The Road to Hell by Akiva Eldar

The following is an interview by Akiva Eldar of Haaretz in the June 22 edition with Dr. Matti Steinberg, a former Shin Bet advisor and currently a professor at Hebrew University. It is a devastating critique of Israeli policy -- and by implication, US policy --over the past fifteen years in dealing with the Palestinians. Long but worth reading.

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Last update - 22:46 21/06/2008
The road to hell
By Akiva Eldar

It is no coincidence that Dr. Matti Steinberg decided to conclude his book about Palestinian consciousness with a verse from Jewish sources: "Blessed is he who does not speak peace only with his tongue, and in his heart there is peace for all. Cursed is he who speaks peace with his tongue, and in his heart there is no peace" (2 Enoch). In Steinberg's story, those who speak peace only with their tongue are not necessarily speakers of Arabic, and those who have peace in their heart are not necessarily Jews.

"There is no national 'other' with whom we are more intimate than the Palestinian 'other,'" Steinberg, who was an adviser to three Shin Bet security service chiefs, writes. "Perhaps through them we will be able to learn about ourselves." Steinberg, an expert on Islamic and Middle Eastern affairs from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is considered one of the world's leading authorities on the Palestinian national movement.

Steinberg seeks to provide a response to Montaigne's plaint that we would do well to examine ourselves and devote to the study of ourselves the same time we spend in observing others and getting to know what is outside ourselves. Steinberg has not made do with the academic study of the conflict and its history. For over two decades he has been trying to open the eyes of prime ministers and senior cabinet ministers, Shin Bet chiefs and ranking Israel Defense Forces officers. His jeremiads contain not a whiff of peacenik romanticism. "Even if peace is achieved with the Palestinians, this will not usher in an idyllic pastoral age," he writes, "but there is a big difference between a tolerable situation and an intolerable one. Israel's avoidance or evasion of paying the set price of a settlement is fraught with far greater danger to its very existence as a democratic Jewish state than ceding part of the territory."

Based entirely on primary sources in Arabic, Steinberg's book ("Facing their Fate - Palestinian National Consciousness 1967-2007"; in Hebrew) relates a different story about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than the one most Israelis like to tell themselves. Steinberg's ability to enter the hearts and minds of our neighbors leads him to the trenchant conclusion that peace that is not equally divided is doomed to failure. If an agreement is achieved by virtue of the "crushing dominance of one side" (i.e., Israel), it will not last long. Steinberg takes a deliberate swipe at the present government, which is wasting the short time it has left with futile bargaining over the price of peace.

"Good intentions, if they remain intentions, will lead to hell and chaos," he writes. For the past 20 years, since the Palestinian National Council decided to adopt UN Security Council Resolution 242, Steinberg has been telling everyone who wants to listen - and those who don't - that peace has one set price: the boundaries of June 4, 1967.

The big bang

Steinberg first became acquainted with the Palestinian issue in June 1967, immediately after the end of the Six-Day War, as his Armored Corps unit was cruising the main street of Gaza City on its way back home. "As a conscript of about 20," he recalls, "I was swathed in a feeling of transcendence and accomplishment, as though all our troubles were over, and henceforth security and peace would prevail. The tranquillity, and no less my consciousness, was then abruptly shattered by bursts of gunfire. I understood that a period in the history of the Israeli-Arab conflict had ended, but another - no less unsettled and demanding - had begun." The book, he says, is the result of the jolt that shook him then, 40 years ago.

In an interview with Haaretz Magazine in August 2002, at the height of the second intifada, Moshe (Bogey) Ya'alon, who had just been appointed chief of staff, stated that Israel had "to burn into the Palestinian and Arab consciousness" the idea that "terrorism and violence will not defeat us." As the adviser on Palestinian affairs to the chief of the Shin Bet security service, what was your take on that concept?

