Doomed to Failure?: The Politics and Intelligence of the Oslo Peace Process (PSI Reports)

Doomed to Failure?

Doomed to Failure?

The Politics and Intelligence of the Oslo Peace Process

Ofira Seliktar

PSI Reports

Praeger Security International An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC

Copyright 2009 by Ofira Seliktar All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Seliktar, Ofira. Doomed to failure? : the politics and intelligence of the Oslo peace process / Ofira Seliktar. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–313–36617–8 (hard copy : alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0–313–36618–5 (ebook) 1. Arab-Israeli conflict—1993—Peace. 2. Arab-Israeli conflict—1973–1993. I. Title. DS119.76.S455 2009 956.05’3—dc22 2009009901 13 12 11 10 9

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This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook. Visit www.abc-clio.com for details. ABC-CLIO, LLC 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911 This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America

For My Friend Robert B. Sklaroff, MD

Contents

Introduction: The Theory and Practice of Predicting Political Change

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Chapter 1: The Theory and Practice of Conflict Resolution: The Israeli-Palestinian Struggle

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Chapter 2: The Road to Oslo: The Triumph of the New Middle East Paradigm

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Chapter 3: Creating the Palestinian Authority—A Partner for Peace?

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Chapter 4: Implementing Oslo: The Rabin-Peres Difficult Launch, 1993–96

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Chapter 5: Netanyahu’s Midcourse ‘‘Correction’’ of the Oslo Peace, 1996–99 Chapter 6: Barak’s Acceleration: The Push for Final Status Negotiations, 1999–2000

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Chapter 7: The Collapse of the Oslo Peace: Camp David II, the Outbreak of the Al Aqsa Intifada, and the Taba Talks, 2000–2001

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Chapter 8: Reflections on the Predictive Failure of the Oslo Peace

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Notes

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Index

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Introduction

The Theory and Practice of Predicting Political Change

The Oslo Peace Accord signed in a widely watched ceremony on the lawn of the White House on September 13, 1993 promised to end the century-long conflict between the Jews and the Palestinians and usher in a period of peace in the Middle East. Yet, less than a decade later, after the failure of the Taba talks in January 2001, the peace process collapsed. Although subsequent efforts to revive negotiations included elements of the original plan, they have never amounted to the sweeping vision guiding the Accord, nor have they been successful so far. As such, Oslo peace looms large in the pantheon of Israeli predictive failures and has focused attention on the way in which the country forecasts and manages political change. Prediction and foreign policy making are closely related. Consciously or subconsciously, policy decisions rest on prediction of a likely course of future events. Henry Kissinger perceived the establishment of a foreign policy with ‘‘our ability to perceive trends and dangers before they become overwhelming,’’ noting that, often, ‘‘judgment about the future cannot be proved when [decisions] are made.’’1 Given the difficulties involved in this dictum, an enormous intellectual effort to identify sources of predictive failures has been conducted since the middle of the twentieth century. Following the pioneering work of Roberta Wohlstetter on Pearl Harbor, a large body of literature has dealt with military-strategic and political-strategic projecting. The traumatic October 1973 War spurred a similar effort in Israel. While military and political changes focus on different dimensions of international reality, they both are susceptible to the same types of predictive

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errors. Logically conceived, prediction is comparable to a form of statistical inference. In every predictive episode, evidence is assessed and probability is assigned to the ‘‘hypothesis’’ that an event will or will not occur. Prognosticators run the risk of committing two types of inferential errors. They can either accept a ‘‘false hypothesis,’’ that is, decide that an event will take place when it will not occur (alpha-error), or reject a ‘‘true hypothesis,’’ that is, decide that an event will not take place when, in fact, it is going to occur (beta-error). Experts have worked to eliminate both types of errors, but instances where adverse events were not predicted have, understandably, attracted the most attention. Failures range from minimal to fundamental and are grouped in four categories. In the first two (residuals and errors), the actual prediction of the event is successful (with the former being minuscule and the latter being more substantive), but the time frame is off by a particular margin; the failure in these categories does not necessitate any change in basic theory and/or predictive methodology. In the third category (outliers), the miss is large enough to warrant revision of the methodology and applications used by the community of practitioners, but the basic theory is still viewed as adequate. In the last category (anomalies), the miss is so great that it casts doubt on the underlying theory being used by practitioners; in terms of the philosophy of science, it triggers a revision at the epistemic level of knowledge, a paradigm shift. The role of such fundamental failures can be best understood in terms of Thomas Kuhn’s analysis of revolutionary change in knowledge. In his famous work on the structure of scientific revolution, Kuhn postulated that in routine times, a set of agreed-upon fundamental concepts are used to analyze a situation. These deep-seated concepts (master theories) constitute the rules that dominate the field of a given intellectual endeavor and dictate the standards of rational inquiry. They form the ‘‘entire constellations of beliefs, values, and technologies . . . shared by the member of a given community.’’ The dominant paradigm determines what questions will arise, what forms of explanations will be deemed acceptable, and what interpretations will be perceived as legitimate. As long as the paradigm is not challenged, its normalcy is accepted widely. In the wake of a severe crisis, though, the dominant paradigm is questioned and ultimately overthrown. These paradigmatic battles—which are fought at the very frontiers of rationality—dictate how the community of practitioners looks at the relevant reality. When a new paradigm wins, its novel and ‘‘revolutionary’’ perceptions become routine and ‘‘normal.’’2 Although Kuhn was primarily concerned with the scientific community, his work was applied to the study of prediction. The assumption here is that foreign policy practitioners use paradigms to evaluate political reality, present and future. As one scholar put it, in their absence, ‘‘the policymaker is lost [because] all problems, approaches, facts and possible courses of action seem equally plausible.’’ Another added, ‘‘even the naı¨ve practitioner who insists that he makes every

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decision solely on the facts at hand operates with an implicit assumption of what the future will be like.’’3 It is not easy, however, to discern how a paradigm may shape perceptions of political reality. Traditional models of foreign policy decision-making do not focus explicitly on the epistemics of ‘‘understandings’’ which are vital to this endeavor. Such models—‘‘rational choice,’’ ‘‘bureaucratic politics,’’ and ‘‘crisis behavior’’—have either emphasized the political, environmental, and/or structural dimensions of policymaking or analyzed the process through which a collective understanding of a situation has been reached. Close to the issue of epistemology is the cognitive approach, for the belief system of foreign policy practitioners is a ‘‘set of lenses through which information concerning the physical and social environment is received.’’4 Studies on how bureaucracies ‘‘think’’ reveal that a collective understanding of a situation is arrived as a result of the performance of a large number of individuals who apply concepts from an ‘‘analytical communal inventory.’’ Such inventories are formed through complex and ill-defined intellectual interaction among foreign policy actors, bureaucratic experts, scholars, and journalists. But even the leading experts in this field have failed to agree on how the two key elements in the ‘‘cognitive map’’ of the actors—broad fundamentals and the more narrowly proscribed instrumental beliefs—interact in discerning the kinetics of international reality. This is due to the fact that this model, epistemically, is based on a dominant assumption that is too static and limited, for decision-makers in charge of apprising the situation cannot always be identified readily, and their beliefs and perceptions cannot always be deduced through cognitive mapping, simulation, or other analytical devises. Studies of foreign policy culture offer an alternative for tracking paradigms used in discerning international reality. This literature shows how enduring patterns of thought, symbols, and values affect policy deliberations and inform perception of the future. Although direct empirical links between prevalent intellectual modes and foreign policy practitioners are hard to demonstrate, they are necessarily pervasive. One scholar used the image from Indian cosmology to describe how fundamental beliefs affect practitioners. ‘‘The table at which policymakers sit is like the platform . . . on which the world stands; under it is a pyramid of arbitrary assumptions, untested and indeed untestable hypothesis and imprecise measures.’’5 While unquestionably true, this definition is too broad to capture the paradigmatic assumptions that underlie a given forecasting episode. To transcend these limits requires a more dialectically oriented psychological, sociological, and ethnographic approach. Ralph Pettman, a leading authority on the epistemology of foreign policy, argued that the entire community of discourse on a given issue should be studied to identify the paradigms that determine how practitioners conceive of foreign realities. Giandomenico Majone, in his Evidence, Argument and Persuasion in the Policy Process, formalized this

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proposition. Majone defined the discursive community as all those who share an active interest in a certain policy domain—academics, public intellectuals, political actors, lay experts, advocates, journalists, and others. Because such a community is loosely joined and each of its members has a different (but hard to estimate) impact, Majone suggested that the focus of inquiry should involve the entire discursive community rather than selected participants thereof.6 The ‘‘thinking professions’’ have a major impact on policies; intellectual scholars create a ‘‘climate of ideas,’’ define situations, and mold the perspectives of policymakers. Given their pervasiveness, ‘‘academic pens leave a mark . . . [for] policymakers’ basic understanding of their world seldom differs fundamentally from [that of ] social scientists.’’ Over time, they create an ‘‘almost rigid, congealed mass of conventional wisdom.’’ Yet, the influence they wield is unpredictable, indirect, and difficult to measure, for ‘‘ideas are not consumer goods shipped from intellectual warehouses . . . to be retailed in the executive branch or on Capitol Hill.’’ And one commentator has observed bluntly that, perhaps for this reason, policymakers ‘‘have seldom given much heed to the writings of theorists.’’7 Still, the use of the output of a discursive community for comprehending how forecasting occurs makes it possible to amalgamate the features of the more traditional approaches to decision-making with the elements of political culture and the epistemology of using collective concepts. An analysis of the Israeli discursive community is especially useful in understanding the Oslo peace process as it was heavily shaped by the academicintellectual paradigms of the day. Indeed, this book is based on the assumption that a dialectical relation exists between such paradigms and the way in which collective concepts inform politicians, bureaucrats, and intelligence officials. To restate the Kuhnian proposition, paradigms developed in the relevant branches of social knowledge influence the epistemology of foreign policy practitioners who are responsible for predicting and managing political change. In turn, political reality influences the structuring and restructuring of these paradigms. This interaction is essentially inseparable; however, for analytical purposes, elements of this process can be isolated and sequenced. First, this study discusses the series of paradigms that evolved in the discourse of the relations between Israel and the Palestinians since 1967. After decades of acute struggle unfolding against the background of the Cold War conflict, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Gulf War in 1991 were said to have changed the Middle East, offering a conflict resolution ‘‘ripeness’’ moment. Dubbed the New Middle East, the paradigm drove the effort of Israeli peace activists and their Western supporters to initiate the Oslo negotiations that ended with the Declaration of Principles. Although the New Middle East paradigm engendered a vocal critique, the enthusiastic support of the academic-intellectual community, elite media, and parts of the intelligence/security establishment virtually assured

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its dominance. Not coincidently, members of this community were engaged both in the drafting of the Accord and in the variety of plans and programs deemed necessary for its implementation. Second, this book demonstrates how these paradigmatic assumptions shaped the peace process, including the stage-by-stage approach, the efforts at confidence-building measures, and the prominence accorded to the economic underpinnings of peace, capped by the vision for an economic union between Israel, Palestine, and ultimately, other states in the region. Key to the peace process was the creation of a progressive democratic Palestinian Authority under the leadership of Yasser Arafat, envisioned as the Palestinian incarnation of Nelson Mandela. The credibility of the core New Middle East assumptions, however, was challenged by the mismanaged, corrupt, and violent PA and the unpredictable behavior of Arafat and his inability or unwillingness to control Islamist terrorism. The terror and tumult generated by the failed state-to-be had eroded Labor’s mandate to deal with Israeli Right, and in due course, forced it into a punitive policy of territorial closures and physical separation. Bypassing the interim stage policy, the Camp David summit strove to reach a final agreement while assuring a permanent separation between Israel and the Palestinian entity. Third, this work demonstrates that advocates of the New Middle East paradigm were undermined by the failure of the Oslo peace, the subsequent bloody Al Aqsa Intifada, and the rise of Islamist militancy. With conflict resolution seemingly impossible and ‘‘peace now’’ rendered ethereal, the new dominant view emphasizes the durability of the old Middle East and a return to the more modest goal of conflict maintenance and management of regional geopolitics. The structure of this book reflects the above research strategy. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the evolution of the Israeli approaches to the Palestinian problem. Chapters 2–7 use a thematic chronology in the analysis of the Oslo peace. Chapter 2 details the path to the negotiations and the premises that underpinned the Accord. Chapter 3 discusses the evolution of the PA, considered the linchpin of the peace process, into a failed proto-state. Chapter 4 analyzes Labor’s uphill struggle to implement the Accord in spite of the progressively repudiated legitimacy of Arafat. Chapter 5 details the efforts of the Likud government to effect a midcourse ‘‘correction’’ of the Oslo peace. Chapters 6–7 scrutinize the efforts of Labor to bypass PA violations of interim provisions to effect a final peace settlement. The concluding Chapter 8 analyzes the predictive shortcomings of the Oslo peace, conceptualized as a synergistically interacting failure at the paradigmatic, foreign policy, and intelligence levels. Work of this scope could not have been undertaken without adequate data. Unlike the failure of prediction in the 1973 War, the Oslo debacle was not formally investigated by the Israeli government. Still, throughout the peace process, and especially after its collapse, a large body of literature has emerged on the subject. Most of the Israeli Oslo architects, some of their Palestinian counterparts,

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and a few American leaders have written biographical accounts and/or have granted extensive interviews. Although such material tends to be self-serving and is tainted by hindsight wisdom, it elucidates their perceptions of the public/secret process that was occurring. Supplementing an appreciation of the Palestinian mind-set are well-informed biographies of Yasser Arafat and documents seized by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the PA headquarters in Ramallah. To round out the picture, the author interviewed a large number of politicians, intelligence officials, and academics/intellectuals associated with the peace process, including former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, heads of Mossad and Military Intelligence, and the chiefs of their analytical divisions. To preserve the integrity of the discursive approach, however, a major effort was made to use materials that were contemporaneous to the period under discussion, particularly those reports, writings, and/or interviews that had predictive/ forecasting implications.

