Third Intifada?

BY AMOS

If the recent unrest in Jerusalem spirals out of control, the international news media will surely rush to find some symbolic spark. Perhaps, they will blame the announcement of the Ramat Shlomo expansion. Or maybe the dedication of the restored Hurva Synagogue in the eastern part of the city. They will ignore the wave of Jerusalem-related incitement in the past year, and especially in the last few months, by Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, and the Arab states, including countries allied or enjoying in-the-closet relations with Israel. The rhetoric, which includes a smear campaign alleging that Israel plans to "Judaize" Jerusalem by destroying Muslim antiquities, has been employed by the nationalists as well as the Islamists. It has gone hand-in-hand with the patently absurd efforts to deny any legitimate Jewish religious claims to Jerusalem and other sites. In all of this, Jewish attachment to places such as Hebron is dismissed as extremist political posturing by settlers - as if the religious sentiments of Jewish settlers have less legitimacy than those of Palestinian Muslims.

Remnants of the Intifada

BY CARMIA

The Second Intifida, which began in 2000, has long fizzled out but the memorials remain. Today is the seven-year anniversary of a suicide bombing which took place near my house and blew up a bus. Seventeen people were killed on bus number 37, which goes to and from the University of Haifa through the Carmel and Hadar, all the way down to the old central bus station at Bat Galim. One of my former students was lucky - he survived this bombing, albeit with hearing and vision damage and a face full of shrapnel.

An unofficial memorial has also grown on the location. It is made up of personal messages dedicated to the various victims of the bombing and messages to humanity in general that people have left all over the wall by the site.

On the other side of the Green Line, there are memorials as well. My friend took some pictures on her visit last year to Nablus and was most struck by the line, "Never Forgive, Never Forget" on the memorial below.

The memorial is obviously intended for the international media as well, having been written in (misspelled) English. The memorial below for "shaheeds" is not meant for the international community.

Shared Problems

Coin of Herod the Great as seen tonight on Ebay going for $9.95 before tax and shipping.

The current issue of National Geographic spotlights the trade in illegal antiquities that is flourishing in the West Bank. The piece is worth checking out for the photos, but also for the explanation of the process by which the cultural loot makes it to market. As it turns out, the Persian Gulf isn't only to blame for purchasing a large part of the ancient treasure on the black market, it also provides a kind of laundry service for Israeli dealers. The objects are smuggled out of the West Bank to the Gulf, whence they return to Israel with official export licenses -- in other words, ready for legitimate sale.

The disastrous state of the Palestinian economy and the patchwork legal and security framework, we're told, render this state of affairs all but inevitable. The PA's official and the Israeli Antiquities Authority archaeologist attached to the IDF in "Judaea and Samaria" seem resigned. Political and military imperatives weigh against enforcement of the the 1978 Antiquities Law or the PA's own rules -- which are what exactly? And what is the status of the Israeli Antiquities Law in the territories? Apparently, you need an export license to transfer antiquities from Hebron to East Jerusalem; so said the Israeli courts in Ruidi and Maches v. Military Court of Hebron.

Indeed the situation seems chaotic. But I would argue that traffic in illegal antiquities in the territories isn't only a product of the breakdown of the peace process and the dearth of the Palestinian economy. It's also related to the curious, confusing Israeli stance on the entire issue of antiquities. Today Israel countenances an enormous amount of illegal excavation and sale within its 1967 borders. By one count, 11,000 of the 14,000 sites within the Green Line have been looted. The root cause is often related to a simple contradiction in policy. The Antiquities Law effectively nationalizes any artifact that surfaces. They're all state property. And yet, the antiquities trade is legal -- whereas in many neighboring nations, it's not. With strong demand from museums (some internal) and collectors large, small, and sometimes powerful (see Moshe Dayan, Yigal Yadin, and Teddy Kollek), pressure to increase supply is constant. You might get the idea that the anarchic West Bank is the perfect playground for rich collectors. Ironically, the dubious legitimacy of an Israeli export license may attract more of them.

Signs of Life from Gilad Shalit

Earlier, I heard the Gilad Shalit tape that was released by Hamas today. It was painful to listen to him speaking from captivity, and even harder to think of what his parents must be going through. Obviously there is some joy too, as this is the first sign of life that we have from the young soldier since he was kidnapped exactly one year ago. But it is not at all clear whether he will be released before his twenty-first birthday on August 28.

Here is a transcript of the tape; it is slightly modified as I noticed that there were some small mistakes in Ha'aretz's. My (very literal) translation is below.

אני גלעד בן נועם שליט הכלוא אצל כתאיב אל שאהיד עז א-דין אל קסאם. אמא ואבא,אחותי ואחי , חברי בצה"ל. אני מוסר לכם מתוך הכלא דרישת שלום ואת געגועי לכולכם. עברה עלי שנה שלמה בתוך הכלא, ועדיין מצבי הבריותי מידרדר. ואני חייב לאשפוז ממושך בבית חולים .אני מצטער על חוסר ההתעניינות של הממשלה הישראלית וצה"ל ואי-היענותם בעניין שלי ובדרישות כתאיב אל קסאם. זה ברור שהם חייבים להיענות לדרישות אלו בכדי שאני אשתחרר כבר מהכלא. ובמיוחד שאני הייתי במבצע צבאי מתוך הוראה צבאית. ולא הייתי סוחר סמים. וכמו שיש לי הורים, אמא ואבא, גם לאלפי האצירים הפלשתינאים יש אמהות ואבות, שחייבים להחזיר להם את בניהם. יש לי תקווה גדולה לממשלתי שתתעניין בי יותר ותיענה לדרישות אל-מוג'אהידין. הרב"ט גלעד שליט.

I am Gilad, son of Noam Shalit, imprisoned with the Katayeb al-Shaheed az a-Din al-qassam. Ima and Abba [mom and dad], my sister and my brother, my friends in the IDF. I convey my greetings to and my longing for you from jail. A whole year has passed over me inside the jail, and the condition of my health is declining. And I require long-term treatment in the hospital. I regret the lack of interest by the Israeli government and the IDF and their indifference in/to my matter and the demands of Katayeb al-Qassam. It is clear that they need to accept these demands in order for me to be released already from the jail. And especially since I was on a military mission under military order. And I was not a drug dealer [emphasis added].* And just as I have parents, Ima and Abba, so do the thousands of Palestinian detainees ['atzirim] have mothers and fathers, that [sic] their sons have to be returned to them. I have great hope that my government will interest itself in me more and accept the demands of el[sic - I am pretty sure he does not say "ha-mujahedin"]-mujahedin.

*This is a reference to the case of the Israeli businessman Elhanan Tanenbaum, who was lured to Lebanon by Hizbullah agents who apparently enticed him with promises of money he could earn through a drug deal. Tanenbaum was swapped for several high-profile prisoners by Ariel Sharon in 2004.

Shalit is being held by the same criminal gang that abducted the BBC reporter Alan Johnston. A video of the Johnston was released shortly before the Shalit tape. The group holding them is rumored to be headed by a certain Mumtaz Durmush, affiliated with al Qaeda. Immediately after the Hamas take-over in the Gaza strip, there were reports of clashes between this group and Hamas's armed forces. However, it appears that the two have come to some kind of agreement, although tensions remain. Hamas is clearly trying to use the tape to gain leverage for itself - to force Israel to its knees - and the captors are playing along, since any gains achieved will also reflect positively on them.

The tape is aimed squarely at Israeli public opinion. It is an effort to build up public pressure to force the government to meet the demands of both the Hamas government on one hand and the kidnappers on the other.

