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Subject: PIN 34: After the Sharm al-Shaykh Summit: An Armed and Temporary Truce
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 16:09:26 -0400



MERIP Press Information Note 34

After the Sharm al-Shaykh Summit: An Armed and Temporary Truce

Mouin Rabbani

October 17, 2000

(Mouin Rabbani is a researcher living in Ramallah in the West Bank.)

Details of the understandings reached between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Barak and Palestinian Authority (PA) President Yasser Arafat are trickling
slowly out of Sharm al-Shaykh, the Egyptian resort where President Bill
Clinton convened an emergency international summit October 16. The Israelis
and the PA say they will both take "concrete measures" to contain 20 days of
violence that has claimed 105 lives, 98 of them Palestinian, in the Occupied
Territories and Israel. Israel is said to have agreed to end its siege of
Palestinian population centers, pulling back its forces to the positions
they occupied September 27. But the popular uprising in the streets of the
West Bank and Gaza shows no signs of abating. Meanwhile, Barak's spin
doctors put the onus squarely on Arafat, stating that if he fails to quell
an uprising he does not control within 48 hours, Likud leader Ariel Sharon
will be a cabinet minister by next week.

Through direct action and with growing Arab and international support, the
Palestinian people are demanding an immediate end to the occupation, and by
extension the dismantling of the Oslo "peace process." Seven years after the
famous handshake on the White House lawn, the Oslo process has brought no
real progress toward a just and lasting peace. Despite the heavy price paid
by Palestinians so far, the uprising is unlikely to completely derail the
Oslo process so long as the cost of the Israeli occupation does not exceed
its benefits. As the Sharm al-Shaykh summit concludes, all signs point
toward a turbulent interlude on the way to a new framework agreement that
will restore peace to the occupation and its beneficiaries. Whether or not
such an agreement will hold remains an open question, but the events of the
past weeks have shown that any agreement within the framework of continued m
ilitary occupation is at best an armed and temporary truce.

A FATAL "WRONG TURN"

The events of the Independence Uprising--as Palestinians are increasingly
calling their 20-day revolt--cast grave doubt on Arafat's ability to enforce
quiet without resorting to violence of his own. US and Western media widely
reported the October 12 killing of two Israelis at the PA police
headquarters for the Ramallah/al-Bira district. According to Israel, the men
in question were army reservists reporting for duty who took a "wrong turn"
on their way to a military base, passed an Israeli roadblock unnoticed and
unintentionally entered Area A--the territory under Palestinian security
control. Palestinians dismiss this explanation, insisting the two were
members of an undercover unit on active duty. Certainly, the numerous road
signs in Hebrew at entrances to Ramallah make it hard to believe that the
soldiers simply missed their turn.

There are too many competing versions of subsequent events to establish
definite facts at this stage. But it is clear that news of the Israeli
soldiers' apparent arrest quickly reached a funeral procession then underway
for a Palestinian officer shot dead the previous night. Hundreds of outraged
mourners, a good portion of whom had one day earlier also participated in
the funeral of a villager who had been tortured, murdered and mutilated by
Jewish settlers, set upon the police station where the Israelis were being
held. Demonstrators quickly overpowered the guards, climbed to the second
floor where the Israelis were being held and beat them to death. One of the
bodies was subsequently thrown out of the window, where a furious mob
mutilated it further before dragging it through the street. Crucially,
Palestinian and Israeli security sources concur that Palestinian policemen
did not participate in the killings and in fact sought to protect the
Israelis in their custody.

Israel did not wait for an investigation of the incident to respond with
overwhelming force. Later that afternoon, Israeli Cobra attack helicopters
launched simultaneous missile strikes against al-Bira, Bait Lahia, Gaza City
and Ramallah. The targets included Yasser Arafat's West Bank and Gaza Strip
headquarters, various buildings associated with the Palestinian security
forces, a Fatah office in Gaza City, Palestinian Broadcasting Company
facilities and the Gaza port. That evening, Israeli helicopters conducted
additional strikes on Hebron, Jericho, Nablus, Rafah, Salfit and Tulkarm.

IMBALANCE OF POWER

The October 12 killings and bombing fanned the flames of the uprising
sparked by Ariel Sharon's entry into the Haram al-Sharif compound in
Jerusalem with the full backing of the minority Labor government. At first,
vocal, nonviolent protest of Sharon's visit was led by a coalition of
Palestinian leaders from the Occupied Territories and Palestinian members of
the Israeli Knesset. The following day, seven Palestinians (including a
resident of Umm al-Fahm within Israel) were shot dead within the Haram
al-Sharif by Israeli troops. By September 30, the flames had spread to most
cities within the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Palestinian communities
within Israel experienced their most severe confrontations since the
establishment of the Jewish state. Within an additional week, numerous
villages became actively involved as well, a development which in both 1936
and 1988 signified the transition from popular uprising to sustained
rebellion.

