The Arab-Israeli Conflict

A History

Ian J. Bickerton

• Publisher: Reaktion Books
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781861896988
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Though more than sixty years have passed since the signing of the proclamation of the State of Israel, the impact of that epochal event continues to shape the political policies and public opinion of not only the Middle East but much of the world. The consequent conflict between Arabs and Israelis for sovereignty over the land of Palestine has been one of the most bloody, intractable, and drawn-out of modern times. It continues today in cycles of aggressive violence followed by temporary, tenuous ceasefires that are marked and complicated by resolute opinions and fractious religious ideologies. In this timely volume, noted military historian Ian J. Bickerton cuts through the complex perspectives in order to explain this struggle in objective detail, describing its history from the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire following World War I to the present day.

In concise and clear prose, Bickerton argues that the present problem can be traced to the fact that each side is trapped by a conception of their past from which they seem unable to break free. This attachment and reaction to history has had a negative influence on the decision-making of Arabs and Israelis since 1948. Ultimately, Bickerton maintains that the use of armed force has not, and will not, resolve the issues that have divided Israelis and Arabs.

The Arab-Israeli Conflic t is a plea for reasoned diplomacy in a situation that has been dominated by extreme violence. This book will appeal to a wide general audience seeking a balanced understanding of this enduring struggle that still dominates headlines.

CHAPTER 1
The Unfolding Situation, 2008–9

In late August 2008 United States secretary of state Condoleezza Rice visited Israel and the Palestinian Territories to advance Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that had been taking place for some months without much visible progress. It was her eighteenth visit in two years. In November 2007, after a seven-year hiatus, Israeli and Palestinian leaders, together with representatives of a number of Middle Eastern and European countries, including Russia, had met at a US-sponsored peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland, and pledged to make every effort to conclude an agreement on the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel before US president George W. Bush ended his term in January 2009. All the ‘core issues’ were discussed at the one-day meeting, the most important of which were borders and Israeli settlements, the status of Jerusalem, and the fate of the 4.5 million United Nations-registered Palestinian refugees.

Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestine National Authority (hereafter referred to as Palestinian Authority), and Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert had been meeting frequently since June 2007 to try to agree on some basic issues ahead of the gathering. Immediately before the summit, Bush met with the Israeli and Palestinian leaders in the White House, and read from a joint statement supporting a two-state solution: ‘We agreed to immediately launch good faith, bilateral negotiations in order to conclude a peace treaty resolving all outstanding issues, including core issues, without exception … The final peace settlement will establish Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people just as Israel is the homeland for the Jewish people.’¹ Significantly the word state was not used to describe either homeland.

Several meetings had taken place in the first half of 2008 between the then Israel foreign minister Tzipi Livni and former Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qurei, and although there had been some progress, the two parties were still a long way from a comprehensive peace agreement. Rice hoped to act as an arbiter to facilitate progress. Foreign minister Livni cautioned the US secretary of state against expectations of an early peace deal. She warned that applying too much international pressure could prove harmful. The circumstances, she stated, were rather similar to the year 2000 when misunderstandings led to the second Palestinian intifada following the breakdown of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians toward the end of the Clinton Administration. Her Palestinian counterpart, Saeb Erekat, agreed with Livni, stating that he opposed any attempts by outsiders to impose proposals or to force acceptance of a partial agreement.

The situation was complicated, as always, by Israeli and Palestinian domestic politics. The leaders of both sides faced internal constraints. Olmert headed a fragile coalition, many of whose members opposed any Israeli concessions, and Abbas controlled only the West Bank. Neither could carry out their commitments without fear of being ousted. Olmert, who had been holding private talks with Abbas, was embroiled in a corruption inquiry, and on 30 July 2008 he announced that he would resign when the Kadima party, which he led, chose a new leader in September. Livni hoped to be that person, and she believed her shift to a more moderate position strengthened her chances. She is reported to have stated on 21 August, ‘Now most Israelis understand that having two states in the lands comprising historic Palestine is an Israeli interest.’² Livni was, in fact, elected head of the party in late September but could not form a government and Olmert stayed on as interim prime minister.

