This writing deals only with reports and views on the Arab-Israeli conflict. The trip journal will deal with the domestic situations in the various countries that I visited (11 of them on this trip). That journal will be published October 30; photos will follow November 6.
2 weeks ago on Saturday I sat with 4 different people and had extensive discussions about various issues only to turn on the TV that evening after the sabbath and find out our assumptions had been eclipsed by the events of that day. It rendered a good amount of our conversations irrelevant and was profoundly humbling. I have been on the road for the past month and have been unable to publish to my site or to send correspondence of this type. I appreciate the numerous requests for comment. Moreover, events have been moving quickly and it is senseless to comment on a day by day basis. My ongoing goal is to comment periodically and tell you something that is not in your daily reading and that will be useful over a longer period of time.
I was confused before starting this trip and hoped that some personal site visits would help clarify the situation. I wanted to get a sense of where Syria and Jordan are going under their new rulers, how Beirut has changed since I last visited in 1997, and what is going on in Israel. Site visits don’t necessarily reduce confusion; in Syria, if you talk to 2 Syrians, you get no opinions since each one fears that the other is from the secret police. Syrians are also more apathetic than you might think considering that they are struggling just to make ends meet and have no particular reason to care about decisions they feel will not affect their lives. In Israel, you talk to 2 people and get 5 opinions. Problem is that in today’s Israel, there really are no opinions. No one I spoke to has any idea of where to go from here. They can tell you what’s wrong but not what to do to make it right. Even a Right Wing fanatic who wants to march in and retake territories knows that he will sacrifice 2,000 soldiers and that makes him think twice and go back to his corner and sulk and wait for a sunny day to come. And that’s a big problem – better to stand in the corner and sulk on both the Left and Right than tell me how to deal with this reality. The other problem is that the tourist in Israel is totally oblivious to domestic events; the only real news in English is from the next day’s paper and international media such as CNN, Radio Jordan and the BBC. Israelis can also be oblivious to daily events unless it interrupts the television schedule because most of them never venture into trouble areas; I had to get all my real time information from Arabs who were more concerned with where they could and could not (or wished not to) go.
I had a few words with Ted Koppel at synagogue services this past Yom Kippur; I congratulated him on the timeliness of his visit and assured him that he would have real news within 3 days that would be headlines for more than 3 days. So I guess I am responsible for starting all this.
This report is not meant to be balanced or unbalanced. It is simply what I observe and conclude based on what I know. My conclusions are based on my judgment after assigning weights and weighing various pieces of evidence. As always, I am open to new information and criticism of the amount of relevance I assign to various items.
The result of my visit was that certain assumptions had to be reviewed and revised. These comments may contradict earlier assessments.
PEACE PROCESS
Here’s the story in 3 sentences: Arafat does not dare to be great. Barak dares to be great but has a lousy attitude. Arafat is content to cast aspersions on Barak’s lousy attitude to deflect attention from his own cowardice. Now for the detail:
(1) Arafat is not a popular man among his own people. Palestinians in 4 countries (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Israel) let me know this. I have underestimated the depth of despisement of this man. In the past he was viewed with ambivalence but still highly regarded as a national symbol. Today, he is viewed as a corrupt and cowardly/vacillating/unpredictable man running a mafia that is victimizing his own people and who is protected by and fed money by Israel. Israelis are partners with his cronies in monopolistic businesses that bleed the local population and state institutions that deny them human rights. No Arab today that has a decent choice wants to become a citizen under Arafat and people in areas under negotiation are taking steps to avoid this in case Arafat is given those territories. It is almost as if he is a puppet of the Israelis put in place to control the Palestinians under an Oslo agreement that both he and Rabin never intended to carry out to its ultimate degree but rather to leave in the netherworld of in-between. This is because Arafat thrives on instability and is incapable of making the transition from revolutionary to head of state and Rabin and Netanyahu were never reconciled to a Palestinian state. If Arafat died, I think most Arabs would celebrate. The Israelis would be scared because they fear the unknown. (2) Arafat will not sign any deal with Israel. Most Arabs feel Arafat is a political figure who is not entitled to negotiate holy sites on behalf of the Islamic world, just like many religious Jews resent the idea of Barak negotiating sovereignty over Judaism’s holiest site. Both Arafat and Barak should expect to be killed if they sign deals that give anything to the other with regard to the Temple Mount, but I think that Barak is willing to take the risk. Even if the Israelis unconditionally surrendered Arafat won’t sign.
