10 Things to Know About the Middle East

1. Who are the Arabs?

Arab peoples range from the Atlantic coast in northwest Africa to the Arabian peninsula and north to Syria. They are united by a common language and culture. Though the vast majority are Muslim, there are also sizable Christian Arab minorities in Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Palestine. Originally the inhabitants of the Arabian peninsula, the Arabs spread their language and culture to the north and west with the expansion of Islam in the 7th century. There are also Arab minorities in the Sahel and parts of east Africa, as well as in Iran and Israel. The Arabs were responsible for great advances in mathematics, astronomy and other scientific disciplines, while Europe was still mired in the Dark Ages.

Though there is great diversity in skin pigmentation, spoken dialect and certain customs, there is a common identity that unites Arab people, which has sometimes been reflected in pan-Arab nationalist movements. Despite substantial political and other differences, many Arabs share a sense that they are one nation, which has been artificially divided through the machinations of Western imperialism and which came to dominate the region with the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th and early 20th century. There is also a growing Arab diaspora in Europe, North America, Latin America, West Africa and Australia.

2. Who are the Muslims?

The Islamic faith originated in the Arabian peninsula, based on what Muslims believe to be divine revelations by God to the prophet Mohammed. Muslims worship the same God as do Jews and Christians, and share many of the same prophets and ethical traditions, including respect for innocent life. Approximately 90 percent of Muslims are of the orthodox or Sunni tradition; most of the remainder are of the Shi’ite tradition, which dominate Iran but also has substantial numbers in Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen and Lebanon. Sunni Islam is nonhierarchical in structure. There is not a tradition of separation between the faith and state institutions as there is in the West, though there is enormous diversity in various Islamic legal traditions and the degree to which governments of predominately Muslim countries rely on religious bases for their rule.

Political movements based on Islam have ranged from left to right, from nonviolent to violent, from tolerant to chauvinistic. Generally, the more moderate Islamic movements have developed in countries where there is a degree of political pluralism in which they could operate openly. There is a strong tradition of social justice in Islam, which has often led to conflicts with regimes that are seen to be unjust or unethical. The more radical movements have tended to arise in countries that have suffered great social dislocation due to war or inappropriate economic policies and/or are under autocratic rule.

Most of the world’s Muslims are not Arabs. The world’s largest Muslim country, for example, is Indonesia. Other important non-Arab Muslim countries include Malaysia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey and the five former Soviet republics of Central Asia, as well as Nigeria and several other black African states. Islam is one of the fastest growing religions in the world and scores of countries have substantial Muslim minorities. There are approximately five million Muslims in the United States.

3. Why is there so much violence and political instability in the Middle East?

For most of the past 500 years, the Middle East actually saw less violence and warfare and more political stability than Europe or most other regions of the world. It has only been in the last century that the region has seen such widespread conflict. The roots of the conflict are similar to those elsewhere in the Third World, and have to do with the legacy of colonialism, such as artificial political boundaries, autocratic regimes, militarization, economic inequality and economies based on the export of raw materials for finished goods. Indeed, the Middle East has more autocratic regimes, militarization, economic inequality and the greatest ratio of exports to domestic consumption than any region in the world.

At the crossroads of three continents and sitting on much of the world’s oil reserves, the region has been subjected to repeated interventions and conquests by outside powers, resulting in a high level of xenophobia and suspicion regarding the intentions of Western powers going back as far as the Crusades. There is nothing in Arab or Islamic culture that promotes violence or discord; indeed, there is a strong cultural preference for stability, order and respect for authority. However, adherence to authority is based on a kind of social contract that assumes a level of justice which — if broken by the ruler — gives the people a right to challenge it. The word jihad, often translated as “holy war,” actually means “holy struggle,” which can sometimes mean an armed struggle (qital), but also can mean nonviolent action and political work within the established system. Jihad also can mean a struggle for the moral good of the Muslim community, or even a personal spiritual struggle.

Terrorism is not primarily a Middle Eastern phenomenon. In terms of civilian lives lost, Africa has experienced far more terrorism in recent decades than has the Middle East. Similarly, far more suicide bombings in recent years have come from Hindu Tamils in Sri Lanka than from Muslim Arabs in the Middle East. There is also a little-known but impressive tradition of nonviolent resistance and participatory democracy in some Middle Eastern countries.

4. Why has the Middle East been the focus of U.S. concern about international terrorism?

There has been a long history of terrorism — generally defined as violence by irregular forces against civilian targets — in the Middle East. During Israel’s independence struggle in the 1940s, Israeli terrorists killed hundreds of Palestinian and British civilians; two of the most notorious terrorist leaders of that period — Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir — later became Israeli prime ministers whose governments received strong financial, diplomatic and military support from the United States. Algeria’s independence struggle from France in the 1950s included widespread terrorist attacks against French colonists. Palestine’s ongoing struggle for independence has also included widespread terrorism against Israeli civilians, during the 1970s through some of the armed militias of the Palestine Liberation Organization and, more recently, through radical underground Islamic groups. Terrorism has also played a role in Algeria’s current civil strife, in Lebanon’s civil war and foreign occupations during the 1980s, and for many years in the Kurdish struggle for independence. Some Middle Eastern governments — notably Libya, Syria, Sudan, Iraq and Iran — have in the past had close links with terrorist organizations. In more recent years, the Al Qaeda movement — a decentralized network of terrorist cells supported by Saudi exile Osama bin Laden — has become the major terrorist threat, and is widely believed to be responsible for the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. Bin Laden himself has been given sanctuary in Afghanistan, though his personal fortune and widespread network of supporters have allowed him to be independent on direct financial or logistical support from any government.

