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May 21, 2007 - Vol. 8, Issue 28

THE HAMAS TRAP; HOT AIR?; WAGGING THE DOG; RETHINKING JERUSALEM;

THE HAMAS TRAP: Speaking of the rockets fired at Israel over the past week from Gaza, Israeli Minister of Defense Amir Peretz said that Hamas is "trying to force Israel to respond in order to bring about an internal cease-fire for the armed Palestinians, while uniting against the IDF and the citizens of Israel. Israel will not hurry to be dragged into the Palestinian terror. for now, an incursion by ground forces is not on the table."

Brigadier General (retired) Shlomo Brom, former head of IDF's strategic planning and now affiliated with the Institute for National Security Studies, said the army should not get sucked into the Hamas-Fatah war, and expressed support for the decision to limit Israel's response to aerial strikes. "Although my heart is with the people in Sderot, I don't think the price (being paid by Israel) is that high," he said. "And if that's the situation, why should we get dragged into the war in Gaza?" asked Brom. He added that Hamas is launching rockets at Sderot in order improve its image among Palestinians, following the clashes with Fatah. "Hamas is a political movement. It succeeded in the Palestinian elections because it had a pure image in comparison with Fatah. The conflicts in Gaza have not been so good for its image, so in turn it has gone for the simple solution, to blame us," he said. Brom warned that the "Hamas-Fatah civil war. can get much worse. It could spread to all of Gaza and turn into a full-scale war." He added that "Hamas has the advantage - it is better organized, trained, and equipped, and it is intent on taking full control of Gaza." Brom is not alone among Israeli analysts who predict that Fatah would lose in a direct confrontation with Hamas. Ma'ariv reports that "Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabbi Ashkenazi has been saying for a long time that the balance of forces between Hamas and Fatah is so unequivocal that the defeat of Fatah is already guaranteed."

Yedioth Ahronoth's Ron Ben-Yishai agrees that the "Qassam fire is a means utilized by Hamas in order to grant validity to its claim that it was not Hamas members who killed [Palestinian President] Mahmoud Abbas' presidential guard forces, but rather, Israel. In simple terms, Hamas is 'exporting' to Israel the responsibility for the massacre carried out by Palestinians against other Palestinians in order to avoid criticism and sanctions from moderate Arab states, and particularly from Saudi Arabia. Hamas is also hoping that a harsh Israeli response for the Qassam attacks will lift the impression of Hamas' wild attack on Abbas' presidential guard on the Arab street and in public opinion."

Ben-Yishai believes that "the international community, including Arab states," must be convinced "to send an effective international police force to the Strip in order to maintain order there until the Palestinian Authority stabilizes and is able to rule." Without such a force, an Israeli "occupation of wide sections of the Gaza Strip" would have little impact and Gaza would "revert" to "its original state once the IDF leaves."

Indeed, Foreign Minister Tzippi Livni and Foreign Ministry Director General Aharon Abramovitch presented to Israel's security cabinet a set of proposals for dealing with the instability in Gaza, all of which include proposals to bring in a multi-national force. Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman also recommended that a multi-national force be stationed in the Gaza Strip.

Tel Aviv University Professor Shaul Mishal, an expert on Hamas, writes that "Hamas believes that rocket fire at Israel can strengthen its standing. When the terrorist activity is aimed against Israel, it may cause Israel to launch offensive activity and take over Gaza, thereby increasing the measure of control exercised by the [more radical] overseas leadership. In case of an invasion of Gaza, the old classic enemy returns, against whom it is necessary to unite. This relieves Hamas of the unpleasant situation of civil war. In the eyes of the Palestinians, civil war is the worst thing that could happen to them. In such a situation, if Israel threatens to act against them, then it is much easier to create a low common denominator. The benefit from this will be derived by the leadership of Hamas abroad."