Arafat is not Hafez Assad. I had expected that both Arafat and Hafez Assad would sign deals if they were sensible. To all appearances, Assad would not sign the deal that appeared sensible. My information based on the trip is that Assad did not sign because the deal presented to him at Geneva was not what was promised to him beforehand and he felt the US and Israel were trying to take advantage of his poor health condition and get him to concede points at the end. Assad was in my estimation based on this new information correct not to sign because the deal as presented would have been something that his son would not have been able to deliver upon. The deal was too ambiguous and had too many strings attached; a deal that would last the test of time with the Syrians had to be unambiguous. Remember that Oslo failed because it was also ambiguous. Whether or not Assad would have ever signed a deal we will never know; but I am comfortable knowing why he refused to sign at Geneva. Not so for Arafat; he is scared to sign and knows he will be killed no matter what he signs. His people know he is scared and openly say so. Barak at present doesn’t have the votes to push any deal through the Knesset, but this is because Arafat made it impossible for Barak to present a deal with him as a viable option.
In my opinion, because of (1) and (2), Arafat is useless and should be eliminated, preferably by his own people. At minimum, the Israelis should stop protecting him and feeding him money and let nature take its course. They after all built and propped him up under the assumption that he would deliver a peace deal or at least hold the status quo and it is now clear that he won’t and can’t. Hamas will try to take advantage but I believe that no one is irreplaceable and that the true sentiment of the Palestinian people is to pursue a more democratic system within their territory, their intelligence should not be underestimated and a suitable replacement for Arafat will be found and it will not be among the people around Arafat now. The overall evidence in the region from my visits in Turkey through Jordan is that domestic momentum is not in favor of the Islamists (ie: in Turkey and Jordan their influence in September was at its lowest point in years); the current flare up which is being fanned by the Islamists is an aberration but if and when Palestine joins its neighbors as a country, the mood will shift to nation building and the Islamists will hold little appeal.
THE RIOTS
If you accept that Arafat is not a partner for peace, then you understand why everything blew up. The Palestinians have gotten poorer and have less rights under Arafat and they do want a deal with Israel because it offers them hope for a better future. So far it’s been 7 years of worse than nothing. They have been patiently waiting for light at the end of the tunnel and heard all the promises. A deal with Israel also was seen as the precursor to life after Arafat which held out promise of its own. Even one who wants a jihad for all of Palestine in the long term is not going to say no to the short term gains that were offered and Barak at Camp David offered the sweetest terms ever likely to be offered. Not good enough to sign, but not bad enough to dump negotiations in favor of riots. Arafat started these riots; they picked up their own momentum which he then attempted to manipulate. But the elements were in place: No deal + no hope = frustration boiling over. These riots were just as much against Arafat as against Israel even though there is no doubt that Arafat was quite happy to divert attention from himself and his recent failed tour of world capitals and play on sympathy for victims by having people get shot and at least show they put up a good fight in case he ever did have to make concessions later on. Bad news at least in the US: Gallop Poll says Americans sympathize with the Israelis in the current situation 4:1. Thomas Friedman is right on the ball with his recent columns excoriating Arafat on this count. The sorry fact is that Arafat is not averse to using lives as pawns. This is no surprise; I’m just restating it for the record in this case as it seems to me that here he wasted a strategic tool for his own personal benefit.
The Israeli Arab riots are a different dynamic at work.
Israeli Arabs are 18.3% of the population in Israel. They don’t get their fair share of the budget and have no seats in the government. They are humiliated every time they travel and are discriminated against in numerous facets of life. They have seats in parliament but absolutely no influence. Barak made numerous promises to get their crucial votes but then rebuffed over ten requests for a meeting with Arab leaders since he was elected. Netanyahu stroked their egos better. Israelis like to say that the Arabs only understand violence. Truth is that it cuts both ways; the Israelis also only understand violence despite the fact that they initially make a show of machismo and not backing down. Everybody knows that if you want the Israelis to move, you have to pressure them. It got them out of Lebanon, it brought the hope of Oslo and some territorial autonomy after the Intifada and with Israelis you only get things by kicking and threatening. It works for Shas, the Ultra orthodox, the Russians and now for the Israeli Arabs. The Israelis have convinced themselves that the second-class status of their resident Arabs is acceptable and use every incident involving Israeli Arabs to justify their position that this potential fifth column must be kept in its cage. The Israeli Arabs no longer compare themselves against the Palestinians but against Jordanians who now have more rights than they do as Jordan liberalizes its society. Both Israeli Arabs and Palestinians show good logic in rioting because it increases their probability of getting what they want and forcing the Israelis to deal with them. Important here is that these riots were not started by Islamists; this represents pent-up frustration on the popular level stoked by opportunistic leaders and then fanned by Islamists.
I don’t know if Barak has been helped over the past 2 weeks but when I last visited it was apparent that Netanyahu would probably win an election if one were held. At this point, I would not bet against him. Barak has no friends in Israel and his condescending attitude has not helped create any personal dynamics between himself and Arafat or anyone else which may have helped to create trust over the years; there is at present no reservoir to draw upon.
ELEMENTS OF DETERIORATION
Conditions have been adversely affected by the recent situation and it will not be possible to simply pick up where things left off at the end of the last Camp David summit.
(1) The propaganda war created antipathies in excess of the deeds themselves because they showed each side’s public face to be insensitive to the other when a small minority were actually committing the evil acts.
