The Chronikler

Learning from the Sadat years

By Khaled Diab

The Camp David accords between Egypt and Israel remain controversial, but Arabs and Israelis can draw lessons from Anwar el-Sadat's quest for peace.

1 March 2010

Nearly three decades after his death, the former Egyptian president, Anwar el-Sadat, remains a controversial figure. In Israel and many parts of the West, he is best remembered for his daring trip to Jerusalem, where he became the first and only Arab leader to address the Israeli Knesset, and his deadlock-breaking peace accord with Israel.

But the rosy image of Sadat as world statesman, visionary and peacemaker overlook his questionable domestic human rights record, his dictatorial bent, his disastrous economic policy, the insipid corruption of his regime and his aloofness and arrogance towards other Arab countries.

In Egypt and the Arab world, he is celebrated for the victories he scored in the early parts of the 1973 war, the first time an Arab power had shown the titan of Israel’s military might to be vulnerable and so soon after the crushing defeat in 1967.

However, Sadat’s subsequent peace deal with Israel was far more controversial. Although many Arab leaders privately accepted that peace with Israel was necessary and inevitable – including Sadat’s predecessor Gamal Abdel-Nasser who conducted promising secret peace contacts with then Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett – none at the time were bold enough to say it publicly. Rather than working with Sadat to create a unified Arab position to negotiations, they turned on him instead.

In Egypt, opinion was and remains divided, with many viewing the Camp David Accords as a betrayal. However, most Egyptians, tired of what is widely viewed as the Arab desire to defend the Palestinian cause to “the very last Egyptian”, grudgingly accept the benefits of a cold peace.

Today, with a general Arab consensus on the need for a settlement with Israel, as embodied in the Saudi peace plan, criticism of Sadat has become more muted and nuanced: his vision is accepted, though his unilateral tactics are still widely questioned.

Now, with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict looking as dire and insoluble as ever, what lessons can be learnt from the Sadat experiment?

One important lesson is the importance of symbolism and gesture politics in helping prospective peacemakers scale the walls of paranoia and distrust that separate Israelis and Arabs.

On both sides, many will say that the obstacles to peace – an ultranationalist, right-wing government in Israel, the rise of ultra-conservative Hamas in Gaza, the deadly Israeli siege of the Strip and the disarray and infighting among the Palestinian factions – are insurmountable. But things didn’t look particularly rosy back in the mid-1970s either, when war seemed to be the only show in town.

Then, as now, Israel was led by an ideologically rigid right-wing prime minister who, though he talked of the need for peace, was reluctant to negotiate with the Arabs or give up an inch of the dream of creating Eretz Yisrael. By going to Jerusalem and appealing to the Israeli people directly, Sadat forced Menachem Begin’s hand with a deft masterstroke.

Today’s Arab leaders could do well to learn that, faced with a powerful opponent who nevertheless fears them, a standoffish offer of peace, no matter how attractive, means little when it comes from a great distance. It needs to be delivered in person wrapped in olive branches.

In fact, the need for direct contact and negotiations between politicians from Israel and the frontline Arab states, not to mention the Arab and Israeli peoples, is greater than ever, given the level of mutual dehumanisation and distrust. That does not mean that economic and political ties should be immediately normalised – that will be one of the fruits of eventual peace – but there should be a broad and sincere dialogue and cultural exchange between those on both sides who wish to build enduring peace.

Israel could also draw similar lessons about the value of direct contact. Separated as they are behind physical and ideological walls, ordinary Israelis have negligible contact with their Palestinian neighbours, the people they most need to understand and coexist with. Israel needs to learn the language of its neighbourhood and start dealing with the Palestinians and Arabs in a way that will win them over – a good start would be to end its destructive and counterproductive blockade of Gaza.

In addition, both Israelis and Palestinians need to learn that violence has failed to resolve the conflict and will continue to do so. Israel needs to learn that its gung-ho “deterrent policy” deters little but the prospect for peace, while the Palestinian factions who advocate and employ violence need to realise that it achieves little beyond provoking the wrath of their powerful neighbour. Both sides would do well to learn from the tactics employed by their non-violent peace movements.

In the end, pragmatism is the only solution. As Sadat said in a 1978 speech in Cairo: “Peace is much more precious than a piece of land… let there be no more wars.”

It’s high time for Arabs to overcome their reticence to talk directly with Israel and for Israel to overcome its reluctance to negotiate a simultaneous settlement on all fronts. What we need, but are unlikely to get, is a comprehensive settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

This article was written for the Common Ground News Service on 25 February 2010.

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Israel’s welcome barrier

By Osama Diab

Israel is building a new anti-migrant barrier along its Egyptian border – leaving Mubarak's regime with one problem fewer.

20 January 2010

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Palestinian reconciliation through the ballot box

By Khaled Diab

To break the destructive deadlock between Fatah and Hamas, Mahmoud Abbas should step down as Palestinian president, call immediate elections and organise referenda on the future course of the Palestinian struggle.