On the tape, Shalit is reading from a prepared text. Sometimes the pauses are awkward. It obviously does not sound like a fluid statement coming directly from him. But it also does not sound as if he is reading it with a gun pointed to his head. Making Shalit compare his plight to that of Palestinian security prisoners was an appeal not only to the Israeli public but also to the Palestinian and Arab publics listening to the tape with translation.

Living in a Dream

Sigmund Freud and his daughter Anna (Source: Freudianslip)

I am not sure about Uzi Benziman's conclusion, citing Anna Freud, that "among adults, seeking satisfaction through imagination indicates a serious psychological disorder." But his main argument is a harsh rejoinder to the self-delusion about the West Bank and Hamas that has gripped the country:

Some members of Israel's leadership, including cabinet ministers, Knesset members and defense and policy advisers, have recently come to resemble those children who solve their problems by daydreaming. When they say that the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip has opened a rare window of opportunity, they are also laying out the next solution to the Palestinian problem: hand over responsibility for Gaza to Egypt. There are even some who propose granting Jordan an official role in the West Bank.

In the meantime, Abbas is trying his best to extract certain favors to him from Israel. In this, he is backed by the U.S. The test of measures such as freeing Barghouti or removing checkpoints, however, should not be something as vague as "strengthening the moderates." It is an illusion to think that Abu Mazen's government will be reinforced by favors that Israel or the U.S. bestows upon it. Rather, such measures should be evaluated on the basis of sound military, social, and political yardsticks, which are independent of the psychological disorientation caused by dreams of a divorce between Gaza and the West Bank. Eventually, the two will be linked again. Almost all the Arab leaders are pushing Abbas and Haniyeh to repeat another Mecca-style agreement to paper over the differences that exist; they too have staked too much on a "united Palestine" to consent to a permanent separation.

Hamastan and Fatah-stine

Map of Gaza (May 2005, Perry Castaneda)

The mantra that we are hearing in the wake of Hamas's victory in the Gaza Strip is rather familiar. The Americans have been telling the Israelis for some time now: support the Palestinian "moderates." It seems that this idea has also excited Olmert. Right now, the Americans as well as the Israeli foreign ministry are pushing for moves to strengthen Abbas. The goal seems to be to turn the West Bank into some kind of oasis showcasing the fruit earned by moderates who deal pragmatically with the U.S. and with Israel rather than embracing the genocidal extremism of Hamas. This is a nice thought. But it will not work.

The battles between Hamas and Fatah in Gaza showed how weak Abbas's forces are militarily. The lack of leadership, coordination, and, most importantly, motivation on the side of Fatah's forces were all too apparent. Neither the political echelon of Fatah nor the security apparatus showed enough determination to impose its vision on Palestinian society. This may be because no such vision exists on the side of Fatah, and because the fighters knew that they did not have a great deal of popular support. Hamas, on the other hand, showed no such scruples. While the organization is not invincible and may face significant challenges from various clans, it has enough committed fighters as well as popular support for its ideas and style of government in Gaza.

What lies behind Fatah's military failures is a major structural weakness - a disconnect between the instruments of violence and political institutions with popular backing. Rightly or wrongly, Hamas's armed forces seem to be perceived by enough Palestinians as being guided by more or less representative political institutions. Fatah's fighters, on the other hand, appeared like disconnected crews of private militiamen fighting for individual feudal lords rather than a coherent ideology.

Given this structural problem, it seems rather foolish to throw more arms and money at the Fatah forces. Likewise, I am not sure that spending funds on certain civic projects will necessarily do that much good. Much of the money will likely end up in the pockets of PA officials anyway. The rest will be invested haphazardly in certain towns and neighborhoods attached to various local bosses. Much like the private militiamen, it will be atomized power (economic rather than military in this case) without a unifying ideology or a responsive mechanism of control.

Perhaps equally damaging is the bad odor that clings to American and Israeli money or support among Palestinians today. Never mind that they are all sitting in big piles of it, and that even a Hamas-ruled Gaza cannot achieve autarky from Israel; the linkage of Fatah with the U.S. and the Zionists will remain a powerful weapon in Hamas's arsenal. Thus, supporting Fatah may backfire.

There are people who see the outcome of the first phase of the Palestinian civil war as some kind of new opportunity. Some of this chatter can be dismissed right away as wishful thinking. Whoever thinks that Hamas's victory in the Strip will lead to the permanent severing of Gaza from the West Bank and hence bring about an end to the dream of a united Palestinian state is living in a kind of movie. Neither the Palestinian people nor its leadership will agree to this.

Although Abbas is playing hard to get right now and rebuffing overtures by Hamas, I would not count on him to faithfully execute American or Israeli objectives. Fatah will come to some kind of accommodation with Hamas at the end, although the two factions will continue to hate each other's guts. Most likely, we will see a situation where both Hamastan and Fatah-stine claim the right to negotiate on behalf of all Palestinians - a situation of dual power that might be institutionalized in another complicated constitutional arrangement. This would bring Israel back to the status quo ante.

Given Fatah's current weakness, it almost seems like dealing with Hamas instead would be a better choice. Here, Israel might be able to negotiate with an entity that has something closer to a monopoly on violence, which can gain a great deal from Israeli carrots and can offer certain things in return. (For an excellent overview of the economic situation faced by Hamas and the carrots as well as two-sided sticks available to Israel see this article in today's Ha'aretz). But the problem is that Israel is dealing with an enemy in Gaza who does not appear to be acting pragmatically. Furthermore, this enemy is armed and egged on by two foreign powers - Iran and Syria - which do not want stability on Israel's southern border, just as they want to maintain a strike force on its northern boundary.

There have been some rumors in the press that Israel's newly-appointed Defense Minister Ehud Barak is planning a massive invasion of the Gaza Strip. I am hoping that this is part of an information operation to warn Hamas and its sponsors. If it isn't, I wonder how Barak would define the objectives of such an operation, and what outcomes he might foresee.

"Lessons" from the Kisufim Attack

The Kisufim ("Yearnings") Crossing, marked in orange

The thwarted attempt by Palestinian militants to capture an Israeli soldier near the Kisufim crossing has again raised questions about the government's "policy of no response" (Debka Hebrew).

In the incident, which occurred on Saturday afternoon, a team of four Islamic Jihad fighters broke through the security fence in a white jeep marked "TV." Lookouts immediately alerted nearby forces from the Givati Brigade. Meanwhile, the militants, who were dressed in military fatigues, stormed an empty outpost (a pillbox) and started firing. When they realized that the outpost was unoccupied and saw IDF jeeps arriving at the scene, three of the fighters returned to Gaza. Israeli troops began combing the area. A dog from the Oketz unit discovered the fourth terrorist, who had hidden in a pipe. After he revealed his location when he shot the dog, Israeli soldiers surrounded the man, who was killed in the two-hour long gun battle that ensued (Ynet Hebrew, New York Times).

The vehicle used by the attackers (Reuters)

Soon after the initial news of the incident, army sources expressed concerns about "tactical shortcomings" in the response of the unit summoned to the scene (Ha'aretz Hebrew). "Why," they asked, "was there no pursuit of the [Islamic Jihad] crew at Kisufim?" To Lt. Colonel Bassam 'Alian, who commands the Rotem Battalion (one of the four battalions in the Givati Brigade) and was among the first to arrive on the scene, the answer is simple: the troops focused on securing the area first and making sure that the terrorists did not reach nearby residential areas. (A quick excursus: Bassam 'Alian made the headlines in August 2006, after he was injured in Lebanon, shortly after being promoted to Lt. Colonel.)