Both Jews and Arabs have done things over the past month they should and would regret. There are no angels on either side. There is no reason to waste time and space here comparing and tallying up the litany of incidents on both sides. Reporting has been biased on both sides and it is hard to get at the truth of some of the more emotional incidents as authorities and participants on both sides are lying and stating things that fly in the face of evidence. The International Herald Tribune and Economist have done a good job of reporting both the day to day incidents and providing analysis. The Jerusalem Post provides a distorted view of reality from the Right and Haaretz, though Leftist, ultimately cheerleads for the home team and its news reporting relying heavily on official sources has not always proven to be trustworthy. It is sad to say this but some of the Arab reporting (particularly within the Israeli Arab community) has proven to be more reliable but this was overshadowed by the truth-be-damned propaganda being shoveled by the Palestinian official channels which would be laughable if the Israelis were not even more pathetic with their can’t speak English or talk to CNN or wear a tie PR team (a fact that even the Israelis realized after the first week).
However, a few points stand out in contrast and present some powerful reasons why the various incidents do not balance each other out and why there is a genuine crisis of faith. The Israeli police and army may be incompetent, arbitrary and occasionally cruel but they don’t generally tend to go out of their way to be cruel and 99% of Arabs under occupation will admit this, particularly now that they have been under Arafat’s rule for the past 7 years.
[Slight digression: Israelis across the board do believe (and have been told repeatedly) that their army has handled this month rather well with careful measured tactical responses. Live fire from Palestinian police and civilians resulted in escalated tactics by Israelis, the exact targets of which I personally am not convinced were always wise or appropriate. It is to Barak’s credit that Israel didn’t go for Hizbullah’s bait and drag Lebanon or Syria in even after being humiliated and bullied in the North; Iran is the root of Hizbullah and that is the country that needs to ultimately take the hit if Hizbullah is to be reigned in. When the Israelis let things fly against Teheran, then I will know they are serious about dealing with real threats. The withdrawals from Joseph’s Tomb and Netzarim (sooner or later) should be viewed as tactical retreats from indefensible (meaning ambush-ready) positions that have no true strategic value.]
(2) Loss of trust as a custodian or ruling authority.
I haven’t found anyone who thinks the 12 year old kid who died in his father’s arms was killed on purpose although the whole incident makes no sense when you study it. (Arab media played up the death and certainly led people to believe that he was killed on purpose. They also took it as a given that the two Israelis lynched in Ramallah were undercover officers even though they were hung out the window with their uniforms on for all to see. There was no pretext of letting facts get in the way of fiction.) The police who found themselves on the Temple Mount and in Arab cities with more than they expected overreacted and didn’t exercise the best judgment (I heard plenty of criticism that the level of professionalism in the police has gone down in recent years and the police commander in the Israeli district was very unpopular and his removal had been requested to no avail; consider though that Americans wouldn’t have behaved much better in a similar situation) but the lynching in Ramallah in a police station which should be a place of refuge was pure savagery (although I am not blind to the fact that the police chief was overrun by a mob and took this attack as a personal embarrassment). Meanwhile, the wholesale release of Hamas leaders was a more deliberate act reconfirming the revolving door nature of Arafat’s criminal justice system. The trashing of Joseph’s tomb and a synagogue in Jericho, both sites agreed to as protected holy sites, was idiotic (as well as revolting to any religious Jew) and must affect Israeli willingness to trust Arabs with control over a Jewish holy site if one was willing to let pre-1967 atrocities be bygones. It was especially moronic that these incidents took place within 24 hours of the Palestinians receiving control. Then to add insult to injury the PA, which said the site was not holy in the first place, starts preparing to consecrate the site as a mosque. I can understand the level of hatred the Palestinians had toward Joseph’s Tomb as a flashpoint that should have been conceded years ago, but such a riot should have been anticipated and prevented. Those incidents have taken the Al-Aksa mosque off the table, especially since the Palestinians were quietly given control over the Temple Mount area on the Friday that riots broke out and proved inept. I am aware of same-day incidents of vandalism involving Moslem sites as well and obviously condemn them but add there is little history of such acts and were obviously precipitated by the earlier incidents.
Regardless of whose atrocity is less justified than the other, the point is that it is quite irrelevant that neither side approves of the other. It is not anyone’s business to approve of its enemy’s tactics. The point is to seek some way to let people go about their lives with sanity and security. The objective is to figure out how. I will return to this point later. Meanwhile, whether incompetence or malice is the deciding factor, Israelis have good reasons to distrust Palestinian promises that they can be custodians over Jewish holy sites.
(3) Confirmation that Doublespeak hath run its course.