23 October 2009

Cursed as they are with bad leadership, the sad saga of the Palestinian people fluctuates between tragedy and farce. As if contending with a crushing occupation, embargoes, closures and the complete physical separation of the West Bank and Gaza were not enough, over the past couple of years, they have also seen the two parties supposedly representing them descend into petty and bloody factionalism.

To top it all off, one party is pragmatic and moderate but has failed to deliver peace or improve life for Palestinians. Instead, it has become aloof to the population, is rotten to the core with corruption and is widely perceived, with all the international funds flowing into its coffers and the American general Keith Dayton wielding significant control over the Palestinian Authority’s  security forces in the West Bank, to have become a kind of mercenary force for the Israeli occupation.

But the frying pan of the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority may prove to be nothing compared with the fire and brimstone of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). Hamas may be less corrupt - for now - but it is ideologically fanatical, has been working hard to purge dissent in Gaza, is already restricting the freedom of Palestinians on the Strip, especially women, and, given its ideological rejection of Israel as a Jewish state, is far less willing to compromise with the Israelis. Of course, Israel and the international community did nothing to engage with Hamas’s early overtures towards moderation and, instead, punished Gaza, causing the party to harden its position and rhetoric.

With this poison and bitterness filling the air, it was perhaps optimistic to expect Egypt’s efforts - despite the country’s long experience as a mediator - to broker a truce between the two parties to reach fruition, especially since US president Barack Obama’s shift in rhetoric has not yet been matched by any shifts in reality.

The talks ostensibly broke down because of Hamas’s anger over the PA’s delay in endorsing the Goldstone report into Israeli war crimes in Gaza, which also criticises Hamas - albeit to a lesser extent - for targeting Israeli civilians. The party went so far as to accuse Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of betraying the victims of the Israeli offensive.

However, given how fundamentally the two factions differ and how Hamas appears to want to take over the helm of the Palestinian cause, it could just as well have been anything else. So, even if Egyptian diplomats manage to pull a rabbit out of the hat, any deal could quickly run against the rocks, particularly as trust of both Fateh and the Egyptians - who are perceived as agents of America and collaborators with Israel by certain segments of the Palestinian and wider Arab population - is low.

It is abundantly clear that Abbas, whose position keeps changing with the winds, has lost the plot and the only parties who continue to support his presidency are the Americans and Israelis. But this support is misguided. The presence of a weak and unpopular Palestinian president may serve the interests of extremists, for whom the prospect of continued Palestinian infighting is convenient, but it does little to forward the long-term prospects for peace.

To my mind, it is time for Abbas - who was once respected as a key architect of the Oslo accords and hammered out a workable blueprint for comprehensive peace with Yossi Beilin, which was derailed by the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin - to go, in dignity, and make room for the people to decide.

Abbas has already said repeatedly that the only way out of the impasse with Hamas is through the ballot box. But instead of delaying elections till the middle of next year, as Egypt has proposed, they should go ahead as scheduled in January - or earlier, if possible. In the meantime, Abbas should resign and hold his position only in a caretaker capacity until a new president is elected.

In addition, the issues facing the Palestinians are too controversial and complex to be left to any one party to decide. I believe that a series of referenda - financed by the international community - should be conducted on crucial questions of war and peace: negotiation v's confrontation; violence v's non-violence; two states or one; civil rights or national rights; Jerusalem, refugees, etc. A similar exercise should also be carried out among Israelis to crystallise what kind of future they desire.

Equipped with such clear expressions of popular will, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators can engage with a clear mandate, assuming that both sides’ vision for the future is compatible or, at the very least, reconcilable.

Personally, I hope neither Fatah nor Hamas win the elections. The Palestinians deserve a change of guard. Though I’m not Palestinian, my vote goes to Mustafa Barghouti and his Palestinian National Initiative.

This is an extended version of an article written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNS). It first appeared in the Chicago Tribune on 21 October 2009, and in the Kuwait Times and Newsobserver.com on 22 October 2009.

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Middle East: a Belgian solution?

By Khaled Diab

Northern Ireland offers one model for Israeli-Palestinian peace. But a dose of Belgian pragmatism wouldn't go amiss either.

16 October 2009

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Hallucinatory states

By Khaled Diab

Instead of obsessing over how their identities clash, Israelis and Palestinians need to focus more attention on where they mesh.

30 August 2009

AR version

The rise to power of Hamas, Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu represents a frightening hardening of nationalistic visions that does not bode well for the future. Instead of obsessing over how their identities clash, Israelis and Palestinians need to focus more attention on where they mesh.

For all their mutual loathing and animosity, these extremist Israeli and Palestinian parties have one thing in common: their political vision of the future has no space for the other side except as a vanquished, subject people.

Under immense pressure from the United States, however, Israel’s hardline Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu went against his own convictions and his Likud party’s platform and, for the first time, grudgingly and conditionally accepted the eventual emergence of an independent Palestinian state.

