Attack at Rafah

Monday, December 13, 2004

True, except for a single bombing in Tel Aviv a few days before Arafat’s death last month, there has not been any attack inside the Green Line since Abbas took over as PLO chairman; true, Abbas is holding intense political discussions about a hudna-type cease-fire, but it is very difficult, perhaps impossible, for him to condemn attacks on soldiers in the territories. And that’s especially true now, after Marwan Barghouti once again has dropped out of the race for PA president, essentially paving the way for Abbas’ election on January 9th.

The underground bombing from a tunnel apparently dug over a period of months killed 5 Bedouin Desert Reconnaissance Unit soldiers, and highlighted – once again – the gap between their national military service and the services and help the state provides the Bedouin community, generally considered the poorest of the ethnic groups in Israel. It was no accident that at least two of the families in the villages and towns where the soldiers were buried this morning preferred to bury their dead as civilians, even though they had the right to be buried in full military ceremonies, as a quiet protest over the enormous gap between the respect given Bedouin soldiers in the army, and the reality of their civilian life – high unemployment, poor infrastructure, zoning problems for new housing, bad schools. While there is relatively high motivation among Bedouin youth to join the army, there is mounting dissent inside the community against joining the army. Throughout the morning, Israel Radio current event-chat shows interviewed Bedouin officers and each in their own way said that while they were proud of their army service, they feel like third-rate citizens.

The bombing also highlighted the IDF’s failure so far to come up with a solution for the tunnel problem, which have become the most effective Palestinian military technique against static Israeli positions in Gaza. Presumably, in the rockier West Bank, tunneling is not an alternative. But in sandy Gaza, any building within a kilometer of an Israeli position can be turned into the starting point for a tunnel aimed at that position.

rom the Israeli perspective, the attack yesterday was another terrorist action, proof that ‘the Palestinians’ have not given up terrorism and that the Palestinian Authority has not taken any action to prevent armed attacks on Israelis. Only a month and a half ago, when Arafat was still in the Muqata, Israel would have blamed him and probably undertaken some painful retaliation, the IDF response last night was so minor as to be negligible: a rocket attack on a warehouse where Israeli intelligence says Palestinians produce Qassam rockets.

The Israelis are in a peculiar position – Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has promised the Americans and Europeans that he will do all he can to ease conditions for the Palestinian elections on January 9th. While the army has been lifting some checkpoints, it has continued operations against suspected terrorists, making arrests almost nightly. Nor has it ceased ‘operations of opportunity,’ like a missile attack on a car carrying a long-wanted Gazan, an attack that failed and prompted Qassam fire into Israel. Instead of blaming the PA leadership, Israel is blaming Hezbollah, which means Syria and Iran. The PA leadership, in any case, will not be issuing any general calls for a ceasefire until after the elections, while Hamas is watching with trepidation as Fateh’s popularity grows with anticipation of a real change to come after the January 9th elections, when Abbas and Sharon are expected to meet to begin negotiations over the disengagement handover, and perhaps other steps.

Meanwhile, the Herzliya Conference opened this morning with National Security Advisor Giora Eiland predicting that between the January elections in the PA and August, ‘the completion of the disengagement,’ the substantive differences between Israel and the Palestinians ‘on the process, let alone the content of any agreement,’ will sharpen. He said that for Israel, there are four elements to ‘Arafat’s legacy,’ which Israel wants to see if the PA leadership relinquishes: 1. A refusal, lack of will or desire, to reach solutions, not only to the big issue, but small ones; 2. The refusal to give up the Right of Return to Israel proper; 3. Support for terror as a legitimate instrument of policy and negotiations; and 4. Using Palestinian victimhood and suffering as the main instrument of Palestinian diplomacy to win international support. The conference at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Institute has become an annual rite for the Israeli national elite, a week-long series of workshops, lectures, speeches, and panel discussions covering a host of national security issues. Over the past three years, Sharon has used his speech at the conference to unveil policy initiatives. In 2002, it was the Arafat is irrelevant speech, in 2003 it was the disengagement plan. He is due to speak later this week.

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