Israelis of any stripe will no longer tolerate the idea that the Palestinian press and textbooks preach hatred while its leaders talk peace on CNN in English and talk war in Arabic to the Arabic channels. This schizophrenia was tolerated in the past but no more. Part of the reason why the peace process fell like a deck of cards was that Palestinian institutions never switched to normalization/peace mode in the first place under the assumption that to do so would be a concession to the Israelis which should be held out until after peace is achieved (not an illogical stance it seemed until now). Sermons such as that from the Gaza mosque broadcast live on PA television urging followers to “Kill the Jews” (I read the entire chilling transcript) are examples of the reality that if peace is to be made, the street has to be prepared for it in advance and not afterward. The Jordanians are to be commended for not having government leaders frothing at the bit but instead telling their people to act rationally. I appreciate the pressure in those countries and consider the responsible behavior in those countries as a major plus. The Egyptians on the other hand have been a good source of Arafat’s stubbornness and it took American threats to suspend aid to Egypt this week in Sharm to get the Egyptians to press Arafat to make nice-nice with the Israelis at the end. Their embassies all over the Gulf for years have been doing everything possible to disrupt any kind of relationship building with Israel. In my opinion, Chirac is an itinerant troublemaker who contributed to this mess by giving Arafat a reason to be stubborn at an ill-advised time. The Egyptians have been playing this role consistently and have not properly been taken to task for it. Ultimately, the Egyptian government will pay the price and the country will be more vulnerable to fanaticism because its government has not expended energy convincing its people and institutions to internalize the idea of peace with Israel. Instead it has positioned itself as the leader of the Arab World against Israel while being at peace with Israel. The fact is that these demonstrations in the various Arab countries are partially against Israel; they are also being used by the Islamic parties as a pretext to get people out on the streets to raise all sorts of grievances against their own governments. That is why we are finding out that police in Jordan and Saudi Arabia killed some of the rioters in those countries. The Egyptians cannot play both ends of this game and win. Israeli military planners are now estimated to be correct in assuming the worst about Egypt.
(4) Arafat is proven useless and prejudices are confirmed.
The argument that Arafat is weak and needs to be supported no longer washes. If he can’t control his people, it’s not worth dealing with him or with the people around him. Even if you think the Palestinian police force is more incompetent than hateful, the events in (2) of this paragraph prove the point: If he and the Palestinians in control are malicious, then they can’t be trusted with any responsibility. If they are incompetent, then they can’t be trusted with any responsibility. I don’t know what is worse, but either alternative provides no security that can be endowed with trust. An example of doublespeak that won’t wash anymore: One day this past month an Arab who was on joint patrols with Israelis for 5 years gets up, sticks a knife in his partner’s back to the shout of God is Great. The Palestinians response is that he was mentally unstable. If so, what was he doing on the joint patrol for 5 years? Some Israelis will say Ivan, why are you surprised? We expected this all along. Don’t you know an Arab will be your colleague for 5 years and then one day stab you in the back? Didn’t you know that the minute they got Joseph’s Tomb they would trash it? I have no answer for this except to say that I think my colleagues don’t do those sorts of things and if I were running the show things wouldn’t have reached this point in the first place. Nevertheless, as an analyst of someone else’s neighborhood, I don’t deal with this on a daily basis personally but I like to think that I know just as much as the next person if all he has is his prejudice as his guide. There are many things that are not logical and that I cannot explain. Unfortunately, in this case, prejudices are being confirmed out of experiences taking place in front of our faces. It is more arguable that the logic of compromise will fall on deaf ears on both sides.
FUTURE PROSPECTS
It is possible that agreements will be reached and that we will all look back on this month of manipulated chaos in order to prove to both sides that the agreement reached is the only one possible under the circumstances. I think that reading gives both leaders too much credit they don’t deserve and ignores the overall reality as presented. Even if the initial rioting was orchestrated to let off steam, it clearly went beyond the plan. It is also strange that it followed a seemingly cordial meeting between the two leaders, but the 1996 tunnel incident also followed a seemingly cordial meeting between Bibi and Arafat.
In my opinion, Barak and Arafat were pressured to show up to Egypt to give Clinton a happy face but more violence should be expected and is part of the game. Until Arafat is replaced, nothing good will happen. Barak may be replaced (but not within his own party unless he loses an election) but when people realize that Netanyahu is not just a nostalgic choice but a real candidate I would like to think they will decide to just keep Barak where he is because there is no viable (meaning electable) alternative at present in either party except for Netanyahu and Sharon will not be prime minister. Netanyahu in my opinion would be a disaster for the country. However, it doesn’t matter what I think. It appears that the Israelis are prepared to bring him back and have decided that he is no worse than Barak and perhaps even better. He has popular support for various reasons and the Likud as an entity has support that transcends personalities; if every person from Likud and Labor switched parties, the Likud would still get most of its votes from its supporters. There is also a certain element of Israelis, particularly on the Right, that do not want this conflict to disappear because if it does their purpose for living as they presently see it would also disappear and they cannot bear to face that possibility. It is also a fact that despite all the accusations against Netanyahu, very little has ever been proven. Many facets of his personality that foreigners don’t like (ie: populism) are in fact endearing to his supporters.
