QUESTIONS PEOPLE ASK
(Commentary by Uzi Benziman, "Ha'aretz", 27.8.95, pg. B1)
* Why are the terrorist attacks continuing, despite the Oslo agreement and the documents of understanding between Israel and the Palestinian Authority that stemmed from it? The Israeli-Palestinian peace, which is apparently taking shape, is supposed to lead to a reconciliation between the two peoples and, in any case, to a halt in the hostilities between them. Why is this self-evident condition not being realized?
For two years, Israeli citizens have been exposed to lethal terrorist attacks, and on the Palestinian side no broad-based popular movement has arisen to condemn and fight them. Although Fatah did stop its terrorist actions, the Islamic organizations, representing more that a third of the territories' residents, are continuing and even escalating them. The terrorist attacks, and the organizational and material infrastructures necessary to prepare and carry them out, enjoy broad support from the Palestinian population. What kind of peace is it, if this is the face of the Palestinian public's authentic regard for Israel and its Jewish citizens?
* If Hamas' and the Islamic Jihad's terrorist activities are an expression of a religious outlook, and part of a world-wide phenomenon and are not necessarily an outgrowth of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict why does the government promise that they will be reduced as understanding grows and additional agreements are reached between Israel and the Palestinian Authority?
If the objective of the attacks is to disrupt the negotiations between Israel and the PLO, and to undermine the process of reconciliation, why does Arafat not act as if he also has something to lose? Why is he waging such a weak struggle against the Islamic organizations? If he really has nothing to lose, what is the wisdom of the policy which we are carrying out? And if he does have something to lose, why is the Israeli response to the attacks not intended to pressure him, and to put to the test his willingness to struggle to preserve the gains which the Palestinian people have achieved in the peace process (even if they are limited, for the present)?
* If Israel is sentenced to more long years of terrorism, either because this is the nature of Islamic opposition, or because a one hundred year old national conflict cannot be resolved in a day, why has Israel agreed to withdraw from the territory from which the living bombs will be sent? Clearly, when a conflict between peoples ends, and and the reconciliation involves a withdrawal from territory, the other side assumes the responsibility to guarantee security arrangements in the territory given up; if Israel and the Palestinian Authority accept from the start, that the IDF's withdrawal from part of the West bank does not create an unequivocal and full Palestinian obligation to prevent attacks on Israelis, what is the point in withdrawing?
If this convention has continuing authority, as reality proves after the withdrawal from Gaza and Jericho, there is apparently no escaping the analogy that Israel cannot end the Islamic murders even if it completely withdraws from the West Bank and Gaza, and if it agrees to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. And if this is a realistic forecast, how can Israel lend its hand to severely undermining its ability to confront Arab terrorism, (according to the testimony of the IDF Chief of Staff before the Knesset Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee), as a consequence of abandoning the areas in which it now sits?
If the motivation for the government's peace policy is purely ethical ending the control over one people by another, recognizing the Palestinian right to self-determination, and understanding the destructive influence of the occupation on Israeli society does it make sense to stick to it, when the basic Israeli interest, ending the situation of animosity with the Palestinians which is supposed to find expression in an end to terrorism, has not been achieved? If the Israeli gamble that the Oslo Accords will encourage forces for reconciliation within the Palestinian public to arise, which will overcome those seeking to continue the armed struggle is so large, as proven by the murderous activities of the last two years, would it not be better to end it?
* If the process is destined to blow up, due to continuing Islamic murderousness, which will reach a point beyond Israel's endurance to deal with it, would it not be better to stop it now, before the withdrawal from the cities and rural areas of the West Bank? After all, it is easier to fight Palestinian terrorism when one controls Nablus and Hebron, than it is from within the Green Line.
* If the conclusion which arises from these questions, is that the government's peace policy is destined to fail, how much substance is there in the alternative policy proposed by the opposition? The Likud controlled the nation for fifteen years, and did not succeed in resolving the Israeli- Palestinian conflict with its approach. During its tenure, the confrontation between the two peoples became harsher, and the intifada erupted. The prescription which it proposes today, leads inevitably to coordination between the nationalistic feelings of the Palestinians and the ideological motivations of the Islamic organizations, and, in any case, to an acceleration and escalation of terrorist attacks against Israel.
* Who has an answer?