Abbas, although president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), had been forcibly expelled from the Gaza Strip in fierce fighting between the two major factions of the Palestine liberation movement, Hamas and Fatah. Abbas was head of Fatah, and as a result of his expulsion from Gaza had set up headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah in June 2007. The Islamist party, Hamas, regarded by Israel and the US as a terrorist organization, had won a majority of seats in elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council in January 2006. Neither Israel nor the United States recognized the legitimacy of the Hamas-controlled government, and when, following a brief interlude of a National Unity Government brokered by the Saudis, Fatah challenged the outcome, Hamas took over control of the Gaza Strip. Abbas hoped an agreement with Israel would bear fruit and strengthen his position.

The Gaza Strip had been in turmoil since the victory of Hamas. In June 2006 Hamas captured an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, from the Israeli side of Israel’s ‘security barrier’ and took him hostage in Gaza. Israel responded by ‘arresting’ 60 members of Hamas, 30 of whom were members of the Palestinian parliament, eight of whom were ministers of the government. The mayors of Bethlehem, Jenin and Qalqilya were also ‘detained’. In addition, Israel sealed all eight commercial and pedestrian crossings into Israel, effectively creating a 26 mile-long and eight-mile wide prison for the population of 1.5 million Palestinians. Rafah in the south, which crosses into Egypt, was also closed. When Hamas took full control of the strip in June 2007 Israel tightened its siege by imposing an economic blockade restricting imports and exports of food stuffs, fuel and medical supplies, and the movement of people. They did so, they claimed, to prevent the firing of home-made rockets into Israel, which was occurring on an almost daily basis. The assumption that the siege would force the militia to stop launching rockets, or that the population would rise up and overthrow Hamas, proved false. If anything, Israel’s siege and frequent military air strikes and incursions aimed at ‘terrorist operatives’ enabled Hamas to consolidate its position. Israel’s policy of targeted assassination also had the troubling effect of strengthening far more radical militant groups within Gaza, Islamic Jihad and a small al-Qaeda related group, the Army of Islam.

The people of Gaza believed they had been abandoned by Abbas and the Palestinian Authority. Their situation remained dire. They suffered from the collective punishment imposed by Israel on the one hand, and inept leadership on their side. And the rockets and mortar fire into Israel continued, although the fatalities from the military exchanges were far higher on the Palestinian side. Between January and June 2008, four Israelis were killed by rocket fire from Gaza while 333 Palestinians in Gaza were killed by Israeli artillery and airstrikes, including 56 children and around 130 adult civilians. Egypt brokered a fragile six-month ceasefire between Israel and Hamas on 19 June 2008, in which both sides agreed that the violence between Palestinian militants and Israel would end and Israel would lift its blockade. Separate negotiations were to continue about a prisoner exchange, which would include the return of Corporal Gilad Shalit. Within a couple of weeks both sides were accusing each other of failing to abide by the terms of the agreement.

In the meantime, after eight years, in June 2008, Israel and Syria had resumed parallel – indirect – peace talks. They did so through Turkish mediators in Istanbul. The talks were held on the basis of the framework established at an October 1991 peace conference held in Madrid, Spain. To the Syrians there was only one issue to discuss – restoring the Golan Heights to their control. Israel, however, had a broader agenda. It included weakening Syria’s support for Hezbollah and Hamas, removing the presence of radical Palestinian organizations in Syria’s capital, diminishing its status in Lebanon and, finally, breaking down Syria’s relationship with Iran. Olmert had indicated that the return to Syria of the Golan Heights, seized by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War, was on the agenda, but he demanded that Syria cease to support and transfer weapons to the Iranian-backed Shia militia, Hezbollah, in Lebanon. Israel, and the United States, regarded Hezbollah as a terrorist group. Because of Syria’s support of Hezbollah and its military presence in Lebanon, to Israel the two countries were inseparable.

In the summer of 2006 Israel had sought to destroy the radical militia’s influence in Lebanon with a series of devastating aerial attacks on its locations in southern Lebanon and Beirut but had been forced into a humiliating retreat when it failed to defeat the highly elusive and well-prepared group.