The vast majority of the people in the Middle East deplore terrorism, yet point out that violence against civilians by governments has generally surpassed that of terrorists. For example, the Israelis have killed far more Arab civilians over the decades through using U.S.-supplied equipment and ordinance than have Arab terrorists killed Israeli civilians. Similarly, the U.S.-supplied Turkish armed forces have killed far more Kurdish civilians than have such radical Kurdish groups like the PKK (the Kurdish acronym for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party). Also, in the eyes of many Middle Easterners, U.S. support for terrorist groups like the Nicaraguan contras and various right-wing Cuban exile organizations in recent decades, as well as U.S. air strikes and the U.S.-led sanctions against Iraq in more recent years, have made the U.S. an unlikely leader in the war against terrorism

5. What kind of political systems and alliances exist in the Middle East?

There are a variety of political systems in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Morocco and Jordan are all conservative monarchies (in approximate order of absolute rule). Iraq, Syria and Libya are left-leaning dictatorships, with Iraq being one of the most totalitarian societies in the world. Egypt and Tunisia are conservative autocratic republics. Iran is an Islamic republic with an uneven trend in recent years towards greater political openness. Sudan and Algeria are under military rulers facing major insurrections.

Lebanon, Turkey and Yemen are republics with repressive aspects but some degree of political pluralism. The only Middle Eastern country with a strong tradition of parliamentary democracy is Israel, though the benefits of this political freedom is largely restricted to its Jewish citizens (the Palestinian Arab minority is generally treated as second-class citizens and Palestinians in the occupied territories are subjected to military rule and human rights abuses). The largely autocratic Palestinian Authority has been granted limited autonomy in a series of non-contiguous enclaves in the West Bank and Gaza Strip surrounded by Israeli occupation forces.

All Arab states, including the Palestinian Authority, belong to the League of Arab States, which acts as a regional body similar to the Organization of African Union or the Organization of American States, which work together on issues of common concern. However, there are enormous political divisions within Arab countries and other Middle Eastern states. Turkey is a member of the NATO alliance, closely aligned with the West and hopes to eventually become part of the European Union. The six conservative monarchies of the Persian Gulf region have formed the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), from where they pursue joint strategic and economic interests and promote close ties with the West, particularly Great Britain (which dominated the smaller sheikdoms in the late 19th and early 20th century) and, more recently, the United States.

Often a country’s alliances are not a reflection of its internal politics. For example, Saudi Arabia is often referred in the U.S. media as a “moderate” Arab state, though it is the most oppressive fundamentalist theocracy in the world today outside of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan; “moderate,” in this case, simply means that it has close strategic and economic relations with the United States.

Jordan and Egypt are pro-Western, but have been willing to challenge U.S. policy on occasion. Israel identifies most strongly with the West: most of its leaders are European-born or have been of European heritage, and it has diplomatic relations with only a handful of Middle Eastern countries. Iran alienated most of its neighbors with its threat to expand its brand of revolutionary Islam to Arab world, though its increasingly moderate orientation in recent years has led to some cautious rapprochement. Syria, a former Soviet ally, has been cautiously reaching out to more conservative Arab governments and with the West; it currently exerts enormous political influence over Lebanon. Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Libya under Muammar Qaddafi and Sudan under their military junta remain isolated from most of other Middle Eastern countries due to a series of provocative policies, though many of these same countries oppose the punitive sanctions and air strikes the United States has inflicted against these countries in recent years.

6. What is the impact of oil in the Middle East?

The major oil producers of the Middle East include Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Algeria. Egypt, Syria, Oman and Yemen have smaller reserves. Most of the major oil producers of the Middle East are part of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC. (Non-Middle Eastern OPEC members include Indonesia, Venezuela, Nigeria and other countries.) Much of the world’s oil wealth exists along the Persian Gulf, with particularly large reserves in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. About one-quarter of U.S. oil imports come from the Persian Gulf region; the Gulf supplies European states and Japan with an even higher percentage of those countries’ energy needs. The imposition of higher fuel efficiency standards and other conservation measures, along with the increased use of renewable energy resources for which technologies are already available, could eliminate U.S. dependence on Middle Eastern oil in a relatively short period of time.

The Arab members of OPEC instigated a boycott against the United States in the fall of 1973 in protest of U.S. support for Israel during the October Arab-Israeli war, creating the first in a series of energy shortages. The cartel has had periods of high and low costs for oil, resulting in great economic instability. Most governments have historically used their oil wealth to promote social welfare, particularly countries like Algeria, Libya and Iraq, which professed to a more socialist orientation. Yet all countries have squandered their wealth for arms purchases and prestige projects. In general, the influx of petrodollars has created enormous economic inequality both within oil-producing states and between oil-rich and oil-poor states as well as widespread corruption and questionable economic priorities.

7. What is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict about?

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is essentially over land, with two peoples claiming historic rights to the geographic Palestine, a small country in the eastern Mediterranean about the size of New Jersey. The creation of modern Israel in 1948 was a fulfillment of the goal of the Jewish nationalist movement, known as Zionism, as large numbers of Jews migrated to their faith’s ancestral homeland from Europe, North Africa and elsewhere throughout the 20th century. They came into conflict with the indigenous Palestinian Arab population, which also was struggling for independence. The 1947 partition plan, which divided the country approximately in half, resulted in a war that ended with Israel seizing control of 78 percent of the territory within a year. Most of the Palestinian population became refugees, in some cases through fleeing the fighting and in other cases through being forcibly expelled. The remaining Palestinian areas — the West Bank and Gaza Strip — came under control of the neighboring Arab states of Jordan and Egypt, though these areas were also seized by Israel in the 1967 war.

