Commentary:
Israel Should Never Again Negotiate Peace With Terrorists
The
havoc that followed the famous 1993 handshake bears a bitter lesson.
JERUSALEM
— None of us who at first supported the White House handshake
on Sept. 13, 1993, which initiated the Palestinian-Israeli Oslo process,
would have imagined then that it would end in the worst wave of terrorism
in Israel's history.
This week's terrorist attacks, grimly marking
the 10th anniversary of the Oslo process, only reaffirm the bitter
lesson Israelis have learned about the consequences of empowering
terrorists as peace partners.
Every prediction made by the Israeli right about
the Oslo process has been vindicated. The more territory Israel ceded,
the more terrorism it received in return.
One result of the Palestinian betrayal of peace
has been the near-fatal demoralization of the Israeli left. Courageous
Israelis who devoted their political careers to promoting peace with
the PLO have seen their life work exposed as illusion.
At the same time, few Israelis would argue with
the necessity of ending the occupation. It's astonishing to recall
that, until the Oslo process, only Israel's far left supported a Palestinian
state. When Yitzhak Rabin was elected prime minister in 1992, his
Labor Party platform opposed a Palestinian state and the redivision
of Jerusalem. Today, even Ariel Sharon accepts the inevitability of
an independent Palestine.
The combined consequences of those two insights
— the untenability of the occupation and of Oslo's gamble on
terrorist peacemakers — have created an Israeli public that
is at once pragmatic and hard-line, acknowledging Palestinian aspirations
but wary of Palestinian intentions.
Every poll taken in recent months confirms that
most Israelis are willing to withdraw for peace but want Sharon to
oversee negotiations. Only the hawks, Israelis believe, can safely
fulfill the vision of the doves. Still, after three years of terrorist
war, few Israelis believe anymore in the possibility of a comprehensive
solution. At best, Israelis envision a series of interim solutions
that will gradually ease the intensity of the conflict, rather than
resolve it.
The Israeli consensus is that this conflict isn't
about Palestinian occupation but Israel's existence. However problematic,
the West Bank settlements aren't the main problem. The reason there
is no peace isn't because Jews live in the West Bank city of Hebron
but because they live in Tel Aviv.
We have come to this conclusion reluctantly. We
desperately wanted to believe that a "new" Middle East was
prepared to accept a non-Arab state in its midst and stop confusing
the Jewish return home with yet another colonialist invasion. But
the Palestinian leadership convinced us that the Oslo process was
never about land for peace but, at best, land for a tenuous cease-fire.
The spread of pathological Jew-hatred in the Arab
world, where Holocaust denial has become mainstream and where schoolchildren
are taught that Jews are usurpers with no historical roots or rights
in the Holy Land, only reinforces the unlikelihood of achieving peace
anytime soon.
Oslo envisioned a Palestinian state emerging after
a gradual process of reconciliation. Instead, the opposite has happened.
The Palestinian leadership made a strategic decision to create a Palestine
not through negotiations but blood.
The Palestinian goal of the last three years has
been to demoralize the Israeli people through terrorism and force
a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the territories, without a negotiated
settlement that would require the Palestinians to waive their demand
for refugee return.
So far, the Palestinian strategy has failed dismally.
The result of Palestinian aggression has been the hardening of Israeli
resolve and the near-total destruction of the infrastructure of a
future Palestinian state.
The current war isn't a "cycle of violence"
but an Israeli attempt to convince the Palestinians that terrorism
will lead to ruin.
The first Palestinian leader to acknowledge the
failure of the terrorist strategy was the just-resigned Palestinian
Authority prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas. Tragically, Abbas was unable
to impose his authority and confront Hamas and other terrorist groups,
largely because Yasser Arafat wouldn't let him.
Renewing the peace process requires a decision
by the Palestinian Authority to dismantle the terrorist infrastructures
that have thrived under its watch. But the likelihood of Abbas' successor,
Ahmed Korei, an Arafat yes man, taking serious steps against terrorism
is almost inconceivable. If Oslo has taught Israelis anything over
the last 10 years, it is to be wary of false optimism and prepare
for the worst.
By Yossi Klein Halevi
Yossi Klein Halevi is the Israel correspondent for the New Republic
and an associate fellow at the Shalem Center, a think tank in Jerusalem.
Israel Should Never Again Negotiate Peace
With Terrorists
Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-halevi12sep12,1,5190332.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