A likely scenario is that Barak stays around, does nothing and holds the line, and waits for Arafat to be replaced. He keeps his coalition intact by taking no positions. This suits Arafat as well. Maybe enough to have started the riots to keep Barak in power.
It is wrong to assume that a deal between the sides hinges on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. There are many more details that have yet to be worked out and recent developments have pushed both sides to rethinking other issues once considered settled. The refugee issue, particularly with regard to Lebanon, is a sticking point that was never settled because there are Arabs all over the Middle East who do not feel that their interests have been dealt with and this means trouble in the long term for any negotiated solution that does not consider this reality. But as far as the Temple Mount / Al-Aksa Mosque, my suggested solution is the fiction that both sides have 100% sovereignty over the area and run it as a mosque, just like a husband and wife each own 100% of the house. If they split it 50/50, then each gives up half which implies concessions. Neither side can expect 100% on its own and to give it to the UN is, in my opinion, an admission that both sides are babies who have to give the toys over to the French. Just try and get it back later… On the other hand, you could do the 100% sovereignty as I suggested and also give a management contract to the UN as if they were Hilton. Till now, I would have been OK with the Arabs running the show on the ground but it is clear that they can’t; now I’m in favor of the Hilton contract.
I still believe in the logic of a peace agreement and that it will come about in a few years time. Assad is setting himself up decently in the Arab World and will also sign one, even if he doesn’t hang around to implement it because the people running Syria and Lebanon want it to happen and it will be convenient to let him sign it even if he is a transition figure. Arafat will sooner or later be replaced. The Arabs expect a Palestinian/Israeli agreement will come; it will either be sooner or later but they feel it is inevitable and would be a positive thing. I still believe that most Israelis feel likewise but there is no question that recent events have made Israelis dig in deeper and feel that it is hopeless because it takes two to tango and the other side has appeared to demonstrate (between the official vitriol and the crowds in the streets) that it is not really ready or interested; the Israeli Arabs (whose leaders behaved recklessly and manipulatively and did not criticize the unprecedented level of hateful rhetoric heard in the streets) have scared Israeli Jews who know they have to do something but are afraid to do anything which will make Jews even more vulnerable.
In my estimation, the riots on the Arab side will result in short term loss but long term gain. The Israelis will make a show of hanging tough because they believe they must but will concede in the end because violence pays; expect gains for Israeli Arabs, especially in the wake of reports from the security services that urge real reforms in this sector. However, the short term loss to the Arab side is that the combination of opportunism and pure hatred shown by too many people have convinced Israelis that even if they want to make concessions they cannot afford to do so. The blocking of main roads by the Israeli Arabs sent a powerful signal to the Israelis that the Arabs are capable of shutting down the route to the front in time of war which could cost the Israelis everything. This show of disloyalty, as well as cries of Kill the Jews coming from this sector in the streets of Jaffa no less, have chilled Israeli bones. Meanwhile, the Israelis have the land, arms and the support of world opinion. Things can wait for now; the sense of urgency is gone. Barak and Ariel Sharon get along personally; they will be more comfortable as partners in government than Barak’s other coalition partners. And this is part of the problem – Sharon is Satan for half of Israel as well as almost every Arab on the planet and persona non grata in most of the Western World (by the way, this external opposition is not why he is unelectable – the Israelis couldn’t care less). There is a sense all along that Barak – never friendly to Arabs – wanted it to end this way and that he went through the motions of peace just to show that it really was never possible. Barak is a perfect target for cynicism. I don’t believe it; Barak failed at every turn with everyone, not least with the Arabs. His fault was that he was attempting to dictate peace terms, not negotiate them. His offers could be refused. And as I have been warning, peace on paper will not be peace in practice without a real shift in attitudes and Barak (not to mention even Leftist Israelis) have not yet shown they could make this transition from control-freaks to cohabitation partners. The Arabs are entitled to expect this as a prerequisite for peace.
Another point: Syrians are not convinced that peace with Israel is worthwhile because they don’t believe American promises of economic benefits. It has been a mistake that Jordan was promised many things they have not received. The Jordanians are also quite upset with the Israelis for not delivering on many promises that induced the peace treaty such as the joint airport in Aquaba, lower tariffs on goods and increased truck traffic. The Israelis have not offered real answers to these issues. Israel and America are now paying the price for promises unkept; the Syrians can afford to hold off indefinitely because peace means big gambles for them that may leave them in a worse situation than presently exists and promises unkept in the past cannot be trusted. The fact that Israel shows no real interest or ability to deliver the goods has forced the Arabs to negotiate with the US rather than Israel; this type of arrangement does not bode well for any negotiations in any sphere. The fact that the CIA is again refereeing between the Israelis and Palestinians reflects a return to the pre-Barak situation. Good things can only happen when the parties at interest are dealing directly and feel it is in their interest to be doing so.