1

The Theory and Practice of Conflict Resolution: The Israeli-Palestinian Struggle

Throughout much of modern history, the study of conflict was part of the field of international relations (IR) that focused on state behavior, balance of power, and deterrence. Using these tools, two powerful IR theories—realism and neorealism— sought to explain how conflicts between states are generated and settled. Underlying the realist paradigm was the notion that international reality is anarchic and prone to violence rather than harmony and peace. A group of social scientists disaffected with traditional IR searched for alternative ways to conceptualize conflict and to achieve peace. Spanning the second part of the twentieth century, a number of theoretical traditions have emerged from this quest, but the degree to which they can validly be applied to the chronic Israeli-Palestinian clash is unclear. PEACE STUDIES, CONFLICT RESOLUTION, AND RIPENESS THEORIES

Peace studies were developed to cope with the tensions of the Cold War and the nuclear arms race. At the applied level, a growing cadre of peace researchers participated in conferences, workshops, and simulations designed to influence the foreign policy discourse. One such forum, the Pugwash Conference, evolved into a high-profile advocate for nuclear disarmament. The creation of the government-funded U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) in 1981 and the decision of major foundations in the United States and Europe to support peace research resulted in a huge increase in the number of peace studies programs, academic journals, and a vast body of scholarship devoted to creating a peaceful international community. While heterodox in nature, peace research rejected

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the notion that conflict and violence are the default position in international reality. As the inaugural issue of Peace and Conflict declared, for example, the journal ‘‘was guided by a world in which peaceful means of resolving conflict prevail upon violent ones.’’1 One branch of the new discipline, under the lead of Anatol Rapoport and other prominent rational choice theorists, was initially preoccupied with rational choice, bargaining, and negotiation theory. However, radicalized by the Vietnam War, Rapoport had moved to Canada where he had established the Science for Peace, a nongovernmental organization (NGO), which spearheaded academically based peace studies programs. Science for Peace was also in the forefront of creating NGOs to monitor military behavior of states with regard to local populations caught up in the conflict. A strand in the European peace research tradition went one step further. The Norwegian scholar Johan Galtung used a neo-Marxist approach to argue that conflict is caused by Western colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism rather than the anarchic nature of international society. Galtung urged broadening the notion of peace to encompass the fight for global equality, for freedom from all forms of ‘‘cultural imperialism,’’ and for basic human needs. Through his influential Journal of Peace Research, Galtung called for a rebalancing of relations between the ‘‘topdogs and underdogs’’ of the international system, his term for Western colonial countries and their former Third World charges. Although the United States had no colonial history, Noam Chomsky, a prominent neo-Marxist academic, used Galtung’s ‘‘topdog-underdog’’ dichotomy to blame Washington’s policies for creating conflict and dissension around the globe.2 Conflict resolution (CR), a newly emergent discipline in late 1970s, was less critical of the United States but even more removed from traditional IR. Derived from social psychology, CR has been attributed to Herbert Kelman (a Harvard social psychologist who offered a course titled ‘‘Social Psychological Approaches to International Relations’’) and Joseph Montville, a State Department official. They held that intractable conflicts could not be solved through traditional diplomatic statecraft. Rather, CR required use of an array of tools ranging from confidencebuilding measures (CBM) to reconciliation and ‘‘cathartic’’ forgiveness. To overcome deep-seated hostilities, the CR approach advocated contacts among ‘‘citizen diplomats,’’ academics, former politicians, and retired military and intelligence officers in specially designed workshops or conferences. Less structured and sheltered from media scrutiny, this so-called ‘‘Track II’’ diplomacy was said to be ideal for exploring creative and unorthodox ideas in a nonthreatening environment. Central to the CR approach was the role of the ‘‘scholar-practitioner’’ who, in Kelman’s words, could understand ‘‘the parties’ needs and concerns, their hopes and fears’’ while maintaining an objective posture.3 Transcending such elite endeavors, some CR theorists urged a change of the collective belief system of longtime adversaries. Accordingly, reduction in intergroup

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conflict could be achieved through ‘‘identity affirmation,’’ increase in empathy, and the overcoming of the image of the enemy ‘‘other.’’ At a minimum, changing mass perceptions required a balanced coverage of events by the media; a more ambitious effort called for rewriting the history of the conflict with a view of eliminating the ‘‘foundational myths’’ and purging offending images of the ‘‘other.’’ If successful, such a rewrite of collective memory was expected to remove existential fears and perceptions of victimhood that were said to hinder reconciliation.4 Yet another approach, ripeness theory, spanned systemic features of IR and diffuse psychological processes. Developed by William Zartman, an Africa expert, ripeness theory stipulated that intractable conflicts can be solved when the leadership and/or the public of antagonistic countries shift from a conflict to cooperative perception. Ripeness theory was embraced by the USIP and the Brookings Institution to train American foreign policy practitioners—schooled in traditional diplomacy—to discern such alleged shift as a way to settle longfestering conflicts. Epistemologically, the ripeness construct was premised on difficult-to-measure psychological changes in perception, but it was commonly understood that a fortuitous combination of international events, external pressure, and internal dynamics would trigger the shift to cooperation.5 These and other advocates of peace research, CR, and ripeness theory were eager to apply their conceptualizations to an extensive list of intractable conflicts, including Northern Ireland, Cyprus, and Kashmir. However, the Middle East conflict, the ‘‘holy grail’’ of the field, attracted the lion’s share of attention. By the early 1980s, these academics and their followers had firmly trained their attention onto the struggle between Israel and the Palestinians. THE MAKING OF A HISTORIC CONFLICT: LAND, LEGITIMACY, AND SOVEREIGNTY

The origins of the conflict are well known. Jews had maintained a continuous presence in their ‘‘promised land’’ since Joshua conquered Jericho in the twelfth century BCE. However, the modern Jewish immigration to Palestine at the beginning of the twentieth century was met with stiff opposition from the local Arab population. Following repeated failures to reconcile Jewish and Palestinian Arab interests, the United Nations voted to partition Palestine in 1947. After rejecting the UN decision, the Palestinians, with the help of a number of Arab states, fought to dislodge the Jewish community in Palestine. In 1948, when the Jews reestablished the independent state of Israel, an estimated 700,000 Palestinian Arab refugees settled in Jordan, in Egypt-controlled Gaza Strip, in Lebanon, and in Syria. The Six Day War (of June 1967) brought some two million Palestinians (formerly living in lands controlled by Jordan and Egypt) under Israel’s control. Less than a month later, the wartime Labor government decided to exchange the newly acquired territories for Arab recognition and peace. However, in August,

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Arab leaders meeting in Khartoum rejected the Israeli overtures by announcing the ‘‘three no’s’’—no negotiations, no recognition, and no peace. With Labor rebuffed, the Greater Israel Movement, a coalition of religious Zionists and hard-line nationalists, declared part of the newly acquired land to be historical Israel, Eretz Yisrael Hashlema, or Greater Israel. For the former, the Six Day War was a fulfillment of a messianic prophecy, in which the return of the land was considered to be aqavta de’mashiha, the showing of the heel of the messiah, a portent of the coming of geuala, redemption. For the latter, the allure of history was enhanced by the strategic imperative of defensible borders. The Likud government headed by Menachem Begin that came to power in 1977 provided the political muscle for the growing settler movement. By the late 1980s, the settlement drive, spearheaded by Gush Emunim, the Bloc of Faithful, numbered some one hundred thousand Israelis in the territories.6 Proclaiming Israel’s right to the territories was one thing, but controlling a large hostile population was another. In 1967, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan sought to establish a ‘‘low-cost’’ occupation regime through the retention of much of the Jordanian framework and the running of a low-profile, ‘‘invisible’’ military administration. Major General Shlomo Gazit who headed the research division in Aman, Israel’s Military Intelligence, noted that Dayan wanted to create the impression that ‘‘nothing had changed in their [Palestinian] lives.’’ The unimpeded access to the Israeli labor market quickly raised the standard of living in the territories. According to Amnon Cohen, a Middle East expert at the Hebrew University who became Dayan’s adviser on the territories, this was a winning formula for keeping Palestinians quiescent. Cohen, a senior reserve officer in Aman, characterized Palestinians as patient and passive, despite their nationalist rhetoric. This ‘‘they bark but don’t bite’’ optimism was not universally shared by the intelligence community, especially as the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), created under the auspices of the Arab League in 1964 by groups like Fatah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) had grown in popularity. Five years later, the Arab League picked Yasser Arafat, the leader of Fatah, to chair the PLO. Arafat, an ardent champion of Palestinian nationalism, called for a violent struggle of liberation. In 1974, the PLO adopted the goal of establishing an independent Palestinian state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.7 The PLO’s ascendancy presented Israel with two problems. Militarily, there was a dramatic increase in terrorist attacks within the Green Line, Israel’s pre–Six Day border. Israeli interests abroad were also targeted; in one high-profile operation, a group of Israeli athletes was massacred during the 1972 Munich Olympics. Yehoshafat Harkabi, a former chief of Aman turned academic, declared that the PLO had embarked on ‘‘politicide,’’ a new strategy of destroying Israel in stages. Although the IDF pushed the PLO out of the territories, Arafat established a new stronghold in Jordan where his forces challenged the Hashemite Kingdom.

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After King Hussein expelled Arafat from Jordan in 1970, the PLO moved its headquarters to Lebanon, which served as a base for the shelling of northern Israel and for launching often spectacular terrorist attacks in which scores of Israelis died. Though Palestinian terrorism was not considered an existential threat, the continuous disruption of daily life in the Galilee and bold attacks in the heart of the country embarrassed the security-oriented Begin government. Politically, buoyed by his success in taking on Israel, Arafat, working through the Palestinian National Front (PNF), managed to displace the traditional clanbased leaders in the West Bank, many of whom were loyal to the Hashemites. In 1974, the PLO declared itself to be the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, a claim accepted by the Arab League and the United Nations. Worried about the growing popular support for the PLO, the Israeli authorities resolved to cultivate a less confrontational alternative leadership. In the late 1970s, Menachem Milson, a Hebrew University professor who served as an adviser to the Likud government, conceived of the Village Leagues, a wellfinanced group of clan-based politicians; nevertheless, it was repudiated by the majority of the Palestinians. Following the Village Leagues debacle, the General Security Service (Shin Bet), in charge of security and intelligence in the West Bank, recommended supporting the emerging Islamist movement. Among others, the Israeli authorities were involved in the creation of the Gaza Islamic Center and the al Najah University in Nablus. As one senior intelligence official explained, cultivating the Islamists was seen as a way to countermand the PLO.8 Not surprisingly, the Camp David agreement with Egypt in 1979 made little difference in managing the occupation. According to the peace accord, the Palestinians were to be given limited autonomy, but the PLO and the PNF’s successor, the National Guidance Committee, vehemently rejected the proposal. On orders from the PLO, the Palestinians refused to comply with Israel’s unilateral efforts to provide a semblance of autonomy. When, in 1980, the military administration was restructured as the Civilian Administration, it brought few cheers. To the contrary, Israeli authorities were faced with the fact that, after years of increasingly harsh measures, including arrests and deportations, Arafat and the PLO were firmly in control.9 The growing threat of the ‘‘state within a state’’ that the PLO had created in Lebanon prompted Ariel Sharon (the Minister of Defense in the Begin cabinet) and Raphael Eitan (the IDF Chief of Staff ) to urge an offensive into Lebanon. The 1982 Lebanon War proved to be a watershed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; the PLO forces were soundly defeated and Arafat had to relocate to the distant outpost of Tunis. Although observers disagreed on the future of Arafat, the PLO, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, CR theorists were optimistic that the war had provided a real breakthrough. The new resolve to end the conflict was fueled by the large and influential peace movement that the war in Lebanon had stimulated. Alongside the leading Peace Now group, a plethora of NGOs had

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emerged. Many of the peace activists who had come of age during the Lebanon War went on to occupy prominent positions in academia and the media, creating a movement for solving the conflict. THEORY IN PRACTICE: PERSPECTIVES ON SOLVING THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT

Taking an early lead, Galtung used his ‘‘topdog-underdog’’ theory of conflict to argue that Israel’s creation, part of a larger British colonial scheme, was a ‘‘mistake’’ that, like Rhodesia, another alien ‘‘ethnic island,’’ had fomented conflict in the region. Galtung rejected the various claims of legitimacy of the Jewish state and argued that the original ‘‘mistake’’ should be redressed by creating a federation in the territory of the Palestinian Mandate that would empower Jordanians, Palestinians, and Jews to take charge of their own cantons. Edward Said turned Galtung’s original ‘‘mistake’’ into the ‘‘original sin’’ theory, decrying Israel’s ‘‘colonial creation.’’ This notion was picked up by Said’s disciples in the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) and transferred into the emerging field of colonial studies. The Middle East Report, a publication of the radical Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP), and the Journal of Palestine Studies took the position that the only ‘‘atonement’’ for the ‘‘original sin’’ was through the creation of a secular democratic state in the entire region of Israel, West Bank, and Gaza.10 In Israel, only fringe communist and Trotskyite groups shared the radical peace studies view. One high-profile advocate was Uri Avinery, the publisher of the tabloid Haolam Haze. Another was Michael Warshawsky (Micado), a member of the Revolutionary Communist League ‘‘Mazpen’’ who, in 1984, founded the Alternative Information Center (AIC) dedicated to monitoring the Israeli occupation. Warshawsky’s wife, Leah Tsemel, a board member of the AIC, made her name defending Palestinians accused of terrorist attacks.11 Distancing himself from critical peace studies, Kelman used CR to promote practical measures to achieve peace. In the late 1970s, the Harvard professor established a workshop where Israeli and Palestinian scholars and practitioners could meet for intense ‘‘joint thinking’’ sessions. Among the Israeli participants of the so-called Harvard Seminar were Shlomo Gazit and other intelligence and military officials, as well as the respected Haaretz military analyst, Zeev Schiff, Labor politicians, and prominent academics. Yezid Sayigh, Camille Mansour, Ziad abu Ziad, and Ghassan al Khatib and other academics and activists represented the Palestinian side. Kelman hoped that the ideas generated in his seminar would subsequently be circulated among the Israeli and Palestinian leadership and spread via the media to the public. In the words of one Israeli attendant, the participants would create a ‘‘critical mass’’ of people capable of changing mutually hostile perceptions.12 Alongside his applied work, Kelman was busy expanding theoretical parameters for breaking the historical impasse. The Harvard professor stipulated that

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in order to move the parties to the negotiating table, the conflict had to be presented in a symmetrical way, even if the underlying reality was asymmetrical. Using this ‘‘functional parallel,’’ Kelman was able to claim that both the Israeli Jews and the Palestinians were equally responsible for creating the conflict and for perpetuating it. He applied the same symmetry to the proposed solution: direct communication between the Palestinians and the Israelis; mutual recognition of national identity, legitimacy, and sovereignty of the other side; and the creation of two states, coexisting side by side in peace.13 As a ‘‘scholar-practitioner,’’ Kelman knew that the Israelis would not engage in negotiations with the PLO chairman, a reviled terrorist. To change this image and present Arafat as a leader ready to make a historical compromise, Kelman interviewed Arafat twice. He gave the chairman high marks for his cognitive style, pragmatism, and flexible thinking. Though Kelman admitted that Arafat did not specifically recognize Israel’s right to exist, he felt that Arafat’s hints (as interpreted by Kelman) were ‘‘more convincing than direct statements of support for a peaceful settlement which are subject to deliberate manipulation.’’ In 1983, Kelman presented these ideas to the International Center for Peace in the Middle East, a leftist Israeli group that advocated dialogue with the PLO.14 Stephen P. Cohen, Kelman’s student and associate, furthered the CR drive by creating the Institute for Middle East Peace and Development in 1979. Among Cohen’s early backers were Cyrus Vance, President Carter’s Secretary of State, and the Slim-Fast mogul, S. Daniel Abraham. Cohen, who developed an impressive range of contacts in the region, was instrumental in arranging a meeting between Yossi Ginossar, a former Shin Bet official, and PLO representatives. Seeking to change public perceptions about the viability of a settlement, the Institute took a lead in financing research on public opinion toward CR among Palestinians and Israeli Jews. Cohen funded a comprehensive survey of the attitudes of both peoples, led by two prominent Israeli social scientists, Ephraim Yuchtman-Yaar and Michael Inbar. They found that all their respondents were pragmatic enough to distinguish between the normative claims of Greater Palestine and Greater Israel and what was realistically achievable. Equally encouraging, from the CR perspective, the scholars noted that both populations consider the United States to be an honest broker that could mediate the conflict.15 In Europe, Track II diplomacy found an eager following among a group of Scandinavian socialist leaders. Leading the way was Jan Egeland, Norway’s deputy foreign minister who, as a young political scientist, envisioned a major mediation role for his small country. In 1982, the Norwegian Labor party helped to establish FAFO, the Norwegian acronym for the Institute for Applied Social Research, which tracked living condition in the occupied territories. FAFO’s associates—Terje Rod Larson, Mona Juul (his wife), and Marianne Heiberg (the wife of the Norwegian Foreign Minister Jorgen Holst)—repeatedly traveled to Tunis to press Arafat to renounce terrorism and to embrace a peaceful solution

