Rabin's mistake
Last Wednesday was the fifteenth anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli military hero and Prime Minister. There were memorials held around the country including a national ceremony in Jerusalem, but they were not as widely attended as previously. I used to think that Rabin's biggest mistake was rescuing Arafat from oblivion in Tunisia and bringing him back to "Palestine." Now I'm not sure.
Arafat had been expelled by the IDF from Lebanon in 1982 and was taken under US protection to the ship that took him and the PLO leadership far away to Tunisia. By the late 1980's the PLO was faltering, it was shaken by an IDF attack on its headquarters in Tunis in 1985 that killed 60 PLO members in response to a terrorist attack on Cyprus that killed three Israelis. Its influence on the Palestinian territories was waning with the development of a new indigenous leadership that organized the first intifada in 1987. Note that although these leaders were younger and very militant they had few arms and the first intifada was comparatively less dangerous, more of a popular uprising. Arafat and his cronies knew that they had lost control of the situation. One issue discussed in Israel at the time was whether or not Israel should choose members of this new leadership, that included Marwan Barghouti, to negotiate with. But, the consensus was that any leadership chosen by Israel would be unnacceptable to the PLO and so nothing could be gained.
Rabin instead instituted secret negotiations with PLO representatives that led to the Oslo Accords of 1995. The thinking of the Israeli left, principally Yossi Beilin assistant to Shimon Peres who negotiated these Accords, was that since the PLO was weakened they would be very grateful to Israel if they were given control of the West Bank and they would then accept a peace agreement with Israel. In order to implement this it was necessary that Arafat be returned from Tunisia and take over the nascent Palestine Authority established with Israeli agreement. But, instead of peace there was the second intifada of 2000, this time fought with guns and suicide bombs and about 1,000 Israelis were killed. Instead of making peace, Arafat was intent on re-establishing his control of the Palestine movement by recreating his reputation as a rejectionist and using terrorism to continue the fight against Israel. In this way he out-flanked the militant young leaders who had no choice but to support him and fight with him.
The Hamas Islamist organization, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt that traces its ideology back to Hasan al-Bana, a Nazi sympathizer, was founded in 1988. By the time of the second intifada, Hamas was gaining in strength relative to the PLO and so Arafat used their extremism by cooperating with them in attacking the common enemy Israel. Instead of Arafat and the PLO fighting Hamas as Rabin had hoped, they cooperated together in fighting Israel. So it looked for a long time as if Rabin's move in bringing Arafat back was a major blunder in Israeli policy.
But, the dispute between Hamas and the PLO is basic and cannot be bridged. While the PLO and Arafat were prepared to negotiate with Israel, while sponsoring terrorism, Hamas remained an implacable enemy of Israel and will never accept any negotiations with the "Zionist entity." With Syrian and Iranian support Hamas grew stronger, and when Arafat died in 2004, and was replaced by Mahmud Abbas, the split between them became institutionalized. After elections in which Hamas won a majority in Gaza and the PLO won in the West Bank, Hamas staged a violent coup in Gaza and killed many PLO/Fatah operatives.
Now the outcome is that both Israel and the PLO/Fatah have Hamas as a common enemy and Abbas has come out against the use of terrorism in achieving Palestinian objectives. The PLO Security forces trained in Jordan under US leadership with EU money are gradually being allowed by Israel to take over security control of West Bank areas from the IDF and are doing a good job. Gang violence and terrorism are way down, the West Bank is prospering and there is good liason between the PA Security forces and the IDF. Today it was announced that the PA forces had discovered a major Hamas arms cache in Ramallah, that Israel might never have found. While Hamas denied that it was its cache, it also stated that they need arms for "resistance to the occupation." So while there is not outright warfare between the PA and Hamas forces, nevertheless Rabin's plan has somewhat suceeded. The PLO is allied with Israel against Hamas and there are stuttering negotiations between Abbas and Netanyahu. Few think they have a chance of success, since no Palestinian leader wants to be the one who declares an end of the conflict, that is the focus of all Palestinian culture. But, at least Palestinian terrorism is down and the PLO/PA are fighting Hamas. So "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" may apply. Perhaps Rabin was right after all.
