Tanya Reinhart: Israel/Palestine

Regarding Israel's belligerent attacks on Lebanon, or as it's viewed here, Hizbullah's unprovoked act of war against Israel, I'm reminded of a section that Tanya Reinhart wrote in her book Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948. The book was published in 2002, but in it she quotes a column she wrote in 2000, at the time of Barak's unilateral withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon (pp. 84-86; quotes are from the second edition, 2005):

But there are still a few puzzling questions [regarding the withdrawal from Lebanon]. A first wonder -- how is it that the border line has not been fortified and prepared? For a year, the government and the army have been discussing the withdrawal from Lebanon and when the moment came, it turned out that all that was done so far is to approve the plans. In most areas, the work will take another year. A second wonder -- how is it that there was not even a slight bargaining attempt over the border line, which now passes in the middle of [kibbutz] Manara's water reserve? There was not even bargaining over areas which were probably held by Israel before 1978. . . . And a third wonder -- how is it that the right-wing is not protesting? Sharon seems to be furiously attacking Barak. But over what? Over the fact that Barak didn't deliver harder "preventive blows" to Beirut before the withdrawal. As for the withdrawal itself (to this implausible and unprotected border line) -- Sharon is warmly supportive.

It is actually easy to understand Sharon's stand. After all, he is the first who proposed, three years ago, a unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon. By his plan, such a withdrawal will provide Israel with the support of the international community . . . [and enable eventually] returning to Lebanon under better conditions. Whoever plans to go back in will not argue over the exact border line and will not invest time and resources in fortifying this border for only a month or two.

But Sharon isn't the one conducting this withdrawal. It is Barak. Then, still, why wasn't the border fortified? There are two options: either there has been a very big goof-up, or Barak is executing, in practice, Sharon's plan. Under the first scenario, Barak is determined to achieve peace, which can explain goof-ups here and there. Although it is Barak who suggested in 1982, in a memo to Sharon, to extend the Lebanon war to a comprehensive war with Syria, he has come to his senses since then. In the second scenario, Barak is the same Barak. Perhaps he believes that it is still possible to realize Ben Gurion's vision according to which control of Southern Lebanon is crucial for the future of Israel. Indeed the [Israeli] public is tired of the price in casualties, but it will soon learn that without Lebanon there cannot be quiet in the north. . . . Then the spoiled public will learn that there is no choice -- we have to go back to Lebanon. Yossi Sarid, at least, has been warning for months that the road of unilateral withdrawal is leading, in fact, back into Lebanon.

The problem is that we have no way to know what goes on in Barak's mind, because he doesn't share his plans with others. Democracy or not -- Barak is known to be a person who takes [makes?] his decisions by himself. . . . At the security cabinet meeting last Monday, the cabinet authorized Barak "to open fire whenever he sees fit," without having to reconvene the cabinet. From that point on, our future depends on whether Barak has changed. Is it the same Barak who wrote Sharon in 1982 that it is possible to keep a very small number of confidants who "know the full extent of the plan" . . . or is it a new Barak, a peace-seeking democrat?

It's worth noting here that the PLO leaders involved in the "final status" negotiations with Barak had objected to Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon on the grounds that withdrawing without an agreement would make it look like Hizbullah had been successful in driving Israel out. Such a view, which became commonplace once the Camp David talks failed and especially after the second Intifada started, would reinforce the militant position that negotiation is bound to fail and only a show of force can move Israel to recognize Palestinian rights.

As it turns out, Israel did not soon reinvade Lebanon or attack Syria. Most likely the main reason for this was that longtime Syrian strong man Hafez Assad died two weeks after the withdrawal, leading to his weaker and more moderate son Bashir Assad's rise to power. Barak's two major peace initiatives -- negotiations first with Syria then with the PLO -- both failed, with Barak offering less than the UN resolutions required, then unilaterally pulling the plug on further negotiations. Barak facilitated Sharon's notorious demonstration at the Temple Mount, and his Chief of Staff, Shaul Moffaz (later Sharon's Minister of Defense) reacted violently to Palestinian demonstrations, igniting the Intifada. Barak lost the election to his old boss and comrade Sharon, then before leaving office withdrew all of his rejected peace offers, clearing the way for Sharon's heavy-handed destruction of the PA and the last shards of the Oslo Peace Process -- which, by the way, Barak had opposed at its inception.