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to the conflict. Holst’s predecessor, Thorvald Stoltenberg, was instrumental in winning over Isaam Sartawi, the leading PLO moderate, to this idea. The Dutch Foreign Minister Max van der Stoel was another early enthusiast of Track II; he initiated numerous meetings between Palestinian moderates and Israeli activists. His Swedish counterpart, Sten Andersson, a longtime head of the Socialist Democratic Party, was convinced that a breakthrough could be achieved because both the Israelis and the Palestinians desired peace.16 These and other peace advocates suggested a public relations campaign to improve the image of the PLO. In 1983, Nabil Shaath, an Arafat confidant, met in Washington with Robert Keith Grey, head of Gray and Company Public Communication International, to discuss a deal. Although Gray changed his mind after having visited Tunis, public relations efforts to present Arafat as a peacemaker proceeded apace. In 1984, the British journalist Alan Hart, at the invitation of the PLO, published a biography of Arafat. The highly flattering profile purported to show that the PLO chief had moved away from terrorism. Helena Cobban of the Brookings Institution gave an equally upbeat assessment of the PLO in her widely-read book.17 While changing the image of the PLO was an uphill struggle, the Europeans had found a receptive audience among the Israeli Left. Shimon Peres, a veteran of the Socialist International who personally knew many of the European activists, was an early convert. A former hard-liner, after Likud’s victory in 1977, Peres became convinced that the vision of Greater Israel was incompatible with the country’s democratic and Jewish character, a view shared by the influential ideological research unit of the Labor party in Beth Berl and a group of young Laborites headed by Yossi Beilin. Beilin, a political scientist and journalist, believed that academics, with their advantage in policy analysis, would make better politicians than retired generals and party apparatchiks. In 1982 Beilin founded the Mashov faction in the Labor party to work toward a more secular and peaceful Israel. Further to the left was Meretz whose leaders, Yossi Sarid and Shulamit Aloni, were dedicated to Palestinian sovereignty and fought for the strict separation of religion and state.18 Beilin, who became a close confidant of Peres, networked with a group of academics and peace activists, including Nimrod Novik, Boaz Karni, Yair Hirschfeld, and Uri Pundak. He put many of his ‘‘brain trust’’ in contact with Peres, who had served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the National Unity government in the 1980s. Peres appointed Novik, dubbed a ‘‘one person peace industry,’’ to be his political adviser. Beilin knew of FAFO which, over the years, had received assistance from the Bureau of Economic and Social Research of the Histadrut (Israel’s labor union) to produce reports on the humanitarian conditions of the Palestinians. Through FAFO and other channels, Beilin and his group were able to conduct informal talks with a number of Palestinian leaders who lived in the territories. More significantly, in 1987, Arafat authorized Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), a

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senior member of the Executive Committee of the PLO, to head a small committee to coordinate contacts with Israeli peace activists.19 Much as these by-the-book CR projects strived to create momentum, it was the Palestinian Intifada that energized the nascent peace process. THE INTIFADA: TURNING A ‘‘LOW-COST’’ OCCUPATION INTO A ‘‘HIGH-COST’’ ONE

By the early 1980s, there were clear indications that the Palestinians were resolved to increase the cost of the occupation. Though the PLO had been forced out of Lebanon, civilian resistance in the territories had actually increased. This was highly unwelcome news for Likud and the Greater Israel movement, which vehemently opposed plans to relinquish Judea and Samaria, the core of Greater Israel. Yitzhak Shamir, who succeeded Begin as Prime Minister in 1983, expressed faith in Israel’s ability to control the territories, but the intelligence community and the IDF were less sure how to deal with a restive and politicized population and the shadowy terrorist elements that it harbored. Some intelligence problems were structural, stemming from the incoherent and clashing division of labor among the various services. There was competition among Shin Bet (which collected information), the research division in Aman (which wrote the estimates), and the Mossad (which functioned like the Directorate of Operations in the CIA). During crisis periods, tensions turned the intelligence community into what one insider despairingly described as ‘‘a jungle.’’ Vaadat Rashi Sherutim (Varash), a committee of the heads of the three services, was expected to coordinate assessments, but persisting disagreements were often manifesting in anonymous leaks to the press. Personal clashes were exacerbated by politicization as the chiefs of all the intelligence services were appointed by the government that changed hands frequently. For example, any head of Aman who contemplated a promotion to Chief of Staff (a frequent career move) could hardly afford to offend the prime minister. As one observer put it, there was a tendency in Aman to ‘‘fall in line’’ with the politics of the cabinet de jure.20 Others were methodological, as the political analysis of the Palestinian society posed daunting problems for intelligence personnel. Though in charge of political estimates, Aman—like the American Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)—was geared toward strategic and tactical military analysis. When Aman was caught by surprise by Anwar Sadat’s peace initiative, Gazit, by then Aman’s chief, asked scholars from the Shiloah Center at Tel Aviv University (the forerunner of the Dayan Center) to generate a list of ‘‘peace indicators.’’ Gazit and his successors tried to expand the analysis of ‘‘basic processes,’’ their terminology for social and economic trends and public opinion surveys. Shin Bet, which specialized in counterterrorism, was highly reluctant to track social trends, leaving the task to Civil Administration officials who periodically ‘‘talked’’ to selected groups of Palestinians.

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As an operation agency, the Mossad had a small research unit but did not contribute directly to the writing of the national estimates on the Palestinians.21 The resulting ‘‘intelligence fog’’ rendered educated guesses on how to deal with Palestinians contentious. For instance, in the early 1980s, intelligence officials were engaged in a heated debate as to whether the Palestinians were still interested in the ‘‘Jordanian option,’’ an alliance with the Hashemite Kingdom. While Cohen and other ‘‘Jordan proponents’’ vouched for a Jordanian-Palestinian alliance, Brigadier General Aryeh Shalev, a former head of Aman Research and a commander of the West Bank, rejected such a notion as ‘‘utterly unrealistic.’’ There were also disagreements on the appropriate mixture of ‘‘carrots and sticks’’ to contain the growing unrest. In October 1984, Shimon Peres (then Prime Minister of the National Unity government) and Yitzhak Rabin (his Minister of Defense) met with Shmuel Goren (the Coordinator for the Territories) to discuss a number of ‘‘goodwill’’ measures. Acting on the advice of George Shultz, Reagan’s Secretary of State, Peres urged ‘‘confidence-building measures,’’ but both had little impact on the simmering unrest that, much to the surprise of the authorities, turned into a full-scale uprising at the end of 1987.22 Two major problems contributed to the failure to anticipate the first Intifada. First, the intelligence community and the Civil Administration, which had no institutionalized political research, were late to appreciate the growing support for civil resistance. Unlike prior efforts of civil disobedience that the authorities had thwarted, the new movement was much better organized and funded by American peace organizations, including the American Friends Service Committee. In 1984, Mubarak Awad, a Palestinian-American psychologist, opened the Palestinian Center for the Study of Nonviolence in Jerusalem. The Center taught Gandhian-style nonviolent resistance techniques, including symbolic planting of olive trees on sites of planned Jewish settlements. Among the Center’s early collaborators were Faisal Husseini, the head of the Institute for Arab Studies in Jerusalem, and Sari Nusseibeh, a college professor. Civil resistance received a boost at the Arab Thought Forum meeting in Amman, Jordan in November 1986. In a belated recognition of civil resistance, Awad, who sponsored a number of nonviolent actions in the first months of the Intifada, was deported in 1988 on the orders of Shamir.23 Second, there was reluctance to deal with the long-term implications of the increasing cycle of violence triggered, in part, by the settlers’ movement. In 1977, there were some 656 disturbances; in 1981, the number more than doubled to 1,557; and in 1984, it reached 2,663. In December 1986, the killing of two students at Birzeit University spawned 10 days of violent riots in the West Bank, with youth and students taking the lead. Another portent of impending troubles was the decision of the local youth organization in the Balata refugee camp near Nablus to adopt a more aggressive posture; when an Israeli force arrived on March 31, 1987 to round up the activists, it triggered a massive

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reaction which General Amram Mitznah, CO of Central Command, would later call a dress rehearsal for the Intifada. Still, neither the intelligence community nor the military developed a comprehensive contingency plan to deal with a large-scale disturbance.24 After a traffic accident in the Gaza Strip on December 8, 1987, a wave of riots swept the territories, but the IDF high command was convinced that the resistance would die down as it had on prior occasions. Thus, Yitzhak Rabin, then the Minister of Defense, decided not to cancel his scheduled trip to the United States. When the riots persisted, however, the Israeli leadership was apprehensive that recalling Rabin would be perceived as signaling anxiety regarding the rebellion.25 If predicting the outbreak of the Intifada was problematic, trying to suppress it was even more of challenge. Much to the frustration of the military, the Intifada was driven by a synergistic chain of occurrences—nonviolent civil disobedience, including commercial strikes, violent rioting, and traditional insurgency and terrorism. Some 80 percent of violent incidents included stone throwing, and children were involved in 60 percent of the clashes; 15 percent involved throwing of incendiary devises and road blocks, and firearms were used in 5 percent. IDF efforts to disperse the crowds turned into an operational and public relations debacle, not helped by Rabin’s promise ‘‘to break the arms and legs’’ of the rioters. Not trained in riot control, the IDF experimented with various methods and deployment of different units, including border police, regular army, and reservists. Many of the latter proved to be reluctant warriors and contributed to the diminished IDF image. As the military historian Martin Van Creveld put it, ‘‘The specter of heavily-laden, often potbellied Israeli troops chasing graceful Palestinian youngsters was to become familiar around the world.’’26 Still behind on the learning curve, Rabin and the IDF command established an integrated four-pronged strategy: judicious use of violence, incarcerations, deportations, and forcible opening of closed stores to break commercial strikes. This and other ‘‘carrot and stick’’ economic measures proved more successful but provoked strong international censure and serious diplomatic problems. According to Haim Misgav, Rabin’s military aide, and Moshe Arens, Likud’s foreign minister, in the summer of 1988, Rabin decided that no military solution existed and joined many in his own party in calling for a political solution. In March 1989, the head of Aman Research informed the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee (FADC) that the IDF could not put down the Intifada without using measures that violated acceptable Western standards of conduct. Aman’s position was supported by Shin Bet, where, according to Karmi Gillon, a future head of the service, ‘‘senior circles’’ had decided that there was no military solution to terrorism and violence. On May 14, 1989, still in the National Unity government, Rabin signaled willingness to negotiation with the Palestinians.27 However, the dynamics of the uprising made it difficult to estimate the changing power relations in the territories. Both intelligence services and lay observers

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noted that the PLO in Tunis had lost some control to local Intifada leaders, students, and young street activists. Growing in power at the expense of the PLO, therefore, were Husseini, Nusseibeh, two other academics—Saeb Erekat and Hannan Ashrawi—and Fatah organizer Marwan Barghouti, who became close to al Shabiba, the youth group that had played a prominent role in the uprising. Overall, the members of the United National Leadership of the Uprising, a loose alliance of ‘‘organization leadership,’’ were younger and tended to come from the refugee camps; many had been radicalized while spending time in Israeli jails.28 The Islamist movements, which, as noted, Israel had hoped to play-off against the PLO, emerged as a major winner in the power sweepstakes. The small Palestinian Islamic Jihad, formed by Fathi Shikaki in the 1970s and supported by Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah, took an early lead in the uprising. The much larger Hamas (Harakat al-Muqawama al Islamiyya—Islamic Resistance Movement) created by Sheik Ahmed Yassin and Mohammed Taha in 1987 assumed a high-profile role through its well-coordinated political and welfare outreach. In August 1988, Hamas published its Charter which proclaimed all Palestine to be a Muslim waqf (inalienable religious endowment) and called for liberation through violent Jihad against Israel. Sheik Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas, declared that Jihad would continue until a Palestinian Muslim state ruled by sharia law had been established over all of Palestine from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River. As for the Israeli Jews, the Islamists urged expulsion to the place of their origin. Both the Charter and Hamas’s literature contained references to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and other highly anti-Semitic language and imagery, some borrowed from Nazi propaganda. Scholars at the Dayan Center produced the first comprehensive assessment of Hamas, where they warned that Palestinian Islamism represents a novel danger to Israel. Such an evaluation was in line with the assertion, one year earlier, by Daniel Pipes, a noted Middle East expert, that the Arab-Israel conflict was being islamicized. In this view, fundamentalist Muslims everywhere came to embrace the notion that ‘‘Palestine is a historic part of the Muslim patrimony.’’29 Much as the Israelis were taken aback by the political vehemence of Hamas, they were even more surprised by the turn to terrorism that the Islamists had taken. Rabin, who met with leading Islamist figures like Mahmoud Zahar and Ibrahim Yazouri, was among those overtaken by events. As one journalist put it, ‘‘Until then [the wave of Islamist terrorism], the Israeli mindset vis-a`-vis the Islamists was one that stubbornly mistook a socially conservative movement for a politically conservative one.’’ Reeling from criticism and briefings, security officials took to explaining that the Hamas leadership was compelled to adopt violence under pressure from the younger generation of activists, but other analysts noted that the Palestinian Islamists were simply following the Jihadist formula developed by Iran and Hezbollah. Indeed, some experts on Islamic fundamentalism pointed out that Sunni radicals adopted the Shiite concept of