Arafat had been expelled by the IDF from Lebanon in 1982 and was taken under US protection to the ship that took him and the PLO leadership far away to Tunisia. By the late 1980's the PLO was faltering, it was shaken by an IDF attack on its headquarters in Tunis in 1985 that killed 60 PLO members in response to a terrorist attack on Cyprus that killed three Israelis. Its influence on the Palestinian territories was waning with the development of a new indigenous leadership that organized the first intifada in 1987. Note that although these leaders were younger and very militant they had few arms and the first intifada was comparatively less dangerous, more of a popular uprising. Arafat and his cronies knew that they had lost control of the situation. One issue discussed in Israel at the time was whether or not Israel should choose members of this new leadership, that included Marwan Barghouti, to negotiate with. But, the consensus was that any leadership chosen by Israel would be unnacceptable to the PLO and so nothing could be gained.
Rabin instead instituted secret negotiations with PLO representatives that led to the Oslo Accords of 1995. The thinking of the Israeli left, principally Yossi Beilin assistant to Shimon Peres who negotiated these Accords, was that since the PLO was weakened they would be very grateful to Israel if they were given control of the West Bank and they would then accept a peace agreement with Israel. In order to implement this it was necessary that Arafat be returned from Tunisia and take over the nascent Palestine Authority established with Israeli agreement. But, instead of peace there was the second intifada of 2000, this time fought with guns and suicide bombs and about 1,000 Israelis were killed. Instead of making peace, Arafat was intent on re-establishing his control of the Palestine movement by recreating his reputation as a rejectionist and using terrorism to continue the fight against Israel. In this way he out-flanked the militant young leaders who had no choice but to support him and fight with him.
The Hamas Islamist organization, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt that traces its ideology back to Hasan al-Bana, a Nazi sympathizer, was founded in 1988. By the time of the second intifada, Hamas was gaining in strength relative to the PLO and so Arafat used their extremism by cooperating with them in attacking the common enemy Israel. Instead of Arafat and the PLO fighting Hamas as Rabin had hoped, they cooperated together in fighting Israel. So it looked for a long time as if Rabin's move in bringing Arafat back was a major blunder in Israeli policy.
But, the dispute between Hamas and the PLO is basic and cannot be bridged. While the PLO and Arafat were prepared to negotiate with Israel, while sponsoring terrorism, Hamas remained an implacable enemy of Israel and will never accept any negotiations with the "Zionist entity." With Syrian and Iranian support Hamas grew stronger, and when Arafat died in 2004, and was replaced by Mahmud Abbas, the split between them became institutionalized. After elections in which Hamas won a majority in Gaza and the PLO won in the West Bank, Hamas staged a violent coup in Gaza and killed many PLO/Fatah operatives.
Now the outcome is that both Israel and the PLO/Fatah have Hamas as a common enemy and Abbas has come out against the use of terrorism in achieving Palestinian objectives. The PLO Security forces trained in Jordan under US leadership with EU money are gradually being allowed by Israel to take over security control of West Bank areas from the IDF and are doing a good job. Gang violence and terrorism are way down, the West Bank is prospering and there is good liason between the PA Security forces and the IDF. Today it was announced that the PA forces had discovered a major Hamas arms cache in Ramallah, that Israel might never have found. While Hamas denied that it was its cache, it also stated that they need arms for "resistance to the occupation." So while there is not outright warfare between the PA and Hamas forces, nevertheless Rabin's plan has somewhat suceeded. The PLO is allied with Israel against Hamas and there are stuttering negotiations between Abbas and Netanyahu. Few think they have a chance of success, since no Palestinian leader wants to be the one who declares an end of the conflict, that is the focus of all Palestinian culture. But, at least Palestinian terrorism is down and the PLO/PA are fighting Hamas. So "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" may apply. Perhaps Rabin was right after all.
posted by Jack Cohen at 9:12 PM
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