Similarly, on the other side of the divide, Hamas’s charter also rejects the existence of a Jewish state, but the extremist Islamist party has modified its rejectionist stance since it came to power by offering Israel tacit recognition and a 10-year truce if it withdraws to the pre-1967 borders.

Needless to say, both positions are still unacceptable to the other side. Yet again, peace based on two independent states seems to have stalled in the concept phase, with the key difference being that, in the Oslo years, some real progress was made on the ground.

So, why is it that the two-state solution, despite having been the only diplomatic show in town for nearly two decades, never seems capable of making the leap from the notional to the real?

Part of the problem is the enormous power disparity between the two sides. Ideologically tinged perception is another major hurdle. At their core, many streams within Zionist and Palestinian nationalism are rooted in a claim to the entire territory of Mandate Palestine. In such a climate, concessions are seen not as pragmatic attempts to coexist but as acts of treachery of the highest order.

In the 1970s, some PLO members, such as the organisation’s London representative, Said Hammami, advocated the two-state option and paid for it with their lives. Meanwhile, their Israeli counterparts, such as the peacenik and journalist Uri Avnery, were ostracised and demonised. During the Oslo years, Yitzhak Rabin, despite treading a cautious and slow path that undermined the peace process, also paid for his “betrayal” with his life.

Albert Einstein once described nationalism as “the measles of the human race”. In the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict, I would hazard to liken it to an immune system which evolved originally to defend against oppression and weakness but which has grown over the years into a cancer corroding the humanity of all those involved.

Like the 19th-century European models upon which they are based, Arab and Jewish nationalism started off as a quest for self-determination. However, the medicine that sought to cure oppression and overcome weakness quickly morphed into a dangerous and highly addictive hallucinogen which has led the most hardcore abusers on such a wild trip that they have become almost entirely detached from reality. Many people have woken up to the terrible side effects of the nationalism drug, but fear the withdrawal symptoms too much to kick the habit or allow themselves to be lured back into the opium den by charismatic pushers like Avigdor Lieberman or Khaled Meshaal.

With Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu and Hamas currently calling the shots, it is hard to imagine that there was once a time when identities were more fluid – when the term “Palestinian” also encompassed Jews, when Middle Eastern Jews freely identified themselves and were seen as “Arabs”, while some European Jews, including Britain’s only prime minister of Jewish extraction, Benjamin Disraeli, held the romantic notion that they were “Mosaic Arabs”.

But after a century of conflict, perceptions have hardened and identities have narrowed to the extent that the mere suggestion that Israelis and Arabs have something in common is widely regarded as an insult.

But if this conflict is ever to be resolved, we need to invade this common ground, occupy it and make it our own. For both sides, the prospect of dividing up the land into two separate states is painful because it would deprive them of access to areas of great symbolic and emotional value. Acknowledging that Israelis and Palestinians actually live in a single country, and striving to make that state a fairer one that serves all its people, will avoid this distressing carve-up.

We need a bi-national confederated state made up of an autonomous, secular Israeli and Palestinian component – each of which can keep the cultural trappings of nationhood, such as the flag and national anthem. Freedom of movement within this federation would ensure that Israelis and Palestinians have access to all the places they hold sacred and dear, such as Jerusalem, Hebron and Jaffa. In this scenario the energies currently consumed by conflict can be re-diverted to creating prosperity for all.

By recognising that Israelis and Palestinians possess equal stakes in a common homeland, one can do away with the familiar and uncompromising terms of reference of who holds historic title to the land, of occupation and resistance, of terrorism and retaliation, of Cane and Abel, of David and Goliath.

This column first appeared in the Jerusalem Post on 26 August 2009. It was written as part of a special series on nationalism for the Common Ground News Service.

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The God veto

By Khaled Diab

Belief in the sacredness of the holy land has long bedevilled the quest for peace. It’s time to challenge the ‘God veto’.

September 2008

The possibility that Tzipi Livni will become Israel’s next prime minister has re-ignited hopes of a breakthrough in the peace process, but chances are we are probably in for yet another false dawn.

Why is it that, since the 1990s, efforts to reach a two-state resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been going round and round in vicious circles, while the situation on the ground has been deteriorating constantly?

There are no shortage of thorny practical issues – from the question of Palestinian refugees to final borders – standing in the way of a deal, not to mention the power disparity between the two sides, but what role does rigid religious or pseudo-religious ideology play in perpetuating the struggle?

To get an idea, we need to rewind to the most hopeful period of the Oslo years. Finally at ease in his role as a dove, Yitzhak Rabin, the one-time hawk, soared on the wings of the biggest mass demonstration in Israeli history. “This rally must send a message to the Israeli public, to the Jews of the world, to the multitudes in the Arab lands and in the world at large,” he urged the 150,000-strong crowd that had turned out to hear him speak in Tel Aviv, “that the nation of Israel wants peace.”