I will leave it to the military to investigate these alleged tactical deficiencies, but it strikes me that the criticism might not be entirely rational. I cannot help linking this disappointment that Israeli soldiers did not manage to arrest or kill the other attackers with a general sense of frustration about the government's defensive policy. This frustration is most palpable among reservists from Sderot and the south. In a recent article, "An Israeli defeat in Sderot," Ze'ev Schiff argues that despite the organization's military weakness, Hamas has achieved deterrence vis-a-vis Israel, just as Hizbullah has in the north. He calls this a "national failure" more serious than the outcome of the Lebanon war. Schiff concludes by bemoaning

the almost total disappearance of the strategic principle set by David Ben-Gurion, to the effect that upon the outbreak of a military confrontation, Israel must quickly transfer the fighting to enemy territory. At present, it is the enemy who is immediately transferring the fighting to Israeli territory (Ha'aretz).

In recent days, IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi has also called for an expansion of offensive action in Gaza by the army, though he still rules out a major ground operation comparable to Defensive Shield. Israel's National Security Council, on the other hand, believes that the current policy should be continued (Ha'aretz English).

The government's reluctance to authorize a large-scale operation in Gaza, however, is not based on the acceptance of a draw with Hamas alone. Israel is trying to avoid the inevitable civilian casualties that would accompany a return to the policies of June 2006, which included heavy artillery fire, and bombardment from the sea and air in response to qassam launches. Perhaps the government is hoping for a further deterioration of the Palestinians' diplomatic position, as well as the attrition of its fighting power in internecine conflict.

As we occupy ourselves with the management of this conflict, the future looks bleaker than ever. Because the Palestinian factions cannot guarantee Israelis' security, Israel will not give up the land the parties and the Palestinian people demand as a requirement for the cessation of attacks. To be sure, the armed struggle - at least of the sort carried out since the mid-1990s - especially the suicide bombings have only brought disaster to the Palestinians. Furthermore, the qassams and their more lethal future successors will bestow mere temporary gains upon the Palestinians (a cease fire here, a partial lifting of restrictions), until the next terrorist attack. Then, it will be two steps backward again.

I think the optimism of the "anti-Zionists," that Israel will disappear is misplaced. They believe that the world only has to be convinced of the suffering of the Palestinians. It is true that a great number of people today believe that Israel is the manifestation of evil and wholly responsible for the hardships experienced by Palestinian civilians. They bank on what they see as the inevitable triumph of justice, and the defeat of the wicked. In the words of Angry Arab:

Zionists miscalculated: the deep seated racism that characterized the minds of Zionist pioneers, and the contempt through which they looked at the Arabs, did not prepare them for an unexpected variable: the persistence of Palestinian struggle. That the Palestinians will not succumb to Zionist diktats. And that the Arabs will not let bygone's be bygone's.

I think the inverse of what As'ad AbuKhalil is saying rings just as true. The Arabs, especially the Palestinian Arabs, were not prepared for the persistence of the Jews' belief that they belong there, and that they need their own state. What the anti-Zionists don't understand is that Israeli Jews have nowhere to go. They do not intend to "return" anywhere - certainly not to the precariousness of life without national self-determination. Perhaps it is time to admit that the interests of Israelis and Palestinians are simply irreconcilable. For both sides, national self-determination seems to have requirements that the other side will not accept. But the loser of this kind of "draw" is surely the person without a state.

Getting along is easier in San Francisco (May 2007)

In a very serious interview conducted by Sayed Kashua, best known for his hilarious satirical columns in Ha'aretz [the link happens not to be his funniest piece but it's still good], Hillel Cohen, the author of four fine works on the relationship between the state (or pre-state institutions) and the local Arab population, put it this way:

-"One could also say that the tragedy of the Palestinians from the start is that they found themselves on land that the Jews claim, and say is their historic homeland - rightly so apparently, unlike what some of the Palestinians think. The Jews have roots here and they've managed to stake a claim in this land. This is where the tragedy begins. If the Jews hadn't come here, nothing would have developed the way it has. But they did come here and they are also stronger. This is the root of the tragedy. The question within this equation is what you do about it. The tragedy within this equation is that if you're quiet and don't protest it doesn't help you, and if you protest gently it also doesn't help you, and if you move to an armed struggle, then it also hurts you. Whatever you do, you're screwed."

So what should be done?

-"I don't have a proposal for what the Palestinians should do. But let's say, theoretically, if the Palestinians were to take up a non-violent struggle en masse, maybe something would happen."

Then what? That would bring them back to an Oslo-type process.

-"Perhaps. Listen, I don't know what to say to the Palestinians. If someone were to land here from Mars and ask me which nation is worth joining, I probably wouldn't recommend he join the Palestinian people."

And the Jewish people? The Israeli people?

-"No comment."

Forty Years Ago

למען אחי ורעי - אדברה נא שלום בך
"For the sake of my brothers' and companions, I will now say 'peace be within you,'" (Ps. 122)

The war that began on June 5, 1967, as a myriad of commentators have pointed out, is still with us. While Israel handily defeated the Arab states that had joined against it - crushing the Egyptian air force and army, pushing the Jordanians across the river, and taking the Golan from Syria over a period of 6 days - the country's leaders opened up a front in an unwinnable war, when they decided to occupy Gaza and the West Bank.

The triumph of 1967, the salvation from destruction, the opening up of the Holy City to the Jewish people, forty years later looks like a Pyhrric victory. Who can stand up today and say that the decision to occupy the captured territories to the east and to the south, and, later, even to tolerate the construction of settlements on them, was "worth it"?

The settlers believed that the Palestinians would consent to being "subjects," living in the Land of Israel like the ancient Canaanites. Maybe they were looking at the other Arab states in the region - few of which gave their populations the right to vote or to exercise sovereignty. But how did an entire generation of ostensibly sane people in the government and military come to believe that such an absurd scenario was possible? What role, did they imagine, would the newly-acquired land and its inhabitants play in the state?

It is true that the Palestinians have, time and again, provided Israel with plenty of reasons not to withdraw from these territories. What have concessions brought Israel, demands the right? Suicide bombings during the Oslo years? Qassam rockets from un-occupied Gaza? When one reads the prophecies of someone like Angry Arab, who cites a generous American professor "giv[ing] Israel 80 years" and who openly admits that he sees no future for the Jews in the Middle East -

"Personally, I am for a secular state in Palestine where Jews, Christians, and Muslims live together in peace, but Israel has made that ideal remote (in terms of Jewish-Arab coexistence in Palestine without a religious labeled-state). Israeli crimes over the decades have endangered Jewish existence in the Middle East, and I fear that Israel will endanger that existence further--even in Palestine"

- one wonders what the point of Israeli concessions might be.

However, the angry professor, try as he might to make his prophecy self-fulfilling, might be proven wrong after all. Even if the Palestinians cannot be trusted to deliver on any agreement, somehow Israelis might still be persuaded to evacuate the West Bank in exchange for a comprehensive peace with the Arab states still hostile to Israel. Following such an agreement, Israel would still have to endure attacks from the West Bank and Gaza. But perhaps Israeli civilian casualties (from whatever new tactic that the Palestinians will devise) will be reduced to a "tolerable" level, as they have been in the past year. And maybe, as unlikely as it seems given the Gazan example, some strong Palestinian leaders will slowly start giving their people an option other than armed struggle. The result of such a scenario would not be "peace." It would be the kind of conflict management that Tom Segev describes in the conclusion of an op-ed in today's New York Times.

