Mortimer B. Zuckerman
As Palestinians start taking control of criminal gangs and terrorists, peace looks possible
The Jews of Israel are facing a cruel dilemma. They came home to find peace and safety in their homeland of Israel; to find an end to that vulnerable status of a perpetual wandering minority; an end to exile, alienation, and powerlessness; and the beginning of a normal national existence. Instead, they found neighbors who were not reconciled to their living again together in this tiny piece of land the Jews have regarded as home for 4,000 years. How do you share a home with someone who says, "You have no right to be here"?
The Arab assault on the Jews that began immediately and has continued for more than half a century made it clear the Jews could not control 2 million Arabs without eroding the moral character of their tiny state and, with that, its support in the world. So leader after leader decided to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine and any pretense that Israel could become a binational state in which one people ruled another. After
In yet another effort to find peace, the Israelis risked their own security by dismantling security barriers and checkpoints--down from 147 to 14 in the
The trouble has been the absence of any responsible governance among the Palestinians--no capacity to deal with terrorism and violence, no command-and-control structure, no political backing for Palestinian officers to go after sensitive targets, and no legal apparatus to try those who might be arrested. Terrorist operatives have gone in one door one day and out the next. So when successive American administrations have pushed for negotiation between the parties, the Americans have all discovered, as the Israeli columnist
Poor beginning. The Obama administration began unwisely. The president made an uncompromising demand for a full freeze on construction in the settlements, imposing no requirement on the Arabs. That missed the real point of contention. According to a recent poll of Palestinians, halting construction in the settlements is not important to them. The evacuation of the settlement outposts is much more important to them. For the Israeli public, the settlement issue was a nonstarter without a compensating concession by the Palestinians. In any event, the previous Olmert government had greatly reduced permits for construction settlements, and very few permits remain.
Now the administration has initiated a more promising policy. At September's three-way summit in
Israel is now committed fully to two states for two peoples. At
Obama's previous efforts had been rebuffed. His speech in
Netanyahu's approach holds that peace will come from the bottom up, not the top down. It is both about economic development and about bringing security under control. The PA had been paralyzed, its security organizations scattered and ineffective, so it was left to the Israeli Defense Forces to control things on the ground while the terrorists hid. Several hundred gang leaders created chaos in the territories, holding back commercial and economic life, demanding protection money, killing and wounding Arabs and Jews alike. The PA simply didn't have the capacity to deal with these gangs.
A new approach came from
There was to be a three-stage trial period. First, the wanted men would be under the protection of the security services, restricting their movements; second, they would be given relative freedom of movement in the area; and third, they would be allowed to return home and live a normal life as long as they adhered to the terms of the agreement.
Turning over a new leaf. The plan worked. Nine rounds of wanted men who have been processed, almost 80 percent of the members of the original list of gang leaders, have left the world of crime and terrorism, and the ground is quiet. Now terrorists from other organizations such as
The security organizations that had lacked control over the territory were suddenly in charge. Add to this the projects of American Lt. Gen.
Today,
This doesn't mean that the terrorism capability of these organizations is completely gone, but the success has fed on itself. Most of the credit is due to Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister. He has changed the way things are done. He asserts he will be the Ben Gurion of the Palestinians--i.e., he will build the foundations of a state before the Palestinians declare a state, so that when they do, the infrastructure of governance will exist. A critical part is that the PA is starting to exert control over the territories.
The president,
This progress will take more time. The Israelis will not buy words; they will buy only deeds. They will not accept the
The peace process must be the beginning of the future, not the beginning of the end. There is still a ways to go, but the progress being made by the Palestinians, especially in terms of controlling the terrorists and criminal gangs, is one of the most promising developments to have occurred in decades.
Israel's Challenges from the United Nations to the J Street Lobby
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