Jackson Diehl rings the alarm bells in If this peace process fails.
For the next several days, Israel’s talk radio and op-ed pages converged on a single subject — but it was not Olmert’s groundbreaking speech. Instead, the buzz was all about something that took place at a soccer game in Haifa while Olmert was speaking. Before the game began, an announcer asked for a moment of silence in honor of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who led Israel toward peace in the early 1990s before being assassinated on Nov. 4, 1995. Hundreds in the crowd, most of them supporters of the visiting Jerusalem team, responded with boos; some began lustily singing songs in honor of Yigal Amir, the man who murdered him. The message drawn from this episode by Israeli security officials, as well as pundits, was grim: The return Olmert signaled to an aggressive pursuit of a final peace with Palestinians also will mean the comeback of the ugly and potentially violent resistance from Israel’s far right. The soccer game wasn’t the only sign. Posters showing Israeli President Shimon Peres, another peace advocate, wearing an Arab headdress have appeared on walls around Jerusalem this week, an explicit echo of the propaganda that preceded the attack on Rabin 12 years ago.
Treppenwitz neatly disposes of the idea that the booing was, in some way, significant.
When a bunch of unruly Beitar Yerushalayim fans booed during the moment of silence that was observed in memory of Rabin (and many even chanted “Yigal Amir”), MK Yossi Beilin urged Sports and Culture Minister Raleb Majadele to pull all government funding for the club and Peace Now Secretary-General Yariv Oppenheimer immediately demanded that Beitar Jerusalem be penalized for its fans’ conduct. I’m just wondering, do these people really think that the Beitar management has some sort of control over what the fans will say at a game? I could see it if they flashed “Boo” or “Yigal Amir” on the Jumbo-tron and the fans dutifully followed along. But this was a spontaneous occurrence… albeit in incredibly bad taste. My point is that the left seems to have an insatiable urge to inflict collective punishment upon the right for something that was the act of a lone lunatic.
I’d add that though PM Sharon did even more damage to the Right, by evacuating thousands from Gaza, and despite his claims to the contrary, no one attempted to kill him. The Right was furious and felt betrayed, to be sure, but no one lifted a finger against him. For Diehl to argue that Olmert is in some danger due to his expressed willingness to make reckless compromises insults our intelligence.
The problem will be the other legacies from the peace processes of the past. That’s not only potential Jewish violence. There is also the probable terrorism of Palestinian rejectionists, above all a Hamas movement that has been excluded from the upcoming U.S.-sponsored Annapolis conference and bottled up in the Gaza Strip. There is the inability of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s West Bank authority to control its own militia-gangs, and political rivalries in Israel that may prevent Olmert from taking quick steps on settlements. Then there is the incurable proclivity of both Israelis and Palestinians to burden negotiations with maximalist demands and negotiating tricks intended to elide what both sides know to be the available settlement terms.
And now, yes, we’re back to 1996 and Hamas will try to kill the peace process if negotiations are successful. What absolute bunk. Has Diehl been paying attention to Gaza? Has he read the news that thousands of citizens have fled Sderot? Palestinian violence doesn’t happen to derail the peace process, but it takes advantage of the gains in territory and freedom resulting from the peace process. Qassams raining down on Sderot became worse after Israel withdrew.
And the terror of early 1996 was a result of Israel’s withdrawals in late 1995. Hamas was able to organize in areas that had been abandoned by Israel because the Palestinian Authority refused to assert control as it had been obligated by the Oslo Accords. Diehl charges that Israel “burdens” negotiations. Baloney. Israel has real concerns. Israel has changed a lot since the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993.
As Daled Amos pointed out recently, the views of Rabin – whom Diehl cites as an ideal – at the time of his assassination would now be considered right-wing. But there’s been no similar movement on the Palestinian side. None. Yes Arafat is dead, but his ideology lives on even if it’s now expressed by a well groomed man who wears suits.
Diehl claims that Abbas is willing to compromise on the Palesitnian right of return. (This shouldn’t even be an issue as insistence on it, is insistence that Israel ceases to exist.) But as Elder of Ziyon observed, Abbas essentially gives veto power to Hamas. Finally Diehl tells us what’s really at stake.
For Olmert, Abbas and Rice, the motivation for bulling through this familiar pattern of resistance may not be just courage but fear. All three know that if they fail this time, the result will not be the mere continuation of a miserable status quo. More likely, it will be another eruption of bloodshed and the consolidation of Hamas as the preeminent Palestinian power. That means not Abbas but Hamas’s patron, Iran, will become the arbiter of whether Israel is accepted as “a Jewish homeland.”
Interesting that he sees the strengthening of Iran an outcome of a failed peace process. Last year Diehl recommended that Olmert make some bold moves of his own including
Israel cares less about who rules Lebanon. And it has something Assad wants at least as much: the Golan Heights. The Syrian president has been saying for months that he is ready to open talks about a swap of the territory for peace, a deal that his father came within inches of closing 6 1/2 years ago. Until recently Israel had little incentive to make that bargain with Bashar Assad. But the rise of the Iranian threat in the past year has changed the calculus for at least some of Olmert’s advisers. Imagine Ehud Olmert emerging from the White House to announce that Israel is prepared to explore peace with Syria. It might not turn the ugly tide in the Middle East. But it would, at least, get Israel and the United States back in the fight.
So strengthening an Iranian ally doesn’t bother Diehl. As long as it’s Syria and not Hamas. Nor does he consider that Israel’s making a deal with Abbas might have the same effect of strengthening Iran. Even if Israel deals with Abbas, there’s no guarantee that it won’t strengthen Iran. For one thing, it’s pretty clear that Abbas will still deal with Hamas. For another, if Israel cedes more territory now, it will no doubt embolden Hezbollah and Syria to demand more. Diehl, spends the first part of the article implicating the Israeli Right in fighting peace. Actually the Israeli Right was right. It was right about trusting Arafat. It was right that ceding territory to an unrepentant terrorist organization will only embolden it – as we saw with the PA in 1994, Hezbollah in 2000 and Hamas in 2005. So please spare us the lectures and the urgency. Following your prescriptions will only make matters worse. You don’t know how to make peace.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