"I asked then, and I still wonder, how it is possible to persuade the majority of the Palestinian public that they will not achieve their goal by terrorism, if no political opening is created for them alongside [Israel's] military activity. This kind of 'wholesale' approach toward all the Palestinians indiscriminately did indeed succeed in burning the Palestinian consciousness. But it did so in the opposite direction - of extremism - with the result that the hope of the pragmatic stream was blasted and the influence and strength of Hamas increased immeasurably. An excessive demonstration of the 'price of losing' pushed our adversary into a narrow zone of consciousness, holding that there was nothing left to lose. This paved the way for the broad legitimization, including in Fatah, of suicide bombing attacks - legitimization which previously had not existed.

"It bears noting that Bogey made his comment about half a year after the declaration of the Arab peace initiative at an Arab summit meeting in Beirut. In that initiative, the Arab collectivity, including the Palestinian Authority, expressed its explicit political desire for 'the end of the conflict' and 'natural relations' with Israel on the basis of the lines of June 4, 1967. Maybe Israel's outright rejection of the Arab initiative shows that it is the one that needs to have its consciousness burned?"

The advocates of "burning the Palestinians' consciousness" reject the underlying assumption that you and others have put forward, to the effect that Arafat and his camp are really "pragmatic."

"I am aware that Ya'alon, along with Major General (Res.) Amos Gilad, who was head of the research division in Military Intelligence, and others as well, claim today that Arafat never wanted a peace based on the two-state solution. But when I wrote a political biography of Arafat in 1996, those people did not take issue with me or refute what I wrote. There was no argument between me and Bogey, with whom I used to meet when he was GOC Central Command, over the view that the 'big bang,' namely another intifada, was inevitable. He maintained that it would happen because Arafat did not want peace; whereas I argued that the loss of political hope would erode his desire for an agreement.

"At the time, Bogey favored diverting the negotiations in the direction of the Syrians; I argued that Arafat would interpret this as a breach of faith and would hasten the explosion. It has to be asked whether casting all the blame on Arafat's impotence is not actually a projection of our own domestic political ineffectuality, resulting from the difficulty of reaching an internal decision. When people claim that they are not a partner, particularly after the declaration of the Arab initiative, this is meant to hide the fact that we are not a partner."

You are undoubtedly referring to Ehud Barak, who cooked up that mantra after the failure at Camp David. Some say you were the one who persuaded him that the Palestinians would be satisfied with 92 percent of the West Bank.

"That is arrant nonsense, factually. On Friday evening, shortly before the Camp David summit of July 2000, Barak sent me the draft of his plan for a final-status settlement. He asked for my comments urgently. I told him that I observed the Sabbath, but he insisted that this was a matter of life and death. In a document that bears the date June 17, 2000, I emphasized that the Palestinians would view his statement that 'demarcation of the borders will be based on the principle of the June 4, 1967, lines' as the major innovation and importance of the Israeli plan. I added, 'They will be apprehensive, for example, that the exceptions, which the draft calls "special arrangements," are intended to void that innovation of its substantive content, and their concern over this point will have to be allayed.' The allegation you mention is also logically absurd, because those who make it believe there is no possibility of reaching an agreement even for 100 percent of the territory."

What impact did the assertion that "there is no partner" have on negotiations?

"Barak and his executive contractors for the no-partner concept, Ariel Sharon and Shaul Mofaz, caused incalculable damage. For a prime minister to state that 'there is no partner' is tantamount to issuing a policy directive to the operative echelons to take indiscriminate action against both those who want a settlement and those who are against it. The practical implication of this approach was that there was no difference between Jibril Rajoub, who at Arafat's directive acted tirelessly against Hamas from 1997 to 2000, and made an important contribution to Israel's security, and Hamas figures such as [Sheikh Ahmed] Yassin and [Salah] Shehadeh. A direct line leads from this approach to the destruction of the Palestinian Authority, the heightening of Iranian influence and the unilateral disengagement.

