Washington Watch
If the February 26, Aqaba Summit accomplished anything, it was to demonstrate the inadequacy of US policy toward Israel/Palestine.
The Summit, instigated by the USA and hosted by Jordan, brought together leaders from Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, Egypt, and the USA. The goal of the convening was embarrassingly minimalist: to reduce Israeli/Palestinian tensions and create calm in advance of and during the month of Ramadan and the Passover. By failing to address the systemic problems at the root of the Israeli/Palestinian tensions, the Summit became an exercise in futility leaving its stated “goal” unattainable.
The USA proposed, and the parties apparently accepted, a number of worn-out half-measures that were intended to reduce tensions during the “next few months.”
Israel, for example, agreed to: a short-term freeze on “discussing” new settlements or demolishing Palestinian homes; a reduction in raids into Palestinian communities; respecting the “status quo” in Jerusalem; and freeing up more of the tax monies they collect for the Palestinians (but have been illegally withholding from the Palestinian Authority).
For their part, the PA agreed to: refrain for a period of time from taking their case to the United Nations; improving security cooperation with Israel; and using the additional tax revenues Israel will turn over to hire and train (with US support) new security forces to be better able to control the armed resistance groups that are springing up in the territories.
As if to make the point that these agreements were both inadequate and divorced from reality, while the parties to the Summit were meeting and drafting their communiqué, developments unfolding in Israel and the Palestinian occupied lands demonstrated that the Summit was a failure.
Only when the USA establishes firm red lines for Israel and makes clear that there will be concrete negative consequences for continued bad behaviour will we be able to arrest the downward spiral of violence, foster a new direction in Israel’s internal debate, and give the Palestinians a sense of hope that their plight is recognized and will be addressed. Change won’t come overnight. But bad policy has been digging this hole for decades; getting out of this mess will take courage, resolve, and vision.
Palestinians were still reeling from the February 22 Israeli undercover operation in Nablus that turned into a massacre— in which 11 Palestinians were killed and over 100 injured. On February 26, while the Summit was concluding, Palestinian gunmen shot and killed two Israeli settlers who were driving through their village of Hawara. Within a few hours, hundreds of extremist Israeli settlers descended on the village, attacking and injuring hundreds of Palestinian residents and torching hundreds of homes and cars. It was, by any definition, a pogrom.
Such violence has been escalating in the occupied Palestinian Territories. Massive undercover Israeli raids in the heart of heavily populated Palestinian communities have been all too frequent. While Israel claims that these raids are conducted to arrest known terrorists, many of the 75 Palestinians killed and hundreds of those wounded this year have been innocents caught in the gunfire or armed Palestinians who have drawn their weapons to fight off the Israeli invaders. In addition to the police raids, the settler assaults on Palestinian homes, travelers, and farms and businesses have also increased.
While we’ve seen these same undercover raids and acts of settler violence in the past, with the installation of the new Netanyahu-led government, they are now occurring with greater frequency and impunity. Of the 350 settlers who participated in the initial Hawara rampage, only two remain under arrest. The two Israeli cabinet ministers in charge of the territories are themselves extremists who have often incited other settlers to violence. After the incidents in Hawara, one of these ministers joined lawmakers in his party in calling on the village to be “wiped out.” Another lawmaker said he wanted to see it “closed and burnt.”
In the days that followed the Aqaba Summit there were more deadly raids, more shootings, and more settler assaults. After one Israeli raid killed 6 more Palestinians in Jenin, PA security forces attacked the funeral procession for one of the victims objecting to the display of Hamas flags. This only served to accent the Palestinian perception that the PA has become “an enforcement arm of the occupation.”
When news of the Aqaba “agreements” became known in Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu quickly announced, “There is no settlement freeze.” He was joined by one of his ministers who declared his intention to continue demolitions of Palestinian homes in Jerusalem during Ramadan, while another scoffed at the idea that Jews would refrain from praying at the Haram al Sharif during Passover (which occurs during Ramadan). One Israeli lawmaker wryly noted, “What happened in Aqaba, stays in Aqaba.”
The bottom line is that while the USA, Jordan, and Egypt may want calm, the situation in Israel and Palestine is spinning out of control.
The current Israeli government is made up of ideologically driven extremists inclined toward violence and unwilling to recognize Palestinian rights. Because the USA has historically coddled successive Israeli governments, never enforcing limits to their unlawful behaviour, the Israelis in power today act with a sense of impunity. They are out of control.
For their part, because the PA has been so weakened by its inability to deliver on the “promise of peace” and because it has repeatedly endured humiliation at the hands of the US and Israel, it has lost the respect of angry constituents who now want to strike back when struck. It too is out of control.
The problem is that for decades the US approach to “peace” has consisted of nothing more than insisting that Palestinians crack down on their extremists— even if it meant civil war— but has placed no such demand on Israel to forcibly subdue its extremists. The result is what we have today: an extremist Israeli government hell-bent on subduing the last vestiges of Palestinian dignity and a discredited Palestinian Authority incapable of controlling its people’s anger.
Given this state of affairs, it was at best a fool’s errand for the USA to assume that the Aqaba proposals would create calm. Instead of placing a bandage on a festering wound, the USA should have used a scalpel to attack the root problems: the Israelis’ sense of entitlement and impunity and Palestinians’ anger at the abuse they continue to endure.
Only when the USA establishes firm red lines for Israel and makes clear that there will be concrete negative consequences for continued bad behaviour will we be able to arrest the downward spiral of violence, foster a new direction in Israel’s internal debate, and give the Palestinians a sense of hope that their plight is recognized and will be addressed. Change won’t come overnight. But bad policy has been digging this hole for decades; getting out of this mess will take courage, resolve, and vision.
Until then, it’s safe to assume that we will be witnessing very difficult days ahead.