The message was apparently all too clear to the hawks that had been circling around the then prime minister ever since he had decided to talk directly to his one-time archenemy Yasser Arafat and the PLO.

On that autumn night, 4 November 1995, Rabin paid for his “betrayal” with his life. The assassination sent shockwaves across the country, the region and the world, with that rare spectacle of Arabs expressing grief for a slain Israeli politician.

The killer was Yigal Amir, a university student who was a far-right religious Zionist. After his arrest, he told police that he had acted on “the orders of God”. Reflecting the distrust and hate elicited among the settler movement, Amir confessed to a later Commission of Inquiry: “I felt as if I was shooting a terrorist.”

Although religious and revisionist Zionists quickly distanced themselves from the murder, many Israelis are convinced that, even if Amir pulled the trigger, the extremists provided him with the ideological ammo. The settler movement had accused Rabin of planning to withdraw to “Auschwitz borders” and Orthodox rabbis had called on soldiers to disobey any orders to evacuate any part of the West Bank.

Rabin’s grieving widow, Leah, refused to shake hands with the Likud’s Binyamin Netanyahu, one of the staunchest and most vitriolic opponents of Rabin’s peace overtures, but shook Arafat’s. “I feel that we can find a common language with the Arabs more easily than we can with the Jewish extremists,” she said.

The Likud and other revisionist Zionists, the right-wing religious parties and the settler movement oppose the peace process because they advocate the annexation and settlement of the whole of Eretz Israel (Land of Israel), the vaguely defined Biblical territory which God “promised” to Abraham. “Settlement of the land is a clear expression of the unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel,” reads the Likud party’s platform.

Even the ostensibly more pragmatic religious party Shas, which is vaguely in favour of making some concessions to the Palestinians, advocates the ‘Greater Israel’ enterprise. Despite his ‘fatwa’ that the sanctity of human lives is more important than that of the land, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Sha’s spiritual leader, instructed his men to leave Rabin’s government in protest against the Oslo accords and, again in July 2000, the rabbi withdrew Shas from Ehud Barak’s government to undermine the Camp David summit.

But it is not just extremist Israelis who believe they own a divine deed to the land, Palestinian Islamists, such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad possess the inverse view. According to Hamas’s 1988 charter, “Palestine has been an Islamic Waqf (endowment) throughout the generations and until the Day of Resurrection, no one can renounce it or part of it, or abandon it or part of it.”

Unsurprisingly then, Hamas – created during the first intifada as a reaction to the increasingly oppressive Israeli occupation and the increasing willingness of Palestinian secularists to reach an accommodation with Israel – was incensed by Oslo and started a suicide bombing campaign to undermine the process. This, coupled with the death toll and humiliation inflicted by the Israeli military on the Palestinian population, sought to chip away at public confidence in the peace process on both sides and to restore mutual distrust.

An Arabic proverb talks of people who kill and then lead the funeral procession. And that is what the extremists seem to be on the verge of doing with the two-state solution. On the Israeli side, Rabin’s murder marked the beginning of the end for the moderates and pragmatists. A shaken Shimon Peres was unable to regain momentum and shot himself in the foot with his Grapes of Wrath invasion of Lebanon, and the election of Binyamin Netanyahu sounded the final death knell for the Oslo process.

On the Palestinian side, the continued failure of the Palestinian Authority to deliver an independent state, as well as its endemic corruption, strengthened the hand of the extremists, propelling Hamas to a series of local election victories, crowned by their success in the 2006 parliamentary elections.

Israeli and Palestinian extremists achieved this by having the unshakable drive and conviction – one could say ‘delusion’ – to take advantage of the fractured political landscape, by preying on the fear and distrust of the enemy, and by hoodwinking the electorate. For instance, Hamas dropped the call for the destruction of Israel from its election manifesto prior to the 2006 election, while Netanyahu promised to respect the peace process and deliver “peace with security”.

What the extremists have been unable to answer is what to do with the elephant in the room: the millions from the ‘enemy camp’? How do they achieve their fantasies of territorial maximalism without having to oppress an entire people permanently, which is impossible?

Neither Jewish nor Palestinian extremists are likely to abandon their ultimate dreams easily, but there are signs that they can be pushed to become more practical and pragmatic. Ariel Sharon, the die-hard warhorse, broke away from the Likud he founded to take a somewhat more pragmatic path with his new Kadima party. The responsibilities of office have shown that Hamas can be more accommodating than its past suggests, with the Islamist party indicating its willingness to end its armed struggle with Israel in return for a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 borders. Unfortunately, the Israelis and international community have failed to engage with Hamas.

Despite the best efforts of the extremists, the Israeli and Palestinian public still crave peace, as poll after poll confirms, but agreeing a fair price for it is the challenge. The Oslo process had many faults: its fixation on Israel’s short-term security and its vagueness on the shape and form of a Palestinian state; accelerated settlement building, as well as the deferral of all the thorny issues to the final status talks. However, given the current hopeless mess, one cannot help feel a window of opportunity closed with Rabin’s assassination.