Most clashes have pitted civilian demonstrators armed with stones and
Molotov cocktails against Israeli soldiers firing tear gas, rubber-coated
steel bullets and live ammunition, including high-velocity bullets which
fragment upon impact. Where such confrontations escalate, and in those
instances where armed Palestinians have become involved, Israel has deployed
heavy machine guns, tanks and attack helicopters. Israeli soldiers most
often fire from reinforced concrete bunkers where they are in no physical
danger. The widespread use of snipers, in combination with the large and
growing proportion of head and chest wounds sustained by unarmed
demonstrators, reinforces Palestinians' conclusion that Israel is applying a
"shoot to kill" policy.

ARAFAT AND THE PALESTINIAN STREET

Israel claims that Arafat instructed the dominant Palestinian political
faction, Fatah, to incite the Palestinian public to demonstrate and throw
stones at soliders. The uprising is unquestionably being led by Fatah and
its cadres have played a greater role in the armed clashes than the PA
security forces. But Fatah's ability to mobilize the Palestinian street was
circumscribed by widespread disillusionment with the PA and a more general
political apathy. No less importantly, there is nothing Yasser Arafat could
have said or done to incite Palestinians more than Israel and its actions.
Fatah's success in sustaining the uprising reflects above all the cumulative
popular anger at continuing Israeli impunity in the Occupied
Territories--driven home today when Jewish settlers at the village of Beit
Furik near the West Bank town of Nablus killed an unarmed Palestinian man
harvesting olives--and only secondarily reflects Fatah's ability to channel
this anger.

The degree of Arafat's authority and control over Fatah is another
unanswered question. The "tanzim" routinely touted in the Israeli and
foreign media does not exist as a separate, paramilitary force within Fatah.
Rather, the "tanzim" and Fatah are one and the same: Oslo's failure to
deliver on basic Palestinian national rights has enhanced the role of the
more skeptical, activist wings of the movement. Furthermore, the current
uprising has pushed militant local leaders to the forefront of
decision-making. Today the secretary-general of Fatah in the West Bank,
Marwan Barghouthi, bitterly criticized the outcome of the summit and
promised a renewed "peaceful intifada."

OSLO: DOWN BUT NOT OUT?

Today's summit agreement shows that the Oslo process has so far survived the
uprising and Israel's unprecedentedly direct attacks on the PA, if barely.
Whether by design or default, Israel and the PA are now vying for advantages
at the negotiating table. While the Oslo framework for Israeli-Palestinian
relations has undergone severe strain, it has remained intact because
neither Israel nor the PA have a viable alternative. Even if Arafat
unilaterally proclaims an independent Palestinian state on November 15,
Israel will eventually acquiesce: Arafat's state will be primarily symbolic
and will complement the Israeli-American proposals made at Camp David. On
the Israeli side, a Labor-Likud coalition government, should one emerge, is
highly unlikely to risk the international isolation which would result from
abrogating the Oslo process. A two-state solution under Oslo's terms serves
Israel's local, regional and international interests and leaves it in
effective control of the Occupied Territories. But as the current events
demonstrate, such solutions are little more than recipes for further
violence.

(When quoting from this PIN, please cite MERIP Press Information Note 34,
"After the Sharm al-Shaykh Summit: An Armed and Temporary Truce," by Mouin
Rabbani, October 17, 2000.)

-----

For background on the early days of the current uprising, see MERIP Press
Information Note 33, The Iron Fist in the Peace Process:
http://www.merip.org/pins/pin33.html

For analysis of why July's Camp David summit failed, see MERIP Press
Information Note 26, Camp David II:
http://www.merip.org/pins/pin26.html

In the fall issue of Middle East Report (MER 216), Jeff Halper develops the
argument that a two-state solution under Oslo's terms leaves Israel in
control of the West Bank and Gaza. Read his analysis online at:
http://www.merip.org/mer/mer216/216_halper.html

The winter issue of Middle East Report (MER 217), due out in December, will
assess the uprising and its likely impact on regional politics.

To order copies of Middle East Report or to subscribe, please call Blackwell
Publishers at 1-800-835-6770.

-----

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