On 12/30/08 J wrote:
Hello Barry,
Thank you for the e-mails, and do not worry about inundating me with too much information. There is just nothing like this available in the American press. Your insights into the history of the Gaza conflict are enlightening, and the op-ed piece by Bradley Burston conveys the misfortune of the Gazans over decades of life endangered and diminished by the conflict.
It seems that your desire to be immersed in the politics of the region have been fulfilled beyond anything you could have imagined. I hope you are keeping a journal and saving these e-mails!
Best wishes. Stay safe.
J.

Hi J,
I’m glad you’re OK with the volume of email I sent.
Here’s an interesting media clip from Fatah TV that just arrived,

These wars that Israel fights seem futile. Military victory is fleeting; it doesn’t seem to solve much. There doesn’t seem to be strong leadership on the Palestinian side to make peace. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah are all radical Islamist organizations tied to Iran. They are religious fanatics who don’t care how much damage they do to their own people or to anyone else. God save us from religious fanatics.
I realize I might sound like a right-winger because I defend Israel so here’s a little more balance.
The argument from the left is that the Israeli occupation has been oppressing millions of Arabs unnecessarily. The history is this. After the Six Day War, Israel negotiated with Jordan to give the West Bank back in exchange for a peace treaty (and, if I remember correctly, Israel also wanted to give Gaza back to the Egyptians, but the Egyptians refused it right away; they didn’t want the Palestinians then and they still don’t). At that time the Israeli government understood that the newly conquered territories would be problematic to hold onto. The Arab League then called a meeting and issued the famous three “no”s: no recognition of Israel, no peace with Israel, and no negotiations with Israel. Their decision was incumbent on all Arab nations, and they recognized the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinian people because the PLO promised to destroy Israel. So Jordan got out of the picture and left the West Bank in the hands of the Israelis. Right-wing Israelis forced the Israeli government to allow them to start settlements. The political pressure to allow settlements in the West Bank was great because there was no voice to speak up for the Palestinians who were viewed as enemies, and the settlements would insure Israeli military control of the area. The right-wing argued that it would be national suicide to allow an enemy Arab state along the border of Israel to gain independence. That point of view pretty much held sway against left-wing opposition. The middle didn’t know what to do. The Israeli government didn’t trust the Palestinians and held out the hope that someday Jordan would agree to take the West Bank in exchange for peace. But basically, they just waited for something to change. They decided that they didn’t have any good alternatives so they were going to just wait.
The occupation was benign at first, but because Israel didn’t want to allow an independent Palestinian state to form, the Palestinians were put in an awkward position. They became a labor pool for Israel but they had no independent future to hope for. They feared occupation would go on forever and Israeli settlers would continue to take land. The Palestinians rebelled in what was called the first intifada. Soon, PLO infiltrators (the PLO leadership was in exile in Tunis) arrived to take over the leadership of the intifada from the local leaders who actually started it. That brought the various peace processes, and with the Oslo peace process Arafat was allowed to return to Palestine. Arafat lied to the world by speaking about peace in English but promising warfare in vile language when he spoke in Arabic to the Palestinians. His administration was corrupt and misused vast sums of money, he funded terrorists, and Arafat torpedoed the peace process by turning down what the world thought was an extremely generous offer from Israel. But that interpretation is contentious. The left-wingers still say that Israel could have been more forthcoming. Personally, I think Israel was being dangerously over-generous. Arafat’s rejection of the generous peace offer eviscerated the peace camp in Israel. Rabin was assassinated and not long after that the Israeli right-wing party won the elections.
Then there was the second intifada, which included guerilla war and terrorism (suicide bombers, etc). Israel clamped down drastically on the Palestinian Territories. That’s pretty much where it stands today. In order for Israel to let up on the oppressiveness of the occupation (the check-points, for example), Israel demands a significant improvement in security. The Palestinians, and their supporters around the world, demand that Israel ease up immediately, saying that improvements in security will follow. But Israel is afraid that if it eases up on its control of the West Band, Hamas will take over and the Palestinians will use the easing of restrictions to once again cause death and destruction in Israel.
Could, or should, Israel have eased up the onerous restrictions unilaterally? Personally, I don’t know how necessary it is for the restrictions to be as onerous as they are; that is an operational judgment.
On an encouraging note, there is a growing cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority run by the Fatah and there are definite signs of overall improvement in Fatah. But Fatah is still not nearly as good as we would like it to be and if Israel wasn’t there to protect it, Hamas would wipe out Fatah in the West Bank the way it did in Gaza. Israel needs a strong Palestinian leadership that is willing to make and enforce peace in exchange for Palestinian independence. Fatah is willing to make peace but is not able to guarantee that any agreement it signs will last.
Happy New Year and peace,
Barry