Had Rabin lived, the final status talks which were due to start on 4 May 1996 may have led somewhere, rather than the empty shell they proved to be. After all, six months earlier, with Rabin and Arafat’s blessing, a blueprint for a mutually acceptable deal was hammered out in secret talks under the auspices of Yossi Beilin and Mahmoud Abbas.

The two-state solution is on life-support and if it is to be saved, the passive majority needs to mobilise in opposition of those who continuously veto the quest for peace by invoking the wrath of God. As any just deity would now, it is the sanctity of people, not land, which matters.

This column appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 18 September 2008. Read the related discussion.

This is an archive piece that was migrated to this website from Diabolic Digest

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People of the border

By Osama Diab

Rafah, a city divided between Gaza and Egypt, and between war and peace, prays for the opening of the border crossing.

January 2009

Ambulance workers at the Rafah border crossing. Image © Copyright Osama Diab.

The Rafah border crossing has sparked endless controversy since the start of the Israeli attacks on Gaza on December 27. Egypt’s point-blank refusal to open the border is interpreted by many in the Arab world as a gesture of support for Israel’s war on Gaza, mainly to weaken Hamas, which has ties to Egypt’s outlawed but often tolerated Muslim Brotherhood. The visit of the Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni a few hours before the attacks confirmed, in the minds of many, the doubts that Egypt might have been notified, turning scepticism into certainty about Egypt’s position on the war. Demonstrations were held outside Egyptian embassies in almost every Arab capital and many European cities.

The Egyptian government is furious at the accusations and stated that Egypt’s support for the Palestinian cause is indisputable. President Hosni Mubarak says opening the crossing will deepen the divide between Gaza and the West Bank. He also described the opening of the border as an “Israeli trap”, and that once Egypt opened the crossing unconditionally, Israel would go ahead and close its borders with Gaza.

Leaving this political storm behind, I travelled to the border town of Rafah to see for myself what the people who live closest to the crossing, and the war, think about the conflict, and how it affects them. An air of gloom and doom hung over the small town. All the streets leading to the borders were blocked by the army and it seemed that the only people on the streets were there for necessity.

Under the terms of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, the agreed border separated the then-Israeli occupied Gaza from Egypt by cutting the town of Rafah into two halves. However, both sides of the town still share a lot in common, and many still have extended family on the other side of the border. And with Palestinian kufiyas wrapped around most necks and people speaking a more Palestinian than Egyptian dialect, the people of Egyptian Rafah still share a lot with their Palestinian neighbours, despite the divide.

“What is happening in Gaza is a shame. I can’t describe how I feel, but I always pray for my brothers in Gaza,” said Ahmed Abdel-Hamid, a shopkeeper in Egyptian Rafah. “The effect of the war on us is dire; the ground shakes under us every time Israel sends a bomb. We are afraid and we feel that death is near.”

The opening of the crossing has economic benefits and brings money into Egyptian Rafah. When Gazans destroyed part of the border wall on January 23, 2008, tens of thousands of people from the Strip flooded into Rafah and the nearby town of Arish to buy supplies that were scarce due to the siege on their city. The hole in the wall meant Gazans could buy up a couple of weeks of supplies and cash for the people of Egyptian Rafah people. It was reported that everything was sold for up to triple its normal market price.

Ayman, our driver in Rafah, described it best when he said that the government should open the border because the Gazans desperately need supplies and Rafah’s people are desperate for money. Moreover, with the border open permanently, this kind of profiteering could be eliminated, enabling Gazans to get their supplies at decent prices and generating a constant stream of business for locals in Rafah.

The general fear that if the border is open, Gazans, out of desperation, will flood into Sinai and sound the death knell for the Strip. The Egyptians of Rafah and Arish disagree and believe that Gazans will get what they need and head back to their homes because they do not want to leave Palestine and their land. “Gazans are attached to their land and don’t want to leave Palestine. If they had the intention to leave, they would’ve done so a long time ago,” argues Abdel-Hamid.

It seems that the people of the border are more relaxed than the Egyptian government about opening the crossing. They are convinced it won’t have the serious consequences Cairo claims and fears. Egyptian officials may be project on the Gazans what they would do if they were in their shoes. Most would think, and no one would blame them, that it is wise to escape the violence that has already claimed more than 800 Gazan lives, but this is not necessarily how people who have fought a lifetime for their land behave.

Since opening the border can save the lives of hundreds of women and children by letting people temporarily out of the war zone and letting doctors in, and since the people who are going to be directly affected by it on the Egyptian side are actually calling for it, why not just open it up?

Egypt’s position on this war is very similar to its position on the Lebanon war two years ago, when Mubarak called Hizbullah’s action an “adventure”, accusing the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah of dragging his whole nation into war. History is repeating itself and Mubarak is also accusing Hamas of being adventurous and dragging Gaza into war. Blaming the war entirely on Hamas is an opinion only shared by Mubarak, Bush and Israeli politicians. It makes a lot of sense, since Egypt’s leadership, the US and Israel share the same enemy, militant Islamic groups.

