2005-10-13-stability_for

By Ira Sharkansky

From the looks of things, we are in for an extended period with little movement.

I know that politics does not tolerate stability. There are always individuals wanting to advance themselves or their cause by demanding change. I will get back to that, but first, the stability.

The Palestinian leadership is in a box of its own making. They have had the help of Ariel Sharon. If anyone offers a Nobel equivalent for tactical maneuver, he deserves it.

The Palestinians signed on to the Road Map to Peace. It requires them to renounce violence and disarm terrorists. It also requires some initial steps of the Israelis. But 9/11 and continuing events in Iraq, Afghanistan, Britain, Chechnya, Bali, Egypt, and elsewhere put the emphasis on terror. Sharon has withdrawn from Gaza and minimized friction there. The Palestinians are behind the fence, without easy access to targets among Israeli soldiers or civilians. Sharon is building a barrier between Israel and Palestinians in the West Bank. It is not perfect, but it defines borders and makes it more difficult for the Palestinians to reach Israelis. Both the Gaza fence and the West Bank barrier have gates to allow the entry of Palestinians who want to work, visit, pray, shop, or seek medical treatment in Israel. Israel has shown that it can open or shut the gates in response to Palestinian behavior. When the gates are shut, Palestinians do not eat as well, or reach medical care in good time. They put pressure on violent cousins. The gates are the ultimate non-violent weapon in a war against terror.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian leadership is not powerful enough, or willing enough, to take on the extremists among themselves who want to continue the armed struggle.

The result is that Israel does not have to do anything more than continue building the barrier, opening or shutting the gates in response to events, and occasionally entering Palestinian space to seize the bad people. There are enough Palestinians who help in that task by providing information in exchange for money or other benefits.

Efforts to arrange a meeting between Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas demonstrate Palestinian bombast and weakness. Palestinian representatives demanded discussions about opening a sea port and air port in Gaza, regularizing border controls without Israeli participation, a land route between Gaza and the West Bank, and the cessation of building the barrier or even its dismantling. They could not agree to disarm Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other groups committed to violence. So it was not possible to schedule a meeting between Sharon and Abbas.

Internally, Sharon has also maneuvered himself into a decent position. He is old and overweight, but as long as his health holds, he seems to be the obvious winner in the next election. Netanyahu tried to unseat him in Likud, but few Israelis want Bibi as leader. Sharon's new Finance Minister, Ehud Olmert, is flexible enough to produce a budget that will advance intra-party harmony, and keep Labor in the government until it is necessary to hold an election. Labor remains divided several ways, able to agree only on the leadership of 82-year old Shimon Peres, who probably cannot win anything other than a leadership contest within a highly divided party. Among the mostly Jewish parties, Agudat Israel is unique in being without internal crises. It will get the customary 4-5 seats, and continue to worry about Shabbat and kashrut. Forget about Arab political parties. They screach against conquest and discrimination, and vote against the government. They satisfy voters who want to punish themselves by staying out of the process that distributes benefits.

Again, politics is not kind to stability. As you read this, Palestinian extremists are trying to move things along by one or another scheme of violence. Israeli leftists, some of whom think it is useful to call themselves "anarchists," are demonstrating against the barrier and other abominations. European and some American bureaucrats are demanding that Israel stop expanding settlements in the West Bank, and move against the hilltops that have a couple of trailers or shacks, and a handful of dedicated young people. Israeli Arabs continue to demand justice against the police who killed 13 people in what the Arabs call the peaceful demonstration of October, 2000. What I saw on television was closer to an armed uprising. The parents of Rachel Corrie likewise remain unsatisfied at Israeli responses concerning her death in Gaza while demonstrating against the Israeli military. Peaceniks should not wander onto an active battlefield and assume that shouts for justice will protect them from harm. The Supreme Court of Israel has ruled against a military procedure whereby a neighbor or family member is sent into a building where a wanted person is holed up, in order to urge surrender. The court said that the military cannot endanger civilians. Better to risk the lives of soldiers. The military is appealing the decision, and recently showed how it might cope with the constraint. It sent an armed bulldozer to start destroying a building, with the fugitive inside. Then it allowed the mother of the fugitive, concerned that the army stop destroying her home, to enter the building and tell her son to surrender.

Abbas is scheduled to meet George W. Bush in Washington. Who expects anything from this other than a flurry of statements?

I realize that prophecy is not kosher. There are no guarantees in this feisty corner of a dynamic world. But as long as terror remains a widely perceived threat, and as long as substantial numbers of Palestinians behave as terrorists or applaud those who do, I do not think Israel has much to worry about from domestic or international nitpickers who object to one or another tactic or event.

Those who dream of paradise in the Holy Land should read Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Josephus, tales of the Crusaders, and Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad. All other places that I know also fall short. Those satisfied with the lesser goal of a decent life might consider Jerusalem. It is always interesting, occasionally exciting, and its weather is better than most.

Sharkansky is a member of the political science department at Hebrew University in Jerusalem