"The 'consciousness burning' and 'no-partner' approach voided the Palestinian center of its strength, and the vacuum was eventually filled by Hamas and other recalcitrants. The disengagement, in its crass unilateral format, left in the lurch those with whom it is possible to reach a settlement that will end the conflict. The final result is liable to be Israel's demise as a democratic Jewish state and its slide into a disastrous binational reality."

Did you try to talk to Barak about this?

"I explained the danger entailed in that declaration, but I felt like the Dutch boy who stuck his finger in the dike - except that in my case it didn't help, and the water broke through and flooded everything. The trouble is that by being the dominant factor militarily, we have the power to realize and corroborate in retrospect concepts that are wrong from the beginning, like a mistaken appraisal that becomes self-fulfilling. I said then, and I say in the book, that Arafat, and along with him Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas] and the vast majority of the Palestinian public are partners to a two-state settlement on the basis of the June 4, 1967 boundaries.

"Their rationale is that the Palestinians have already paid an intolerably high price by losing 78 percent of their patrimony between the Jordan and the Mediterranean - namely the State of Israel within the boundaries of the Green Line. The remaining 22 percent - the West Bank and the Gaza Strip - are like the 'poor man's lamb' [II Samuel 12], which they are enjoined to hold onto, come what may. All the more so is this the case when this Palestinian national interest is supported by Security Council Resolution 242, as it was implemented in the Egyptian sector, and as it was interpreted by Israel in the negotiations with Syria over the Golan Heights. If Israel has logical and just demands, the burden of proof devolves on it, and there too the changes will be made in the context of a territorial exchange."

Dangerous vacuums

You warn against Israel's liquidation as a Jewish democratic state. But acceding to the Palestinians' demand to recognize the right of return will bring about the identical result.

"The give-and-take was and remains the right of return in exchange for the Temple Mount, and I explained that to Barak in reaction to the draft plan for Camp David. I wrote that the right of existence of the small and wretched Palestinian state is based on possession of the Temple Mount. I noted that without it, Arafat would not forgo the right of return and that the negotiations could be expected to collapse. Even though I warned about this, I never imagined that Barak would demand sovereignty over the whole Temple Mount. The implication of that was the collapse of the strategic give-and-take, without which there is no agreement.

"There were extremely dangerous lacunae in Barak's draft, particularly in regard to the Old City of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. I wrote that Arafat must get an upgrading of the status quo, which would have given him de facto sovereignty over the Temple Mount: no Israeli flag will be hoisted there and the Israeli security authority will be peripheral. Arafat was concerned about the possible 'Hebronization' of the Temple Mount - in Hebron, Israel divided the days of worship in the Tomb of the Patriarchs, and in the end seized control of the whole site. I warned that these lacunae were liable to implode the internal structure of the proposed settlement and cause the breakdown of the negotiations. I recommended leaving a third way that would make it possible to rehabilitate the talks, such as by leaving in effect the third redeployment under the Oslo accords, and also to be careful not to leave only two possibilities: either Arafat accepts the Israeli dictate, or we get the big bang."

Do you believe that Abu Mazen will sign a peace agreement without the right of return?

"The Arab peace initiative, as adopted in Beirut in March 2002 as a plan of the Arab world, states: 'Achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194.' The right of return is not explicitly mentioned, and Resolution 194 was effectively voided of its content by the fact that the solution is conditional on Israel's agreement - which gives it veto power over the return - and is to be implemented solely within the framework of the Palestinian state. For that, the Palestinians need the territorial space to settle some of the refugees. It is impossible to demand a draconian slashing of territory in the West Bank and at the same time demand that they solve the problem of the return at their expense.

"The initiative was presented by Nabil Sha'ath to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell during Arafat's period of rule, and Abu Mazen reiterated it publicly in the presence of President [George W.] Bush during his visit to Washington in July 2003. All the Arab summit meetings since March 2002 have repeated the initiative, year after year. The initiative gives Israel a far better basis than we had dared dream of in previous decades for renewing the negotiations and achieving a two-state settlement."

What will happen if Israel does not take advantage of this?