In May 2008, after two weeks of very fierce fighting in which Hezbollah gunmen took over parts of Beirut, an Arab-mediated agreement was reached to stabilize the feuding factions in Lebanon. To the chagrin of Israel, and the US, Hezbollah was allowed eleven seats in the thirty-seat cabinet, effectively enabling it to veto any government decision. Referring to Hezbollah and Hamas, Syria indicated that if there was a peace agreement there would no longer be the need to support the presence of such organizations. In mid-August 2008 a unity government was formed in Beirut that gave Damascus’s ally a strong say in decision-making. Syria and Lebanon immediately agreed to establish full diplomatic ties for the first time in a step toward easing the tensions between the two countries that have fuelled Lebanon’s turmoil.

The indirect negotiations between Israel and Syria were further complicated in August 2008 when hostilities broke out between Russia and Georgia, a former Soviet republic. The United States and Israel – among others – condemned the Russian invasion of Georgia that had taken place in response to Georgia’s attack on Ossetia, a province on its border with Russia. Russian generals complained that Georgia’s military had received training and arms from Israel, while Syria, a friend and ally of Moscow, supported Russia’s actions. President Basher al-Assad travelled to Russia in late August in a visit widely regarded as an arms-buying mission for long range anti-aircraft missiles. Olmert planned his own visit to Russia later in the year to strengthen ties and if possible prevent any sales of advanced anti-aircraft missile systems to Syria. He told the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, that Israel would eventually have to destroy any missile system that threatened Israeli airforce planes in Israeli airspace. In November 2007 Israel had bombed what it called a nuclear reactor facility in Syria. Whether or not the US had given Israel the ‘green light’ at the time was unclear, although Israel informed Washington of the impending attack. Israel continued military overflights of Lebanon that the military described as defensive. The Russians denied that they would sell any weapons to Syria that would violate the regional balance of power, and would sell only defensive weapons.

These two sets of talks – Israel-Palestine and Israel – Syria – reflect the multilayered nature of the Arab – Israeli conflict and the interconnectedness of the issues. The Israeli daily Ha’aretz reported that Israel informed Egypt and the Palestinian Authority of the indirect talks with Syria before they were officially announced. Israel sought to assure the Palestinians that it was in no way opting for the Syrian track at the expense of negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.³ Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad, speaking in the West Bank, said he was not worried Israel would pursue peace with Syria at the expense of progress in the US-brokered negotiations with the Palestinians.

Every aspect of the developments mentioned above was highly calculated and subjected to the most minute analysis by participants and commentators alike. To take just one comment as an example, in her attempt to maintain Israeli control of negotiations with the PA, Livni warned that international pressure could lead to violence as did the breakdown of the Camp David talks of 2000. That was a highly political and contentious remark and reflected a particular, narrow, Israeli interpretation. Most observers, including many Israelis, recognize that the second intifada was caused not by the breakdown of the Camp David talks, which imputes blame directly to the Palestinians, but by the provocative, and political, gesture made by Ariel Sharon in visiting the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on 28 September 2000 – a view which at least shares responsibility for the violence. Livni’s remark was calculated to delay and lessen US – and Palestinian Authority – pressure on Israel to make concessions.

Some indication of the distance between the two parties in negotiations on the core issues was revealed in mid-August 2008 when Ha’aretz published a secret two-state proposal Olmert had presented to Abbas. The Israeli prime minister had been working on the plan for some months.⁴ According to the newspaper, Olmert also passed it on to the Americans in an effort to obtain their support for Israel’s position. Neither side wanted the proposal released, the prime minister’s office would not confirm or deny the report and the Palestinian Authority denied receiving it, but spokesmen from both commented upon it.