And now Clinton is gone and the US is in position to make commitments. A Bush administration would be unfriendly to Israel but this will not necessarily benefit the Arabs since it will have less influence over the Israelis. (The US election is too close to call; Gore did not convince Americans that Bush is a moron who has no business being president.)
No question that Sharon’s walk was the spark that killed this year’s tourist season and has contributed to the freezing of venture capital investment in the country. This hurts Jews and Arabs, by the way. However, I believe on the evidence that Sharon’s walk was a pretext and a trap laid by Arafat and Israeli Arab leaders that Barak, looking to steal Netanyahu’s thunder, cynically fell into since Arafat’s men approved the visit and Israeli Arab parliamentarians accompanied him and only went nuts when the TV cameras turned on (same deal by the way with the Tunnel in 1996). The riots would have happened one way or the other sooner or later. In the case of Sharon’s walk, the riots occurred 24 hours later by youths who were not from Jerusalem. In both Israel and Lebanon, rioters are being paid by Islamists. There is an element of Rent A Riot at work here. No doubt that there is popular support but the manipulative aspect which got things going should not be overlooked.
IVAN’S OBSERVATIONS
Finally, there are these personal observations. I was in Israel for 2 weeks for the High Holidays. Most of my itinerary had to be cancelled except for travel between West Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Visits to Haifa and the Galilee, both within 1948 Israel, had to be cancelled. Israelis had a rude awakening to find out they don’t control their own territory as much as they thought. A drive from Kiryat Shmona to Tel Aviv took over twice the normal amount of time. Forget about travel to East Jerusalem or Ramallah. Areas such as Gush Etzion were cut off for several days and settlers felt more vulnerable than ever before. Even the Western Wall was closed for part of the holidays and few dared to travel there at all during the 2 weeks I was in the country. When I finally went on the eve of Yom Kippur there were 10 soldiers for every visitor. Having visited Beirut, Damascus and Amman that week, I could safely say “I have been thrown out of nicer places” and had no intention of being intimidated in this instance but had to search for a taxi driver who would take me there. The fact is that I felt safer outside Israel than in it and was quite happy to fly out of there; I actually felt relieved when the plane took off. I had a real feeling that after 52 years the Enterprise is not working as it should. Jews in Israel and abroad have to deal with the following ultimate question: Would they rather be welcome guests in now-occupied areas under Arab sovereignty or hosts afraid to move around their own sovereign but occupied and disputed territory? The Arabs cannot destroy Israel but they can easily succeed in making life miserable there. I personally would rather be a guest. I personally did not feel “afraid” as a Jew in an Arab country. Arabs are quite hospitable to guests and religion today is not a big issue when visiting an Arab country. There are more Jewish tourists in Syria and Beirut than you think. I still believe that a more consolidated Israel would be a more secure and normal place and that trying to have it all (and being an ostrich when things flare up) will not bring security or peace of mind.
On a broader point, after visiting 11 countries in 4 weeks, you get a bit more perspective. This trip has led to a general downgrading of Israel in my opinion on several objective levels. Usually one sees Israel against Egypt or the US or Europe. Either it is golden next to shit or incomparable against Europe or the US. I have seen all the neighboring countries and can now rate them against each other (and will in about 2 weeks provide various comparative ratings). Israel doesn’t look that good on the world stage unless you compare it to really lousy places and the parts about it that Jews rave about (ie: its hi-tech sector) are much more fluff than real. There is no high-speed internet access available yet in the country to normal people. Most high-tech companies are losing money and pay no taxes. If not for R&D subsidies, many would be out of business. The high-tech sector if defined in its broadest sense (ie: including the secretary who delivers the coffee to workers in the tech company) employs less than 100,000 people and represents about 3-4% of the economy. It is a mistake to think that this is the golden goose that will carry the rest of the economy along with it. It is no longer cute for me to walk around Israel and see soldiers and 15 year old girls with rifles. Pedestrian areas in Jerusalem look and feel like armed camps. You are always scared of a possible terrorist attack when you are in a public area. The airport goes on strike a week before the holidays half the time and flights are constantly being rescheduled and cancelled. Amman airport is a safer bet. You don’t see soldiers any more in Jordan and there is no fear of terrorism or crime. Their taxi drivers turn on the meters. Restaurants are clean and you know that things are regulated. A billboard campaign urges Jordanians to “Think Big.” It’s having an effect. You can’t trust public goods in Israel any more; a restaurant hangs a certificate of kosher certification but there is no inspector. It is all about payoffs. Israel rates low on the corruption index as published by the Economist but everyone knows that the system is no longer honest. Too many careers are blocked by politics; too many perks are purchased and obligations avoided by payoffs. People no longer are offended by Netanyahu because they have been acclimated to a situation where lying is an acceptable necessity to getting one’s fair share and to be honest is to be naive. It is a rotten system; the rules of civility that held for 50 years have fallen apart. This cannot continue without severe consequences.