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violent struggle and disseminated it among the general population. One year after the start of the Intifada, there were clear indications that the phenomenon of the Islamic martyr, the shaheed, had taken root in the territories.30 Finally catching up, in 1989, Rabin and the IDF decided to close a number of Islamist centers and to arrest a large number of activists. In January 1990, Sheik Yassin went on trial for his part in inciting to terrorism, followed by Yazouri.31 By using true and tried measures, Rabin hoped not only to combat the Islamist threat to Israelis but to neutralize the impact of Hamas on the political process in the territories. By 1989, claiming a large popular following, Hamas demanded 50 percent representation in the Palestinian National Council (PNC) and wanted—as a precondition for its joining—that, ‘‘in accordance with the faith of the Muslim Palestinian people and its glorious heritage,’’ the PNC renounce the 1947 partition of Palestine, reject recognition of Israel, and oppose any modification of the Palestinian National Covenant. Although the PLO rebuked these demands and reiterated its claim to be the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, its own actions belied the claim. Already in 1988, intelligence sources and outside observers noted that Arafat’s own Fatah faction refrained from challenging Hamas in refugee camps and rural areas. In other areas, armed clashes between Hamas and PLO factions became routine in spite of a September 1990 agreement to quell the internal fighting. Worse, elements in the radical constituent groups of the PLO—the PFLP, the DFLP, and the DFLP-General Command—opted for a tactical alliance with the Islamists and even some Fatah cells gravitated toward Hamas’s Jihadist tactics.32 In the highly fluid situation created by the uprising, it was virtually impossible to gauge the extent of the popular following enjoyed by the fundamentalists. In a first comprehensive analysis, Robert Satloff, a fellow in the Washington Institute for Near East Studies, wrote that ‘‘segments of the Palestinian population are outside the PLO umbrella’’ but allowed that the ‘‘fundamentalists have far to go’’ to challenge Arafat. Drawing on a number of Palestinian sources, a Jerusalem Post journalist estimated that Hamas may command some 25 percent of popular support in the West Bank and 40 percent in the Gaza Strip. Quoting these and other estimates, his colleague noted that ‘‘the very existence of a fanatical Islamic movement . . . cast a giant shadow for Jewish Arab coexistence in this land.’’ Smarting from its earlier failure, the intelligence community increased its own effort at political monitoring. Shin Bet was ordered to create a research unit, and there was even some discussion about requiring academic training for all Aman analysts.33 Whatever the new estimates of the power distribution in the territories, there was a growing consensus that Israel should try to negotiate a political agreement with the Palestinians. Arieh Naor, a one-time high-ranking Likud official, explained that the Intifada transformed many on the right from ‘‘radical’’ to ‘‘more pragmatic.’’ Even the hard-line Shamir was prompted to authorize Arens to draft a peace plan based on limited autonomy and local elections. Like Rabin, Arens assumed that

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elections could identify moderate leaders unattached to the PLO, who would be able to strike a deal with Israel. Faith in the moderating influence of the democratic process was not universally shared by the intelligence community which noted that Islamist and secular extremists tended to intimidate the population. Although diminished in stature, the PLO’s long reach was also quite evident. As Arens disclosed, local leaders were ‘‘clearly freighted’’ to proceed without the approval of the PLO. For their part, Islamists tried to impose standards of Islamic piety in public venues; there were some reports of acid throwing in universities controlled by Hamas. This should not have come as a surprise to close observers of the political process that evolved during the Intifada. Following the ‘‘ballot and bullet’’ model developed by Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Islamists and the PLO controlled segments of the population and tried to intimidate others. Still, even the Likud leadership, increasingly desperate to end the ‘‘high-cost’’ occupation, was willing to overlook this new political reality.34 To the followers of radical peace studies and the CR community on a quest for indicators of ripeness, the dynamics of the Palestinian political process mattered little. Indeed, many of them argued that the Intifada produced a new willingness on the part of the Israelis and the Palestinians to settle the conflict. THE INTIFADA RIPENESS: MOVING AWAY FROM CONFLICT?

The Israeli change of heart was dramatic and easy to document. The far-Left, which had accepted the Galtung-Said ‘‘original sin’’ theory of Israel’s birth, gained some public traction when a younger generation of post-Zionist scholars joined its ranks. For example, the historian Ilan Pappe argued that atonement for the ‘‘original sin’’ required creation of a secular democratic binational state of Palestinians and Jews. Others were ready to settle for Israel’s return to the 1967 borders and the establishment of a Palestinian state. To prompt the Israeli public to recognize the historical injustice allegedly inflicted on the Palestinians, post-Zionists urged rewriting of history books ‘‘to unmask the foundational myths’’ of the state and to correct the ‘‘Zionist narrative.’’ Morris, Pappe, and Avi Shlaim claimed that Israel was established on the ruins of Palestinian society and was responsible for the refugee problem. Other post-Zionist scholars excoriated what they considered the ‘‘Holocaust mythology’’ for generating ‘‘excessive’’ nationalism; the philosopher Adi Ophir even called for cancellation of annual trips of high school students to Auschwitz. Still others followed Galtung in comparing the Israeli rule over the territories to the Nazi occupation of Europe. Post-Zionism gained wider acceptance when the liberal Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, long a pioneer in peace education, opened its doors to its scholars. In 1989, Van Leer helped to found the journal Theory and Criticism coedited by Ophir, which provided a radical critique of Zionism and Israel’s policies in the territories.35

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In yet another testimony to the growing strength of critical peace studies, academics and leftist NGOs endeavored to libel the occupation as a new form of apartheid. Using Galtung and Said, a number of peace studies scholars argued that, like South Africa, Israel was engaged in ‘‘grand apartheid’’ against the colonized Palestinian people. Uri Davis, an Israeli professor of peace studies at Bradford University in England, provided a lengthy account of the alleged apartheid practices of the Israeli authorities. Warshawsky’s AIC offered the first workshop on Anti-Apartheid Law. In line with the activist orientation of radical peace studies, the apartheid theory was an important tool in CR. As Daniel McGowan, a professor at Hobart and William Smith College, explained, by presenting Israel as an apartheid state, pro-Palestinian advocates hoped to undermine support for Israel in the West and force its withdrawal from the territories. McGowan, who had established the ‘‘Deir Yassin Remembered’’ (a group dedicated to documenting the ‘‘expulsion and murder’’ of Palestinians during the 1948 war), said the idea came to him after Congress passed the 1985 Anti-Apartheid Act that was instrumental in ending apartheid in South Africa.36 While rejecting the ‘‘original sin,’’ the Zionist Left complained about the ‘‘sin of tribalism,’’ that is the alleged victory of Jewish nationalism over universalism in Israel. In a June 1989 speech, the writer Amos Oz described Gush Emunim, which he accused of ‘‘crimes against humanity,’’ as a ‘‘small messianic sect’’ that ‘‘emerged a few years ago from a dark corner of Judaism, threatening to impose on us a wild and insane blood ritual.’’ The Tel Aviv University philosopher Joseph Agassi described Israel ‘‘as an independent ghetto state,’’ and his Hebrew University colleague Avishai Margalit blamed the ‘‘commemoration industry,’’ including the Holocaust Museum (which he described as Israel’s ‘‘shrine of kitsch’’), for fostering Jewish nationalism. Both Oz and the prominent writer A. B. Yehoshua argued that tribalism as embodied in the vision of Greater Israel exacted a heavy moral cost on the Israeli society. As if to prove the point, David Grossman’s book, Yellow Wind, a harrowing portrayal of Palestinian life under occupation, first published in the liberal Koteret Rashit in 1987, became a best seller. On the political left, Beilin and his colleagues were quick to claim that the Intifada proved beyond reasonable doubt the moral bankruptcy of ultranationalism.37 A series of opinion polls in the late 1980s indicated that the Israeli population was psychologically exhausted and morally confused by the Intifada. These findings were in line with research on public response to low-intensity conflict (LIC) in democracies, notably the United States during the Vietnam War. Although Likud denied that its policies undermined Israel’s staying power, Arens later confessed that he was worried by the ‘‘weakening of the Israeli spirit’’ and the growing censure of the international community.38 Seizing upon the perceived ripeness of the situation, the Beilin group intensified its contacts with Faisal Husseini, Sari Nusseibeh, Hannan Ashrawi, and other Palestinian activists.39 After his secret 1987 agreement with King Hussein

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to create a Jordanian-Palestinian confederation had failed, Peres gave his full attention to the Palestinian track. Unlike Rabin who put his hopes in independent leaderships, neither Beilin nor Peres was convinced that an agreement could be achieved without Arafat’s blessing. Attuned to the international scene, American and European Track II activists understood that no meaningful progress could be made without a major change in the official PLO position. To this end, they launched a new round of contacts with the PLO. Following his April 1988 meeting with the PLO Executive Committee, Sten Andersson (by then Sweden’s foreign minister) reported to Shultz that he sensed ‘‘more desire’’ for peace.40 In November, the NPC meeting in Algiers signaled, in veiled terms, its willingness to recognize Israel and give up terrorism. Aware that neither Israel nor the Reagan administration would accept such ambiguous terminology, Andersson (working with a group of American supporters of the Tel Aviv–based International Center for Peace in the Middle East) resolved to produce a more clearly worded declaration. Rita Hauser, a board member of the Center and a delegation of what was described as ‘‘prominent Jews,’’ traveled to Sweden for a meeting with Arafat. Although the meeting was denounced by mainstream Jewish organizations, the new declaration was sufficient for Shultz to announce, on December 14, 1988, the opening of a dialogue with the PLO. In a parallel Track II effort, Brookings Institution’s William Quandt, a former official on Carter’s National Security Council, teamed up with a Palestinian American Mohamed Rabie to press upon the PLO the condition under which the United States would agree to start a dialogue. Rabie, who previously had met with the Israeli scholar Shai Feldman and American Jewish peace activists, was known to have good contacts with Arafat’s people in Tunis. The QuandtRabie document, which promised to recognize Israel and renounce terrorism, was tacitly endorsed by the State Department in September 1988. In February 1989, Quandt and five academics met with Arafat in Tunis. Robert O. Freedman, a member of American Friends of Peace Now, found Arafat to ‘‘be very engaging’’ and quite serious about the peace process. In Freedman’s view, the PLO chairman was ready to renounce the two-stage policy of eliminating Israel and commit to an independent Palestinian state which would not pose a military threat to Israel.41 Daniel Abraham, who first met Arafat in 1988 in Saudi Arabia, intensified his own Track II efforts. Together with Wayne Owens, a congressman from Utah, Abraham opened his own Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation in 1989. After a number of visits to Tunis, in early 1990, Abraham informed the Israeli President Haim Herzog that Arafat was intent on a political solution. In May 1990, Andersson told Herzog, during his trip to Sweden, that Arafat had expressed his desire to launch a dialogue. However, Minister of Foreign Affairs Arens did not react when Herzog conveyed this message to him.42

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Jimmy Carter, who saw the Intifada as a civil rights struggle, decided to join the Track II effort in early 1990. Carter, an increasingly bitter critic of Israel, met Arafat in Paris on April 4 and pressed him to revoke the PLO Charter as a public relations gesture; failing that, on May 24, Carter drafted a generic speech to help Arafat appeal to Western audiences. According to Carter’s biographer, the speech was aimed at reassuring the West that the PLO gave up terrorism and ‘‘securing maximum sympathy and support for the Palestinians.’’43 While welcomed by the Israeli Left, assurances about Arafat’s change of heart were met with skepticism by other observers. In a book written before the outbreak of the Intifada, Shaul Mishal, an expert on the Palestinians, explained that, under Fatah’s tutelage, the mainstream PLO evolved a clever public relations formula; it announced to the outside world a change in its ‘‘all or nothing’’ position while signaling to the Palestinian camp that this newfound flexibility amounted to a ‘‘tactical move that did not alter the PLO’s basic look.’’ In a much more nuanced evaluation, Barry Rubin, a leading expert on the Middle East, noted that despite his statements, ‘‘Arafat was able to maintain a large degree of ambiguity.’’ Rubin cautioned that while ‘‘it was wrong to argue that the PLO has not changed or that it is perpetuating a hoax, it is equally misleading to believe that the PLO had definitely abandoned its interest in destroying Israel or that it already made the tough decisions required for peace.’’44 Though in retrospect Rubin’s estimate was highly prescient, CR advocates facing a skittish Israeli public could hardly afford to acknowledge the PLO’s ambiguity. Indeed, to win public confidence, the Israeli Left had bolstered its credentials by mobilizing sympathetic security officials and military experts. One high-profile convert to CR was Yehoshafat Harkabi who now argued that the Palestinians, like other Arab states, had moved from the ‘‘grand design’’ of destroying Israel to more ‘‘realistic policies.’’ Denouncing the ‘‘religious messianism’’ of Likud, Harkabi implied that a more realistic attitude would have made it clear that the PLO was not ‘‘all terrorist.’’ More to the point, Harkabi claimed that the Right had become misguided and blinded, leaving it to the Left—which he described as sober and objective—to discern the new reality.45 Aharon Yariv, a retired Aman chief and the head of the Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies (JCSS) at Tel Aviv University, became another prominent CR convert. In 1988, Yariv and a group of high-ranking officials from the military and security services established the Council for Peace and Security—Association of National Security Experts in Israel. In its opening statement, the Council declared that a Palestinian state was not a threat to Israel. The Jaffe Center—which included Shlomo Gazit, Aryeh Shalev, and Yossi Alpher among its experts—took an early lead in researching options for a Palestinian state. Alpher, a former Mossad operative turned peace activist, was one of the first to call on Israel to negotiate with Arafat. In 1989, the Center’s study group on the Palestinians under Alpher produced two reports: Israel, the West Bank and Gaza: Toward a Solution

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and The West Bank and Gaza: Israel’s Options for Peace, which listed six major approaches toward dealing with the Palestinians, ranging from full annexation to a sovereign Palestinian state. The reports indicated that Palestinian sovereignty was the most palatable option. Not incidentally, Shalev wrote two incisive studies which showed that the Palestinians, radicalized by the Intifada, would not settle for anything less. In a related effort, Mark Heller, a civilian strategist at the Center, collaborated with Sari Nusseibeh on a book, No Trumpet, Trumpets, No Drums, that painted an optimistic picture of Israeli-Palestinian coexistence. The Washington-based Foundation for Middle East Peace, another early sponsor of CR, supported the report which, according to Nusseibeh, was reviewed by Akram Hanieh, a public relations adviser to Arafat.46 Zeev Schiff, the highly respected Haaretz military correspondent, provided another welcome endorsement. In a high-profile report, Schiff wrote that ‘‘Israel is inching toward’’ the realization that the conflict cannot be resolved without the PLO. Schiff, whose own evolution to a security dove dated to the Lebanon War, added that the ‘‘Palestinian entity,’’ in collaboration with Israel, would be able to fight terrorism. As for ‘‘the clash of intense religious and nationalist aspirations’’ that had fueled the conflict, Schiff, a diligent participant in the Kelman seminars, declared that ‘‘confidence-building measures would help dismantle the psychology of war and violence and replace it with the psychology of accommodation and peace.’’47 The popular media, especially the elite press, provided extensive coverage of the Jaffe Center project and the Schiff report. Amos Schocken, the publisher of Haaretz, was convinced that Israel is turning into an apartheid state, and David Landau from the Jerusalem Post was deeply concerned about the ‘‘messianic lunatics,’’ his definition of religious nationalists living east of the Green Line. Before being sold to the right-leaning Hollinger Group in 1990, the Histadrut-owned Post, under Ari Rath and Erwin Frenkel, was in tune with the peace activists and eager to provide a platform for their views. Landau, who left the Post in protest, eventually became the editor of Haaretz where his support for Oslo was unflagging. In 2008 Landau made news after confessing that it was ‘‘his wet dream’’ to see the United States ‘‘rape’’ Israeli into making peace with the Palestinians. While less partisan, most print and electronic media were, in the words of Hanoch Marmary, another Haaretz editor, ‘‘populated by a small, elitist, well-off, urban and secular group,’’ which shared the Labor and Meretz worldview.48 By opting to portray Arafat and the PLO as rational actors dedicated to peace, the CR community and ripeness theorists either ignored or glossed over much of the reality in the territories. The Jaffe Center reports did not factor in the growing power of the Islamists or the unraveling of the PLO alliance. Indeed, Ariel Merari, a top expert on terrorism at Tel Aviv University and the director of the Project on Terrorism at the Jaffe Center, asserted in 1989 that ‘‘suicide attacks are very rare’’ and that ‘‘culture and religion are relatively unimportant’’ in this