Israel has been colonizing parts of these occupied territories with Jewish settlers in violation of the Geneva Conventions and UN Security Council resolutions. Historically, both sides have failed to recognize the legitimacy of the others’ nationalist aspirations, though the Palestinian leadership finally formally recognized Israel in 1993. The peace process since then has been over the fate of the West Bank (including Arab East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip, which is the remaining 22 percent of the Palestine, occupied by Israel since 1967. The United States plays the dual role of chief mediator of the conflict as well as the chief financial, military and diplomatic supporter of Israel. The Palestinians want their own independent state in these territories and to allow Palestinian refugees the right to return. Israel, backed by the United States, insists the Palestinians give up large swaths of the West Bank — including most of Arab East Jerusalem — to Israel and to accept the resettlement of most refugees into other Arab countries. Since September 2000, there has been widespread rioting by Palestinians against the ongoing Israeli occupation as well as terrorist bombings within Israel by extremist Islamic groups. Israeli occupation forces, meanwhile, have engaged in widespread killings and other human rights abuses in the occupied territories.

Most Arabs feel a strong sense of solidarity with the Palestinian struggle, though their governments have tended to manipulate their plight for their own political gain. Neighboring Arab states have fought several wars with Israel, though Egypt and Jordan now have peace agreements and full diplomatic relations with the Jewish state. In addition to much of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israel still occupies a part of southwestern Syria known as the Golan Heights. The threats and hostility by Arab states towards Israel’s very existence has waned over the years. Full peace and diplomatic recognition would likely come following a full Israeli withdrawal from its occupied territories.

8. What has been the legacy of the Gulf War?

Virtually every Middle Eastern state opposed the Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait in 1990, though they were badly divided on the appropriateness of the U.S.-led Gulf War that followed. Even among countries that supported the armed liberation of Kuwait, there was widespread opposition to the deliberate destruction by the United States of much of Iraq’s civilian infrastructure during the war. Even more controversial has been the enormous humanitarian consequences of the U.S.-led international sanctions against Iraq in place since the war, which have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, mostly children, from malnutrition and preventable diseases.

The periodic U.S. air strikes against Iraq also have been controversial, as has the ongoing U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia, other Gulf states and in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. Since Iraq’s offensive military capability was largely destroyed during the Gulf War and during the subsequent inspections regime, many observers believe that U.S. fears about Iraq’s current military potential are exaggerated, particularly in light of the quiet U.S. support for Iraq during the 1980s when its military was at its peak. In many respects, the Gulf War led the oil-rich GCC states into closer identification with the United States and the West and less with their fellow Arabs, though there is still some distrust about U.S. motivations and policies in the Middle East.

9. How has the political situation in Afghanistan evolved and how is it connected to the Middle East?

Afghanistan, an impoverished landlocked mountainous country, has traditionally been identified more with Central and South Asia than with the Middle East. A 1978 coup by communist military officers resulted in a series of radical social reforms, which were imposed in an autocratic matter and which resulted in a popular rebellion by a number of armed Islamic movements. The Soviet Union installed a more compliant communist regime at the end of 1979, sending in tens of thousands of troops and instigating a major bombing campaign, resulting in large-scale civilian casualties and refugee flows. The war lasted for much of the next decade. The United States sent arms to the Islamic resistance, known as the mujahadin, largely through neighboring Pakistan, then under the rule of an ultra-conservative Islamic military dictatorship. Most of the U.S. aid went to the most radical of the eight different mujahadin factions on the belief that they would be least likely to reach a negotiated settlement with the Soviet-backed government and would therefore drag the Soviet forces down. Volunteers from throughout the Islamic world, including the young Saudi businessman Osama bin Laden, joined the struggle. The CIA trained many of these recruits, including bin Laden and many of his followers.

When the Soviets and Afghanistan’s communist government were defeated in 1992, a vicious and bloody civil war broke out between the various mujahadin factions, war lords and ethnic militias. Out of this chaos emerged the Taliban movement, led by young seminary students from the refugee camps in Pakistan who were educated in ultra-conservative Saudi-funded schools. The Taliban took over 85 percent of the country by 1996 and imposed long-awaited order and stability, but established a brutal totalitarian theocracy based on a virulently reactionary and misogynist interpretation of Islam. The Northern Alliance, consisting of the remnants of various factions from the civil war in the 1990s, control a small part of the northeast corner of the country.

10. How have most Middle Eastern governments reacted to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and their aftermath?

Virtually every government and the vast majority of their populations reacted with the same horror and revulsion as did people in the United States, Europe and elsewhere. Despite scenes shown repeatedly on U.S. television of some Palestinians celebrating the attacks, the vast majority of Palestinians also shared in the world’s condemnation. If the United States, in conjunction with local governments, limits its military response to commando-style operations against suspected terrorist cells, the U.S. should receive the cooperation and support of most Middle Eastern countries. If the response is more widespread, based more on retaliation than self-defense, and ends up killing large numbers of Muslim civilians, it could create a major anti-American reaction that would increase support for the terrorists and lessen the likelihood for the needed cooperation to break up the Al Qaeda network, which operates in several Middle Eastern countries.

While few Middle Easterners support bin Laden’s methods, the principal concerns expressed in his manifestoes — the U.S.’s wrongful support for Israel and for Arab dictatorships, the disruptive presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia and the humanitarian impact of the sanctions on Iraq — are widely supported. Ultimately, a greater understanding of the Middle East and the concerns of its governments and peoples are necessary before the United States can feel secure from an angry backlash from the region.

The Bush Administration & the Israeli-Palestinian Stalemate

Whether or not the shaky cease-fire in effect since the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States holds, the prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace remain dim.

Current Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon rejects the previous Israeli government’s premise that it is important to make territorial sacrifices to end the conflict with the Palestinians. Sharon has made clear that any Palestinian state would have to be limited tojust 42% of the West Bank and 80% of the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, the Bush administration has dismissed Clinton’s proposals, which would have returned around 94% of the occupied territories to the Palestinians. According to the Bush administration, the two parties should work out their land and security problems themselves.