Under Olmert’s reported proposal, Israel would return to the Palestinians 93 per cent of the West Bank, as well as the Gaza Strip. In exchange for West Bank land that Israel would keep, Olmert proposed a 5.5 per cent land swap giving the Palestinians a desert territory adjacent to the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians would be given free passage between Gaza and the West Bank without any security checks. Israel would keep 7 per cent of the West Bank, while the Palestinians would receive territory equivalent to 5.5 per cent. Israel viewed the passage between Gaza and the West Bank as compensating for this difference, although it would officially remain in Israeli hands. The land to be annexed to Israel would include the large settlement blocs and, as widely expected and predicted, the border would follow the current separation barrier. Israel would keep Ma’ale Adumim, Gush Etzion, the settlements surrounding Jerusalem and some land in the northern West Bank adjacent to Israel as well as the two settlements of Efrat and Ariel.

Olmert’s proposal stated that once a border was agreed upon, Israel would be able to build freely in the settlement blocs to be annexed. The settlements outside the new border would be evacuated in two stages. First, after the agreement in principle was signed, the cabinet would initiate legislation to compensate settlers who voluntarily relocated, and in the second stage, once the Palestinians completed a series of internal reforms and were capable of carrying out the entire agreement, Israel would remove any settlers remaining east of the new border.

Regarding the future of Palestinian refugees, the proposal rejected a Palestinian ‘right of return’ and stated that the refugees could only return to the Palestinian state, other than exceptional cases in which refugees would be allowed into Israel for family reunification. There is a certain amount of agreement between the two parties on the future of the refugees. The peace initiative put forward by the Arab League in 2002 leaves no doubt that Arab countries will accept a nominal and symbolic return of refugees into Israel in numbers approved by Israel, with the overwhelming majority being repatriated into the new Palestinian state, their countries of residence, or into other countries prepared to receive them.

The ‘Olmert’ Parameters, September 2007.

Abbas immediately rejected the proposal as reported. It did not even go as far as the offer made by then prime minister Ehud Barak to Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat at Taba in January 2001. There were a number of unacceptable features in Olmert’s proposition. In the first place it did not provide for a Palestinian state that was contiguous, or with Jerusalem as its capital. And while Israel believed the passage connecting the two halves of the Palestinian state was one the Palestinians did not enjoy before 1967, when the Gaza Strip was under Egyptian control and the West Bank was part of Jordan, it was not satisfactory that Israel retained sovereignty over the passage. Abbas had been proposing that Israel retain only 2 per cent of the West Bank, not the 7 per cent envisaged by Olmert.

Furthermore, Israel received immediate benefits from the plan while the Palestinian Authority’s benefits were conditional, gratuitously and insultingly so – and Israel, presumably, would be the referee to the implementation of the agreement. The land to be transferred to the PA would only be delivered after Abbas had regained control of the Gaza Strip. Olmert and Livni’s position was that nobody in the region could afford a terror state, or a failed state, or an extreme Islamic state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Few attitudes could be more calculated to enrage Palestinians than a demand that their government control extremist elements coming from a government that had elected at least three former terrorist leaders to the office of prime minister and whose policies were held hostage by the most extreme religious and nationalist elements in the Knesset.

The concept Abbas had in mind did not differ significantly from those put forward eight years earlier at Camp David by former PA president Yasser Arafat, which would have allowed Israel to annex only a few settlements, along with their access roads, and ruled out allowing Israel to retain the settlement blocs. Israel argued that since then the separation fence had been built in the West Bank, and a new physical reality had been created in the areas where the fence had been completed. There were also difficulties with security arrangements. The Israeli prime minister’s scheme included a demand that the Palestinian state be demilitarized and without an army. The Palestinians, in contrast, insisted that their security forces be capable of defending against ‘outside threats’.

Jerusalem was not dealt with in the plan. The Israeli prime minister had given way to threats from the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party that it would leave his coalition government if Jerusalem were put on the negotiating agenda. Israel knew Abbas could not agree to any proposition that did not include the question of sovereignty and control over Jerusalem and its holy sites. Arafat had refused a division on Jerusalem when it was suggested by Ehud Barak in 2000, so Olmert suggested that negotiations be held under international auspices with a five-year timetable to reach agreement. According to Ha’aretz journalists, Olmert was probably pla...