Professor Mishal recommends that Israel "let diplomatic initiatives speak instead of [adopting] strategies of 'there is no one to talk to.' We will reach the same result at the end of a day of battle with Hamas, with all the tragedies that accompany this. Now we can influence the negotiations in some way, because we are still holding the cards. After we draw the war card, we will be become a partner of almost equal strength around the negotiating table with Hamas."(Israel News Today, 5/16/07; Ynet 5/16/07; Yedioth Ahronoth, 5/17/07; Ma'ariv, 5/17 & 5/21/07)

HOT AIR? Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced Tuesday that he was ready to negotiate over the Saudi peace initiative. On Sunday, Vice Premier Shimon Peres announced that Israel will present an official counter-proposal to the Arab initiative.

This official rhetoric, however, is being met with a great deal of skepticism. Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel challenged Olmert after the prime minister said that terrorism must stop before discussions on the terms of peace negotiations begin. "What does it mean?" prodded Wiesel. "You are negotiating to negotiate further?" he asked.

Ha'aretz columnist Uzi Benziman wrote that Olmert "called on 22 leaders of Arab states to open talks with Israel, 'with no preconditions.' 'I invite them to come and talk,' announced the prime minister. 'If they want to invite me - I'm ready to go anywhere.' Before Olmert begins running from one Middle East capital to another in his search for the coveted peace, why doesn't he make an appointment with [Syrian President] Bashar Assad?" Benziman noted that "on the face of it, an agreement with Syria could be an Archimedes lever - it could dramatically improve Israel's leverage vis-à-vis Lebanon, Hezbollah, Hamas, and maybe even Iran." A day after Benziman's column ran, Ha'aretz reported that the Bush Administration has changed its position on Israel-Syria talks, and has now "given Israel permission" to negotiate subject to a series of preconditions.

In a possible indication of the changing winds in Damascus, Yedioth Ahronoth reports that "an angry mob of Palestinians forced Hamas political bureau director Khaled Mashal to flee from a mosque in Damascus after having threatened to 'settle the blood score and to kill him.' Mashal went to the mosque on Friday to deliver a political sermon, but the mob forced him to flee 'because of his responsibility for the bloodshed between Hamas and Fatah in Gaza.'" (Ha'aretz, 5/20 & 5/21/07; Forward 5/18/07; Yedioth Ahronoth, 5/20/07)

WAGGING THE DOG: In addition to the 70 politicians and senior military officers who testified before the panel investigating Israel's performance in last year's war against Hezbollah, the Winograd Commission also questioned Israel's chief military ethicist, Tel Aviv University Professor Assa Kasher. His testimony, made public last week, covered the ethical code for fighting terrorism that he devised in 2004 together with Major General Amos Yadlin, then the head of the IDF's National Defense College. Kasher explained that many armies have a code of warfare, but the IDF is the only one with "an orderly set of norms that comes to tell us what are the military ethics of fighting terrorism, in the spirit of the 'just war.'" He laid out, for example, the criteria for targeted killings: take out only those who actively participate in terrorism, and only to prevent a terrorist attack in the making; never use it to punish, retaliate or deter. He testified about the value of human life in democratic societies and about the preferential status the IDF gives to the lives of Israeli civilians and soldiers when weighed against those of the "terrorists' neighbors."

But Kasher also expressed frustration. Israel's ethical code for fighting terrorism is taught to officers but has not yet been translated to the language of the simple soldier, he said. "That has not been done.it is not working today in a way that can be presented to a roadblock commander who is a sergeant or a junior officer," Kasher said. Worse, even the conventional code of ethics that he prepared in the early nineties for the IDF has not been thoroughly absorbed and trickled down to the units. "There are some essential difficulties in shifting from the idea to the mass implementation," Kasher said. "It is not done in an acceptable manner."

In an interview with Ha'aretz, senior Defense Ministry official Haggai Alon also raised concerns about the gap between theory and practice when it comes to the IDF's role in the West Bank. He spoke of a disconnect between Israel's official policies and the military's actions, which often dovetail with the settlers' wishes. Alon is charged with overseeing the implementation of Israel's official policies to maintain "Palestinian standards of living."