Israel, on many fronts (ie: infrastructure, attitudes, economics) is stagnating after an earlier two decades of progress. Things don’t look as polished as they used to and neighbors are catching up. Parts of Tel Aviv’s tourist district are so run down that they are scary and no-man’s land even during the day. The view from hotels in the north and the south of the city are of slums. Young people who “get it” are taking over in the region but Israeli increasingly looks like it is being led by older people who don’t “get it.” Sharon doesn’t let a younger person make a name for himself in the opposition but everyone knows that Sharon is over the hill. I get the sense that Israelis want a better future that involves peace but they see no way out of the present situation; my problem is that this is partially of their own making but they prefer to see the “no way out” as something thrust upon them instead and they do not seem interested in trying to figure out a way out; like Syria, they are not sure that peace will bring benefits, particularly after this month. It is true that Arafat is at this point useless and that we are now suffering the results of 5 years of an Oslo deal that threatened to end this way when it got time to actually commit to a final solution. But that is because the Israeli power elite also wanted it this way and just hoped the fiction would last forever with the collusion of Arafat; they didn’t count on Clinton getting impatient and driving the parties to Camp David before it was time and without the proper CYA preparations being made in Arab capitals (although I ultimately believe that the Arabs would never do anything to support the Palestinians and concede them control over holy sites in Jerusalem to which they feel belongs to them more than the Palestinians). There was no good faith on either side from Day One. Just like Rabin never intended to deliver to the Jordanians what was promised. Netanyahu never wanted a realistic peace. Barak wanted to dictate peace. Shamir admitted he was totally disinterested in peace, only interested in the process as a stalling tactic. Cynicism drove both sides. This is the root of the stagnation on the Israeli side; the idealists on the left were not honest with themselves and the Right did not want to concede anything. On the Arab side, the stagnation is that there is no leader to make peace with the Israelis and there has been no preparation of public opinion for the transition toward good neighborliness that comes with statehood. This stagnation has been festering and now it is an open wound. It is not a time to be optimistic. The solution requires new thinking and attitudes on both sides, not just agreement to terms.
One example for both sides to think about: Jews complain that Arabs glorify martyrdom and send people out to die. It is a reason to dehumanize Arabs as an enemy. Yesterday at synagogue the sister of a Rabbi Lieberman spoke from the pulpit at the end of services in a tear-jerking monologue that recounted his death at the hands of an Arab mob which was ransacking Joseph’s Tomb. He had heard about it while he was in synagogue and ran there to “save the site.” Thus he died as a martyr sanctifying God’s name. What was the point, to encourage people to be inspired to do what? Meanwhile his wife and children (one of whom called him Dad for the first time in his last week) are left orphaned. When I spoke at Vacation Village in July, I followed an hour of tear-jerking by Nachshon Wachsman’s mother who bears a grudge for the Oslo peace process which she feels resulted in her son’s death and sees no possibility of any kind of peace with Arabs. (Her husband by the way objects to her speeches and has an opposite point of view.) Going back to Lieberman, was it wise for him to jeopardize his wife and kids to take on 1,000 people for his cause? Regardless of the evil, it was the result of a government decision. What he did was to recklessly endanger himself and his family and it is suicide in my book. Would you go downstairs and fight off 100 thugs who were trashing your car or even your holy books during a riot? If both religions believe in the sanctity of life, they should both adopt parity in urging followers to act responsibly and to hold all life as a sacred value. Perhaps religious people on both sides should not be encouraged to have so many children so they might be more sensitive when one or two dies for “the cause of martyrdom.” Enough of this dehumanizing the other side for creating its martyrs and then encouraging our people to do the same – you don’t have to tell people to Kill The Jews/Arabs; it is enough to exhort them to Defend God’s Name and Save the Temple. The result is the same once people have been incited. Ted Roosevelt said, He’s an SOB but he’s Our SOB. This was the underpinning of America’s double-standard in foreign policy for the past century. If we can’t be more honest about this, we will forever be justifying or favorably comparing our own acts and dehumanizing the other side’s. It is more constructive to move past this. It makes us feel good but it does not contribute to a solution.
One vital area concerns Israeli Arabs. If you thought the Palestinians were a threat, this is 10 times worse. I predicted a year ago that a price would be paid for Barak promising them the world in a close election and then giving them nothing. Israelis can delude themselves into thinking they can separate themselves from Palestine but they know they can’t separate themselves from the Arabs within the Green Line. They can stay within the vicious circle that says that disloyal people should not be treated as equals, but people not treated as equals are bound to be disloyal. If a Jordanian Arab has more rights than an Israeli Arab with regard to place of residence, ability to go into business, get into university and not be humiliated whenever he travels, it is only a wonderment that the Israeli Arabs have been so docile this many years. Israelis on the Left and the Right have yet to deal with this issue squarely. Again, new attitudes and new thinking are the only way to cut out the rot that exists within. Once the parties do get around to the business of peace, it must be a final ambiguous deal; no interim agreements will do. All sides are too cynical to believe in promises.
