Achieving Peace May Take War

It may take a pair of civil wars to end the conflict in the Middle East.

At least four times in his 32 years as head of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat succeeded in rescuing his political career from the ashes and re-establishing, internationally and regionally, his authority as the undisputed national symbol and leader of the Palestinian people. But even for a maverick with luck on his side, it will be difficult for him to survive this time. A string of suicidal-bomber attacks in Israel has stripped Arafat of what little luck he had remaining. Although the Israeli government has no plans to kill him, as some right-wing politicians and a few military and intelligence chiefs desire, most Israelis assume that Arafat is finished as a peace partner.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Cabinet has declared Arafat’s Palestinian Authority an “entity sponsoring terrorism.” The designation carries no legal weight, but among Palestinians, it is a virtual declaration of war. The Israeli government has unleashed its military against Palestinian symbols and sites associated with Arafat, destroying two of the Palestinian president’s helicopters and his offices in two West Bank towns.

Yet, Sharon can only go so far. Any attempt by him to escalate the conflict beyond its current scope would end his national unity government, because the Labor Party, led by Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, wants to keep Arafat around. Furthermore, Sharon isn’t eager to relive his traumatic experience in 1982, when, as defense minister, he devised the invasion of Lebanon only to realize that his move was supported by only half the Israeli public. Without the Labor Party, the prime minister would lack a national consensus, and the cracks in Israel’s already fragile and divided society might deepen.

Still, Arafat is politically dead, for two reasons. Israeli leaders, even Laborites, have lost faith in him. And Arafat is a prisoner of his own historic self-image as the “great liberator” of the Palestinian people, which prevents him from making the concessions that Israel demands.

Many Israelis believe that Arafat can be replaced as the head of the Palestinian government through a combination of military force, political pressure and economic strangulation. This is a naive view. Arafat is not only the symbol of Palestinian nationhood. He is also the Palestinian government. Israel can’t create a wedge between him and his government. Toppling Arafat, as Sharon longs to do, would mean destroying the Palestinian Authority. The resulting political vacuum would be filled by extremists and fundamentalist organizations like Islamic Jihad and Hamas, the very parties that have claimed responsibility for the suicide bombings. Would Sharon make peace with them?

Is there a way to peace? The peace formula is not magical. It’s actually simple and well known to most participants and parties in the negotiations. It has been talked about in seemingly endless Israeli and Palestinian meetings since the 1993 Oslo accords. The elements of peace require that Israel withdraw from 97% of the West Bank and Gaza, dismantle all Jewish settlements and accept the division of Jerusalem into two sectors, one as the capital of Israel, the other as the capital of Palestine. The Palestinians will have to give up their dream of returning to the houses in Israel they were expelled from in 1947 and to lock up the terrorist groups threatening Israel’s security.

For both sides, this would be a painful undertaking. A lot of courage, especially of the political kind, would be necessary. Yet, the truth is quite simple. To achieve peace, two new realities would need to be created.

The Israeli government would have to cleanse itself of the idea that military occupation is the sole guarantor of its security and dismantle Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian lands. To become a modern state, the Palestinian Authority would have to stop condoning private armies and terrorist groups in its midst. To accomplish these goals, both sides would have to face up to the worst-case scenario--civil war.

If the Israeli government ended its occupation and ordered Jewish settlers to come home, the result could be fighting between the Israeli police and army and the militias of hard-core settlers. These settlers have sworn never to relocate and have vowed to resist any attempt to remove them through force. They assert they are ready to take up arms and revolt against the state if it orders them to disobey a “divine decree.” Previous Israeli governments have either supported the settlers’ dogma that the land belongs to Israel, as does Sharon, or have been wary of undertaking an unpopular and dangerous domestic battle to oust them.

The Palestinian Authority would similarly face civil war if it moved to disarm radical groups and jail Palestinian terrorists. The prospect of Palestinian killing Palestinian explains in part Arafat’s current resistance to get tough with Hamas.

Still, both the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority have the means and capabilities to create the new realities that are indispenable to peace. If, unfortunately, a civil war or internal violence erupted as a result, that may well be accepted by majorities on both sides because the goal would be a historic peace. And would the casualties of such conflicts exceed those of the last 14 months?

Yet, the Israeli and Palestinian leaders remain prisoners of their old obsessive ways of thinking. They prefer to kill each other with no end in sight.