This may not be possible, however. For most of the year, the Palestinians have called for a resumption of negotiations, but the Israeli government has refused. The Israelis insist—with American support—that there be a total end of Palestinian violence for an extended period before they resume talks. This gives extremist groups, which are beyond the control of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and which oppose the peace process altogether, an incentive to launch terrorist attacks and other acts of violence to make sure that the talks will not resume. Similarly, it buys time for the Israelis to further expand their illegal settlements in the occupied territories. Even if the negotiations were to reconvene, the Israeli government has made it clear that it would take an even more uncompromising position than the previous government of Ehud Barak. Despite all this, the administration, Congress, and most of the U.S. media are placing the bulk of the blame on the breakdown of the peace process on the Palestinians.

The Bush administration has made a number of contradictory statements regarding Israeli policies. Secretary of State Colin Powell has on several occasions made criticisms of Israeli actions, only to have them soft-pedaled by the White House. Meanwhile, both Republican and Democratic congressional leaders have openly defended recent Israeli policies. The overall Bush administration position seems to be to leave the two parties to work it out among themselves, ignoring the gross power asymmetry between the Palestinians and their Israeli occupiers. Bilateral negotiations between a government representing the strongest economic and military power in the region, with the weakened and corrupt leadership of an occupied people can hardly be considered fair, yet the Bush administration acts as if the two sides are coming together as equals with “both sides needing to compromise.” Such inaction favors the status quo, namely continued Israeli occupation, repression, colonization, and the deepening patterns of violence. Furthermore, the U.S. has continued the policy of previous administration of undercutting the legitimacy of any party—such as the United Nations or the European Union—which might take a more even-handed approach that might challenge the legitimacy of the Israeli occupation.

Despite Sharon’s opposition to the U.S.-brokered peace treaty with Egypt in 1978, his abstaining from the U.S.-brokered peace treaty with Jordan in 1994, his opposition to the 1993 Oslo accords and the 1997 agreement on Hebron, as well as his objections to Israel’s partial withdrawal from Lebanon in 1985 and total withdrawal in 2000, the Bush administration and congressional leaders insist he is interested in pursuing a peace agreement. Although President Bush has welcomed the rightist prime minister to Washington, he has refused to meet with President Arafat—yet another indication of U.S. support for Sharon’s negotiating position. Indeed, Sharon won the office of prime minister largely due to his deliberately provocative visit to the Haram al-Sharif (also known as the Temple Mount) in September 2000. The strong U.S. support for his government is essentially rewarding him for this provocative action, which sparked the current cycle of violence. With pressure on Capitol Hill from both members of his own party as well as the Democrats to take positions even further to the right, there is little pressure for the Bush administration to take the necessary steps to support Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Israeli Settlements

There is little question that the chief obstacle to Israeli-Palestinian peace is the Israeli settlements, reserved for Jews only, established by Israel in the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, and the rest of the West Bank. It is illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention for any country to transfer its civilian population onto lands seized by military force. Under UN Security Council resolutions 446 and 465, Israel is required to withdraw from these settlements. The U.S. initially supported these resolutions when they were passed in the late 1970s, but has since blocked the United Nations from enforcing them.

Former Israeli defense minister Moshe Dayan acknowledged that the settlements did not help Israel’s security situation, but they were needed since, without them, Israel could not justify having the army in the occupied territories. Ariel Sharon, who served as housing minister and other cabinet posts in previous right-wing governments, played a major role in the expansion of these illegal settlements. He bragged back in 1995 about how these settlements were “the only factor” that had prevented then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin from agreeing to withdraw from the occupied territories and was proud of the fact that this had “created difficulties” in the negotiations with the Palestinians.

With Clinton insisting that the settlement blocs be incorporated into Israel at Camp David in the summer of 2000, the U.S. was essentially vindicating the Israeli right’s plan to create a demographic transformation which—however illegal—could then become the basis for later territorial claims. This U.S. policy, unchanged under the Bush administration, can only lead Sharon, now the prime minister, to assume that future settlements will likewise become the basis for further U.S.-approved annexations of Palestinian land.

The U.S. acknowledged the illegality of the settlements through the Carter administration. By the senior Bush administration, they were labeled only as an “obstacle to peace.” Under Clinton, they were simply considered “unhelpful.”

President Jimmy Carter thought he had promises of a five-year freeze from Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin through the Camp David Agreement with Egypt. When the prime minister resumed construction after only three months, Carter refused to act, even though the U.S. was a guarantor of the peace treaty. The senior President Bush insisted on a settlement freeze as a condition to granting a controversial $10 billion loan guarantee to Israel, but pressure from Democrats in Congress and 1992 Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton led him to capitulate and approve the loan guarantee with Israel agreeing only to limit construction to the “natural growth” of existing settlements. The number of settlers in the West Bank has more than doubled in the ensuing nine years.

When the Oslo Accords were signed the following year, the Palestinians pressed to address the settlement issue immediately, but the U.S. insisted that such discussions be delayed. Indeed, putting off such a fundamental issue as the settlements as a “final status issue” gave the Israelis a full eight years to create facts on the ground through a dramatic growth in settlements, which the Clinton administration knew would make a final peace agreement all the more difficult. At no point did Clinton insist that Israel stop the expansion of Jewish settlements and confiscation of land destined to be part of a Palestinian state. It is only because of these settlements that the boundaries for a future Palestinian state envisioned by Clinton and Barak took its unviable geographic dimensions. Had the U.S. used its considerable leverage to halt their expansion early in the process, this problem could have been avoided. Indeed, even Robert Malley, Clinton’s Middle East specialist in the National Security Council, acknowledged that the U.S. had not been tough enough on Israel for its settlement drive and the failure to do so was a major factor in the collapse of the peace process.

