A Turn for the Worse

As Israeli and Palestinian negotiators meet today at the Erez checkpoint on the Israel-Gaza Strip border to restart peace talks, fear is deepening and spreading over the Middle East. Many feel that war between Israelis and Palestinians is imminent and may involve the Syrians.

Last week’s summit in Washington between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat did not noticeably lessen tensions here. Since last June, when Netanyahu won the Israeli elections, the region has been sinking to new lows. Arab leaders and their followers from the Atlantic to the Indian oceans are enraged at the Israeli’s policies. “He talks a lot of niceties but his actions are dangerous,” complained Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who refused to attend the summit. Even the normally friendly relations between Israel and the United States, Jerusalem’s best ally, are strained. The Israeli public is disoriented and divided as never before.

Consider the Olmert family. Ehud Olmert is a prominent Likud member of the Knesset, a close ally and personal friend of Netanyahu and the mayor of Jerusalem. The Labor opposition, as well as most of the Israeli and international media, blame Olmert for triggering renewed violence between Israelis and Palestinians by opening an ancient underground tunnel that runs along Muslim shrines on Temple Mount. Ehud’s son, Shaul, who recently completed his three-year compulsory service in the army, last week signed a petition circulated by a radical, left-wing organization. The petition calls for young Israelis to oppose or evade the draft in the occupied parts of Gaza and West Bank; it is directed against the government and his father.

This polarization of Israeli society is the prelude to a Middle East version of the “Vietnam syndrome,” in which domestic and familial divisions would be exploited by the enemy if Israel is involved in a war widely seen as unjustified. This possibility may have contributed to Netanyahu’s unexpectedly conciliatory attitude in his talks with Arafat in Washington.

Still, in terms of substance, Netanyahu was the true winner of the summit. He made no concession on any dispute. Israeli troops remain deployed in Hebron despite Israel’s pledge to have withdrawn them by now. Netanyahu’s government continues to refuse to negotiate further redeployment of its troops on the West Bank. Palestinian female prisoners are still locked up in Israeli jails. Palestinians and their goods cannot freely pass through Israeli territory. Netanyahu even demanded that previous agreements be amended to improve Israel’s security.

Arafat, by contrast, left Washington humiliated. His people got nothing except the promise of more talk. Netanyahu gained more time, probably a few more weeks. Yet, his may be a Pyrrhic victory. “If an agreement is not reached,” assumes Brig. Gen. Yigal Presler, a Netanyahu advisor, “we may face a new round of violence. We are prepared for the worst.”

Israeli intelligence reports that radical groups like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and fundamentalist organizations such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which oppose Arafat’s regime, may soon launch terrorist attacks on Jewish settlers in Gaza and on the West Bank. Israel’s major urban centers may also be targets of the kind of lethal suicidal attacks that were so politically effective last March. Dr. Mahmoud Zahar, the political leader of the Gaza-based Hamas movement warned last week that “our people will return to the intifada,” referring to the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation in 1987-1992.

But, according to an analysis prepared by the head of Israel’s General Security Services, Gen. Ami Ayalon, this time the Palestinians will not settle for only “another intifada, including terrorism.” The prevailing assumption among Israeli security officials is that the Palestinians will not hesitate to use their guns. These officials estimate that the Palestinian police forces, as well as their illegal militias and underground groups, possess nearly 60,000 light weapons, far more than the interim agreement allows them. Some of these weapons were used by Palestinian policemen to fire at Israeli troops during their recent clashes.

“If they fire at us,” warned Lt. Gen. Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, the Israeli chief of staff, “we shall use all means available to us to repress them.” Those means include tanks and helicopters already deployed around Palestinian towns.

Israeli and U.S. sources say that Netanyahu promised in Washington to conduct sincere and speedy negotiations--within “three weeks”--with the Palestinian Authority to finalize details of their previous agreements. Unlike the Egyptians and the Syrians who have lost faith in Netanyahu and his government, the peace camp in Israel hopes that Netanyahu will now be a “man of honor who keeps his promises.” Their hope is based on Netanyahu’s own admission that he “shares today more appreciation and understanding for Arafat.”

Netanyahu, who frequently talks about “privatizing the economy,” is also well aware that events have already destabilized his country’s economy. Tourism in Israel has dropped dramatically in the past months. “We have already lost potential revenues of $600 million because of tourist cancellations,” says an official at the Israeli Ministry of Tourism. Foreign investors are said to be having second thoughts about investing in an economy amidst political and security uncertainties. “The reasoning and logic clearly requires that our prime minister subordinate his hard-line ideology for peace, tranquillity, and economic prospect,” says a Likud moderate, “but knowing him, I am not hopeful.”

Should Netanyahu live up to this reputation, the worst-case scenario may become reality. According to this scenario, shared by security experts and political observers on all sides, “the war is around the corner,” involving not only Israelis and Palestinians. Relations between Israel and some moderate Arab nations--Jordan, Morocco and, most importantly, Egypt--are deteriorating. The Syrians, who blame the Israeli government for the current diplomatic impasse between the two countries, could be tempted to use the pretext of renewed Israeli-Palestinian violence to open a second front for the Jewish state. “Israel chose the road of war,” warned Farouk Shareh, the Syrian foreign minister, “and will pay for it a heavy price.”

Not since Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 has the Middle East been closer to war, a war in which all parties will not hesitate to use their deadliest arsenals. Today’s meeting and the subsequent negotiations might be recorded in the history books as the last chance to prevent the approaching war.