Real Peril Lurks at Radical Fringes

The biggest danger in the Middle East after Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination is not lack of commitment to the peace process. The impressive Arab turnout at the slain Israeli leader’s funeral--a king, a president, a prime minister, Cabinet officials from three other states, plus the Palestinian Authority--were witness to the ties now binding Arab and Israeli.

Rather, the deadliest force in the Middle East is the radical religious right--on both sides of the traditional divide.

A Jewish zealot and a Muslim fanatic who invoked God’s name as they slaughtered--defying the essence of both their religions--removed the two great visionaries who shaped the two stages of Mideast peace. First, Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat. Now, Rabin.

The horror of Jew killing Jew has now discredited Israel’s fanatics, just as the tactics of Muslim extremists have been condemned, even by sympathizers, after acts of murder and mayhem.

But they’ll be back. Indeed, in the next decade, religious extremism is likely to be the most consistent and threatening challenge to the forces of peaceful change--both between countries and within them.

How quickly they resurface is evident in Hebron, the West Bank city with the most controversial settlement. The massacre of 29 Muslims worshiping at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron last year by radical settler Baruch Goldstein was universally condemned. Today, however, his grave is a shrine where the radical right pays regular homage.

Two events over the next three months offer the first tests. One is the scheduled withdrawal of Israeli troops from six West Bank cities as the Palestinian authority expands its parameters. Israel will cede occupied land on which the most radical fringe still lives, scattered through more than 100 settlements.

While most of these people probably disapprove of Yigal Amir’s confessed murder of Rabin, many are no less opposed to losing parts of Judea and Samaria.

The issue is not security. For them, surrendering Biblical lands is abandoning the covenant between Abraham and God to create greater Israel and thus pave the way for the messiah. At some juncture, the radical right will make its sentiments known. And probably not peacefully.

The other event is the first Palestinian election, set for Jan. 20. The Palestinian authority faces a similar danger from its own radical religious right--Hamas and Islamic Jihad. After Rabin’s murder, Yasser Arafat may be the politician most vulnerable to assassination.

Some within Hamas have finally begun to accept the writing on the wall and may run. But Islamic Jihad, which vows to drive the Jews to the sea because of their occupation of Muslim holy lands, is almost certain to try to obstruct a key step in the implementation of peace both in the run up to and after the election.

And that’s only the beginning.

After the withdrawal, confrontation between the radical Jewish right remaining in the settlements and Palestinian police is more than likely. Settlers have already made clear they aren’t going to obey Palestinian police because they consider them Arab terrorists.

In places such as Hebron, provocation is almost a certainty, because settlers are among the most militant members of Gush Emunim (Block of the Faithful) and the Kach Party, formed by the late Rabbi Meir Kahane. Both epitomize the religious ultra-right.

But Hebron is plagued with extremists of both sides. Because of the strong underground component of Muslim fanatics, the West Bank’s second largest city could explode into a much larger tragedy than the mosque massacre 18 months ago.

Dangers are also rife in Nablus, the traditional home of Palestinian nationalism that is also home to the most extremist Jewish yeshiva. It is run by a rabbi who argues Jewish and Muslim blood are made of different molecules. Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad also have active cells in Nablus.

Then in mid-1996 comes the explosive next phase of peace--the past two years has been the easy part. Israelis and Arabs then face the most historic decisions over “permanent status”--including the fate of Jerusalem, sacred to both religions, and full Palestinian sovereignty.

It would be naive not to expect extremists to try to sabotage this critical stage. The radical Jewish right is particularly afraid that new Prime Minister Shimon Peres will move faster and further than Rabin in talks with the Palestinians, which would mean mass evacuation of the settlements.

Despite the shock of Rabin’s assassination, this could put them back into the streets, re-creating the climate of hate preceding his death. With the idea of compromise anathema and settler losses beginning to take tangible form, a showdown looms large on the horizon.

And whatever the Palestinians get in the final phase of land-for-peace bargaining, it will fall far short of what Muslim extremists demand--and in turn almost certainly lead to challenges both among Palestinians and with Israel.

What is happening in and around Israel, however, is but a microcosm of a regional problem. Throughout the Arab world, Islamic extremism is a grave threat.

Next week, for example, Algeria will hold presidential elections. Its escalating three-year insurgency now far outranks the Arab-Israeli dispute as the bloodiest conflict in the world’s most volatile region. More than 40,000 have now died.

The Armed Islamic Group is blamed for many of the worst killings, including throat-slashings of intellectuals. It was an offshoot of an Islamic group that ran for Parliament in 1992 elections aborted by the military.

Often because of political repression, Islamic radicals have increasingly emerged to fight for what earlier incarnations of their movements couldn’t achieve by democratic means. Muslim extremists are now challenging regimes as disparate as Egypt, Libya and Saudi Arabia.

Wednesday, Islamic fanatics raked a passenger train with gunfire as it traveled from Luxor on route to Egypt’s antiquities. Ten were injured. More than 840 have been killed in the escalating conflict between extremists and police since 1992.

So what should the forces of peace do?

The first part is easy and obvious: Persevere. Transitions have historically been wrought with violence, when those threatened by change strike out. The Middle East is going through an upheaval as potent on a regional level as the Cold War’s end was on the world.

And persevere with a firm hand, for history and the democratic process underlying peace efforts are unquestionably on the side of coexistence.

The second step is much harder: The forces of peace must work not only to deal with old enemies, they must also try, with imagination and patience, to deal with new foes. The extremists can’t all be excluded or detained--moves Israel is now considering and Arab states have already tried. The clout of the radical right in each country is now disproportionate to its small numbers. Peacemakers must encourage discourse and create incentives that elicit their rivals’ interest and eventual cooperation.

It’s not unthinkable. Members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which defined Islamic extremism in the 1980s with a string of suicide bombings and hostage seizures, have emerged from the underground in the 1990s and run successfully for Parliament. They’ve joined the system. Hamas’ willingness to consider a role in the Palestinian elections is also a hopeful sign.

Promoting dialogue also justifies taking firm action against those on the radical religious right, Jew or Muslim, who opt to return to the bullet. They deserve their fate.

Last Tuesday, the day after her husband’s funeral, Leah Rabin said how touched she was by Arafat’s condolences. She acknowledged, with a gentle smile, how the handshakes of long-standing enemies became easier, even natural, as time passed after that first awkward moment at the White House two years ago. “Never say never,” she said, quoting her husband about dealing with the enemy.

The strongest tribute to Rabin would be not only to complete the current peace, but to expand it.*

* ISRAEL. See related article on Page M2.