"If we do not take this step, the national conflict will also assume a dimension of a civil rights conflict. That demand [of civil rights for the Palestinians] will intensify, and will find support in the international community. Its realization will spell the end of Zionism and of Israel as we know it. It is not surprising that the Palestinian opposition led by Hamas, along with Hezbollah and Iran, are vehemently opposed to the Arab initiative. Paradoxically, the most extreme of the Arabs and the Palestinians want all the settlements to remain in place, because that prevents the possibility of a territorial division, and the differences between residents of the territories and the Arabs of Israel are erased. The result is that Bogey, from an opposite point of departure, finds himself aligned with [Balad MK] Azmi Bishara."

The great paradox

Do you not believe that in the end, Hamas will accept Israel's existence?

"My appraisals regarding Hamas and the dilemmas it faces are based on the writings of Hamas and draw mainly on the theory of Max Weber, who is considered the 'father of the social sciences.' Weber analyzed the internal conflict that exists between a movement that espouses a radical ideology and its sense of responsibility toward the population. A similar tension exists today, though Hamas is already less averse to a fitna, a civil war, because that is not perceived as torpedoing a political opportunity - since no such opportunity is available.

"Hamas' political maneuverability is confined to 'conflict management' only. Within that framework it can agree to a hudna [cease-fire] or a tahadiya [truce] only as respites of longer or shorter duration. In this way, Hamas reconciles its adherence to its religious values with its responsibility to the population. Its maneuverability ends here: it cannot cross the Rubicon to reach the model of the conflict's resolution. Hamas will always say that it is in favor of a Palestinian state within the 1967 boundaries, but will never add 'alongside the State of Israel and in an agreement with it.' Thus a political settlement, which the majority of the Palestinian public supports, is the great enemy of Hamas. Yitzhak Rabin understood the Hamas threat, and that was the major factor, as I understand it, that fomented his change of attitude toward the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization]. He came to realize that if he did not reach an agreement with the PLO, we would face Hamas. He went to Oslo 'more out of hatred of Haman than love of Mordechai,' as the saying goes. Hence his ambivalent attitude toward Arafat."

You say in the book that the Oslo agreement was a big mistake.

"And that opinion was reinforced in the wake of the Goldstein massacre in February 1994 [when a settler, Baruch Goldstein, gunned down 29 Muslim worshipers in the mosque at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron], and I also made my view known to Rabin. In a meeting he held in his home with a few experts from academe two-three weeks after the massacre, I said that the continuation of the Oslo process will increase the friction and erode the remaining Palestinian trust altogether. I suggested that he skip directly to the negotiations on the final-status agreement, while the majority of the West Bank was still in Israel's hands, and not wait until Israel was deprived of most of its territorial assets in the implementation of the interim agreements. My monitoring of Hamas deliberations indicated that those who advocated suicide bombing attacks against civilians inside Israel - as a reprisal for the massacre, as measure for measure - were gaining the upper hand. I believed that talks on a final settlement would deter them, because if they acted, they would be perceived by their public as thwarting the possibility of achieving a Palestinian state.

"Rabin listened very attentively and remarked immediately that in a phone call with Arafat before our meeting he had proposed the idea of leaping ahead to a final-status settlement. At the end of the meeting, I understood that even though Rabin found the idea logical, it was not feasible, owing to internal politics. He drew a distinction between political diplomacy and politics. In the course of the meeting I saw concretely what he meant: Toward midnight he was informed that the coalition did not have a majority in the Knesset and said he had to hurry to the House to vote on a bill.

"Since then we have been caught in a vicious circle: The greater the internal opposition became in Israel, in the wake of the Goldstein massacre and the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin, along with the suicide attacks by the Palestinians, the more the expectations on both sides from the Oslo process were diminished, and the more both sides backed away from paying the price of the internal rifts and schisms. Both sides preferred the path of co-opting the domestic opposition over the path of confrontation. That choice exacted a high price from both sides, which cast its dark shadow over the Oslo process - such as the doubling of the number of settlers during the Oslo years, on the one side, and the adoption of the 'revolving door policy,' on the other side."