Alon points to the IDF's construction of a concrete wall along a stretch of road south of Hebron. Israel's Cabinet considered, and rejected, this location as a route for the separation barrier, but the army went ahead and built a barrier there anyway. An Israeli High Court order to take down the barrier prompted no action. Eventually, a military lawyer announced that the IDF is not planning to remove the barrier. Alon told Ha'aretz that the announcement seemed odd, not only because it violated a court order, but also because no senior military official was ever briefed about the IDF's intention not to remove the barrier. In a letter to Defense Minister Amir Peretz regarding this incident, Alon wrote "the stunning thing is that the military officers say that the route of the fence should have passed there. they have no shame. They say: 'the court told us to move the fence, so we move it, and now we're building a mini-fence.'"

Another incident that raises Alon's ire is the "military policy that is leading to the departure of the Arab population from the center of Hebron. It's a clear plan. It's a fact." Alon notes that this "would be fine if we would say that publicly, if our policy was to create Jewish contiguity in Hebron, and the government would tell the army to do this. We would take this to elections. But this is not the policy of the government of Israel. The problem is that in the military command the attitude of the commander is stronger than anything else."

Regarding the settlers' takeover of a Palestinian home in Hebron in March, Alon indicated that he does not believe that the military was taken by surprise. "When a system is calibrated in advance to allow things like this to happen, they happen," he explains. Alon refers to a letter sent by a military lawyer explaining why the army is not allowing access to Hebron's city center to Palestinian traffic. In his letter, the military lawyer asks rhetorically, "is it conceivable that it would be possible to defend the residents of the Jewish community in Hebron in the territory of the community when their neighborhoods are separated from one another and in between lies an area in which Palestinian daily life takes place routinely?" A strong argument, Alon concedes, except that the political leadership did not authorize any such policy of separation in downtown Hebron. "There is no written order to empty Hebron of Arabs," says Alon, "but this is the strength of military rule. It can simply not implement - not enforce the law when it comes to settlers and not allow Palestinian to move. When it comes to law violations in the territories, the attitude of the commander decides. It is stronger than any law or administrative order." (Winograd Commission Transcript, 11/15/06; Ha'aretz, 5/18/07)

RETHINKING JERUSALEM: An op-ed by Moshe Amirav, who recently published a book entitled Jerusalem Syndrome, suggests that the time might be ripe for Israelis to re-imagine the fate of Jerusalem. He writes that "as a paratrooper who was injured in 1967 in the battle for the liberation of Jerusalem and hoped to combine both objectives - a united city and a city of peace - I now feel disappointment and pain. My city is not united and has become a 'city of dispute.'" Amirav believes that "the national effort for the unification of Jerusalem, which has been going on for the past 40 years," is failing and that therefore Israelis "should engage in national soul-searching and ask ourselves: Perhaps it is time to rethink Jerusalem? The rethinking in itself poses a fundamental change. Rethinking Jerusalem is an intellectual, philosophical and Jewish challenge more than a political challenge. How can the 'city of dispute' of the previous century become the 'city of peace' in the 21st century?"

He goes on to argue: "Since we have not succeeded in turning it into a mono-cultural, mono-religious and mono-national city, the question is asked with greater force: Perhaps the opposite is true? Perhaps employing a different method, which defies conventional wisdom, we will succeed in achieving what we have not achieved until now? Perhaps, instead of trying to change Jerusalem, to establish new facts in it and expand it, we should try to change ourselves, to free our mind of its long-standing fixation?

"Perhaps we should try to accept Jerusalem as it is: A multicultural, inter-religious and bi-national city? Perhaps Jerusalem is secretly laughing in its heart of hearts, mockingly looking from the heights of history upon the new Israelis who seek to make it into something that it is not, and will never be? Perhaps dividing Jerusalem, as a political program, will achieve more for us, the Israelis, than the anachronistic program of unifying Jerusalem? And what would we lose if the Old City were to turn into a place where we are partners rather than owners? How terrible would it be if such a small portion, less than one percent of the capital's area, would be given an international status? What would happen?

"This is what would happen: Jerusalem would turn from a problem into a solution. If we turn Jerusalem into the great key to the conflict, in its broader sense, not only the political sense, new vistas will be opened to us. Jerusalem can be the key to the heart of the Muslim world, to reconciliation with the Arab states, to peace with the Palestinians."(Yedioth Ahronoth, 5/16/07)