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type of terror. Merari, a psychologist by training, found that personal problems such as a broken family drive people to volunteer for suicide missions. Schiff, who mentioned the Islamists in passing in his report, was confident that the PLO was fully capable of asserting its dominance.49 In any event, much of this writing used the unitary actor convention of ‘‘the Palestinians,’’ making a detailed account of the power structure in the territories superfluous. Inadequate as such an approach was for portraying the complex political balance in the territories, it was actually Arafat’s behavior that undermined the credibility of the various advocates of ripeness. On May 30, 1990, a terrorist group loyal to Abu Abbas (who masterminded the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro) tried to launch an amphibious attack on a Tel Aviv beach. Despite intense pressure, Arafat refused to denounce Abbas, the head of the tiny Palestine Liberation Front, who served on the PLO’s Executive Committee. The administration of President George H. W. Bush was forced to suspend its talks with the PLO. James A. Baker, Bush’s Secretary of State, disclosed, ‘‘We were furious with Arafat’’ because he ‘‘had squandered any chance of establishing his credibility or even a scintilla of moral authority by refusing to condemn the terrorist attack.’’ Likud politicians were able to point out that the Palestinians had not abandoned their goal of destroying Israel. Even more surprising, Arafat decided to back Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in August. Arafat’s move, coupled with the very public expression of joy by the Palestinians during the Scud attacks on Israel, unnerved even the most ardent peace advocates. Yossi Sarid published an article ‘‘Don’t Call Me,’’ distancing the peace camp from the PLO leadership.50 Much of this disappointment was shared by the CR community in the United States. By the late 1980s, the nascent public relations campaign to present Arafat as a man of peace was gaining momentum. In 1989, Hart came to the United States to promote the new edition of his book and its message that Arafat had exchanged his terrorist past for a statesman’s future. Around the same time, Janet and John Wallach, two journalists turned peace activists, wrote the Still Small Voices, a plea for Palestinian sovereignty. With the backing of Rita Hauser, Stan Andersson, and Munib al Masri (a Palestinian businessman with connections to the PLO), the Wallachs wrote a biography of Arafat which, in their words, would answer the question who the ‘‘real’’ Arafat is and determine whether he could lead his people from ‘‘prime time [a reference to terrorism] to Palestine.’’ The book, which was in press during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, asserted that ‘‘the PLO leader wants a peaceful solution, a reconciliation of territory for peace.’’ In a hastily added epilogue detailing their frantic effort to interview Arafat, by then a guest of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, the Wallachs could not hide their deep chagrin at the turn of events.51 They and other peace activists and CR experts had to wait for the Gulf War and the collapse of the Soviet Union to claim another moment of ripeness.

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The Road to Oslo: The Triumph of the New Middle East Paradigm

Shortly before the end of the Cold War, IR experts had engaged in a vigorous debate about the future of the international system. A group of liberal internationalists, led by Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Jr., postulated that a new era of international cooperation would replace the fierce competitiveness of the bipolar system. These and other liberal internationalists predicted that spreading of democracy, stronger economic ties, and robust international organizations would usher in a more peaceful global environment. Embedded in this analysis was the assumption that national power, hitherto based on military prowess and deterrence capabilities, would be replaced with such ‘‘soft power’’ tools as economic ties and cultural exchange. In a related fashion, functionalists, drawing on the work of David Mitrany and Ernest B. Haas, argued that peace requires strong economic cooperation. They maintained that functional integration, their term for technical-economic cooperation, creates a strong momentum for an ‘‘organic integration’’ across all dimensions of national life. Picked up by Jean Monnet, who played an important role in healing French-German relations, functionalism was behind the drive to create the European Union (EU). Like liberal internationalists, functionalists assumed that states are rational unitary actors determined to maximize their gains through cooperation. Drawing on Woodrow Wilson, international idealists envisioned a heightened role for democracy, collective identity, and global cultural values in shaping international reality. The neo-Kantian tradition within the idealist camp, known as the ‘‘democratic peace,’’ postulated that the spread of democratic regime would virtually assure international peace.1

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While rooted in Western experience, these theories were thought to be applicable to the Middle East. Seizing upon the momentum created by the collapse of the Soviet Union and Iraq’s defeat in the Gulf War, liberal internationalists argued that the conflict-prone region could be transformed into a more economically integrated and peaceful entity. Harold H. Saunders, a member of William Quandt’s Brookings Institution group, felt confident that the end of the Cold War would tear down the ‘‘other wall’’ and usher an Arab-Israeli peace. Scholars who subscribed to the ‘‘democratic peace’’ were hopeful that, following global trends, Arab countries would shed their autocratic past and transform themselves into functioning democracies. Indeed, Quandt himself was a major booster of Arab democratization, stating that it was ‘‘racist’’ to assume otherwise. Still, Quandt and many of the scholars in the MESA argued that, without resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict, progress toward democracy would be difficult if not impossible.2 Prospects for a new Middle East energized Israeli observers as well. Taking the lead, Jaffe Center scholars predicted that a more collaborative regional security system was quite possible. Specifically, they expressed hope that, bereft of Soviet patronage, Syria and other hard-liners would be more amenable to a peace deal with Israel. In other words, as ‘‘rational’’ actors, the Syrian leader Hafez Assad and Yasser Arafat were bound to recognize that the new situation left them little choice but to come to terms with Israel and its American patron, the only remaining superpower. These and other analysts drew comfort from the permanent American military buildup in the Gulf, and there was even some speculation that there would be a push to control the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and terrorism. Most significantly, many observers found signs of maturation and realism in Arab strategic thinking. As Yehoshafat Harkabi pointed out, after taking stock of the new situation, the Arabs were ready to abandon their grand vision of destroying Israel and settle for the more pragmatic goal of reaching an accommodation with the Jewish state. The former Aman chief decided not to include Hamas in his analysis because ‘‘its vision was theological not strategic.’’3 Much of the debate on the new Middle East focused on the prospects for settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For those searching for a breakthrough from the impasse, the new international and regional dynamics provided a window of opportunity replete with ripeness indicators. First, there was a widespread conviction that Arafat’s decision to back Iraq backfired, plunging the PLO into a grave financial crisis. According to a 1991 U.S. congressional report and other accounts, the PLO had multiple sources of income, including contributions from Arab countries; a 3.5–7 percent tax on Palestinian works in Arab countries; charitable donations from wealthy Palestinians; income from investments; and criminal activities such as drug and arms trafficking and ‘‘extortion–protection’’ schemes. In 1990 the CIA estimated PLO’s wealth at $8–10 billion, a figure close

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to that of the British National Investigative Service. However, due to mismanagement and corruption, by the early 1990s, much of the PLO’s financial empire was said to be in tatters. Most of the PLO’s operating budget of $350 million came from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, which severed ties with Arafat. The territories also lost some $425 million in remittances from Palestinians working in Kuwait and other Gulf countries.4 Second, Arafat’s diminished international stature was thought to provide another ripeness moment. Already cut off by the United States over Abu Abbas, the PLO chairman found himself a pariah among the Arab members of the anti-Iraq coalition. In what was undoubtedly a breach of inter-Arab protocol, Ghazi al Qosaibi, Saudi ambassador to Bahrain, described Arafat as a ‘‘sad clown’’; others leaked stories about his humiliating efforts to get back into the good graces of his rich patrons. According to Daniel Abraham who helped Arafat to restore his international credibility, the PLO chairman was quite sobered by these setbacks and eager to embrace a realistic position in the Arab-Israeli conflict.5 Third, the Palestinian society was said to have undergone a significant change along the lines predicted by liberal internationalist theorists. The Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab wrote that the Gulf War had had ‘‘a sobering effect on Palestinians attitudes,’’ and Faisal Husseini touted the ‘‘new coordination’’ among all streams of Palestinian political life (secularists, Islamists, and nationalists).6 Much of the empirical evidence came from political opinion surveys supported by the growing number of foundations eager to promote CR in the Middle East. Alongside veteran leaders in the field—the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations and the USIP—dozens of smaller foundations joined the fray. The Europeans’ contribution was especially impressive; in addition to the Scandinavians, the German Konrad Adenauer and Friedrich Ebert Foundations stepped up their efforts. Although it is virtually impossible to estimate the dollar amount underwriting this ‘‘peace industry,’’ the collective output of hundreds of research projects, task forces, conferences, and workshops made it clear that the Palestinians were well on the way of becoming a model civic society in the region. In what was a representative sample of such findings, a team from the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University, financed by the USIP, concluded that the Palestinians were ‘‘crafting democracy.’’ Edy Kaufman, the lead researcher, even found that ‘‘forms of commitment to democracy are abundant in the rhetoric of such leaders as Yasser Arafat.’’ Khalil Shikaki, an expert on public opinion at al Najah University in Nablus, emerged as the most effective spokesman for this view. The brother of the Islamic Jihad founder Fathi Shikaki, Shikaki became something of a cause ce´le`bre in American liberal circles after the Israeli authorities, under Western pressure, were forced to lift his ban from the territories. Upon his return in 1992, Shikaki found ‘‘many Palestinians in a realistic mood.’’ In Ramallah, his newly created

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Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) was the chief purveyor of public opinion polls showing the growing moderation and civil maturity of the Palestinians. According to one key study, only 30 percent of Gazans and 6 percent of West Bankers were ready to support violence against the peace process. Another beneficiary of peace funding, Ghassan al Khatib of the Jerusalem Media and Communication Center (JMCC) was equally upbeat in his findings.7 While this evidence was considered proof of the moderating influence of the post–cold war atmosphere, Shimon Peres, Yossi Beilin, and other peace activists fleshed out a more ambitious vision of the new Middle East. In 1991, helped by generous donations from a variety of European sources, Beilin, Yair Hirschfeld, and Ron Pundak set up the Economic Cooperation Foundation (ECF) to further theoretical thinking on the subject, as well as to generate applied programs. Nimrod Novik, a strong advocate of adopting a global perspective into Israel’s strategic thinking, was a key player and part of the ‘‘knowledge elite’’ that helped Peres to conceptualize the new paradigm.8 Drawing on equal measures of liberal, functional, and idealist internationalism, Peres unveiled his vision in numerous interviews, in articles, and in his heavily promoted book, The New Middle East. Declaring that ‘‘we live in the throes of a catalytic change,’’ he complained that many Israeli political leaders sadly ‘‘continue to talk as though these great changes had not taken place.’’ Peres described the old thinking as ‘‘politics of the past’’ promulgated by the ‘‘desert generation,’’ and he urged a transition into a future-oriented perspective. In his view, the New Middle East would reject ‘‘particularistic nationalism’’ and replace it with a universal creed that would sweep away the concept of a nation-state, which Peres blamed for bringing nothing but hostility and violence. Propelled by this spirit of universalism, the region would move toward a ‘‘European Union’’-style confederation based on ‘‘open borders [and] markets that straddle political demarcations.’’ Such soft borders ‘‘will be also strategically viable’’ because, in the New Middle East, national power and national security will flow from economic endeavor, not military might. For starters, Peres envisaged a ‘‘Benelux-style’’ confederation among Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinians. After downgrading national power, Peres felt free to criticize the value of strategic depth and defensible borders. He stated that ‘‘few hills in Judea and Samaria are not important to us’’ since they are not going ‘‘to give us international and internal might.’’ In his opinion, strategic depth is no longer an important issue because ‘‘traditional defense strategy cannot deal with the new realities of ballistic missiles’’ and WMD. Neither would it be necessary in the New Middle East to maintain traditional deterrence, since economic cooperation was expected to replace military competition.9 Peres was confident that the New Middle East would solve Israel’s problems of controlling the Palestinians who, in his view, were bound to seek the advantages of economic well-being over armed resistance. He noted that the Palestinians

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‘‘have begun to understand that they cannot simultaneously employ strategies of terror and negotiation.’’ Most important, Peres predicted that economic prosperity in the New Middle East would eliminate terror, which he attributed to economic deprivation. As for Hamas, he expected the Palestinians to overcome it ‘‘via election; they [Palestinians] must create an authority of an elected majority against an armed and fanatical minority.’’10 Predictably, The New Middle East received rave reviews from peace activists. Beilin called Peres ‘‘the greatest Israeli statesman,’’ Hirschfeld described him as a ‘‘strategic thinker who could see the Middle East,’’ and Daniel Abraham, who became a close friend, referred to him as a ‘‘visionary.’’ Peres returned the compliment by dedicating one of his books to Abraham, ‘‘a man who dreams peace.’’ But it was the academic and intellectual elites that helped to transform Peres’s vision of the New Middle East into a dominant paradigm. As one observer explained, they shared a ‘‘common intellectual genealogy,’’ a ‘‘striking similarity in fundamental assumptions,’’ and a ‘‘new futuristic dream.’’ On a personal level, Peres became attached to the left-wing intellectuals, especially Amos Oz.11 For post-Zionists, the new era offered a chance to heal what Baruch Kimmerling described as the malaise of ‘‘civilian militarism,’’ a result of the ‘‘interrupted system’’ in which Israeli civilians had lived. According to Kimmerling, in the course of fighting multiple wars, the average civilian had internalized a highly militaristic ethos. Better still, it would undermine the Jewish ‘‘ethnocracy,’’ a term used by Oren Yiftachel to compare the Israeli democracy to the South African regime. For the Zionist Left concerned with the ‘‘sins of tribalism,’’ the prospect of a ‘‘global village’’ in the Middle East was refreshing. Yoram Peri, a onetime editor of the leftist Davar paper and a professor of communication at Tel Aviv University, explained that such a transformation was bound to strengthen what he described as the ‘‘metro’’ (metropolitan) forces in Israel: universalism, Israelism, individualism, democracy, a linear concept of time, and a post-conflict orientation. Such progressive attitudes were said to be arrayed against the forces of ‘‘retro’’ which, in Peri’s view, included ethno-nationalism, Greater Israel, Jewishness, particularism, cyclical notion of time, and conflict orientation.12 Both Peres and the intellectual elites strongly believed that the New Middle East would liberate Israel from what they considered to be the ‘‘tyranny of the orthodoxy.’’ For Peres such a struggle was personal, dating to the so-called ‘‘stinking business,’’ his 1990 attempt to break up the National Unity government of Shamir. Capitalizing on the readiness of the Sephardi orthodox party Shas to consider a territorial compromise, Peres reached an agreement to form a moderate coalition, only to be defeated by the small ultraorthodox party Degel Hatora. On March 16, 1990, in an emotional speech given half in Hebrew and half in Yiddish to a large crowd of black-clad disciples, its octogenarian leader Rabbi Eliezer Shach inveighed against a relation with Labor and denounced ‘‘the pig-eating’’ leftists. As Peres would later complain, he could not compete with