Ha'aretz Op-eds:

Tom Segev, מה נשכח באותו בוקר [What was forgotten that morning], English
Saeb Erekat, הערבים בחרו בשלום [The Arabs chose peace], English
Shlomo Avineri, אחרי 40 שנה, להחליט לבד [Deciding alone after 40 years],
Dani Rabinowitz, איזה יום היום? [What day is today?], English
Bradley Burston, בגן הילדים השמאלני [In the leftist kindergarten]
Amira Hass, בשבחי הכיבוש [In praise of the occupation], English
Moshe Arens, נרתעת מלהרתיע [Flinching from deterring], English

Op-eds and articles in the U.S. and European press marking the fortieth anniversary of the war:

Fouad Ajami, "Israel's Triumph," US News & World Report
Ian Black, "Six days of war, 40 years of failure," The Guardian
Michel Bôle-Richard, "1967-2007 : la Palestine démembrée," Le Monde
Wolfgang Günter Lerch, "Ein Pyrrhus-Sieg vor vierzig Jahren," Frankfurter Allgemeine
Michael Oren, "Remaking the world in six days," LA Times
Ralph Peters, "Six-Day War, 40 Years on: Israeli Victories brought de-facto Peace," New York Post
Tom Segev, "What if Israel Had Turned Back," New York Times
Letters to the Editor in response to Segev, New York Times
"Les cicatrices de la guerre des Six-jours," Le Monde [Interview with Tom Segev]
"Les plaies d'Israël", L'Express [another interview with Segev]
Thorsten Schmitz, "Der hohe Preis des schnellen Sieges," Sueddeutsche Zeitung
Bettina Vestring, "Israel vor vierzig Jahren," Berliner Zeitung

Gaza or Bust?

Bitkhonists stirring the Helba

Pressure is mounting among the type of "bitkhonists," mentioned previously by Jeha, for the army to pursue a more aggressive policy in the Gaza Strip. Moshe "Boogie" Ya'alon, the chief of staff who preceded Dan Halutz, last week called on Israel to launch a major ground invasion into the strip, in order to eliminate the rocket threat. Ya'alon, who still opposes the 2005 unilateral disengagement from Gaza, and who has been sharply critical of former chief of staff Dan Halutz's handling of the Lebanon war, argued that

The problem in Gaza will not solve itself and no one will solve it for us. It requires us to reach the terrorists and the areas in which they operate, and strike at the industry of terror. We did this during Operation Defensive Shield, and before that operation we were unsure about whether to proceed. Today, you must be blind not to realize the necessity of entering Gaza.

Defensive Shield (חומת מגן) was a massive military operation conducted by Israel in response to a month of suicide bombings, including the infamous attack at a hotel in Netanya, which killed 30 Israeli civilians, on the eve of Passover on March 27, 2002. Under Halutz's direction, the IDF mounted a major campaign in the West Bank, targeting Ramallah, Nablus, Betlehem, and, especially, Jenin. Ya'alon seems to be suggesting that the operation "finished" the suicide bombing squads. It is true that, as far as I can recall, Israel did not experience anything close to the level of violence that it faced in March 2002. But were the tactics of the duo of former Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and Chief of Staff Ya'alon throughout the al-Aqsa intifadah really the reason for eventual defeat of the suicide bombers? During their administration, it did not look that way at all.

Ze'ev Schiff, Ha'aretz's military correspondent, is more cautious than Ya'alon. In a recent piece on the qassams and the situation in Gaza, he suggests that "A temporary incursion by the IDF deep into certain parts of the Gaza Strip is also a possibility." However, his assessment of the situation in Gaza is equally pessimistic, and he offers no diplomatic solutions at all, arguing pretty much for purely unilateral measures.

The thrust of the piece is that the Palestinians cannot be trusted to abide by agreements with Israel or any other state (the argument is in the title: "If that's how they act in Gaza"):

the Palestinians do not want to, or are not capable of, keeping agreements. They'll always find an excuse or a pretext, even if it ends up hurting them. Some say this happens because the Palestinians have no national entity. But Yasser Arafat had such an entity and controlled a majority of his organizations, and he continuously violated agreements (Ha'aretz ).

I am not entirely convinced that this is true (though I'm certainly leaning this way), and Schiff, too, believes that "Israel has no choice but to continue to seek agreements with the Palestinians." What measures then does Schiff think Israel should take? Rather vaguely, he speaks of "maintaining broader margins of security," which translates into isolating the West Bank from Gaza, to prevent the spread of qassams (as well as internecine fighting) there. This means that Israel must oppose the Dayton recommendations. He also insists that Israel must keep striking at the sources of qassam fire (before or after rockets are launched). In this respect, the logic is again very familiar from the Lebanon war:

Hamas and the other Palestinian organizations, which seek mainly to strike civilian targets in Israel, are now complaining about Palestinian civilians being harmed. Israel mustn't punish Palestinian civilians for the attacks on its communities, but it must return fire immediately to the sources of fire, even if civilians nearby are hurt. This is the most basic and natural right to defense. The fact that Russia was the first one to criticize Israel on this is utterly ridiculous.

And, according to Schiff, Hamas has scored a victory against Sderot and Israel as a whole, perhaps the same kind of "victory" claimed by Nasrallah's katyushas. The other big problem for Schiff is Egypt, which he accuses of turning a blind eye to weapons and cash smuggling into Gaza, and thereby of playing a "two-faced game in the war on terror."

I still think that a ground operation would be a huge mistake. Throughout the al-Aqsa intifadah, Mofaz and Ya'alon kept arguing for permission to carry out some decisive operation that would "wipe out" the terrorists. The same kind of logic led to the utterly fantastic war aims of eradicating Hizbullah that were articulated by Olmert, Peretz, and Halutz during the Lebanon war. We must resist the temptation of a "dramatic solution."

A combination of more subtle defensive as well as "surgical," small-scale measures offensive measures, not the mammoth campaigns like Operation Defensive Shield, have been the key to managing the conflict - i.e., to dramatically decreasing Israeli civilian as well as military casualties. Among these measures I include the security fence, checkpoints, and the diplomatic isolation of the Hamas government. The problem is that this strategy also precludes a dramatic negotiated solution of the type that so many of us keep yearning for.

Solidarity with the Palestinians

International media would have had a field day with this, if someone had found a similar quotation from an Israeli citizen (NYT):

Many residents of Tripoli welcomed the Lebanese Army into town, and onlookers clapped whenever tanks fired shells into the camp, bringing to surface longstanding tensions between Lebanese and Palestinians, who are blamed for setting off the civil war in 1975.

“This should have happened from the start,” said one man, who stood in a crowd of onlookers as the tanks fired into the camp. The crowd shouted, “God is great, and God Protect the army,” with each shell fired.

“We wish the government would destroy the whole camp and the rest of the camps,” said Ahmad al-Marooq, who stood with the crowd. “Nothing good comes out of the Palestinians.”

"God Saved Us"

Sderot synagogue hit by a qassam. The photograph of R. Ovadia Yosef (right)
and the painting of the youthful Baba Sali [I think] (left) were unharmed (Photo: Ynet)

The photographs and the press reports from Sderot this week are eerily reminiscent of scenes from the north in last summer's war. Of course, the residents of the western Negev have been living with the qassam strikes since before the disengagement from Gaza. But the media spotlight is now back on Sderot, and the pressure on the government is mounting to "do something" about it.

On the airwaves and in the print media, the inhabitants of the Negev town seem unanimous that they have been abandoned by the politicians. I am not sure that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's visit assuaged their fears - some Sderot residents took this as an opportunity to lash out at Olmert as well as Defense Minister Amir Peretz, whose house in the city is apparently a target for the qassam crews.