My argument has always been that Islamic groups are hindering political reform in Egypt because their presence is used by secular regimes as an excuse to become more oppressive. But what the United States, Egypt and Israel are doing is creating unprecedented support for these groups on the Egyptian street, which will only lead to more political complexity and turmoil. Egypt’s regime should offer a viable alternative to what Hamas and Hizbullah offer, and a good move will be opening the crossing to reduce the effect of the war and siege on Gaza.

© Copyright Osama Diab. All rights reserved.

This is an archive piece that was migrated to this website from Diabolic Digest

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Profits of war

By Khaled Diab

The economic rewards of peace are supposed to lure Israelis and Palestinians away from conflict. But what if war is its own reward?

January 2009

The heart-wrenching carnage and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza – and the mass fear in southern Israel – is made all the more tragic by the fact that it seems to follow a well-rehearsed script of tense silences followed by sudden, spasmodic eruptions of violence.

Just as the war against Lebanon in 2006 was as shocking as it was sudden and was triggered by the flimsiest of pretexts, the reinvasion of Gaza has also struck like a whirlwind. And just like Lebanon in 2006 and 1982 – as well as the reinvasions of the Palestinian territories following the outbreak of the al-Aqsa intifada and the election victory of Hamas – the current campaign is unlikely to bring Israelis anything more than a little tense respite.

Like Hamas, which seems incapable of realising the futility of armed struggle and declaring a non-violent peace movement, Israel appears to be completely beholden to the logic of the battering ram. This raises the question of why it is that, despite all the evidence that overwhelming force simply does not work, Israel still has not abandoned its prized “deterrence” policy.

The tragedy in Gaza could be seen as a desperate bid by Israel to reassert its sense of lost deterrence, or simply as another cynical bid by the Kadima leadership to boost their ailing popularity before next month’s elections.

But there are many other factors at play, too. In the past, I’ve explored the role of ideology, including what I call the ‘God veto’, political fragmentation and psychological barriers in perpetuating the conflict. In addition to these, there is an increasingly prominent economic dimension.

At one time, war for Israel meant economic paralysis and crisis, but was sustained by a mesmerising ideology, the fresh memory of persecution and a large array of potentially frightening enemies. But even with Israel as the undisputed regional military superpower and its former enemies falling one by one by the wayside, Israeli violence has risen significantly in recent years, especially towards the Palestinians.

This is partly because a durable peace with the Palestinians requires more fundamental compromises than with the Egyptians and Jordanians as a fair settlement raises issues that strike at the heart of Zionism. Another reason is that, after so many generations, conflict has not only become intrinsically interwoven into Israel’s social fabric, it has also become hardwired into its economy.

During the Oslo years, Shimon Peres – who favoured a “peace of markets” before a “peace of flags” – and the Labour party were backed by influential members of the business community who were lured by the peace dividend Israel could earn from a resolution to the conflict. But under rightwing stewardship in recent years, the Israeli economy has been profiting from its own and global conflict and insecurity.

In fact, for the past few years, Israel has enjoyed one of the highest economic growth rates in the world, and is still registering healthy growth even as western economies falter. Much of this growth has been fuelled by the high-tech ‘Silicon Wadi’ sector, much of it security-related technologies, and arms.

According to the Israel Export and International Co-operation Institute, security and homeland security exports reached $3 billion in 2005. In 2007, Israel overtook Britain to become the world’s fourth largest weapons exporter, selling a total of $4 billion in arms.

On top of that, since the bursting of the dot-com bubble, Israel has boosted its military spending, partly to help salvage high-tech firms. Last year, proved to be yet another record year, with the country’s defence budget subsuming a massive 16% of government spending and 7% of GDP. Add to that, the average $3 billion in military aid which Israel receives from the United States each year, and you have a truly staggering economic dependence on the way of the gun.

This is not to say that this is necessarily a war dividend for Israel as a whole, but those involved wield a powerful lobby. In addition, Israel does not seem to be paying a massive war premium. High-tech industries do not require Israel to be on good terms with its neighbours, while with most western economies, it’s business as usual, regardless of the political situation on the ground. The EU, as a whole, remains Israel’s main trading partner, with bilateral trade at around €20 billion, followed closely by the United States.

Moreover, low-intensity flare-ups seem to give the markets some welcome jolts. Between 27 December, when the Gaza offensive began, and 5 January, the benchmark TA-25 stock index climbed an impressive 8.7%. Similarly, the index gained 3.6% in July 2006 during the Lebanon campaign. In addition, Israel and the occupied territories are slowly being transformed into macabre showcases for security products.