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hundreds of old rabbis dictating to thousands of their followers how to vote. Beilin wrote that Rabbi Shach’s appearance brought ‘‘unwanted attention’’ to the existence of the ultraorthodox subculture with its strange and alien ways amidst a modern society. Beilin warned that Israel, at ‘‘forty-plus,’’ was in danger of digressing into a Jewish ultraorthodox enclave replete with government-subsided Hassidic courts and their medieval-looking rabbis.13 As before, senior intelligence and security officials helped to legitimize the New Middle East paradigm. Uri Saguy, the Aman chief, told an interviewer in September 1992 that there is a ‘‘yearning for peace among the Syrian people.’’ Assad, in Saguy’s view, ‘‘is now ready to pursue peace’’ because ‘‘he has no patrons and is internationally isolated.’’ Saguy’s conviction that the Syrian leader was ready to settle the conflict was shared by other security officials; in 1991, Aman identified ‘‘a process of openness’’ in Damascus. This reasoning fed the so-called ‘‘Syria first’’ concept, a call to negotiate with Syria before proceeding with the PLO. As for the Palestinians, Saguy found that their goal is ‘‘simple’’; they want to create an ‘‘independent state.’’14 Major General Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, Saguy’s successor in Aman, and Major General Danny Rothschild, a former head of Aman Research, were equally optimistic about the Palestinians. Rothschild, who also served as a Coordinator for the Territories, was convinced that Hamas’s radicalism was not shared by rankand-file Islamists in the territories. Even the normally heard-headed Mossad apparently failed to appreciate the contagious potential of suicide bombing pioneered by Hezbollah in Lebanon. Eliezer Tsafrir, a former Mossad operative in Lebanon, recalled that, initially, his bosses decided that the more moderate Sunnis would not emulate the more radical Shiites. David Kimchi, a former foreign ministry official with good ties to the Mossad, hinted that there was ‘‘new thinking’’ within the Israeli intelligence community about Palestinian ripeness, adding that ‘‘the Palestinians have already tried everything’’ to no avail, leaving them ‘‘with the last option, a political arrangement with Israel.’’15 Despite its growing dominance, the new paradigm was challenged by an array of observers who argued the old Middle East was still very much in evidence. A CRITIQUE OF THE NEW MIDDLE EAST FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE OLD MIDDLE EAST

While liberal internationalists embraced a forward-looking trajectory for the Middle East, their critics pointed out that the region was actually undergoing a regressive Islamist revival. Bernard Lewis, who was the only observer to predict a fundamentalist revolution in Iran, warned in a 1990 Atlantic Monthly article about a coming clash between the Islamists and the West, a notion that Samuel Huntington popularized in his 1993 essay on the coming ‘‘clash of civilizations.’’ Neither was Lewis persuaded that the end of the Cold War could usher a

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democratic revolution in the Middle East. Pointing out that many tenets of Islam are antithetical to notions of liberal democracy, Lewis was skeptical that the region would join the wave of democratization that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.16 Scholars at the Dayan Center backed up the Lewis-Huntington thesis. In a May 1991 colloquium, Martin Kramer described as ‘‘nonsense’’ a London Economist report showing that the Islamic wave was receding. Kramer went on to point out that Iran and Saudi Arabia had not lost their interest in promoting radical Islam both among the Shiites and the Sunnis. Kramer, whose previous research included a study of the Hezbollah, felt that Iran was poised to use a variety of proxies to spread Islamism in the region. Another Dayan Center scholar discussed the vigorous spread of Islamism in Algeria and especially Sudan, where the National Islamic Front of Hassan al-Turabi had taken a leading role in spreading the fundamentalist ideology. Two of her colleagues maintained that a series of ‘‘interrelated, multidimensional crises of change’’ created a revivalist Islam and argued that, due to the rapid spread of Hamas, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had become Islamized. Yehezkel Dror, a Hebrew University political scientist and futurologist, was even more critical of the liberal internationalist forecast. He described as a ‘‘mirage’’ the vision of ‘‘a rapid transformation of the Middle East into a European liberal democracy’’ and predicted that the ‘‘rebirth and resurrection’’ of Islam would dominate the 1990s.17 These and other observers argued that, while the West was celebrating the dawn of the new Middle East, the Islamists seized upon their success in Afghanistan to declare a crusade against the only remaining superpower and its allies in the region. On January 30, 1990, Iran held a conference ‘‘The Pursuit of the Power of Islam’’ in London, which Hamas delegates attended. On April 25–28, 1991, Hassan al-Turabi organized a conference of radical Islamist groups with a view toward developing an Islamist International. Al-Turabi was soon joined by Osama bin Laden and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), whose Khartoum base provided them with an African outreach. This was just one of the many programs that Teheran devised to push the Khomenist revolution in the region. On October 18, 1991, Iran’s parliament, the Majlis, organized the International Conference in Support of the Islamic Revolution of the People of Palestine featuring some 400 delegates from more than 40 countries. The Conference declared a fatwa against peace with Israel and promised a vigorous armed struggle against the ‘‘Zionist enemy.’’18 If the Sudanese-Iranian initiative raised doubts about the direction of the Middle East, the embrace of suicide terrorism as its weapon of choice belied the paradigmatic assumption that terror would dissipate in the face of growing hope and economic prosperity. Soon after the Conference, Hamas formalized its relations with Iran, adding an office in Tehran to its network of bureaus in Jordan, Algeria, and Sudan. Later in 1992 Hamas published a 42-page document

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which emphasized the holiness of Palestine and pledged to wage a Jihad for its liberation. The Iranian parliament voted a $20 million annuity for the Palestinian Jihadists, and less publicly, the Revolutionary Guards was said to have developed a plan to offer intelligence and terrorist training, either through Hezbollah or in camps in Iran and Sudan. The Dayan Center hosted a lecture on this ‘‘terrorist connection,’’ and Reuven Paz, a former analyst in the research division of Shin Bet, insisted that the radicalized Hamas presaged a new form of ideological motivated terrorism designed to perpetuate the conflict until an Islamic victory. Paz was one of the first to warn that Hamas had evolved from a purveyor of welfare services to a ‘‘major player on the Palestinian scene.’’ Boaz Ganor, a former intelligence official, echoed a similar theme in the Survey of Arab Affairs published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Policy.19 Critics of the New Middle East also took issue with the notion that Syria’s rational self-interest would prompt it to join the new world order. They pointed out that Syria utilized the setback suffered by Saddam Hussein to increase its own dominance in the region anchored in its virtual takeover of Lebanon and a budding relationship with Iran. Equally revelatory in this view was the fact that the Syrian leader Hafez Assad, long a host of the most radical Palestinian terrorist organizations, moved shortly after the Gulf War to invite Hamas and Islamic Jihad to Damascus. The Alliance of Palestinian Forces (APF), officially inaugurated in 1993, pledged to liberate all of Palestine; Hamas and other radical groups trained in Syria and Syria-controlled parts of Lebanon. Patrick Seale, a British journalist with good ties to Damascus, related that Assad told him, ‘‘The Palestinian problem was too important to be left to the Palestinians . . . The way it was settled would determine under whose orders the Arabs would live.’’20 To these and other critics of the New Middle East, such behavior exposed the fallacy of the assumption that in the post–cold war period, authoritarian regimes would yearn for peace. According to Barry Rubin, a leading critic of the MESA-inspired view that blamed the Israeli-Palestinian struggle for the absence of democracy in the region, autocratic Arab rulers used the conflict to legitimize their grasp on power and oppress their populations. As Rubin would later prove in great detail, nowhere was this more true than in Syria, where the Assad family and virtually the entire political-military elite hailed from a tiny Alawite minority that ruled over a Sunni population. A peaceful and democratic Middle East would, according to this logic, spell the end of Assad and the Alawite rule.21 Other critics took issue with the assurances of Khalil Shikaki and Ghassan al Khatib that the Palestinians were ready to transit into the New Middle East. They pointed out that, as a rule, the PSR and JMCC polls had underestimated support for Islamist candidates in local and professional elections who consistently pulled 30–40 percent of the vote. Some went so far as to accuse Shikaki

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of manufacturing results to please his Western benefactors and the peace movement in Israel, a charge that Shikaki vehemently denied. Ruling out intentional manipulation, the ‘‘ballot and bullet’’ political culture—coupled with the absence of democratic tradition in the territories—could have resulted in a bias known as preference falsification, a phenomenon identified by rational choice theorists specializing in voting behavior in authoritarian societies. Defined as a decision to conceal one’s true beliefs—either out of fear of punishment or out of a desire to fit an expected norm—preference falsification was found to have produced serious distortions in polling in the former Soviet bloc countries. Iyad Barghouti, a sociologist from al Najah University who authored The Islamic Movement and the New World Order, asserted that support for Hamas and Islamic Jihad was higher than anticipated, running at some 30–40 percent.22 For observers inclined to dismiss the New Middle East paradigm, the ‘‘ballot and bullet’’ political system raised issues beyond preference falsification. In this view, even if the majority of the Palestinians were ready to coexist peacefully with Israel, there was little indication that the Islamists and the secular rejectionists— let alone their sponsors in Iran and Syria—were willing to defer to the democratic rules of the game. The Jerusalem Post was among the few in the Israeli media to note that Hamas and Islamic Jihad repeatedly claimed that the Islamic holiness of Palestine transcends democratic consideration. Nor were they persuaded that Yasser Arafat would observe the democratic protocol. Ehud Ya’ari, a veteran Arab affairs correspondent, noted that one opposition group, ‘‘The Reform Movement of January 14,’’ accused the PLO chairman of harsh tactics to silence opponents, including murder.23 Indeed, the New Middle East skeptics dismissed the notion that Arafat was transformed into the type of rational player envisioned by the paradigm. Observers described Alan Hart’s glowing biography of Arafat as an ‘‘embarrassing work of sycophancy’’ and criticized the Wallachs for glossing over Arafat’s decision to support Saddam Hussein. A Jerusalem Post op-ed asserted that the chairman was an ‘‘old confidence trickster’’ who ‘‘repackaged the same tired goals . . . deftly camouflaging the PLO’s dedication to Israel’s destruction with Madison Avenue formulations of conciliation and peace.’’ Ironically, suggestions that Arafat may fall short of the visionary leadership required for the New Middle East came from Edward Said, who commented that the PLO chief was not a visionary who ‘‘can take people into his confidence and explain things all along the way.’’ Casting further doubt on Arafat’s alleged maturation, a 1990 biography described him as ‘‘a grand illusionist’’ and ‘‘still a revolutionary on a flaying carpet.’’ Jerold Post, a noted authority on political leaders and a former profiler for the CIA, maintained that Arafat suffered from a ‘‘fear of success’’; on those occasions when he was close to achieving a political solution, ‘‘he opted to be the leader of a unified Palestinian resistance movement, yielding to the radical left who were committed to winning their struggle through violence.’’24

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For New Middle East doubters, Arafat’s conduct in 1992 raised more questions. Early in the year, the PLO chief, well known for his outbursts and foul language, was recorded describing Jews as ‘‘dogs,’’ ‘‘filth,’’ and ‘‘garbage’’ in a conversation with his representative in France. After surviving a plane crash in April and surgery to remove a brain clot, there were persistent rumors about Arafat’s ability to concentrate and think lucidly. The death of the chairman’s two closest lieutenants, Khalil al Wazir (Abu Jihad) and Saleh Khalef (Abu Iyad), was said to have contributed to his sense of isolation and to have robbed the PLO of any semblance of organizational discipline. Charges of corruption and mismanagement, long a feature in the Palestinian discourse, had ballooned to unprecedented levels. In a mid-1991 report, a former insider accused Arafat of causing Fatah ‘‘inconceivable moral degradation’’; these and other charges were repeated in leaflets and newspapers, promoting a PLO campaign to silence its critics. Most worrisome from this perspective was the allegation, made by Ariel Sharon and an anonymous security official, that Arafat’s own Fatah, through its ‘‘subsidiaries’’—the Black Panthers, Fatah Hawks, and Red Eagles—carried out more terrorist attacks than the Islamists. Moshe Arens, by then the Foreign Affairs Minister in a narrow-based Likud government, charged that the New Middle East paradigm was an illusion born out of ‘‘weariness and fatigue’’ among ‘‘some Israelis’’ who were ‘‘ready to find expressions in a desire to believe that things are really better than they are, an unwillingness to face reality.’’25 Even if Arens had a point, the Likud government had a hard time offering an alternative to solving the Intifada impasse, which contributed to such weariness. Yossi Ben-Aharon, a close aide to Shamir, explained that Israel could not meet the ‘‘political and national desire’’ of the Palestinians, an euphemism for sovereignty, but that ‘‘There was a solid basis on which agreement could be founded’’ because they ‘‘had a vested interest in marinating and developing their assets— their personal security, their property, their services, and their way of life—within the framework of an autonomous entity.’’ The problem for Shamir was that the Palestinians did not see their interests in quite the same way. In fact, Likud failed to find independent Palestinian partners for autonomy negotiations. The government was equally hard-pressed to stop the Intifada and the increasing number of terrorist attacks by the Islamists, including a series of knifing incidents in Jerusalem. Arens, who moved to the Ministry of Defense in June 1990, disclosed that he had felt frustrated enough to ‘‘read the riot act’’ to Ehud Barak, the IDF’s Chief of Staff. Barak was not the only military leader to vex the Likud. Right-wing politicians were equally upset with his predecessor, Dan Shomron, who publicly argued the army would disintegrate if forced to use severe measures to quell the uprising. In a rebuff to Likud, senior officers told the press that there was no military answer to the Intifada.26 If the Shamir government had a hard time persuading its domestic audience, it had even less success in standing up to the American version of a New Middle East.

