2005-03-18--ceasefire

By Ira Sharkansky

In a highly-touted meeting in Cairo, a number of Palestinian groups have agreed to an open-ended "period of calm." This is less than the "cease-fire" called for by Mahmoud Abbas, and the agreement for a period of calm is hedged by equally open-ended demands of Israel: that it cease actions against Palestinians, turn over territory to Palestinian control, and release prisoners. Israeli and American officials have given the decision a qualified blessing. European Union officials were more enthusiastic.

Is this the end of the intifada, with the Palestinians admitting but not stating that they lost and that they will accept the best deal they can achieve through political pressure?

It is not likely to be the beginning of the peace envisioned in Israeli songs and Jewish prayers. The nature of Palestinian fragmentation, with armed political cults seeking prominence and recruits via extreme rhetoric, constant planning, and occasional action, means that peace will be relative. Outsiders who meddle for the own purposes will also prod the fires of Palestinian nationalism.

Israel has its own political problems. The withdrawal from Gaza is not yet achieved. It seems more likely to occur with each passing day, but there may be at least a bit of blood on the ground. Once we are passed that, we will continue to argue among ourselves about what else to give the Palestinians. Current opinion polls indicate a continued support for Likud, especially if it remains under the leadership of Ariel Sharon, and the continued weakness of Labor. As a result, we are not likely to go back to what was on offer at Camp David and Taba in 2000 (i.e., extensive Israeli withdrawals from the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and transfer of land from within Israel to Palestine as compensation for the large Jewish settlements that would remain under Israeli control in the West Bank). Yet it is possible that Likud will implode as a result of the withdrawal from Gaza. If that happens, we will have to think some more about what comes next.

One of my colleagues, the late Ehud Sprinzak, said that the price of a Jewish state in the Middle East was 100 deaths a year. That was before intifada, the deaths of more than 3,000 Palestinians, and the capture of perhaps 7,000. The height of the intifada was in March-April of 2002. That month saw 17 suicide attacks, and another 8 attempts foiled by Israeli security forces. Over the entire period of the intifada, from September 29, 2000, 1,047 Israeli civilians and soldiers have lost their lives. That amounts to a rate of 242 per year. During a period of relative quiet from late July, 2004, the annual rate has been 116. Commentators have seen this latest period as one of Palestinian fatigue, and heightened Israeli control. Official Israeli figures for the "number of Israelis killed by terror" show averages of 35 per year for the 1950s, 17 per year for the 1960s, 36 per year for the 1970s, 17 per year for the 1980s, and 43 per year for the 1990s. Corrected for the size of the Israeli population, the numbers range between 1 and 4 per 100,000 per year from the 1950s through the present intifada.

These numbers do not threaten the integrity of Israel. The chronic fear of violence coming from Arabs seems likely to hurt Palestinians and Israeli Arabs more than Jews, insofar as each event or attempt preserves the feelings of distrust about those populations. The numbers may diminish if Palestinians themselves come to see benefit in living at peace alongside Israel, and controlling those among themselves who continue to urge violence. Palestinians might be able to do a better job of preventing attacks than Israeli forces, but that assumes a willingness on the part of the Palestinians that we are not sure exists.

Israeli concerns for security in the shadow of intifada mean continued construction of the barrier and the maintenance of check-points to control the movement of Palestinians, which serve within Palestine as reasons for continuing the struggle.

The nature of terror makes it difficult to know just when a war begins, and when it ends. It may begin when an independent group acts in a way that sparks the spread of violence. There is no government in control of all forces that can assure an end of hostilities with a signature on a document. Perhaps the most we can hope for is an extended period of relative calm. It will be better according to the time it lasts and the degree of calm achieved. We may wake up one day and realize that we are living in a normal country, beset only with problems of allocating resources to one or another public service, and the occasional scandal involving office holders. Until then, however, we are likely to have a lengthy groping for arrangements in a setting of profound distrust, interrupted occasionally by attempted or successful acts of violence. That's my assessment of reality in a tough neighborhood.

Sharkansky is a member of the political science department at Hebrew University in Jerusalem