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Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War!
The Middle East, After the Deluge
In the territories, the violence will not end, nor will it decide
anything.
After weeks of careening out of control, both the Israeli and
Palestinian political systems now point to extended, sub-critical
conflict in the West Bank and Gaza. Attacks by Palestinian
commandos and suicide teams inside Israel are likely. The violence
promises to be extended because there is not the political will to
suppress it; neither is there enough violence to force either side
to capitulate.
But the damage done by this deluge is extensive. Israeli Prime
Minister Ehud Barak, heir to the peace initiatives of the Rabin and
Peres governments, has lost the ability to govern. A divided
Palestinian leadership pursues two goals: cleaving Israel from the
United States and igniting fundamentalism in the rest of the Arab
world. We are not back to 1973, but we are back to the intifadah of
the 1980s. That this is good news is a measure of just how bad
things might have been.
In Israel, the Barak government's ruling coalition lies effectively
shattered. But at a more fundamental level, the extent of the
fighting with the fact Palestinian police joined in has created a
belief that institutionalized peace with the Palestinian National
Authority is impossible. Israelis are more focused on suppressing
Palestinian violence than accommodating Palestinian aspirations.
Nothing is so striking as the fact that Barak has been forced to
reach out to Ariel Sharon, architect of the invasion of Lebanon and
advocate of the Jewish settlements of the territories, to form a
government of national unity. First, such governments have
historically though not always been formed in Israel during times
of extreme danger, when ordinary political debate is muted. Second,
in reaching out to Sharon the antithesis of the Rabin-Peres
perspective Barak acknowledges he is no longer able to govern just
18 months after his election.
Sharon's terms are stiff. Effectively, he seeks veto power on any
agreement with the Palestinians. The price of a government of
national unity is handing Palestinian relations to Sharon. In an
odd way, this might provide the only hope for mitigating the
conflict. Just as Richard Nixon could open the door to China when a
liberal could not, Sharon might be able to make accommodations that
Barak cannot.
__________________________________________________________________
For comprehensive analysis on the situation in the Middle East
be sure to see our Middle East Hot Spot.
http://www.stratfor.com/hotspots/israel_palestine/default.htm
__________________________________________________________________
But Sharon is not Nixon. Sharon and the Likud party are more
convinced than ever that genuine accommodation with the
Palestinians is impossible unless there is a fundamental shift in
Palestinian political attitudes. Equally important, Likud
politicians are prepared to maintain the current policy until such
a shift occurs. In this, Barak has little choice. If he doesn't
form a new coalition government, he will be forced to hold new
elections he is unlikely to win. In either case, Likud will grab
control again. The man whom Palestinians regard as the instigator
of the crisis will either lead or be a major figure in the next
government.
The landscape has changed so much that a shift in the Israeli
government will make little difference to the Palestinians. Few
voices in the community are left to speak either for the Oslo
Accords or the peace process. No one knows what Palestinian leader
Yasser Arafat really thinks or wants other than Arafat, but it is
clear he felt he had no choice but to become spokesman for the
uprising. Within the Palestinian community, the consensus is the
Israelis were never serious about concluding an institutionalized
peace treaty.
The Palestinians want a state but now they will not get one. Before
the Camp David meetings, the Palestinians could kid themselves into
believing, in time, such a state would be created and a settlement
would be reached over Jerusalem. After Camp David and the resulting
torrent, no Palestinian can believe that.
Today, the community is divided between those who want to maintain
and intensify current levels of violence and those who wish to see
the violence subside. It is not even clear that the latter group is
in the majority, and therefore it is not clear that Arafat and his
governing apparatus can stand. To make the Americans happy, Arafat
has had his intelligence staff cooperate with the Israelis, but
this may be mere show for American consumption. The Palestinian
National Authority is not in a position to offer real cooperation.
Now, the Palestinians will try to achieve two ends. One is fighting
for the hearts and minds of the American public and the next U.S.
administration. The only hope for statehood is to create massive
strains between Israel and the United States. Sharon's ability to
offend American sensibilities is legendary. Television pictures of
Israeli troops firing on Palestinian children, followed by an
unapologetic Sharon, are precisely the images that can hurt Israeli
ties to Washington.
The other objective is the resurrection of anti-Israeli sentiment
in surrounding Arab countries. As long as Israel is strategically
secure, Palestinian leaders argue, the Israelis will continue to
deal with the Palestinians as harshly as they like. The best hope
for the Palestinians is for Egypt and Syria to recreate their
pre-1973 anti-Israeli alliance. To do so, both governments must
face domestic political threats. The most likely source of such
threats comes from Islamic fundamentalists.
Thus, the emerging Palestinian position will produce a paradox. On
the one hand, Palestinian leaders will try to create a rift between
Israel and the United States. On the other hand, they will try to
bolster anti-American forces throughout the region in order to
force policy changes in Arab countries. The Palestinian leadership
fragmented as it is is going in two directions at once and is
unlikely to get anywhere fast.
The most probable outcome is no outcome at all. The violence will
continue. Israel will face the option it exercised during the
intifadah of the 1980s: Seal the West Bank and Gaza, stop workers
from entering Israel, halt shipments into the territories and bring
the Palestinians to their knees economically. That is a long,
painful process likely only to garner American sympathy for the
Palestinians and increase Islamic fundamentalist influence in the
region -- all while hurting the Israeli economy.
Elsewhere in the region, Syria and Egypt are containing their own
internal pressures and backing the attempt to stabilize the
situation. The Egyptian government, in particular, surveyed the
choices and saw that abandoning peace with Israel would lead to a
bitter break with the United States and no great power patron would
be able to quickly maintain its military. But the commitment of
Cairo and Damascus cannot be taken for granted over the long run.
In addition, the Iraqi and Iranian governments appear to be
pursuing strategies and weapons programs that will only be
perceived as threatening by the Israelis.
Now, the long night that began at Camp David in July with an ill-
fated attempt at a permanent settlement, will continue
indefinitely. The violence will fall off the front pages of Western
newspapers. But beneath the surface, a dynamic has been created
that will erode the foundations of the region.
_____________________________________________________________
For more on the Middle East and Africa, see:
http://www.stratfor.com/MEAF/default.htm
_____________________________________________________________
(c) 2000 Stratfor, Inc.
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Don't waste your vote! Vote for Patrick Buchanan!
Today, candor compels us to admit that our vaunted two-party system is a
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Patrick Buchanan
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