-Israeli conflict. Indeed, it has no plans for peace. As Mubarak told an assembly of Islamic scholars on Monday, Sharon looks for disaster in order to forestall negotiations. The president was also accurate in depicting Israel, in view of the terror it perpetrates against the Palestinian people, as the foremost source of terrorism today.
Clearly, a restoration of calm is the last thing that Sharon wants, for that would be a prelude to the resumption of negotiations and would involve implementing agreements already signed with the Palestinians. Little wonder, then, that Israel's government panics whenever a security understanding seems likely to result in a reasonable period of calm and uses every means possible to provoke Palestinian acts of retaliation. Israel's means of doing so are legion, and include rampant home demolitions, arbitrary arrests, the transfer of detainees to areas under Israeli control and, of course, the ubiquitous blockades. Simultaneously, acting under orders from Tel Aviv, herds of settlers unleash their wrath on Palestinians and their property beneath the indulgent gaze of Israeli soldiers. In addition, the government does not order its forces to withdraw from areas it has invaded as much as it redirects those forces to other areas in order to maintain the highest possible degree of tension.
Sharon's government is the natural outcome of the long absence of any leadership with the vision and statesmanship capable of embarking on a peace process and honouring its commitments. As Mubarak has pointed out on many occasions, Yitzhak Rabin was the last Israeli prime minister to live up to his word. Since then, every one of his successors has done nothing but lie, manoeuvre and stall in order to avoid meeting commitments.
The leadership crisis has been the subject of numerous studies, even in Israel itself, especially following Sharon's February electoral victory. These studies almost all agree that since the assassination of Rabin in 1995 not a single party figure has emerged with the statesmanship and leadership skills necessary to steer his country towards signing peace agreements and following through on them. Since 1996 Israelis have gone to the polls not to vote for a candidate they believed in but to topple an incumbent prime minister. Thus, Netanyahu was brought in to oust Peres, Barak to oust Netanyahu and Sharon to oust Barak.
Israel's lack of any leadership capable of pursuing a constructive peace process is a manifestation of a society that, 10 years after the Madrid Conference and eight years after Oslo, still cannot come to grips with the notion of a negotiating process designed to realise the peaceful coexistence of all peoples in the region. Indeed, Israeli society is steadily drifting towards the ultra right, as evidenced in recent opinion polls. According to one, 60 per cent of respondents opposed a settlement with the Palestinians on the basis of the "deal" Barak proposed to Arafat in Camp David II. After dozens of international and regional conferences focusing on the need to promote a culture of peace in Arab societies, it appears that such efforts might have been more productive had they been directed towards Israeli society.
The brutality of the occupation forces, rampaging settlers and the hawkish mood in Israel as a whole make clear that the obstacle to peace is Israel, not the Arabs. And the most recent incarnation of the crisis in Israel's leadership is none other than Sharon, a man once found unfit to hold a ministerial office by the commission that investigated the massacres at Sabra and Shatila. Yet this is the person elected as prime minister with a landslide majority.
The policies of the Sharon government have alarmed many who are concerned for the safety and stability of Israel and are eager to see it accepted as a peaceful neighbour in the region. British rabbi David Goldberg voiced concerns felt among broad sectors of international Jewish opinion when he condemned Israel as the last colonialist power in the world. So, too, did the former British cabinet minister Gerald Kaufmann, who announced that after many years of supporting Israel to the fullest, he had resolved not to visit that state again.
One can only hope that Israeli society begins to view the situation for what it is. Then, perhaps, a true peace culture will begin to emerge and revive the hopes of a just and lasting settlement.
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