Reality Sets In for "Peace Process"

Last week's tears and bloodshed which marked yet another episode in the tragic epic of the Holy Land caused many to reflect on what went wrong with the peace process when, according to the media at least, things appeared to be on track. The answer lies in the mistaken premises upon which the "peace process" was founded and in the confused direction in which it has long been headed. Associated Press photographs of armed Palestinians firing automatic weapons upon the Israelis who armed them have reawakened long-held doubts about the Labor government's policies. The fact that Israel was forced to summon tanks and attack helicopters to rescue their own troops, the first time since the 1967 war that such a show of strength has been necessary, was the best indication that things should never have been allowed to reach this stage.

Last week's violence brought home the fears of so many that the Intifadah's 1993 curtain call was merely a sign of intermission. More scenes of rock-throwing delinquents clashing with Israeli troops suggest that Act II of this grisly tragedy has arrived. As the Jewish holiday of Succoth began last week, it appeared as if Israelis and Arabs were being handed the second half of their round-trip ticket back to square one. They will doubtless be returning with little nostalgia.

Even if those in the Labor camp were not immediately persuaded by the scenes of mayhem to change their allegiance to Netanyahu and the Likud Party, perhaps they now have a better appreciation for their fellow Israelis' reluctance to support the Oslo Accords in the first place. The valid suspicion of Israeli moderates over the questionable issue of placing automatic machine guns into their enemy's hands gained immeasurable credibility when the barrels of those very guns were directed against the Israelis themselves last week. A Palestinian witness, confirmed by both The New York Times and The Washington Post, admitted that the Palestinian security forces fired live ammunition upon Israeli soldiers after seeing the Israelis disperse violent protesters with rubber bullets and tear gas.

Can we blame the Israelis for being skeptical of this sort of "peace" when their supposed partners in peace are given to changing their job descriptions from that of civilian police force members to vigilante commandos on a mere whim? Only the international community could have the chutzpah to expect Israel to tolerate the creation of a militia out of the group of security guards that Israel itself empowered.

The Palestinian police proved beyond a doubt that when push comes to shove, or as the case may be, when a slingshot becomes a well-directed gun barrel, they are not impartial enforcers of the peace process; their allegiance to the Palestinian cause takes priority over this process. This is not the first instance of the armed Palestinian forces' lack of resolve or so-called "inability" to restrain the enemies of peace. Original fears that the Palestinian security forces were not adequately equipped to deal with their own extremists have been substituted for the more worrisome concern that they are, in some cases, members of such groups. As the opponents of Oslo have long claimed, this has the explosive and dangerous potential to create true Palestinian unity amongst countless fundamentalist fringe groups. Until now the disunity of these extremists has been an extra card in the hand of the true seekers of peace.

The Palestinian "security" forces have, ironically, contributed to a most insecure situation. An arms build-up of this magnitude in such a volatile region of the world is a frightening portent. In countries which are still battling to put a lid on the hazards posed by unconventional warfare, there is hardly a need for thousands of extra automatic weapons, least of all in unpredictable, unaccountable and untrustworthy hands. The new cache of arms also acts as a continual threat, politically if not militarily, to Israel's position of strength and stability in a region with no other truly democratic states.

Did the "peace makers" on both sides ever stop in their headlong idealistic dash to consider the impossibility of confiscating the Palestinians' weapons, should that need ever have arisen? In the wake of the latest events, this appears to be an increasingly likely and favorable option. Such an effort, however, would be tremendously complicated by the proliferation of weapons which has resulted from the shortsighted Oslo plan. I, for one, find it difficult to picture 40,000 Palestinian policemen meekly handing over their assault rifles for any reason whatsoever. How many lives would be lost in the war that would result from trying to take those weapons back? Perhaps this was one of the more thorny issues postponed for the "final status negotiations."

In all of this discussion, let us not forget the very cause for the apparent sequel to the intifadah. In their letter published in yesterday's issue of The Crimson, Ramy M. Tadrous '97 and Mohamad M. Al-Ississ '00 claim that "the on-going violence in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza was directly provoked by the Israeli opening of a tunnel which borders the foundations of [Al-Aksa]" Mosque. What the Palestinians claim to be in such a huff and a puff about is an innocuous, inconspicuous and wholly inoffensive tunnel. Last July, I had the privilege of visiting the not-yet fully excavated site. It was more a matter of principle than of inconvenience when our tour group was prematurely made to turn around halfway along the route.