As the adviser on Palestinian affairs to the chief of the Shin Bet in that period, how do you explain the fact that there was a steep decrease in terrorist attacks precisely during Benjamin Netanyahu's tenure as prime minister?

"The scope of the terrorism did in fact decline very conspicuously at the time, but not because of Netanyahu. It happened in spite of Netanyahu. In his period, beginning in 1997, an operative coalition was formed between our defense establishment and the Palestinian security apparatuses. This was made possible because, by a great paradox, in his period there was still a political expectation that enabled the Palestinian Authority to muster the support of public opinion against anyone who tried to torpedo the political process, namely Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The fact that Netanyahu signed off on the Hebron agreement and on the Wye agreement kept the political ember lit. As long as the Palestinian Authority could project the message to its public that political hope still existed, they were able to suppress terrorism and act effectively against Hamas - and that is what accounts for the quiet in that period.

"Hamas remembers this as a dark time, in which they were on the brink of a fitna. The archive of the Awadallah brothers - who headed Hamas' military wing in the West Bank - which was seized [by Israel] in 1998, shows clearly the effectiveness of the Palestinian security units. The archive contained a letter from Sheikh Yassin ordering Hamas in the West Bank not to use firearms against the Palestinian Authority under any circumstances, even if they themselves were threatened by weapons. So shaky was Hamas' status in Palestinian public opinion that Sheikh Yassin believed that a fitna initiated by the PA would gain the support of the population as a whole, whereas a Hamas-initiated fitna would deal a mortal blow to the organization."

The defense establishment credits the decline in terrorism in the past two years to the targeted assassinations, the security fence and the checkpoints.

"I was never against the liquidation of 'ticking bombs' or against taking action against those who are out to kill you. Anyone who cites evidence from the past two years is looking at history in reverse and turning effect into cause. After we implemented in full the 'no-partner' approach, since the start of the intifada, a vacuum was created that benefits Hamas and Islamic Jihad. I am not complaining about the operative levels. They do what they know how to do. However, I would have expected the intelligence chiefs to be well aware of the transition from tactics to strategy, and thus to leave room for diplomatic maneuver and not reduce it to the point of paralysis. That is the difference between the intelligence chiefs and the levels below them. Otherwise, what are they there for?"

What are you referring to?

"For example, in an interview that the director of Military Intelligence, Amos Yadlin, gave to Haaretz Magazine, he focused on the security threats the country faces, but totally ignored the loss of an interlocutor for resolving the two-state issue and also Israel's decline into a binational reality. Nor did he make any mention of the Arab peace initiative.

"I have a bone to pick with the political echelon, which is turning the operative activity into the be-all and end-all and immersing us irreversibly into a ruinous binational reality. The major threat in the arena is not military in character, but that does not detract from its seriousness as an existential threat. In the absence of a concrete diplomatic context, it is possible that the military actions are weakening Hamas materially, but they are also building it up politically and symbolically. Avi Dichter, when he was head of the Shin Bet, focused on 'immediate visible results,' whereas I thought that every operative action also had to be examined from the perspective of its consequences."

What would be the result of that examination?

"A discussion of consequences could dissuade us from executing operations that are liable to bring about irreversible situations. Instead, things became topsy-turvy and the operative echelons, by the sheer weight of their cumulative tactical activity, are creating, almost inadvertently, the worst strategic result for Israel. I suggested setting up a team to consider the not-so-targeted assassinations which, in addition to examining the immediate expected results, would also look at the strategic implications. The proposal was rejected, and then came the assassination of Raed Karmi [on January 14, 2002], who was not at the time a 'ticking bomb' and was obeying the cease-fire. The consequence was that Fatah joined the circle of suicide bombers, and this forced Israel to carry out Operation Defensive Shield [spring 2002], which destroyed the infrastructure of the Palestinian government. That opened the way for Hamas to fill the vacuum, and also for the termination of my work in the Shin Bet."W

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