Shortly after Olmert finished his tea with Peretz and left the town, a rocket struck a synagogue. This strike could very well have resulted in casualties; shortly before the qassam hit, community members had celebrated the dedication of a new Torah scroll. "God saved us," said one of the people on the scene. Ynet's coverage (Hebrew) gives voice to the anger and fear of Sderot residents. These are the words of Aryeh Cohen, who came to Peretz's house to "talk" to the PM:

ראש הממשלה פחדן, באת כמו גנב בלילה עם כל השומרים שלך. זו לא פרובוקציה מה שאני עושה, אני רוצה לדבר איתו. רק אתמול בלילה עברו מעלי טילים. אני רוצה לשמוע את ראש הממשלה נותן לי תשובות. כל הזמן אנחנו שומעים אותך ואתה לא מאפשר לנו להשמיע את קולנו. נכנס לבית של פרץ, פרץ גם עוד יותר פחדן ממך - גר בבית ממוגן ואנחנו - אין לנו מקלטים

The Prime Minister is a coward, you came like a thief in the night with all your guards. What I am doing is not a provocation, I want to talk to you. Only last night missiles passed over me. I want to hear the Prime Minister give me answers. We hear you all the time and you don't allow us to make our voices heard. He went into Peretz's house, Peretz is even more of a coward than you - he lives in a protected house - we don't have shelters.

The truth is that while the IDF may be able to reduce the rocket strikes to a certain degree with some of its current actions, qassams will continue landing on Sderot without a renewal of some kind of hudnah with Hamas. Even that, however, will only reduce the number of rockets, as the Islamic Jihad and wild Fath crews will continue their activities. As the latest eruption of internecine fighting in Gaza made all too clear, no one has a monopoly on violence in the Strip.

Aluf Benn lists four different alternatives, faulting Israel's leaders for not having learned from Winograd and ignoring "diplomatic" alternatives. The options he lists are:

• Offering a cease-fire in the West Bank in exchange for a cessation of qassam firing
• Allowing the U.S. to implement the "Dayton Plan" - i.e., training and arming forces loyal to Abu Mazen to fight the qassam crews and weapons smugglers
• Engage in direct talks with Hamas and offer to lift the economic embargo against the PA in exchange for a long-term hudnah
• Meet with Abu Mazen

The last of these is, of course, utterly useless, as Benn acknowledges - we can reject this one out of hand. The second option apparently has a lot of backers in the State Department. There are some who are insisting that Fatah forces are fighting quite well against Hamas. However, even if there is some truth to this (it seems to fly in the face of the evidence), a victory achieved by Israeli-backed units would be meaningless, as it would never have popular legitimacy. Given the political weakness of Abu Mazen, this seems like a waste of time and money.

The first and third options, which involve dealing with Hamas, seem more promising. However, these days it is not at all clear that Hamas can deliver the goods (i.e., no more qassams) any more effectively than Abbas. In any case, both of these scenarios would allow Hamas to build up its forces for a future confrontation; one has to weigh the costs very carefully.

Given that none of the "diplomatic" alternatives above are truly viable, it seems that Israel can only hope to reduce the rocket fire at this point by targeted air force and artillery strikes, and work on reinforcing buildings and bunkers in Sderot. This is pretty much in line with previous escalations in the south. Sooner or later, an errant Israeli artillery shell or air strike will hit a residential building in Gaza, kill a large number of Palestinian civilians, and occasion an international outcry, and put a stop to the operation. Then, things will return to the status quo ante of 10 instead of 30 qassams a day ... until the next round.

The worst thing Israel could do is to embark on a full-scale invasion of Gaza now. It will bring only marginal gains over air strikes, in terms of preventing qassam launches. Let's face it. There is no real solution to the problem of the rockets - at least not one that Israel by itself could achieve.

The Qassam Front

Exodus to Be'er Sheva

As I said last week, it was only a matter of time before one of the qassam rockets among the barrage fired at the western Negev and the city of Sderot would occasion a more far-reaching response from the army. The direct hit on a Sderot apartment complex today broke the camel's back, though it remains to be seen just how "comprehensive" the military response will be. The air force's bombing of a Hamas "operations center" in Rafah, which killed 4 and wounded 20, combined with a resumption of "targeted killings" of Hamas leaders probably represent the limits of the "severe and harsh" measures promised by Olmert will take.

The increased qassam activity is taking place against the backdrop of renewed intra-Palestinian fighting between Hamas and Fatah, which has led to more than 40 deaths over the past four days. Perhaps partly in a bid to make some sort of appeal for Palestinian unity, Hamas is openly taking part in the qassam firing, which explains the increased activity on this front (50 rockets since Tuesday). Fatah militants are probably also participating to some extent, as they too seek to appeal to the street. But the residents of Gaza know how disingenuous this rhetoric is. The call for Palestinian unity against Israel and the qassam attacks obscure the serious tensions between the factions and criminal gangs in Gaza, and the lethal violence inter-factional violence enveloping the Strip.

It is amusing to watch As'ad AbuKhalil try to deny that we are in fact seeing the beginnings of a civil war in Gaza. It reminds me of his praise for the Iraqi "insurgency" and his pathetic efforts to manipulate the statistics from that theater - all in order to claim that these criminals are fighting "illegal occupation" rather than butchering innocent civilians.

This latest eruption in intra-Palestinian fighting should dispel any doubts about the viability of the Mecca accords (if anyone remembers it) as well as other cease fires. All of these cease fires are unlikely to last without the complete victory of one faction over another. The U.S. has been pressuring Israel to rush arms to Abu Mazen to support Fatah fighters and to ensure that Hamas does not score a complete rout over its opponents. I think that Olmert will continue resisting these calls - both for domestic political (one of the slogans of the right after the outbreak of the second intifadah, aimed at the Oslo process backers, was "you gave them rifles" - and they were right that these guns were indeed turned against Israeli soldiers and civilians ), as well as strategic reasons.

Even if Fatah were to acquire additional equipment, it is not at all clear that its failures in the field against Hamas are due to a material disadvantage. In any case, Fatah is unlikely to defeat Hamas militarily; certainly, such a victory bestowed upon it by American or Israeli backing would profoundly hurt its chances in the political sphere. It makes much more sense for Israel to step back and intervene with pinpoint operations against Hamas fighters and infrastructure (or Fatah militants) as it sees fit.

Meanwhile, Gaydamak has paid for 800 Sderot residents to be put up in hotels in Tel Aviv and Be'er Sheva. An exodus of sorts has gripped the town since the latest strike. In the Israeli media, photographs have been published of residents trying desperately to board Gaydamak's buses and flee the city.

Olmert has responded angrily (Hebrew) to this evacuation operation. It is clear that Gaydamak is amassing an arsenal of public support in pursuit of his political ambitions; in the meantime he is performing some very good deeds. The residents of Sderot have been let down again by the Israeli government. Nobody has previously discussed the deplorable "lethargy" exhibited by the country's politicians with regard to putting in place at least a preliminary defense system against the rockets. The public bomb shelters have only been opened now in Sderot.

Expect the qassam fire to continue increasing over the next few days, as Hamas and Fatah try to fight a two-front war - against each other and Israel. The biggest losers will of course be the residents of Gaza.

Tom Segev on the Jewish Lobby, Jimmy Carter, and Berkeley

"Ugly Fountain," Berkeley (May 2007)

In the question and answer session at a lecture that Jimmy Carter gave here in Berkeley on May 2, the moderator [thanks, Yaman] of the Q&A session mentioned a conversation that he had had with Tom Segev earlier that day. He quoted the Israeli journalist and historian as having told him that "it's a very healthy thing for friends of Israel not to feel as if they can't criticize the occupation."