Tadrous and Al-Ississ criticize the opening of the tunnel for "undermining the Islamic character of the shrine." Such hysterically paranoid comments have typified the reactions of many. While the tunnel is the literal foundation of the Jewish religion, it is of no relevance to Islam or to the Arab people. Furthermore, there is absolutely no threat whatsoever to Al-Aksa Mosque. Even if this was the intention of the Israeli government, which clearly it is not, aren't there any better ways of "undermining the Islamic character of the shrine" than excavating a 2,000 year-old tunnel alongside it?

The fact that the tunnel does not even pass under the mosque renders groundless the claims of the Palestinians that the Israelis are attempting to undermine their religion. The tunnel was clearly a pretext used by the Palestinians as a base from which to launch and ideological battle with the Israelis. In their quest for nationhood, the Palestinian people will be forced to come to terms with the fact that in democratic states problems are solved first through words and not by the sword. The Israeli government has always and will always respect the religious freedom of its minorities, both Muslim and Christian. The Israelis are simply asking for is reciprocal gestures of toleration.

Last Tuesday, in a bitter replay of a 1991 incident, Arabs pelted Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall with a hail of stones, forcing an evacuation. How can the Palestinians expect their plea for religious toleration to be taken seriously when many of them lack sensitivity? To complicate their outrage at Israeli "insensitivity," Palestinians demonstrated a brand of their own in their attempt to set alight the tomb of Rachel, one of the matriarchs of the Jewish people. In all of this, Yassir Arafat's growing resume of handshakes and photo-ops have demonstrated that in spite of what may look good on CNN or in picture-perfect Rose Garden ceremonies, for the average Israeli and the average Palestinian, little has changed since the curtain unofficially closed on the Intifadah three years ago.

Throughout the past week, Arafat has demonstrated his new penchant for referring to the (not surprisingly) strong Jewish presence in Jerusalem as the "Judaization of Jerusalem." Arafat has conveniently forgotten the central importance of Jerusalem to the Jews throughout their history. Over the centuries that the Jews were exiled from their homeland, and to this very day, observant Jews continue to face Jerusalem as they pray three times daily. The city has remained a symbol of hope for Jews living in oppressive regimes in countless countries over the ages. Just last week, Jews in the Diaspora concluded the Yom Kippur services with the traditional closing song "Next Year in Jerusalem." Using such terms as the "Judaization of Jerusalem" is clearly an attempt upon the part of Arafat to return to the faculty and regressive claims of the Palestinians that Jews have colonized their land. This, surprisingly, comes after Arafat's recent acceptance of the Israeli right to exist.

The response of the international community to round two of the Intifadah was equally predictable. Like clockwork, the Arab uprising was followed by a myriad of "condemnations," "calls for tranquillity in the region" and a series of United Nations debates which inevitably led to the equivalent of a resolution criticizing Israeli troops for exercising their right to self-defense. France, traditionally no great friend of the Jewish State, joined the Arab nations in issuing a strong rebuke for Israel's defending itself. According to The New York Times, Washington called upon both sides not to raise any "new issues." Someone should whisper to Warren Christopher that since parts of the Hasmonean tunnel date back to as early as 2 B.C.E., perhaps the administration's rhetoric should be changed to accommodate the Holy Land's admittedly lengthy history. Secretary Christopher's lack of empathy is symptomatic of the West's lack of understanding of both Jewish and Islamic history. (I recommend Foreign Cultures 17: Thought and Change in the Contemporary Middle East.)

Over the past week, much to the chagrin of the media, the doubts initially held by so many centrist Israelis "in the know" proved to be well-founded. Since the media played one of the leading roles in the production of the "peace process," it is not surprising that for the past three years, their cameras have been covered with rose-tinted lenses. An accepting western audience and a battle-weary Israeli one bought into the illusion.

Many Israelis were duped into accepting the ill-founded and sacrificial Oslo Accords. The Palestinians should not count on it happening again when it comes to negotiations over Jerusalem. Polls show that on the subject of their capital, Israelis are united. Moreover, the Israelis are likely to be doubly cautious since the latest violence has revealed some of their peace partners to be wolves dressed in sheep's clothing. Israel was forced by the Clinton administration, with the rest of the world community in tow, to arm its enemy to the hilt. The rules of logic dictated that such a move would come back to haunt Israel. For the peace process, reality has set in.