Both sides have real reasons to be angry at each other. Both sides are insensitive to the other. The Ramallah lynching was evil; the PR machine that tried to justify it was doubly evil. Trashing Joseph’s Tomb and then preparing it to be a mosque is a double-slap in the face. Israel’s new president Katzav infuriated everyone down to the desk clerk at my hotel in Amman by telling Jordan’s King Abdullah (the only real decent head of state in the region that Israel has a shot with) that he would only meet with him in Jerusalem. It was arrogant and showed a complete disregard of reality to do this. But Katzav couldn’t care less. In my opinion, Katzav is a moron who has done nothing but demonstrate since he received the job that he has no business being president. The Israelis didn’t vote for him; a secret vote in the Parliament passed up Shimon Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, for a nothing guy beholden to kabbalists and fringe rabbis because of a grudge match and a tribal vote among Sefardim. That’s how rot infects vital interests.
The status quo cannot last forever. People want hope for a better life. Some day they will get leaders who can figure out how to deliver it. The events in Serbia demonstrate that when a system is rotten to its core, the people will at some point rise up and the foundation will crumble in a day. This is a lesson to be reckoned on all sides of this dispute. All of the parties in the region except for Jordan have political systems that are rotten. Syria may be about to transform its system but the obstacles are tremendous. Sharansky may be right – perhaps peace with dictators that don’t have popular support won’t hold up. His view, considered arrogant, may have more currency than we give him credit for. My feeling is that Arabs want more democracy and will rise to the challenge. Will peace help bring it about or should it wait? I think that peace will help bring it about but I am more willing to consider the other point of view at this point.
Which I guess is the main point of this exercise. Some assumptions and assessments have to be rethought. Princes of Darkness such as Daniel Pipes get to say I Told Ya So and I have to temporarily concede points that I have stood by for a long time. I have also seen my stock portfolio take a massive hit this year. I saw the markets get hit and kept buying on the way down but it took several cuts-in-half to reach bottom (and perhaps more to come). Do I fold? Not yet. I still believe in the fundamentals of the stocks that I hold and am willing to be patient and wait several years for these companies to prove themselves. In this instance, I think we are seeing a bubble being burst which we should have realized would burst because there were endemic flaws that were not adequately dealt with and which we hoped we could ignore. I am talking about both the New Economy and the Oslo Process. This crisis will reshuffle the deck and force these flaws to be dealt with before the process gets back on track. Things will get worse before they get better. It could take 3-5 years. However, I remain committed to my original thesis involving an end-game of a peaceful coexistence between two states based on mutual respect and security and believe that the long term will prove that both the Israelis and Palestinians have a moral majority that wants peace to happen and will contribute to its success on a day-to-day person-to- person basis. Today, the 1% who make trouble have the upper hand because of incompetent and tunnel-visioned leaders who do not lead and due to political systems that have driven a substantial amount of the other 99% to apathy and cynicism. But I remain a long term optimist and believe that this downturn will eventually lead to a stronger foundation for a brighter future yet to come. I trust that God wills it.
Finally, a few personal musings. I am a Westerner with an outsider’s point of view. Sometimes it helps one see the forest among the trees; sometimes it is totally irrelevant to the realities of the psyches and psychoses of the region. This is a show taking place between Israelis and Arabs. I don’t claim to understand the majority of them or their logic; this region is exasperating and to some extent run by petty incompetents that either are what their populations deserve or are worse than they deserve, depending on your point of view. Israel has a veneer of civility easily cracked and its people are not Westerners and of course the Arabs aren’t either; I think the young Arab elite is more Western today than many of their Israeli counterparts. Of course, that elite is what it is, an elite and I can’t forget that. Neither of them run the show in Israel or the PA. If I were running the show for Israel, I’d be running it differently and I tend to think things would have been worked out long ago with my Arab counterparts. A word in favor of elites: Elites are relevant and their decisions stick if they are based on providing good to the greater public; Abdullah succeeds as an elite because he provides good for all and is clearly rooting out corruption; Arafat does not succeed because his administration is corrupt. I sit here and try and figure out what is happening, what’s going to happen and I have my hopes and concerns. There are emotions but I try to rise above them, something that is not done in that region which sometimes helps analysis and sometimes is fatal to it. To some extent, I have better information about Israel from outside than when I am there. I make predictions and assessments but I expect periodically to be proven wrong. I visit but meanwhile I can get on the plane and go bye-bye when the going gets tough. It’s not my show and I don’t control it. I have every right not to give a damn. But I do and I can’t control that.
In the short term, I am more optimistic about the search for a wife (a 10 year search now which may be heading into the homestretch) than I am about the peace process. That’s an earth-shattering shift for those of you who know me. Stay tuned.