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TRYING TO USHER IN THE NEW MIDDLE EAST: THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION AND THE MADRID CONFERENCE

Unlike his predecessor, President George H. W. Bush and his foreign policy team resolved to take a more activist approach to the conflict. The Secretary of State James A. Baker, in particular, was sure that ‘‘shrinking’’ Israel to its pre1967 borders would convince the Palestinians to settle the historic dispute. In May 1989, Baker delivered a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), urging Israel ‘‘to lay aside one and for all the unrealistic vision of Greater Israel.’’ Earlier on, Baker’s Middle East negotiator Dennis Ross presented the National Security Council with a plan of ‘‘multilayer reinforcing steps’’ to tackle the conflict, but it was deemed too difficult to implement in face of Shamir’s opposition. As Ross put it, Baker and Bush believed that Shamir ‘‘was stringing us.’’ With tacit American approval, Shimon Peres, while still a member of the National Unity government, working through Nimrod Novik, negotiated with the Egyptians a ‘‘ten-point’’ plan for elections in the territories. Its main aim was to ‘‘expose’’ Shamir’s foot-dragging and to benefit Labor electorally. The maneuver got more complicated when Rabin, now in opposition, objected to the inclusion of East Jerusalem residents in the ballot, but eventually a ‘‘five-point’’ plan was agreed upon that ‘‘finessed’’ their rights. As the Labor leaders and the Bush administration expected, the plan split the Likud party, with Shamir voting against it and Arens for it.27 All along, Likud leaders complained to the Americans and Egyptians about Labor’s maneuvers, prompting the Egyptian Foreign Minister Esmat Abdel Meguid to terminate the contacts. However, neither the Egyptians nor the Americans were ready to put an end to what looked like a promising way to get around Shamir. Arens firmly believed that Baker encouraged Rabin and Peres to continue using the backdoor channel. Indeed, Arens found the Bush White House less than forthcoming; he described the president as ‘‘very reserved about Israel’s positions and policies,’’ perceived a ‘‘certain heartlessness’’ about Brent Scowcroft, the National Security Adviser, and found Baker to be quite hostile. For their part, Bush and Baker were reported to be ‘‘fed up with Shamir’’ and send a message through Max Fisher, a prominent Jewish businessman affiliated with the Republicans, informing the Israeli government that Washington was preparing a ‘‘reassessment of the relationship.’’ Putting two and two together, Arens had come to believe that Bush and Baker resolved to get rid of the Likud government altogether.28 Indeed, the perceived Gulf War ripeness prompted the Bush team to redouble its efforts. Ross reported that, during Baker’s tour of the region, Arab leaders urged the United States to push harder for peace. Baker recalled that ‘‘Bush told me that we need to capitalize on victory. We wanted to stabilize the balance of power in the region, prevent a resurgence of Iraqi power . . . and revive the

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Arab-Israeli peace process.’’ But Shamir, presiding over a hard-line coalition, was disinclined to go along with the American vision of a New Middle East. Unlike the Israeli Left, Shamir was convinced that nothing has changed in the region and that the ‘‘Arabs are the same Arabs and the sea is the same sea,’’ his often repeated reference to past threats by the Arabs ‘‘to drive the Jews into the sea.’’29 Still, Shamir could hardly afford to ignore the American initiative to convene a large peace conference in Madrid where, for the first time, a Palestinian delegation would be present. To preserve the ban on contacts with the PLO, the Palestinian delegates (including Faisal Husseini and Hannan Ashrawi) were described as independent local activists. The Foreign Ministry bureaucracy, long a Peres stronghold, emerged as a major advocate of the American diplomacy. Eytan Ben Tsur, who had met Rita Hauser and other American peace activists during his tour of duty in the United States, was able to influence David Levy, Shamir’s Foreign Affairs Minister. Moshe Raviv reported that many of his colleagues in the Ministry saw the proposed conference as a ‘‘step in the right direction’’ and were dismayed at Shamir for failing to grasp its historical importance.30 Though the Americans finally managed to convene the conference in Madrid in October 1991, its success was limited to the fact that it actually transpired. The behind-the-scenes diplomacy revealed the depth of the problem. Baker— who negotiated with the Palestinian delegation of Husseini, Ashrawi, and Zakaria al Agha—decried their habit of unproductive argumentation, telling them that ‘‘Palestinians never pass up an opportunity to pass up an opportunity’’ (quoting Abba Eban) and demanding that they ‘‘close down the Palestinian souk.’’ It was also apparent that the billing of the Palestinian delegation as ‘‘independent,’’ a key Israeli demand, was a sham. Al Agha was a member of Fatah’s Central Committee and served on the PLO’s Executive Committee. According to Ashrawi, there was ‘‘total coordination’’ between the Palestinians who participated in the Washington rounds of talks—a follow-up to the Madrid conference—and Arafat via telephone calls, fax, and secret visits. Worse, Arafat, in an effort to control the process, constantly interfered with the negotiations, much to the annoyance of the Palestinian delegation. Ashrawi candidly admitted to having participated, ‘‘knowing full well that [the negotiations] will lead nowhere.’’ Edward P. Djerejian, who represented the American State Department, accused the Palestinians of ‘‘lack of seriousness’’ and ‘‘posturing before the media.’’31 Much as the administration was exasperated with the Palestinians, it was Shamir who provoked most of its ire. By early 1992, Bush’s foreign policy team concluded that Shamir was bent on obstructing the peace process and that Israel’s vigorous settlement policy robbed the Washington talks of credibility. This view was predictably shared by the Labor party and undoubtedly conveyed to Washington, leading to an apparent joint effort to defeat the Shamir. The administration’s weapon of choice was the Israeli request for loan guarantees to absorb the nearly million immigrants from the former Soviet Union. When Shamir

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refused to halt settlement activity, the White House balked. As Ross put it, ‘‘Baker was determined not to do anything that might help Shamir’’; by delaying the loan guarantee request until January 1992, the administration made sure that the loan issue would be thrust into the Israeli election scheduled for June. Indeed, Baker’s provocative gesture of offering the telephone number of the White House for Shamir to call after the settlements were halted made a deep impression on the Israeli electorate. Arens lamented that the administration’s ‘‘repeated interference’’ in Israeli internal politics was ‘‘without precedent’’ in the relations between the two states. Conversely, Peres was grateful for Washington’s help, noting that George Bush was a true friend of Israel, ‘‘He stood up to Yitzhak Shamir’s stonewalling with an enormous patience.’’ Peres was also complimentary toward Brent Scowcroft, whom he described as ‘‘Bush’s wise and intimate adviser,’’ adding that he had had ‘‘open and friendly’’ conversations with both men.32 After years of dominance of right-wing nationalists and religious Zionist cohorts, Labor mounted an all-out campaign to turn the election into a referendum on the future of Greater Israel and its perceived cost to the Israeli society. During the campaign, party spokesmen claimed that Shamir’s drive to settle the Land of Israel jeopardized the welfare of the Russian immigrants, by now a sizable voting bloc. According to rumors, behind the scenes, Peres, Beilin, and their emissaries advised the PLO on how to slow the Washington talks and urged Arafat to mobilize the Israeli Arabs, another important constituency.33 To assure the public that territorial compromise would not jeopardize security, Labor rolled out an impressive roster of security officials. The Council for Peace and Security took the unprecedented step of commissioning a poll of retired generals and spy chiefs. Shlomo Gazit, one of the poll coordinators, pointed out that 68 percent of the respondents supported exchange of territory for peace and nearly 90 percent were ready to negotiate with the PLO if it recognized Israel and stopped the Intifada.34 Labor was also able to capitalize on the growing wave of terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians, which had spread from the territories to the hinterland. On May 24, a teenage girl in Bat-Yam (a suburb of Tel Aviv) was stabbed to death, prompting Labor to claim that Shamir had brought ‘‘Gaza to Tel Aviv.’’ Yitzhak Rabin, who had defeated Peres for party leadership, promised he would protect Israeli citizens, a claim backed up by Rabin’s reputation as ‘‘Mr. Security.’’ Rabin also vowed to improve relations with the United States, freeze the settlement drive, and accelerate the peace process. Labor’s win on June 23 enabled it to form a narrow 62-seat center-left coalition with Meretz and Shas, tacitly supported by Arab and communist Knesset members. Despite this razor-thin margin, elections were welcomed by many in Israel and abroad who had hoped for a breakthrough in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Ross wrote that ‘‘it was as if a great weight had been lifted off the body politic. Hope was alive again.’’ An article in the London Times asserted that ‘‘Rabin stands a realistic chance of achieving peace because of a unique

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convergence of domestic, regional and global circumstances.’’ The article was even more sweeping in its New Middle East optimism, noting that ‘‘the 1980s were one of the most violent decades in the Middle East modern history, [but that] those conflicts triggered a process of regional disillusion with armed force.’’ Rabin espoused this view when, shortly after the elections, he told Ross that ‘‘Israel would never be in a stronger position that it is today’’ to make the necessary concessions for peace. Rabin added that the ‘‘founding generation has the duty to pass to the new generation a possibility of living in peace.’’35 Imbued with a sense of historical mission, Labor and its Meretz partner were finally able to test the premise that the New Middle East would make a peace settlement with the Palestinians possible. THE TRIUMPH OF THE NEW MIDDLE EAST? THE OSLO PEACE AGREEMENT

Much as the Labor government hoped for a fresh start, it faced serious obstacles in the territories. The prospect of a successful outcome of the MadridWashington talks galvanized the Islamists and their patrons in Iran and Syria. In October 1991, Hamas formed a coalition with ten rejectionist factions, including the PFLP and the DFLP. In April 1992, after an internal debate, Hamas rejected the goals of Madrid and any notion of a confederation with Jordan. In October 1992, Mussa Abu Marzuk, the head of the Hamas political bureau, met the Supreme Spiritual Leader Ali Khamenei in Iran to discuss strategy. Soon afterward, Hamas launched an information program in its Amman office to fight the expected peace initiative. The Revolutionary Guards, which, by some accounts, developed plans to train some 3,000 Hamas fighters in urban guerrilla tactics (many in Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon), offered to set up an intelligence network for the Izzadin al Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas.36 Inside the territories, Hamas continued to challenge the claim that the PLO is the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. Citing strong popular support, in August 1991, Hamas repeated its demand for 40 percent of seats in the PNC. The Islamists offered to join the PLO in a ‘‘unity leadership’’ if it renounced the peace talks and rescinded its acceptance of the UN Resolution 242, which recognized Israel’s existence. When Arafat declined, Hamas spokesman Ibrahim Ghosheh castigated the PLO for abandoning the Palestinian cause and threatened retaliation. Political tensions spilled into military actions, which resulted in a spike in violent incidents between Hamas and Fatah gunmen. More ominously, reflecting improved training, by the end of 1992, Izzadin al Qassam intensified its terrorist attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians alike. In one high-profile case, a border guard Nissim Toledano was abducted in the center of Israel on December 13 and brutally murdered when Israel refused to

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exchange him for the jailed Ahmed Yassin. Rabin, acting on the advice of Barak, expelled 415 Hamas activists to Lebanon, a decision opposed by Danny Rothschild and Elyakim Rubinstein, the chief negotiator in Washington. Peres, the foreign minister in the Labor cabinet who was traveling in Asia, was not informed and his deputy, Yossi Beilin, was not invited to the meeting. The expulsion turned into a major public relations fiasco for Israel. Hannan Ashrawi urged the Lebanese government to deny entrance to deportees, stranding them in a no-man zone with free access to world media. The PLO, which understood the shifting balance of power in the territories, made it clear that it would not support the Washington talks until the return of the Islamists. The incident represented a painful personal setback for Rabin who was lauded by the right wing but accused by the peace camp of a ‘‘limited understanding of Palestinian politics and sensibilities.’’ Peres, whom Rabin had barred from handling the Palestinian issue, had to be brought back to help resolve the impasse, empowering the peace advocates in the party. As Beilin, always on a lookout for ripeness moments, noted, Rabin was ‘‘embarrassed’’ by the expulsion fiasco.37 To Beilin and his circle, as well to the international CR community, the Hamas debacle was one more indication that traditional diplomacy (as practiced in the Washington talks) was leading to nowhere. In their opinion, New Diplomacy was needed in order to bring the two sides to a peace settlement. Derived from CR theory, New Diplomacy emphasized a number of factors: total secrecy, informal and unofficial channels, third-party mediation, trust building between the negotiators, and constructive ambiguity. Beilin explained that secrecy and seclusion were an absolute must: ‘‘We constructed for ourselves a bubble’’ which absolved us from the ‘‘obligations of official protest and official posturing.’’ Peres, anxious ‘‘not to back the Palestinians to the wall’’ and to assuage their sensitivity, was a great champion of constructive ambiguity. Terje Larson, who deplored ‘‘hard-nosed bargaining’’ of traditional diplomats, was another fan of creative thinking and ambiguity. New Diplomacy practitioners also advocated a stepby-step process with ‘‘pragmatic progression from easier to more difficult issues’’ during the bargaining process and as an overall strategy for settling the conflict.38 In what became a textbook example of New Diplomacy, the number of contacts between the PLO and Israelis had increased dramatically since Labor’s victory. One major sponsor was the American Academy for Arts and Sciences, which, in cooperation with the British-based Foundation for International Security (FIS), organized a number of meetings in the 1992–93 period. John V. Whitbeck, an international lawyer and CR specialist, brought together a group of Israeli and Palestinian counterparts in Cairo in January 1993. Nizar Amar and Ahmed Khalidi, advisers to Arafat, presented the PLO view to assorted groups of Israelis, including Aharon Yariv, Gazit, and Yossi Alpher from the Jaffe Center. During these meetings, the Israelis, acting on behalf of Peres, tried to interest the chairman in taking control of Gaza, as part of the first step in the peace process.39

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However, it was the contacts between the Beilin group and the PLO-linked Palestinian that opened a most promising avenue. Providing the initial momentum, Abu Ala (Ahmed Qurie), the PLO official in charge of economic affairs, published what many in the European CR community regarded as a ‘‘pragmatic document’’ on economic cooperation between Palestinians and Israel. In February 1992, Abu Ala visited FAFO to raise money, where he impressed Larson with his business-like attitude. Larson, who met Beilin in May, argued that this ‘‘historical moment’’ in the Middle East necessitated further contacts with Abu Ala. Beilin deputized two of his associates, Yair Hirschfeld and Uri Pundak, to meet with Abu Ala in London in the fall. In December, Hirschfeld and Pundak reported a ‘‘breakthrough’’ and talks were moved to Norway to assure greater seclusion and secrecy. Larson and his wife Mona Juul hosted the Palestinian team led by Abu Ala and the two Israelis. Beilin did not participate to ensure deniability and, since contacts with the PLO were illegal, decided not to inform Peres and Rabin.40 An outline for a possible agreement was developed during the first two rounds of negotiations in 1993: January 21–22 and February 11–12. Beilin reported to Peres that he was encouraged by this progress, so Peres authorized further meetings; this yielded the two next rounds: March 20–21 and April 30–May 1. However, the Palestinians, well aware of the Rabin-Peres rivalry, demanded some proof that Rabin was aboard. On May 13, Peres informed Rabin about the top-secret channel and obtained his permission to send a formal representative, Uri Savir, the Director General of the Foreign Ministry. Beilin, anxious to ensure the continuation of the confidence-building atmosphere, was relieved by this choice, noting that Savir’s ‘‘political heart’’ was in the right place.41 Yoel Singer, the IDF expert on international law tapped by Rabin to assure the legal validity of the proposed agreement, was a much less welcome addition to the ‘‘Oslo team.’’ Singer, who joined the fifth round in May 11–13, was critical of the lack of professionalism and the legal loopholes in the negotiations, a stand that greatly upset the Palestinian delegation. Although Abu Ala and his colleagues took umbrage at what they considered Singer’s ‘‘interrogation,’’ they reported to Yasser Arafat that the lawyer was ‘‘Rabin’s man’’ and had to be satisfied if the agreement was to be concluded.42 While Singer’s presence tightened the language, the mixture of precision and ambiguity had continued during the next seven rounds: May 20–22, June 13–14, June 27–28, July 3–4, July 11–12, July 25–26, and August 14–15. The negotiators were able to reach a relatively clear understanding to create a Palestinian Interim Self-Government and a host of economic issues. However, the language on the security arrangements during the implementation phase of the agreement was much more ambiguous, reflecting the fierce disagreements between the two sides. Understandably, the Palestinians wanted as little IDF intrusion as possible, but even the liberal-minded Israeli delegates were not sure to what extent the PLO would be