Between sixty and one hundred settlements lie outside areas that most observers consider could realistically be annexed to Israel. Most of these settlements were created by Sharon during his previous cabinet positions—quite explicitly to prevent the creation a territorially viable Palestinian entity. Between September 1995, in the Oslo II accord, and March 2000, successive Israeli governments were envisioning maintaining all but the most isolated of these settlements and dividing the new Palestinian state into a series of non-contiguous cantons. What the Israelis presented in peace talks in Taba, Egypt in January largely abandoned this strategy, reducing them to a small number of settlement blocs. Under Sharon, however, they have reverted to the old strategy without apparent U.S. objections.

With the Oslo accords referring to the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a “single territorial unit, the integrity and status of which will be preserved during the interim period” and a prohibition against either side taking steps that could prejudice the permanent status negotiations, the Palestinians assumed back in 1993 when they signed the agreement that this would prevent the Israelis from building more settlements. Furthermore, as the principal guarantor of the Oslo Agreement, the U.S. was obliged to force the Israelis to cease construction if they tried to do so. However, Israel and America have refused to live up to their obligations and—since the signing of the Oslo Accords—the number of settlers as grown by nearly 150,000, moving onto land that should be returned to the three million Palestinians who already live there. Since the Oslo Accords were signed, Israeli settlers on the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem) have more than doubled to 200,000, some within thirty new settlements and the rest in expansions of existing settlements. Settlers in greater East Jerusalem have increased by at least one-third. It is very difficult to appreciate the sincerity of Israel and the U.S. in reaching a negotiated peace as Israel’s settlement drive has continued unabated. Palestinians watched as their land was confiscated and Jewish-only highways were constructed while under the cover of a U.S.-sponsored “peace process.” Ironically, much of the U.S. money in support of the supposed “implementation” of the 1997 Wye River Agreement has been earmarked to build these so-called bypass roads, placing the U.S. in violation of article 7 of UN Security Council resolution 465, which prohibits member states from assisting Israel in its colonization drive.

Much of Israel’s violence against Palestinians has been justified as protecting settlers—who have no legal right to be in the occupied territories. The Mitchell Commission Report called on the Israelis to consider evacuating the more isolated settlements, which have been flashpoints for conflict, but the U.S. has failed to endorse the idea.

The Mitchell Commission Report also explicitly calls for a total settlement freeze, including roads and so-called “natural growth.” Sharon’s offer of a “settlement freeze” in June excluded new roads and so-called “natural growth” of existing settlements, which can be liberally interpreted. While the current Bush administration has termed Israeli settlement expansion “provocative,” it has not repudiated the Clinton administration’s support for “natural growth” of the settlements. Given the history of “natural growth” allowing for unabated expansion of these illegal settlements, the Bush administration position is essentially an endorsement of Sharon’s colonization drive.

Even with the recent swing of Israeli public opinion to the right, a great majority of Israelis support a total freeze on the settlements in return for a cease-fire. However, Sharon has refused and the U.S. appears to be backing him.

The Ongoing Violence and Repression

The extraordinary violence that has erupted in the Israeli-occupied territories was a direct consequence of the frustration felt by Palestinians who had seen seven years of peace negotiations result in ever increasing poverty, loss of land, humiliation and harassment at Israeli checkpoints, and still no state of their own. International law recognizes the right of people under foreign military occupation to armed resistance against the occupying forces. Yet the U.S. government has repeatedly condemned the Palestinians for their use of violence—while refusing to call for an end of the Israeli occupation. The Bush administration has spoken only of stopping “the cycle of violence,” as if the violence of occupation and the violence of resistance to that occupation were on the same moral level. Ironically, leading Democrats, such as Gary Ackerman, the ranking Democrat on the House Subcommittee on the Middle East, have criticized the administration from the right, claiming that “It is not a cycle of violence. It is Palestinian violence and Israeli response.”

Human Rights Watch has been among a number of human rights groups who have issued reports on the violence and repression. While it has noted how the Palestinian Authority had “failed to prevent Palestinian gunmen from firing on settlements from civilian areas, and does not appear to have investigated or prosecuted cases where Israeli civilians have been killed or seriously injured,” it emphasized that “Israeli security forces have committed by far the most serious and systematic violations.” The report documents “excessive and indiscriminate use of lethal force, arbitrary killings, and collective punishment, including willful destruction of property and severe restrictions on movement that far exceed any possible military necessity.” The report also criticized the Israeli government for failing to protect unarmed Palestinians for attacks by right-wing settlers.

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, the majority of the Human Rights Caucus in the House of Representatives has supported a series of resolutions supporting the Israeli government and blaming the Palestinians exclusively for the violence. Indeed, the chairman of the caucus, Democrat Tom Lantos of California, has been one of the most outspoken defenders of the rightist government of Ariel Sharon.

More than 40% of those killed by the Israelis have been children. However, leading members of Congress have blamed the Palestinians for the deaths of their own children by allowing them to participate in the demonstrations. Indeed, a bipartisan resolution sponsored by Democratic Congressman Eliot Engle blames the Palestinian Authority for the deaths of children at the hands of Israeli occupation forces.

Human Rights Watch joined UN Human Rights Commission’s Mary Robinson, Amnesty International, and other human rights groups in calling for the UN Security Council to “immediately establish a permanent international presence in the West Bank and Gaza to monitor and report regularly on the compliance by all parties with international human rights and humanitarian law standards.” However, the same week the report was released, the U.S. cast the lone dissenting vote in the Security Council authorizing the establishment of just such a force, thereby vetoing the measure. Subsequently, the Bush administration supported a vague reference by Western leaders in the G-8 summit in Genoa for some kind of international monitoring presence, but emphasized—as did the Clinton administration—that it could only be established with the consent of Israel. However, since this force would be within Palestinian areas outside of Israel’s jurisdiction, no such consent would be required. As a result, any hope for such monitors has been blocked by the Bush administration. Ironically, leading Democrats in Congress have criticized the Bush administration for even giving lip service to the concept of international monitors.