Israel has even managed to wean itself off its dependence on Palestinian labour, with the massive influx of Russian Jews who arrived in massive numbers in the 1990s. This has enabled Israel to close off the Palestinian territories without feeling major economic pain itself. In contrast to Israel, the massive economic deterioration – along with the political deadlock – triggered by the mass closures that began in the Oslo years, suggested to many Palestinians that the quest for peace would not deliver them a dividend, a frustration which culminated in the second intifada.

In addition, while a small elite profits from the political instability and insecurity, the ongoing conflict serves the additional purpose of distracting ordinary Israelis from the growing levels of poverty into which they are descending – much like Arab leaders have exploited the demise of Palestinians.

In conclusion, a sort of alignment of convenience has emerged between influential segments of Israel’s economic elite and ideological opponents of the peace process. Add to that, the revolving door between the military and the upper echelons of politics and industry, and the “war economy” locomotive appears even harder to derail.

This column appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 11 January 2009. Read the related discussion.

This is an archive piece that was migrated to this website from Diabolic Digest

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States of confusion

By Khaled Diab

As the dust settles on Gaza, is the best vision for the future of the Middle East a one, two or three-state solution?

February 2009

The fragile two-week-old truce between Israel and Hamas looked in danger of collapsing this weekend as Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, threatened a “disproportionate response” following the firing from Gaza – though not by Hamas, this time – of some two rockets at southern Israel on Sunday, causing no damage or casualties. Israel has already launched air strikes and says more could be on the way.

Does this mean that Olmert is considering resuming Israel’s 22-day pummelling of Gaza which left 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis dead, and the Strip’s infrastructure reduced to dust, including some 20,000 homes destroyed or damaged? And to what end?

That either side should claim victory in Gaza shows just how warped perceptions are – the mighty can’t win in this asymmetric war, but neither can the weak.

As foreseen by so many, Israel’s bloody offensive failed to destroy Hamas or even stop the rocket attacks – yet the overwhelming majority of Israelis approved of the assault (93%, according to one poll commissioned by the Ma’ariv newspaper).

I got a sense of the extent of this support when an Israeli Buddhist we’d encountered in India phoned me to discuss Gaza. Despite being a declared pacifist and the obvious degree to which the carnage in Gaza distressed him, he was entirely convinced that “this time, there was no other option”. The idea of dialogue and removing the blockade strangling the Palestinians didn’t seem to have occurred to him.

In addition to the extra hatred among the Palestinians and the international condemnation it has fostered, the offensive has not delivered any sizeable domestic gains for Israel’s self-serving government, with all signs suggesting that the Likud’s ultra-hardline Binyamin Netanyahu is on track to win the upcoming election.

Hamas’s own declaration of victory was both surreal and depressing. To my mind, there is a gaping chasm between triumph and simple survival. Just because Hamas was not wiped out – after all, no one, except the Israelis and their cheerleaders, expected such a well-establishment movement to be – that does not mean they won.

In fact, by any objective standards, the losses Gaza suffered will take years to repair. This makes the use of puny slingshot rockets, which bring no military or political advantage, seem counterproductive and even masochistic.

Against this backdrop, Barack Obama dispatched his special envoy George Mitchell to the region on a “listening” tour – although his ear did not extend as far as Hamas. The message seems to be that Obama intends to carry on from where Bill Clinton left off and revive the two-state peace process.

However, this is the same Mitchell whose previous efforts in the Middle East, under Bill Clinton, only succeeded in plotting the course for the Quartet’s ‘road map’ to nowhere which now lies somewhere in the political wilderness. In the intervening years, the situation has grown decidedly worse and positions have hardened, which does not bode well for his efforts, especially given America’s long-standing reticence to apply pressure on Israel.

If these efforts are likely to stall, what other options are there?

John Bolton, the US’s hawkish former ambassador to the UN, has proposed what he calls the three-state option, with Jordan gaining control over the West Bank and Gaza swallowed up by Egypt. The “Jordan option” has been popular among Israel’s leadership since the 1967 war, but does not wash with the Palestinians who do not regard returning to Egyptian and Jordanian rule as constituting the self-determination they seek. Jordan and Egypt are also not keen on this option.

A growing number of voices – mainly on the Palestinian side – have been advocating the one-state solution. Even Libya’s eccentric and whimsical Muammar Gaddafi has weighed in on the debate. Despite the surprising eloquence of his appeal, I doubt the Libyan dictator will win many supporters over to the idea in Israel, where it is regarded as an existential threat, an extension of the conflict by other means.

Personally, I am in favour of a federalised bi-national state eventually emerging, since a single state already exists, it only needs to be made fairer – but I don’t hold out much hope of it coming about any time soon.

What this one, two, three focus overlooks is that there is zero trust and too much animosity and hatred on the part of Israelis and Palestinians – and too little international willpower – to make any solution work. We don’t need grand visions. What is required are measures to improve the situation and efforts to galvanise and mobilise the grassroots, who are so often ignored yet constitute the most important component of any eventual resolution.