Segev repeated these remarks during the question and answer session of his own lecture on May 8. In response to the question, "In this century, how much do you think the Israeli lobby in the U.S. has succeeded in influencing [indistinct], particularly the Republican right," which to me seemed like a total non sequitur given the subject of the lecture, Segev first asked for clarification of the term, and - unless I misinterpreted the exchange that followed - accepted the redefinition of "Israeli lobby" as "Jewish lobby," without flinching. He then said that

One relatively new development in American society is that for first time I hear an argument about that. This is a new subject [applause from the audience]. This is what I found interesting about Carter’s speech and his book. You have to rethink the meaning of friendship. You will no longer believe that friendship with Israel means supporting the Israeli government, but rather make a distinction between the government and the country. This tendency to reformulate what it means to be friends with Israel is very interesting and encouraging.

As you can see, Segev did not really engage the question. Maybe he didn't understand it or perhaps he simply chose to ignore its ugly tone. In either case, I am stunned by the indifference to American Jewish concerns and debates that his non-response betrayed. I am not in principle about what Segev said here; I am simply amazed that he failed to connect this question to some of the ugly tendencies that we saw in the wake of the Mearsheimer and Walt article as well as the Jimmy Carter book. This kind of myopia and lack of interest in the concerns of American Jewry are, however, quite typical of people on the Israeli left.


The next question was equally astounding: "What do you propose Israel do with Jerusalem, in light of Carter’s speech?"

Segev's response: "I don't think there is anything that we need to do in light of Carter's speech." He then went on to share his own impressions of Carter's book and the man himself:

Carter doesn’t really say much. What he says in his book, is that if Israelis and Palestinians are nice to each other there will be no war. The story is very complicated. Jerusalem has been a problem without a solution for 3,000 years. It may remain a problem like this. The challenge is managing this problem. Barak was once caught reading a book on “300 solutions to the problem of Jerusalem.” If a problem has that many "solutions," this might mean that there is no real solution. I was struck by how a former president of the United States could come up with a plan ... that the best thing you can say about it is that it is so naïve. It is only one of many other plans. I actually had a chance to tell him that – this is one of the great Berkeley moments that I was thinking of earlier. I was introduced to him, and I told him this.

For Segev, one of the other highlights of spending the semester at Berkeley was the "absolutely thrilling experience" of teaching his seminar on "1967." He said that it was clear to him that he was meeting some of America's brightest students, who were extremely passionate about what they believed should happen to Israel, "even though most of them know almost nothing about the country." He also spoke fondly of his meetings with Salim Tamari from Birzeit University, a visiting professor in Berkeley's Department of History, whose lecture was the subject of an earlier post.

Another view of the I-House

Assorted Other Remarks

Segev on differences between his generation and young Israelis today:

The main difference between us and the younger generation is that the latter no longer believes in peace. The geopolitical situation has changed. The conflict has become deeper, more violent, more difficult to solve. My generation, including the Israeli peace movement, deserves very little praise. The new generation is a more realistic generation, less idealistic. They don’t believe in grand solutions but in conflict management. Peace may not be attained in the foreseeable future. But perhaps this generation will manage conflict in a more rational manner – this is the most optimistic thought I can share with you.

Segev on the conflict between memory and historiography:

Everything that happened in the region since the 6-day war has occurred in its shadow. This puts 1967 somewhere between history and memory. There is always someone in the audience who tells me, “why do you even bother going to the archives, I can tell you all about the war.” Of course, a soldier in a tank never knows anything about the general picture of the war. I would not be able to convince him that anything was different from how he remembers it. Documents will always be trumped by memory. 1967, furthermore, is not quite easy to document.

On sources:

Israel has a relatively liberal policy on opening archives. But there are some things that we just don’t know. We don’t know if Israel in 1967 already had an atomic bomb. This makes a big difference – did any cabinet minister know? Did it play a role? Much of Israel’s foreign policy was conducted by the Mossad, which doesn’t open its archives. Much of what was done in the territories was conducted by the Shin Bet, which also doesn’t open its archives.
[...]
Fortunately, Israeli officials have the commendable habit of taking home documents and not bringing them back. Much of the more significant information comes from records that are “private papers.” An important factor in the success of Israeli historians is their ability to talk to widows of important politicians. I spent many days in the kitchen of Miri Eshkol ...

In response to the question, "Is there any truth to the rumor about plans to trade villages inhabited by Israeli Arabs in Israel proper for settlements in the W. Bank?"

This is an idea that even voicing it should be made illegal. These people are Israeli citizens, they enjoy every right, and they have no wish to be anything else. If you want an indication of how far Israel has come from its original values that it once cherished - it’s possible to say things today that a few years ago no one would have dared to say. Everything is in the open today. I think this is a very dangerous idea. Fortunately very few Israeli Jews and Arabs would go for it.

Tom Segev on 1967

Berkeley's International House, May 2007

The distinguished journalist and historian Tom Segev has been at Berkeley for the past semester as a Diller Family Israeli Visiting Professor, where he has been teaching a seminar on "The Six-Day War, 40 Years Later," and a course about "Reporting on the Middle East."

Yesterday, Segev gave a public lecture on "1967: Israel's Longest Year" at Berkeley's International House. The talk offered a preview of his latest book, 1967: Israel, the War, and the Year that Transformed the Middle East,* which will appear in English translation at the end of this month. (Another advertised title for the lecture was "Israel's Longest War").

The effects of the Six-Day War can hardly be underestimated. As Segev remarked, "those of you who follow the news will not be surprised to hear that 1967 is not over yet."

Segev's previous books include one of my favorite works of history, The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust,** and several other stellar contributions to the historiography on the yishuv, Zionism, and the state of Israel, such as One Palestine Complete: Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate,*** and 1949: The First Israelis.****

The question is - what does Segev add to the history of the Six-Day War? After all, as Segev acknowledged, the "events that led to the 6-day-war have been widely researched and analyzed."

According to Segev, one particular dimension of the war has been ignored hitherto. The 1967 war was "an international Cold War story, an Arab-Israeli story, and a Palestinian story." But, more than anything else, the Six-Day War was an Israeli story. That is, to understand why the war broke out we really need "deep knowledge of the Israelis themselves – not just the diplomatic record."

Segev's greatest strength is his ability as a narrator. His successful books combine probing archival research and sharp, often unsettling analysis, with a great journalist's eye for revealing anecdotes and the masterful storytelling practiced by the best prose stylists. In his lecture, Segev revealed a taste of some of these skills, as he sketched out the atmosphere of Israel in the 1960s, when the country "was emerging as one of the more impressive success stories of the 20th century." According to Segev,

Most Israelis had good reason to be proud of their country and confident of its future. Two million Jewish refugees had been taken in. The economy was booming. There was also a culture boom. The efforts to build a nation around a common national identity had advanced greatly. Israeli high school students reached first place in an international mathematics competition. Shmuel Yosef Agnon received a Nobel Prize for Literature.

In short, in the early 1960s, "Israelis had good reason to believe that their children would live better lives." Then, suddenly, in the one-and-a-half years before the 1967 Six-Day War, all this optimism stopped abruptly. Depression spread across the country. Drawing on press reports and more than 500 letters, many sent by Israelis to their friends and relatives abroad, Segev evokes a world in which citizens' hopes for the future seemed to have vanished overnight.

In 1966, for the first time since 1953, more Jews emigrated from the country than immigrated to it. The years of 12% annual growth gave way to economic depression. And dark jokes circulated about signs at airport asking the "last person leaving the country [to] please turn off the lights."

The Zionist dream appeared to be crumbling for many of the country's citizens. An ordinary politician, Levi Eshkol, had replaced the heroic David Ben Gurion as prime minister. Outside of the political sphere, Israeli society was losing its Ashkenazi character, "which worried no small number," as Jews from Middle Eastern countries began asserting themselves in the public sphere, eventually overtaking the Ashkenazi population in numbers.