Dozens of small, isolated Palestinian enclaves are blocked off and strangled by Israeli occupation forces, where the civilian population has experienced severe food shortages, lack of medical care and unemployment over 50%. The Israelis have erected 91 new military posts surrounding Palestinian population centers in series of multiple sieges.

There have been a series of terrorist attacks by underground Palestinian Islamic groups inside Israel, which have killed dozens of civilians. Ironically, following several acts of terrorism by radical Islamic groups, Israel has attacked political offices, police headquarters, and other buildings belonging to the Palestinian Authority, which has repeatedly condemned such attacks. There have been some attacks against Israeli settlers by Tanzim militia, which grew out of the Fatah movement. Even though Arafat is the founder and leader of Fatah, he does not control the entire organization. Indeed, the uprising has pushed younger, more militant leaders to the forefront. In addition, much of the Palestinian violence has come from Palestinians under direct Israeli control, not from areas administered by the Palestinian Authority. Yet there has been widespread support on Capitol Hill and, to a lesser extent, from the Bush administration for Israeli attacks against Palestine. The Israeli position, backed by the U.S., is that if force does not work, just use more force.

There is an abject failure by U.S. officials and much of the media to recognize that Israeli forces firing missiles into inhabited homes, shelling civilian towns, increasing the randomness of the death squads in the occupied territories, and using live ammunition against protesting children are also acts of terror.

The Palestinians have endured 34 years of occupation, the longest foreign military rule—save for Japan’s occupation of Korea. Historically, people under military occupation do not tend to act rationally. The U.S. failed to recognize that Palestinian violence and terrorism is a direct consequence of the occupation and the U.S. refusal to uphold international legal standards.

The Palestinians are gravely mistaken to believe that violence will lead Israel to end the occupation or the U.S. to end its support of the occupation. It has simply hardened Israeli and American attitudes. Not only is such violence—particularly when directed toward civilians—morally wrong, but it is politically counterproductive as well.

What has led so many Palestinians to delude themselves to think otherwise, however, is the example of the success of the radical Islamic Hizbullah militia in forcing Israel out of its 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon. Indeed, there are few Palestinians engaged in the violence who do not cite Lebanon as a model. The U.S. bears great responsibility for this shift in perception. The U.S. refused to enforce UN Security Council resolution 425 and nine subsequent resolutions demanding Israel’s immediate and unconditional withdrawal from southern Lebanon. Indeed, even when a solid majority of Israelis polled expressed their desire for Israel to withdraw, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, publicly registered his opposition to any such withdrawal. By blocking enforcement of the UN Security Council resolutions and refusing to push for a negotiated withdrawal, Israel pulled out only when their casualties mounted in what Hizbullah could claim was a military victory. As a result, Palestinians see a lesson: it is naive to believe that negotiating with Israel, relying on UN Security Council resolutions, or believing that the U.S. can be trusted as a mediator will get them their freedom. Like the Lebanese, many are coming to see that the only solution is through armed struggle under the leadership of a radical Islamic movement. As a result of its policy in Lebanon, therefore, the U.S. is largely to blame for this radicalizing shift in Palestinian attitudes.

The Israeli government has dispatched assassination squads, ranging from individuals with rifles to U.S.-supplied helicopter gun ships with missiles, to murder Palestinian activists. Some of these have been wanted terrorists associated with radical Islamic groups. Others have been civilian political leaders of Islamic organizations and activists in Arafat’s Fatah party. One target was a teacher at a Catholic school who had been working closely with Israeli teachers on developing a conflict resolution curriculum. There have also been a number of innocent bystanders murdered, including children. Indeed, Princeton international law professor Richard Falk, an American Jew who served on the UN fact-finding commission, expressed criticism at their “seemingly random hit list.” The commission noted that such assassinations “are grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 147, and of international humanitarian law.” To its credit, some Bush administration officials have criticized the assassination squads, though Vice-President Dick Cheney, in an interview this summer, appeared to be supportive of the practice, though he later backtracked. However, Senator Joseph Biden, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Democrats’ chief foreign policy spokesman, has unambiguously defended the Israeli use of these extrajudicial assassinations.

The very idea that the Palestinians should unilaterally halt their uprising in order to return to a negotiation process where the occupying power has declared up front that it will offer even less palatable terms than the negotiation position of its predecessor is ludicrous. Indeed, most Palestinians strongly oppose ending the uprising without anything concrete in return from the Israelis, such as a settlement freeze. Further crackdowns would play into the hands of Palestinian militants who claim the PA is essentially serving as a proxy force for the Israeli occupation. It is totally unrealistic to call for an end to Palestinian violence without also calling for an end to Israel’s military occupation and colonization drive, yet this is precisely the policy of the Bush administration and Congress.

There is much that could be said condemning terrorist action by Palestinian groups against innocent civilians inside Israel and other acts of Palestinian violence. Yet the Israeli violence toward the Palestinians has both been far greater in scope; also—unlike the Palestinian violence—leading U.S. political figures have actively defended it and America supplies much of weaponry used in carrying out these acts of violence. Although the U.S. has little direct control over Palestinian violence, the U.S. could stop the Israeli violence by turning off the spigot of military and economic aid to the Israeli government. It has chosen not to do so.

