The New Palestinian Revolt

Chris Hedges

From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2001

Summary:  Last autumn's fresh outbreak of violence between Palestinians and Israelis has shaken an assumption that has reigned since the 1993 Oslo peace accords: that negotiations and interim agreements can lay the roadwork for a lasting peace. Now Oslo's delegitimization has swayed public opinion in Israel and the occupied territories away from compromise and toward more radical solutions.

Chris Hedges is a reporter for The New York Times. He was Middle East Bureau Chief for The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, based in Jerusalem and Cairo, from 1988 to 1995.

Rather than defeating the Palestinians, Israel may be slowly defeating itself. The inclusive, liberal dreams of Israel's Zionist founders have mutated into an occupation from which the Israelis find it difficult to extract themselves. Unlike the wars of 1967 and 1973, Israel today is fighting not against armies but against a subject people. Palestinians, and increasingly Israeli Arabs as well, are the enemy.

Comparison can be found in the war over Algerian independence in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The French fought valiantly and brutally in Algeria. They won the military contest but by the end could no longer justify to themselves or the outside world that it was worth being there. They had few allies when it was over. The political, emotional, and financial costs for France were enormous.

Palestinian resistance may prove surprising. Indeed, given the drudgery and poverty of life in the occupied territories, resistance will be for many Palestinians the headiest and most exciting time in their lives. If the attacks and counter-attacks between intifada fighters and the Israeli military grow harsher and the numbers of Palestinian dead mount, the one million Israeli Arabs who do not serve in the army and feel like foreigners on their own land are sure to bring the violence deeper inside Israel.

Nazareth, within Israel, has begun to look like Ramallah in the West Bank did only a few years ago. No longer will Jews take their cars into the Arab part of town for cheaper service or shop for vegetables in the Arab markets. Rocks are hurled at Jewish cars when they drive near Arab towns. And demonstrations by Israeli Arabs in Nazareth have ended with gunfire and death.

Israel has taken cautious steps toward integration into the Middle East by reaching out to its Arab neighbors, moving toward winning the acceptance absolutely vital for Israel's survival. But these gains are now being wiped out. Moderate Arab states such as Morocco, Tunisia, and Qatar have closed representative offices in Israel. Egypt has recalled its ambassador from Tel Aviv and Jordan has not sent its newly named ambassador. And rogue states such as Iraq and Iran, by tapping into the anger in the Arab streets, are once again ascending. Time is not on the side of the peacemakers.

Israeli generals -- like most commanders of a technologically advanced and well-trained army would do -- are pushing for firmer measures. And the country, with each new killing of an Israeli, is lining up behind them. With an election now looming, Israel will likely become even less flexible.

In his public statements, Barak swings from being a liberal politician who wants to make concessions for peace to a former army commander seeking a military solution. Neither he, nor Israel, can have both.