Into all this stepped Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, who moved his troops to Israel's border, and menaced the country's citizens with incendiary speeches. "It is no wonder," Segev argued,

that many Israelis truly believed that Egypt was about to destroy their country, literally to exterminate Israel. That frequently-used term clearly evoked the Holocaust.

The apocalyptic mood of the country is perhaps best represented by the documented reports of municipal rabbis sanctifying football fields to be used as mass burial grounds for hundreds of thousands people, who were expected to die within hours of the war breaking out. This "genuine Holocaust panic," Segev believes, made war with Egypt inevitable in 1967. In June of that year, Israeli society "was very weak - too weak not to strike at Egypt."

The situation changed completely after Israel's devastating attack on the grounded Egyptian air force, and its subsequent victory over the Egyptian army in Sinai. What happened next - the wars against Jordan and Syria, Segev claims, "expressed a surge of power and messianic passion." More importantly - and this is surely the heart of his message - these conquests contradicted Israel's national interest, not just as it it was perceived in subsequent decades but also as it was imagined immediately before the war.

Segev's evidence for this claim consists of the notes from a January 1967 meeting between the heads of the Mossad, foreign office, and army intelligence branch. "What happened at that meeting," he quipped, "was a rare occurrence. They came together and they thought." The question that they were thinking about was whether Israel should invade East Jerusalem and the West Bank, given a number of scenarios such as the Jordanian King Hussein's death, a Palestinian uprising, or an Iraqi invasion of Jordan. The conclusion on which all of them agreed, and which they presented in a common paper, was that it was not in Israel's interest to take the West Bank because of the Palestinian population there.

In the euphoria of the victory against Egypt - perceived as a moment of messianic redemption - strategic considerations, Segev argues, suddenly went out the window. We have been living with the consequences ever since.

Next post - some of the questions Segev received and his answers, including his dressing-down of Jimmy Carter, as well his take on Berkeley and its students (positive and also funny).

* 2005. 1967: ‏ ‏והארץ שינתה את פניה

**1991. המיליון השביעי :הישראלים והשואה
ימי הכלניות : ארץ ישראל בתקופת המנדט 1999 ***
1949: הישראלים הראשונים 1984. ****

No Confidence in No-Confidence

Olmert plans to ride it out

The government passed its first post-Winograd and post-demonstrations challenge with flying colors. In three no-confidence votes held in the Knesset, 60-62 MKs voted against the no-confidence motion and 26-28 in favor. Nine MKs abstained in all the votes. The opposition as a whole has 42 seats, while the government commands 78. A large number of MKs did not attend the vote, including several figures from the Labor Party. But overall, Labor legislators voted with the government.

A telephone poll commissioned by the staff of Ehud Barak, who is currently not in the government but is hoping to enter through the backdoor of the Labor primaries (May 28), showed that most Labor central committee members (they elect the leader of the party) oppose early elections. This is good politics. Elections now will bring the Likud to power. Holding on helps both Kadima and the Labor Party.

Given that Labor has quite a bit to lose from early elections, does the party still have leverage over Olmert - i.e., can it threaten to pull out of the coalition unless certain conditions are met? It all depends on the ability of Labor to convince Olmert that he has more to lose from elections than it does.

To outflank the threat from his left, Olmert has been making overtures to the Likud on the right - offering Netanyahu the defense ministry in exchange for a promise to stay loyal until the end of next year, thus giving Kadima a chance to recover and perhaps to neutralize the Likud. Bibi has rejected this offer, but who knows what backroom negotiations are currently taking place. Netanyahu knows that he can replace Olmert if the government falls and elections are called.

Despite Netanyahu's hardline stance against Olmert and his previous statements in public, it is possible that the prime minister will try to assemble a right-wing coalition of

Kadima (29) + Likud (12) + Shas (12) + Yisrael Beitenu (11) + Pensioners (7) + United Torah Judaism (6) = 77,

which is just one seat less than the current coalition.

But the prospect of sitting in the same government as the Likud might be enough to provoke a second go at a palace coup by Livni, Peres, and Dalia Itzik. There is still a chance that Olmert will succumb to pressure from inside Kadima and allow the formation of a new government with Peres at the helm - but certainly not before the Labor primaries, and probably not until after the Winograd committee releases its final report in the summer. There is, finally, the possibility that the criminal investigation into some of Olmert's dealings will yield some fruit.

The consternation expressed by government sources about U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice's canceled visit (she was set to come on May 15) can mean one of two things. Either, Rice realized that the proposed list of benchmarks for the PA and Israel are completely unrealistic, and that there is therefore nothing to talk about; or, this is a no-confidence vote in the Olmert government.

Off the Radar: Qassamim on Sderot

Be'er Sheva, not Sderot

UPDATE (Monday night): The IDF has presented its current list of options for responding to the qassam firing. It looks like more of the same: 1) creating a buffer zone, 2) escalating the retaliation ("exacting a steep price on the Palestinians), 3) renewing assassinations of terrorist leaders, 4) improving technology for detecting smuggling tunnels, 5) strengthening intelligence. Olmert and Livni have so far resisted calls for an escalation. DISCUSS.

I am currently listening to an interview with Hana Ben-Ya'ish, the 65-year-old resident of the house that suffered a direct hit from a qassam rocket earlier today, on the radio. The house is located in downtown Sderot, very close to a kindergarten. By some miracle, she explained, the only part of the house left undamaged was her bedroom.

In the past week, there has been a significant increase in the qassam fire. On Sunday, a rocket hit a gas station near the city, injuring one employee. The residents of Sderot, it was clear from the interview with Ben-Ya'ish, are feeling completely abandoned. Even this latest attack is unlikely to generate a great deal of attention. People outside of Sderot and the other communities in qassam-range have grown used to the news. It has become routine for rockets to fall in Israeli towns.

The people of Sderot, meanwhile, are in despair at the lack of attention. "We are not a live fence for the state, we are not cannon fodder, and we are not geese going to the slaughter," Ben-Ya'ish told the host. Although there has been some progress on fortifying schools and community centers, there is no adequate solution to the qassam problem as of yet. Ben-Ya'ish complained that she has had enough of the offers of free vacation to Eilat - "I arrived here in April 1956, and I don't intend to leave." She asked repeatedly for a "safe room," which many of the buildings in the city apparently lack.

It is only a matter of time before a qassam kills a Sderot resident again. When that happens, it will be hard for Minister of Defense Amir Peretz, who lives in Sderot, and the prime minister to ignore the public pressure for a more wide-ranging military response. The plans for an extended military operation in Gaza are ready. Olmert has so far resisted the calls for such an action. It is not at all clear how successful it would be, but the pressure is mounting. Responsibility for the latest rocket attacks was claimed by the Islamic Jihad. It comes in the wake of an American list of confidence-building measures that proposed a plan by which the PA would crack down on the rocket launches. The proposals, which alarmed the Israeli government (they included calls to remove a number of roadblocks deemed essential for security reasons) and which the Hamas government has firmly rejected seems to suffer from a deficit of realism, although it sounded great on paper.

Jimmy Carter at Berkeley

Berkeley students lining up to see President Carter (May 2, 2007)

If you put 1,500 college students in a room and make them listen to 30 minutes of canned analysis followed by some valedictory banalities from a failed ex-president, they will still give the man a standing ovation. After all, many of them waited in line for two hours to get tickets.

The funny thing is that those who have been involved in "the struggle" for years (well, semesters) probably left the room wondering about the future of the resistance ... with "friends" like him. First, President Carter denied that Israeli policies in the West Bank were racist. Then, he explained that he never claimed that "events and conditions in Israel" constitute apartheid. Why then does his book carry the subtitle Peace not Apartheid? As As'ad AbuKhalil has said, it is clear that while

Jimmy Carter gave his new book a strong title ... he lacks the courage to defend it. He always waffles when he is asked to explain it.