The Mitchell Commission Report

As a means of short-circuiting a United Nations commission to investigate the causes and possible solutions to the ongoing conflict, President Bill Clinton last fall appointed a U.S.-led team to put forward its own report. It was to be led by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, who could hardly be expected to provide an unbiased perspective. As a senator, Mitchell had attacked the senior Bush administration from the right on policy toward Israel and Palestine, particularly when then-Secretary of State James Baker accurately declared that Israeli settlements ringing eastern Jerusalem were in the occupied territories. In effect, Mitchell argued the U.S. should recognize Israel’s unilateral annexation of a huge swath of the West Bank, which would have challenged international law, UN Security Council resolutions, and the policies of every U.S. administration since Israel seized the territory in 1967. Mitchell received large campaign contributions from right-wing Political Action Committees supportive of the Shamir government, then in office in Israel, and was a strong supporter of unconditional military and economic aid to Shamir’s government.

Other members of the commission included former Senator Warren Rudman, also a strong supporter of Israel’s earlier right-wing governments, as well former Turkish president Suleyman Demirel, a strong ally of Israel. They outnumbered the more moderate members, Norwegian Foreign Minister Thorbjorn Jagland and European Union representative Javier Solana. The U.S. determined that the commission would operate out of Washington, would not have a local office, and would not carry out any investigations on the ground. Israeli journalist Meron Benvenisti, a critic of the Sharon government, wrote that “The committee will become one more instrument for stifling any initiative for examining the actions of Israeli security forces and for uncovering the truth lurking behind the propaganda smokescreen.”

The commission’s report, released at the end of April, refused to hold either side solely responsible for the breakdown of the peace process or the ongoing violence. The report recognized that the Palestinian Authority needed to do more to curb violence from the Palestinian side and called on Israel to end its widespread use of lethal force against unarmed demonstrators. Yet its failure to call for an international protection force underscored the commission’s unwillingness to support the decisive steps necessary to actually curb further bloodshed.

The report correctly recognized that the violence was not solely a result of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s provocative visit to the Islamic holy site of Haram al-Sharif in occupied East Jerusalem last fall and that it was not part of a preconceived plan by the Palestinians to launch a violent struggle. It recognized that the root of the uprising was in Palestinian frustrations in the peace process to get their land back, fueled by unnecessarily violent responses by both sides in the early hours and days of the fighting. However, the report refused to call for Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied territories in return for security guarantees, which Israel is required to do under UN Security Council resolution 242 and 338.

While the Mitchell Commission Report failed to call for Israel to withdraw from its illegal settlements as required under international law and UN Security Council resolutions 446 and 465, it did emphasize there was no hope to an end of Palestinian violence unless there was a freeze on settlements. However, the U.S.—spearheaded by CIA director George Tenet—followed up the Mitchell Commission Report by pushing for a cease-fire agreement from the Palestinians—even as the Sharon government pledged to continue building more settlements. The Bush administration and Congress essentially put forward the Mitchell Commission Report only in terms of getting a cease-fire, conveniently dropping the report’s insistence on a settlement freeze and other Israeli responsibilities. In effect, it put the pressure on the Palestinians to cease their resistance to Israeli occupation forces without anything in return from Israel. The U.S.-brokered cease-fire, which technically went into effect in June but never fully materialized, left the situation on the ground with no changes that would provide the Palestinians with any incentive to end the uprisings. Not only was there not a halt in building settlements, there were no international

monitors or verifiers and no buffer zones separating the two sides. The U.S. essentially let Israel be the monitor and verifier, as well as the decisionmaker regarding its implementation and subsequent steps. Within days of the agreement, Israel launched its assassination squads into Palestinian Authority areas, but claimed these were not cease fire violations but self-defense against what it called terrorists. Nor did the Israelis end their siege of Palestinian towns and cities or the closures.

Palestinian Rights and Israeli Security

The big Palestinian compromises—ending the armed struggle and recognizing Israel—were made up front in the 1993 Oslo Accords, with the naive assumption that the U.S. would pressure Israel to make needed compromises later. The Palestinians have few bargaining chips in their favor other than their violence—though this more likely will set back their cause rather than advance it.

Since the Palestinian demands are well-grounded in international law and human rights covenants, calls for greater comprises by the Palestinians means endorsing the denial of these basic rights. While the U.S. has been largely successfully in forcing the Palestinians to scale down their long-held aspirations, the Palestinians have been unwilling to give up on their fundamental rights.

That Barak offered more than any previous prime minister is less a reflection of his generosity, or—in Clinton’s words—being “courageous,” than it is a reflection of the intransigence of the previous U.S.-backed Israeli governments. To the U.S., giving back some of what you have stolen is a sign of courage, and failure of the Palestinians to accept less than what is owed to them is a sign of failure to compromise.

It is noteworthy that for nearly twenty years the U.S. barred the PLO from participating in the U.S.-sponsored peace process on the grounds that UN Security Council resolution 242 had to be the basis of negotiation. The resolution did not recognize Palestinian national rights, but it did call on Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories in return for security guarantees, allowing for only very minor territorial adjustments to straighten some of the lines from the 1949 armistice which formed the borders of Israel, and insisting that such adjustments had to be mutual. Once the Palestinians formally accepted the resolution in 1988 and were allowed into the peace process five years later, the U.S. essentially dropped it while the Clinton administration was in office. The current Bush administration appears to be returning to the policy from the Nixon through the senior Bush administration of giving lip service to 242 while granting Israel the diplomatic, financial, and military means to ignore it. Israel has never defined where its borders are, which exacerbate Arab fears that it is an expansionist power. Indeed, as Sharon told Secretary of State Colin Powell during his visit in February, “we learn a lot from you Americans. We saw how you moved West using this method.”

A cornerstone of the U.S.-led peace process has been to keep the United Nations out. Indeed, a 1991 Memorandum of Understanding between the United States and Israel explicitly stated that the UN would not have a role. Then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke claimed that a UN Security Council resolution last October criticizing the excessive use of force by Israeli occupation forces put the UN “out of the running” in terms of any contributions to the peace process. The even more strongly worded congressional resolutions against the Palestinians passed that same month, apparently, did not similarly disqualify the United States from its leadership role, however.

