"The example of Gaza could be repeated in the very near future anywhere in the Territories," the leader in "Ha'aretz" (July 5) warned in the wake of last week’s confrontation between the IDF and Palestinian forces blockading the Gush Katif settlements. All the commentators agree about the danger. They are divided, though, over its origins and how it should be averted.
To "Ha'aretz", the root of the problem lies in the neglect of the peace process, which has paralysed the Palestinian-Israeli liaison committees set up under the Oslo agreements. "The working assumption of the Oslo accords was that there was no possibility of complete separation between the two sides, and therefore suitable means had to be created of preventing every local friction from turning into a minor war." Because these mechanisms no longer work, "any misunderstanding, even at the lowest level, carries the potential for a violent dispute."
"The Prime Minister," "Ha'aretz" concluded, "has no need of any more concrete proof of the expressiveness of the situation. Describing the incident as a Palestinian provocation is no substitute for rapid revival of the mechanisms of cooperation; in other words, of the peace process."
Israel’s Achilles’ heel
To Aharon Papo on the other hand ("Ma'ariv" July 9), the Oslo agreements are themselves the problem. In his view, the concessions made to the Palestinians to resolve last week’s confrontation peacefully illustrate how "the Oslo agreements are bad not only because they represent a defeat for Israel, but because they... return the Jewish people to the classic "Jewish situation" known from the Diaspora, whereby the Jew is constantly forced to retreat, and to surrender to every whim of the enemies among whom he lives."
Papo is one of several commentators who see the Gush Katif incident as having taught Yasser Arafat that extortion pays. "[Arafat] found the Achilles’ heel of the Israeli establishment, which feels powerless in the face of every Palestinian provocation," wrote Moshe Zack for example ("Ma'ariv" June 7).
On this view, carrying out the second pullback called for in the Oslo process can only make matters worse. Quoting security sources, Nadav Shragai ("Ha'aretz" July 7) predicts that, if the pullback goes ahead, terrorism will increase, and more Jewish settlements will be vulnerable to the kind of siege the Palestinians laid to Gush Katif, while Arafat is actually nurturing the Hamas terrorist infrastructure. According to Shragai, Israel is deaf to the Palestinians’ rhetoric and blind to their actions. Amira Hass however ("Ha'aretz" July 8), pointed out that in demanding free passage along the Gush Katif coast road, the Palestinians were actually claiming a right explicitly granted them in the Taba agreement of September 1995.
Two evils
The confrontation in Gush Katif also sharpened the controversy over the role of Jewish settlement. Neither Labour nor Likud, according to Mor Altshuler ("Yediot Aharonot" July 8), has faced up to the problem. "The choice is between two evils: not to evacuate settlements, and thus speed up the process of turning Israel, even within the Green Line, into a Yugoslavia or Lebanon in which there is full scale ethnic war...; or to evacuate settlements, and retreat from territory to the point at which our Berlin Wall is built, with hostile armies either side of it."
Carmi Gilon ("Yediot Aharonot" July 7) similarly says Israel must come to a decision about the settlements’ future. Politicians should stop deriding professional IDF assessments not to their liking (such assessments, according to Gilon, show that, contrary to Israeli mythology, outlying settlements can be a security liability rather than an asset) and recognise that "this is at root a political question, requiring a political decision based on national values, and on diplomatic and economic considerations as well as security."
Amnon Lord ("Yediot Aharonot" July 9) quotes respected strategic thinker Gen. (Res.) Israel Tal’s contrast between geographical borders and quality borders, meaning, in Lord’s interpretation, borders that will enable "the survival of a democratic society that ensures Jewish existence in the land of Israel, and a flourishing Jewish culture, while preserving the values of humanism and human rights." Lord also quotes Tal as saying the Hasmonean Tunnel disturbances, when Palestinian Police fired on Israeli troops, made him regret recommending that the Palestinians should be allowed to maintain an armed force.
Lord’s conclusion from these two lines of thought is that, in the current circumstances, "the difficult territorial concession being demanded of Israel is not intended to achieve peace, or to secure our quality borders, but simply to prevent an immediate conflagration and postpone the next test of strength to next year."
Lie to us, please
A further controversy that arose from the tension in Gaza was over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s creditworthiness. He denied knowledge of the concessions over Palestinian traffic movement in the arrangement that resolved the dispute, but those involved in the negotiations said he was in fact fully informed.
While the press generally lambasted Netanyahu as a liar, and Haggai Segal ("Ma'ariv" July 7) said those concerned for the Land of Israel should topple him before he betrayed them further, Yair Caspi ("Ma'ariv" July 6) ventured that "perhaps the time has come to consider a worse possibility: that the man doesn’t lie to us, but for us. Our Prime Minister reads wonderfully well the collective unconscious of most of our people, and there, in the depths, he hears our real desire.. the hope we are shy of stating out loud: of obtaining peace for nothing... When a people has not wanted to know the inevitable, a leader has always been found willing to lie to it. And the man has made a brilliant career, not in spite of being a great liar, but because of it."
Published by Israel's Business Arena on July 9, 1998
Responses to Press Cuttings are welcome. Please send comments to davidg@globes.co.il
Israel’s Main Hebrew Dailies:
| Readership as % of population |
| | Weekday | Weekend |
| Yediot Aharonot | 48.4% | 62.5% |
| Ma’ariv | 23.5% | 33.3% |
| Ha’aretz | 7.1% | 9.8% |
| Globes | 3.5% | 2.8% |
The above figures are based on a survey carried out by the Israel Advertising Association in November 1996. The survey covered a sample of 2,500 people representing a cross-section of the population of Israel.
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