Instead, Carter admitted that he chose the title to provoke and to get people to pay attention. If he made an argument to the effect that Israel engages in a policy of apartheid in the West Bank, I missed it. In lieu of such an argument, he told the audience that he simply "can't think of any word that describes the situation more accurately."

I have heard many people invoke "apartheid" when describing Israel's policies in the territories. On my walk to campus, I pass by signs urging me to "boycott apartheid Israel" every day. It is also true that the term is thrown about with abandon by some on the Israeli far left. But I have never heard a rigorous argument for this, especially not one that actually makes reference to the situation in South Africa. I don't find these comparisons any more convincing than I find the equation of Israeli policies with Nazism.

Aside from the apartheid question, there isn't a whole lot to get excited about. Carter's vision of peace sounded suspiciously close to the one articulated by the Zionist left for years. In Carter's view, the Palestinian refugees should not be allowed to return to Israel proper but would be compensated by an international fund; half of the Israeli settlements should be annexed to Israel as part of a territorial exchange with the Palestinians; and guaranteeing Israel's security from terrorism is as important as the creation of a stable and prosperous Palestine alongside it.

On top of that, Carter spent the first ten minutes of his speech sucking up to the Zionists. First, he highlighted his efforts on behalf of Soviet Jewry, including his interventions to help neo-liberal and hawkish refuseniks like Natan Sharansky. Then, Carter spoke proudly of his role in prohibiting U.S. companies from cooperating with the Arab League boycott of Israel by engaging in "secondary boycotts." He also talked about his role in setting up the commission that planned the construction of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. Time and again, he invoked the visions of "justice and righteousness" in the Hebrew scriptures and in the Jewish tradition; he sounded almost like Michael Lerner.

Representing

Surely, some audience members must have wondered, Carter would say something about the Zionist conspiracy to control the American discourse on Palestine. He did, sort of, but first he emphasized that he had "never believed that Jews control the media," and that "the overwhelming support for Israel comes from American Christians like [him]." Interestingly enough, a murmur went through the crowd when Carter began his sentence about "major news organizations," as if in anticipation of some lethal blow; it died down quickly as he finished the next clause.

Representing something else

According to Carter, the "powerful influence of AIPAC" constitutes only an "additional factor." And there is nothing wrong with the lobby, "which is exercising its legitimate right to pursue the goal of defending the most conservative governments of Israel."

To top it all off, Carter kept saying such nice things about ordinary Israelis, shifting the blame solely onto "the leaders of Israel, AIPAC, and most of the vocal leaders of American Jewry." Indeed, among the latter - the rabbis - Carter claimed, there were many who, in private conversation, told him that "given the American climate, it was almost impossible for them to criticize Israel."

President Carter began his talk with the claim that few people have had as many opportunities to get to know the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as he has. I am sure that Carter has done some very valuable work in the region, especially as an elections monitor (no sarcasm intended here). But I was a bit perturbed by the state of his knowledge at some points of the talk - though this was usually marginal to the argument.

For example, Carter referred twice to the "three [sic] Israeli soldiers that the Palestinians are holding." He advocated that Israel swap these for "9,800 Palestinian prisoners" held by the country. Did Carter's people never brief him on the fact that Hizbullah, not Palestinian militants, is holding two of these soldiers?

Carter was very sanguine about the prospects for peace in the region. In his view - which certainly does not lack adherents - "the growth of Islamic extremism is directly related to the continuing bloodshed between Israelis and Palestinians." He even felt it necessary to add that it is "foolish to say otherwise." Muslim animosity for the West is mostly "because of the Palestinians' plight." The notion that Iraqis will stop killing each other and that al-Qaeda will throw in the towel as soon as the Israelis leave the West Bank is ridiculous and dangerous (for Americans). It will be disproved as soon as some idiot actually tries to turn it into policy.

The former president is equally optimistic about the future of Palestine, after "the occupation" - that great metaphysical evil - has been scourged. Given the reports coming daily out of Gaza, I have to admit that I almost laughed out loud (I wasn't the only one) when Carter remarked that "the Palestinians, in their own area, have almost perfect democracy." Don't expect to find a lot of reporting on this in the Western media, but see Avi Issacharoff's article on the democratic situation in Gaza right now.

Finally, I was a little confused by the answer Carter gave to a question from the audience on what the U.S. should do about Darfur. Carter explained that he had met Bashir; "he's a devout Muslim, which is part of the cause of the war between the north and south." Was Carter really confused about the location of Darfur and the causes of the genocide there?

Shalit Deal

Cpl. Gilad Shalit

There has been quite a bit of speculation recently about the prospects of a deal that would see the release of Corporal Gilad Shalit, who has been held by Palestinian militants since he was captured in a June 25, 2006 cross-border raid. On Friday, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas claimed that the Israeli soldier would soon be returned. He cited progress in talks between the Israelis, Egyptian mediators, and the Palestinians. Apparently, the sides agree on the numbers of Palestinian security prisoners who would be exchanged for Shalit.

There may very well be some grounds for hope. There are even discussions underway in the Knesset, which would allow the release of Palestinian prisoners "with blood on their hands." But I can't help noting that all this talks sounds rather familiar.

The Palestinians and the Egyptians have made many announcements about "breakthroughs" in negotiations. I remember when people were talking about a release before Yom Kippur, or before the end of Ramadan. Nothing happened.

A loyal reader of this blog asked me whether Abbas's announcement had anything to do with Nancy Pelosi's Damascus trip or with the release of the British sailors. It is true that Pelosi has shown some interest in the fate of Shalit, as well as Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, the reservists captured by Hizbullah, who may well be dead already (see this video of her in Jerusalem). Apparently, she keeps pictures of the three captives in her office. I happen to like Pelosi, but I think that her visit was farcical at best. With regard to Shalit in particular, Syria's President Bashar al-Assad is completely worthless. The fact is that none of the Palestinian leaders - not Abbas, not Dahlan, not Meshal, and definitely not Haniyah - are really in control of the people who are holding Shalit in Gaza right now.

Those holding the 19-year-old soldier are most likely members of the large Dagmoush clan, coverage of which has slowly seeped into the news over the past month. This powerful crime family was previously allied with Hamas, but it is clearly flexing its muscles and not willing to take orders from the political commanders. Its vendettas and its ruthlessness make the family a loose cannon that no one in Gaza is willing or able to control. The same group also appears to be holding BBC reporter Alan Johnston. The tactics they are using, especially the targeting of foreign journalist and UN personnel (an under-reported story) are more reminiscent of those employed by Iraqi terrorists than the Palestinians groups in Gaza over the past 5 years.

This complex background perhaps explains Abbas's comments to the effect that Shalit's release shouldn't be linked to that of the Palestinian prisoners, since "One thing does not depend on the other." Suffice to say, a deal for Shalit looks anything but imminent in light of this state of affairs. Indeed, the ability of the various Palestinian faction to enforce deals of any sort - always a liability in negotiations with them - is looking worse than ever.

Palestinian civilians are suffering daily from the anarchy in the Strip. In most of the fighting between Fatah and Hamas, the Islamic movement has come out on top. This has caused some to wonder whether it might not make more sense to rely on Hamas to deliver the goods. But the Shalit situation demonstrates that Hamas, too, is unable to control the forces unleashed by decades of glorifying armed struggle, a proliferation of weapons, widespread criminal activity supported by the political echelon, and years of occupation and attacks which undermined traditional leaders and norms. Add to that the penetration of al-Qaeda-type elements and fighters radicalized further in Iraq, and you have a mix that will plague the Palestinians for many decades to come.