According to UN Security Council resolution 242, the only caveat for Israel’s complete withdrawal for the territories occupied in the 1967 war was security guarantees from Israel’s Arab neighbors. Unfortunately, this has been compromised in recent years by Washington and Israel dramatically expanding what was once the popular understanding of security guarantees and non-aggression from neighboring states to somehow guaranteeing the physical safety of every Israeli from suicide bombers—part of underground terrorist groups beyond the control of any government, particularly a disempowered Palestinian Authority under siege by Israeli occupation forces.

Temporarily seizing territory of hostile neighbors to create a buffer zone pending the establishment of security guarantees made some strategic sense thirty years ago when troops of Arab states were massing on Israel’s borders threatening the county’s very existence and guerrilla groups were engaged in cross-border raids against civilian targets. Today, however, there are no armies massing on Israel’s border. Israel is at peace with Egypt and Jordan and peace with Lebanon and Syria would be forthcoming once Israel withdrew from the occupied Syrian territory in the Golan. The Palestinians have offered guarantees that their future mini-state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be largely demilitarized and no foreign forces hostile to Israel would be allowed. Like Egypt and Syria, they have offered international monitors, and have even gone a step forward by allowing Israel to station some of its own monitors in Palestinian territory.

There are no more attacks by the Palestinian Authority or former PLO factions within Israel; attacks from Fatah and other groups have been limited to Israeli occupation forces and Israeli colonists inside the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The terrorist attacks inside Israel have involved radical Islamic groups outside of the control of the Palestinian Authority and have generally involved individual suicide bombers, who do not require a territory from which to operate. Indeed, many if not most of the terrorist attacks within Israel since the Oslo Accords have come from operatives already within areas of Israeli control.

In short, there is no longer any strategic rationale for Israel to hold onto to an inch of land beyond its internationally recognized border. The Democrats and Republicans in Congress who try to portray Israel’s territorial land grab as necessary for the country’s security interests are simply rationalizing the colonization by one county of another through military force and repression. Indeed, the fact that the vast majority of Israelis killed since the uprising began last year have been in the occupied territories is indicative of how holding onto the West Bank and Gaza Strip threatens the security of Israelis; it does not enhance it.

The archipelago of illegal settlements amidst occupied Palestinian territory essentially constitutes a 2,000-mile border, ten times longer than Israel’s 1967 borders. Israeli armed forces have deployed more divisions protecting these 200,000 colonists outside of Israel than its six million citizens within Israel. A majority of Israelis has expressed support for removing settlers, by force if necessary. Dozens of Israeli conscripts have been killed defending Israeli settlements in isolated areas far removed from the U.S.-Israeli supported settlement blocs, creating enormous resentment within the Israeli population. The Mitchell Commission Report encouraged Israel to withdraw from these isolated settlements. However, despite claims of concern about Israeli casualties, the U.S. has refused to support the evacuation of these isolated colonists.

Israel would be far more secure with a clearly delineated, internationally recognized border than the current patchwork of settlements and military outposts on confiscated land amidst a hostile population. Despite claims of being concerned about Israel’s security, Clinton’s peace proposal presented in December would have left Israel with narrow, indefensible peninsulas of territory within the West Bank. With an Israeli withdrawal, the terrorist attacks inside Israel would be reduced, since it is the occupation and the Palestinian Authority’s inability to negotiate an independent state that are the prime motivations of the radical Islamists who commit acts of terrorism.

This is why it is incorrect to accuse U.S. policy as being “too pro-Israel:” U.S. support of Ariel Sharon’s rightist policies actually endanger Israel’s legitimate security needs.

The Bush administration and both the Republicans and Democrats in Congress have made clear that they will not link U.S. military and economic aid to Ariel Sharon’s government and its occupation forces with Israeli adherence to international law, UN Security Council resolutions, international human rights standards, or a willingness to make the necessary compromises for peace. As a result, the Sharon government has little outside incentive to make peace.

This is significant, since while there are some Israelis who—for religious or nationalist reasons—oppose the necessary compromises for peace and there are other Israelis who—for moral or pragmatic reasons—support the necessary compromises for peace, the majority of Israelis are in the middle. Historically, Israeli voters have tended to lean toward the peace camp if they feared Israel’s close relationship with America and the resulting largesse of aid were threatened and lean toward the right if they felt Israel could get away with it. The carte blanche from the U.S. for whatever the Israeli government may do significantly hurts the peace forces within Israel.

With the U.S. arming and financing Israel’s occupation and colonization drive, and blaming the Palestinians exclusively for the violence, Sharon can essentially do as he pleases.

This buying time is disastrous for Israel, since the ongoing occupation and the dimming hopes that the Palestinians will have a viable state of their own is just what breeds extremists prone to commit acts of terrorism. It further isolates Israel from other Middle Eastern countries and much of the rest of the world and creates a greater dependency on America. The U.S. is clearly willing to help Israel buy time, but it will not be the Americans who will pay the price, but the Palestinians and, ultimately, the Israelis as well.

Both Israeli and U.S. policy seems to be driven by the assumption that it is a zero-sum game, that every gain for the Palestinians necessarily comes at Israeli expense. Israel’s core security concern at this point in its history, however, is the violent reaction of a population resentful over a 34-year occupation. The reality, then, is that Israeli security and Palestinian rights are not mutually exclusive but mutually dependent on the other. The Palestinians will not get their rights until Israel feels secure and Israel will not be secure until Palestinians have their rights. Until Washington recognizes this fundamental reality, the U.S. can not be an effective peacemaker.

http://www.fpif.info/fpiftxt/328

http://www.fpif.org/articles/the_bush_administration_the_israeli-palestinian_stalemate