Still, by not settling with Lebanon and Syria, by building up Hizbullah's reputation for driving Israel out, and by leaving the border contested and vulnerable, Israel left the bomb that blew up last week. Reinhart, writing in 2002, explains (pp. 86-87):

But one thing is clear: Barak insisted on keeping a small area of conflict -- the Shaba Farms. This is a narrow fourteen-kilometer-long and two-kilometer-wide strip near Mount Dov that Israel insists belonged to Syria, and not to Lebanon, hence it would not withdraw from this strip. (Both Syria and Lebanon deny this and delcare the area is Lebanese and should be returned to Lebanon.) Hizbollah continues, as might be expected, to fight over this strip of land, demanding its liberation from Israeli occupation. This remains a source of tension and potential incidents. The story now is that Hizbollah, and Syria backing it, continues to threaten Israeli existence, and a war with Syria may be inevitable. As we shall see in Chapter IX, the Sharon administration is currently talking openly about such a forthcoming war.

Barak's narrative still accompanies us day and night, like a mantra, and shapes the collective perception of reality -- Israel's generosity versus Arab rejectionism. It is frightening to observe how successful this narrative has been. Those who believed the lies about Barak's concessions despaired at the chance for peace. Since 1993 there has been a constant 60 percent majority in the polls supporting "land for peace," including dismantling of Israeli settlements. (As for the Golan Heights, we saw that in 1999, 60 percent of Jewish Israel supported dismantling all settlements there.) After Camp David and subsequent "negotiations," the support for peace with concessions dropped in the polls to 30 percent regarding both the Palestinian and Syrian fronts. Barak succeeded where Sharon had failed before -- he convinced at least the middle third of Israelis that peace with the Arab world is impossible, and that the coming conflicts would be no-choice wars over Israel's very existence.

Indeed, we've seen periodic hostilities over the Shaba Farms strip, which have been instrumental in Israel getting the US to put Hizbullah on its list of terrorist organizations. That listing, as well as the listing of Hamas, is a good part of the basis for Bush's unconditional support of Israel in this round of wars. One may criticize Hizbullah and Hamas for playing into Israel's hand, but we should be clear that Israel has wanted these wars for a long time: they have been carefully planned, and the plans have been executed without hardly any attention to the situations that nominally triggered them.

The next big question is whether Israel will extend the war to Syria. By blaming Syria both for Hamas and Hizbullah they have set up a logic that would seem to make such an escalation inevitable -- certainly if Syria does anything the least bit provocative, and perhaps in any case. On the other hand, the prospects there should be sobering. Israel may have little trouble with the Syrian army, but Syria would be if anything a more difficult country to occupy than Lebanon proved to be. And while the Assad regime at this point may be little missed in Syria, the probable successor is militant Sunni Islamism. Sunnis have long chafed under rule by the secular Baathists and the Assad family's Shia-leaning religious creed. A militant Sunni Islamist Syria would abut Anbar province of Iraq, which the US has had virtually no success in controlling, so the net effect would be to double the resistance, joining Israel and the US even more tightly as occupiers and oppressors.

The other culprit blamed for Israel's wars now is Iran, which is tightly tied to Iraq's Shia militias -- not yet in open revolt against the US given how busy they are killing Sunnis, but capable of turning decisively against Bush in Iraq. So while Israel's wars could provide cover for the US to launch its much planned, widely leaked attack on Iran, the risks of such an opperation boggle the mind. Of course, the wars could also provide cover for Israel to launch its own attack -- a difficult logistical proposition, far less likely of success than a US attack, and unlikely to provide the US with any cover beyond the gullible US press.

The odds against these escalations only seem stiff because we assume that sooner or later some shred of rationality has to prevail. But it's hard to see evidence of sanity in what Israel and/or the US have done recently.

posted 2006-07-17