One option I have advocated is to transform the conflict into a civil rights struggle dealing with concrete civil rights. In addition, the embattled and shrinking Israeli peace movement needs to be strengthened, and one way to achieve that is for Palestinian and Arab peace activists to join their Israeli counterparts in an umbrella movement built around civil rights.

In the mean time, to restore hope, we need to improve conditions for Palestinians, especially in Gaza. In addition to international assistance, Israel should be weighed upon to fulfil its obligations to ensuring Palestinian economic well-being as an occupying power. A powerful gesture that Obama could make to show he means business when he talks of peace would be to turn guns into olive branches by diverting the $3 billion the US gives to Israel in military aid towards programmes to support the Palestinian, and Israeli, poor. The EU could also downgrade Israel’s special status.

Gaza, the most densely populated place on earth, urgently needs to reconnect to the outside world and gain more living space. Since a Palestinian state seems like a dim and distant prospect, Egypt should not only open its borders with Gaza, but should declare a certain part of the border area on the Egyptian side a ‘Freedom Zone’ where Palestinians from Gaza can settle. Of course, a referendum of locals living in any proposed Freedom Zone would first need to be conducted to ensure that there is sufficient domestic support for such an idea. The oil-rich Arab states and other donors would then be invited to fund the development of the area.

I have long hesitated before advocating such a radical option. If Egypt hands over part of its territory to the Palestinians, this could be seen as rewarding Israel for its belligerence. To ensure that Israel does not read this as an end to its responsibilities, Egypt would not officially cede the territory to the Palestinians and would continue to support and push for an independent Palestinian state – once a resolution is reached, Cairo may decide to give it as a gift to the Palestinian people or let it stand as a Freedom Zone. More importantly, regardless of how Israel interprets it, the humanitarian imperative has grown too compelling and continued inaction is not an option.

Such a gesture would not just be good for the people of Gaza, but would also be good for the Egyptian government, which is facing popular anger and outrage for the role it played in besieging the Strip. Moreover, this part of Egypt is relatively under-populated and so an influx of hard-working, ambitious people could help boost its fortunes, rather like the flood of Palestinian refugees transformed Amman.

This column appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 2 February 2009. Read the related discussion.

This is an archive piece that was migrated to this website from Diabolic Digest

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Flower power in Gaza

By Khaled Diab

The Dutch have employed some novel flower power to persuade Israel to relax its embargo on Gaza. Now it’s time to end the blockade.

February 2009

Valentine’s Day – that festival of naff consumerism and kitsch infatuation – is not an occasion close to our heart. Love is a year-round ethereal pursuit and efforts to box it in on a particular day or package it in the form of cards, chocolates and flowers does not appeal.

But this year, I’m feeling a little more charitable towards old Saint Valentine after he made a foray into the Middle East. While Gazans, living amid the rubble of the recent Israeli invasion, are unlikely to be celebrating Valentine’s this year, the festival could mark a small step towards breaking the siege under which they live.

Literally, in a display of flower power in action, the Dutch government persuaded Israel to loosen its blockade of Gaza and let through a shipment of Valentine’s carnations destined for the Netherlands – the first exports from Gaza in a year.

The Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen decided that the best way his country could start to mend fences was to say it with flowers. “The Netherlands would like to help the Palestinians pick up the pieces and give them a chance for a better future through Israeli-Palestinian economic co-operation,” he said.

It may surprise many to learn that the Netherlands, the world’s foremost flower trader, is importing carnations from Gaza, where more things seem to go boom than bloom. However, prior to the Israeli embargo, Gaza had a blossoming flower industry.

With its mild coastal climate and well-drained soil, the Gaza Strip is ideal for commercial flower cultivation. As a reflection of this, there are more than a hundred small flowers farms across the Gaza Strip, and they employ some 7,000 farm workers. But Israel has barred even this harmless cash earner – a wilting wreath on the tombstone of the Gazan economy.

“Shame on Israel. But shame on the Palestinian Authority, too… And shame on the European Union, because they have done nothing either. Why are they standing back in silence and allowing this to happen to us. Tell me – what is the security risk in exporting flowers?” asked one despondent farmer last year.

The Gaza Flower Growers’ Association estimates that the Strip used to export some 40 million flowers a year – other estimates are as much as double that. “We had to feed the flowers to the animals because we couldn't export them,” said Mohammed Khalil, the association’s head. “We are afraid of losing our reputation in Europe and are afraid to plan ahead.”

While the 25,000 flowers that have been let through are hardly going to make much of a difference to the desperate situation in Gaza – which is grappling with mass unemployment, severe food shortages and a $2 billion tab for the recent destruction – the gesture does carry a symbolic value which highlights, somewhat poetically, the human tragedy Israel’s longstanding blockade has triggered.

Now it’s time for Israel to realise that showing a little bit of love for Valentine’s is not enough; it, and the international community, must break the stranglehold on Gaza and end the embargo. Likewise, Egypt must open its borders crossing, too.

This column appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 14 February 2009. Read the related discussion.

This is an archive piece that was migrated to this website from Diabolic Digest

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