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able to control terrorism. Well aware that the agreement was based on an exchange of territory for security, Abu Ala and his colleagues constantly reassured their interlocutors that Arafat was ‘‘singularly capable’’ of ending terror. As Singer put it, ‘‘we heard it from May 1993 to May 1994.’’ As for Hamas, the PLO negotiators asserted that the ‘‘shock waves’’ created by Arafat’s historical entrance into Gaza would turn the population against the Islamists. According to Singer, the Peres-Beilin circle took this reassurance ‘‘at its face value.’’43 With no intelligence input, there was little in the Oslo talks to challenge these views. Indeed, Peres’s contempt for intelligence and experts was well known; he had described Israeli intelligence as tantamount to ‘‘Ali and Mahmoud speaking on the telephone and Yossi listening.’’ Peres, who was supremely confident in his own judgment, explained that intelligence professionals had frequently failed to understand the exaggerations and flights of fancy in the Arab language. Touting his own broad grasp of events, he chastised intelligence officials for their ‘‘peephole view of reality.’’ Peres accused experts of a static view of the Middle East, as if it was a ‘‘giant freezer’’ in which ‘‘the sea is the same sea and the Arabs are the same Arabs.’’ Yaakov Peri, the Shin Bet chief, argued that Peres had a ‘‘rebellious nature,’’ liked to play ‘‘devil’s advocate,’’ and resented the normally cautious intelligence evaluations because ‘‘they put sticks in the wheels of the galloping chariot of his political vision.’’ An American observer described him once as a ‘‘brooding idealist who dreamed great dreams of transforming the world at a single stroke’’; like other idealists, Peres ‘‘resented the brutal intrusion of reality,’’ including foreign policy and intelligence services that reminded him ‘‘of the recalcitrant facts of international reality.’’ Peres defended his position by declaring that there would have been no agreement if the Israeli negotiators had relied on the evaluations proffered by the intelligence community.44 While Peres’s belief system explained why the Israelis in Oslo found the PLO assurances on terrorism plausible, Rabin’s decision to go along was more puzzling. Unlike his foreign minister, Rabin had more appreciation for intelligence and security expertise and regularly consulted with a group of like-minded and analytically oriented military officials like Barak, Lipkin-Shahak, and Saguy. Both the IDF and the intelligence services provided the Prime Minister with regular updates and a variety of scenarios on the political and military situation. Among them would have been a report on Arafat’s failed attempt to placate Hamas during a meeting in Khartoum in January 1993, as well as information on Iran’s role in disseminating radical Islam via Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Indeed, even before the deportation debacle, Rabin was said to be deeply concerned with Islamist radicals.45 Rabin, a somber and pragmatic politician, had little appreciation for the soaring vision of the New Middle East or faith in its transforming power. As a known ‘‘stickler for details,’’ he was especially suspicious of vague schemes and complex arrangements, based on the kind of untested propositions embedded

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in the Oslo talks. In the word of the former chief of the Mossad Efraim Halevy, ‘‘Rabin’s leadership was characterized by his great emphasis on every small detail, on every small element in the matters he dealt with.’’46 Adding to the differences in style was a long rivalry between the two Labor politicians. Arens described them as being constantly ‘‘at each other’s throats’’; Rabin’s description of Peres as an ‘‘inveterate schemer’’ and Beilin as ‘‘Peres’s poodle’’ was often repeated in the press. From their vantage point in Oslo, the Palestinian negotiators witnessed much of this rivalry and mistrust. Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) wrote that Yossi Sarid had told him that Rabin had no confidence in the Oslo channel ‘‘because Peres was involved.’’ Rabin even tried to check the information from Oslo through Ahmed Tibi, an Israeli Arab with good links to Arafat, something that Peres apparently did not know.47 Rabin’s cognitive style would have made it hard for Peres to win him over. Rabin was an ‘‘intellectual loner’’ who, like Peres, was supremely confident in his own judgment, born out of decades of military, political, and diplomatic service. To quote one observer, ‘‘His long years of service’’ led him to conclude that he ‘‘knows all he needs to know whatever subject is under consideration.’’ Others described him as a ‘‘lone wolf ’’ or ‘‘his own intelligence officer’’ who did not take kindly to outside advice, telling one of his aides that he ‘‘does not know what to do with advisors.’’48 Still, the Prime Minister might have had some good reasons to suspend his disbelief in the Peres-Beilin scheme. Most important was Rabin’s deep disappointment with the failure of the Syria track. Sharing the assessment of Saguy and others in Aman, Rabin surprised President Bill Clinton, who took power in January 1993, with an offer to withdraw to the June 1967 borders with Syria in return for a peace treaty. The so-called ‘‘Rabin pocket’’ spurred a furious round of negotiations with President Assad, mediated by Clinton’s Secretary of State Warren Christopher who was optimistic that a historic agreement with Syria was at hand. However, in spite of the highly generous Israeli offer, the Syrian leader, fearful of a domestic backlash, nixed the negotiations. With Syria off the table, Rabin was forced to deal with the Palestinian reality, made more dramatic by the stalled Washington talks. Ross recalled that during an ‘‘analytic breakfast’’ with the Middle East experts of the new administration in March, Rabin still nursed ‘‘deep misgivings’’ about Arafat and conveyed his understanding that no independent leader in the territory could ‘‘deliver’’ in Washington. According to Haim Ramon, a member of Rabin’s inner circle, by April–May, it became clear that, with Faisal Husseini ‘‘sitting half of the time in Tunis,’’ the talks in Washington were not ‘‘going anywhere.’’ Still, the Prime Minister became extremely upset upon receiving ‘‘incontrovertible intelligence information’’ that PLO was blocking the Washington channel; in one instance, the Palestinian delegation refused to meet with Dennis Ross, whom Clinton had retained as his chief Middle East negotiator. Although the intelligence

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community was not aware of the secret channel, Rabin might have suspected that Arafat, either alone or in conjunction with Peres, resolved to shut down the official track in order to push Oslo. In spite of the fact that Peres vehemently denied this charge, others pointed out that there was little respect for the Washington talks in the Foreign Ministry. Avi Gil, a senior Peres aide, was said to make paper airplanes from faxed reports of the Washington talks and float them down the Ministry’s corridors. Abu Mazen noted that ‘‘I considered the events in Washington as irrelevant when we had been on the verge of a breakthrough in Oslo.’’49 On June 6, in an angry confrontation, Rabin suddenly ordered Peres to drop the Oslo track; the next day, an official memorandum was issued to that effect. Shimon Sheves, Director General of the Prime Minister’s Office, explained that Rabin did not mean to shut down the entire process but only a ‘‘particular front’’ where it was suspected that Peres was not working according to official guidelines. The members of the peace lobby met in a ‘‘war council’’ to discuss Rabin’s motives and to devise a strategy for dealing with what looked as a shocking setback. Rabin’s ‘‘rebellion’’ though was short-lived. Unbeknown to Beilin and his colleagues, on June 7, the Prime Minister sent his confidant, Ephraim Sneh, to meet Nabil Shaath in London, to open a new channel to Arafat. Sneh reported that the chairman would not allow any new contacts and had forbidden Abu Mazen to meet with Rabin’s representatives. For his part, Abu Mazen, frustrated by the impasse produced by the Peres-Rabin tension, told Ahmed Tibi that he would resign from the Oslo talks, in effect terminating them. Bereft of other options, Rabin was persuaded by Peres to rescind the June 7 memorandum and to allow the Oslo track to continue.50 The ‘‘memorandum exercise’’ shed some light on Rabin’s conundrum. On the one hand, he trusted neither Peres nor the PLO. On the other hand, he felt bound by his election promise to end terrorism and reach an agreement with the Palestinians. In December 1992, Rabin declared that ‘‘we are on a path of no return’’ and promised that peace can be reached ‘‘within a year or two.’’ But as the expulsion fiasco demonstrated, under constant human rights scrutiny, it was impossible to put down the Intifada, combat terrorism, or calm Gaza that was spinning out of control. Rabin’s highly publicized comment that ‘‘I want Gaza to sink into the sea’’ was a clear albeit undiplomatic expression of such sentiments. It was well known that Rabin was privately worried that the Intifada had caused moral erosion and lack of resiliency in Israeli society. Under these circumstances, he decided to accept the Peres-Beilin premise that the PLO could stop terrorism; there was an added bonus that Arafat would be able to enforce order without having to function under the scrutiny of the Israeli Supreme Court or B’Tzelem, the human rights organization. As Beilin put it, ‘‘His need to receive a [PLO] commitment to fight terrorism proved more powerful than his distrust for the PLO.’’ Hirschfeld, using academic phraseology, commented that Rabin had decided that only a Palestinian nationalist government could deal with

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Muslim fundamentalism. Perhaps equally important, Rabin, at the age of 70, felt he was embarking on a ‘‘historical mission to change the course of the Middle East and Israel’s history.’’51 With Rabin fully aboard, the Oslo talks focused more vigorously on security issues. Abu Ala explained that the Israelis demanded a stop to terrorism and an amendment of the Palestinian National Charter to reflect the Oslo reality. The Palestinians responded that they controlled only the PLO and could not promise a change of the PNC Charter because this was outside the jurisdiction of the PNC Executive Committee. The Palestinians were also unhappy with Israel’s demand of ‘‘hot pursuit,’’ which would have given the IDF the right to pursue terrorists in areas transferred to the future Palestinian Authority. Two more rounds were needed to finalize the negotiations: August 13–14 and August 17. Even at the last moment, security issues loomed large; Singer wanted Arafat to declare the Intifada over, but Abu Ala balked. Facing a virtual deadlock, on August 17, 1993, a conference call among Peres, Arafat, and the Norwegian mediators produced a face-saving formula, but this did not include assurances to end the Intifada. Abu Mazen noted that the Israelis had to understand that the violence was a result of the conditions of occupation and would continue until there was change.52 In line with New Diplomacy thinking, the final document, Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements (DOP), was a mixture of concrete steps and ambiguous formulas. It called for the establishment of a Palestinian Interim Self-Government for a ‘‘transitional period not exceeding five years,’’ and the withdrawal of Israeli troops, starting with Gaza and Jericho, with authority to be transferred to the Palestinians. Article III stipulated that the Palestinians would govern themselves according to ‘‘democratic principles’’ and called for an election to a PNC ‘‘not later than nine months after the entry into force’’ of the DOP. Article V urged the commencement of permanent status negotiations ‘‘as soon as possible’’ but ‘‘not later than the beginning of the third year of the interim period’’ to settle the issues of ‘‘Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, security arrangements, borders, relations and cooperation with other neighbors and other issues of common interests.’’ Annex III listed bilateral economic cooperation topics, and Annex IV was devoted to regional cooperation projects in which Israelis and Palestinians would participate.53 All of the core assumptions underlying the DOP bore the mark of CR theory. Good faith commitment to solving conflicts through peaceful means was paramount, followed by the belief that once the Palestinians ‘‘normalize’’ their existence, violence and terror would cease. Also critical was the presumption that individual rational self-interests existed; the economic advancement offered by the peace process was expected to undermine the ‘‘irrational’’ impulse of nationalistic/religious terrorism. The CBMs of the Interim Period—embedded in the wide-ranging network of economic, political, and cultural cooperation—were

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counted upon to alter the deeply ingrained attitudes of mistrust, prejudice, and mutual negative stereotyping. To increase economic prosperity and to maximize cooperation, the agreement called for an open border policy and a virtual economic union between Israel and the Palestinians. All these measures were expected to alter the ‘‘conflict psychology’’ and thus facilitate the tackling of the difficult core issues of Jerusalem, the refugees and borders. For the Israeli architects of the agreement, the Oslo talks represented the triumph of the New Diplomacy, which, in Beilin’s estimate, was ‘‘more open and creative’’ than the Washington talks. However, the protective ‘‘bubble’’ atmosphere which had made the agreement possible was necessarily secretive and, thus, less conducive for generating sufficient political support for the DOP. To minimize possible debate and criticism, the agreement was announced on August 29 and voted upon by the cabinet on the following day. During the debate, Barak argued that the security arrangements of the Accord would make it more difficult for the IDF and the intelligence community to gather information, protect settlers, and prevent terrorist attacks without full cooperation from the PLO. Barak also warned that the vague formulations, described as ‘‘Swiss cheese,’’ would create frictions that could jeopardize the entire process. Still, the Chief of Staff acknowledged that the agreement was a historic achievement and vowed to support it, albeit ‘‘with a heavy heart.’’ The cabinet narrowly approved the DOP, handing a tenuous victory to the peace camp.54 The Americans echoed Barak’s ambivalence when, on August 25, Peres and Jorgen Holst briefed Warren Christopher, Clinton’s Secretary of State, and Dennis Ross. Ross identified ‘‘a lot of holes’’ following a cursory review of the agreement, and he noted that ‘‘all the hard decisions were deferred,’’ necessitating a lot of ‘‘hard work’’ to translate the principles ‘‘into a new reality.’’ Nevertheless, Ross and Christopher felt that a ‘‘historic threshold was being crossed’’ and recommended White House sponsorship. The Oslo agreement provided a totally unexpected boon for Clinton’s limited foreign policy credentials. Recalling the agreement between Israel and Egypt, the White House staged an elaborate ceremony on September 13, 1993, highlighted by what was billed as the ‘‘historical handshake’’ between Rabin and Arafat.55 Labor hoped to capitalize on this historic moment to win a vote of confidence in the Knesset, set for September 23, the 20th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War. Drawing diametrically divergent ‘‘lessons’’ from the War, 61 lawmakers from Labor, Meretz, and the Arab parties voted for the Oslo agreement. Fifty members of Likud, religious, and right-wing parties objected and eight abstained, including six legislators from Labor’s coalition partner Shas. Rabin argued that ignoring the PLO would amount to ‘‘diplomatic blindness’’ because it ‘‘controls 1.8 million Palestinians’’; always the visionary, Peres spoke of the New Middle East and a ‘‘Switzerland of the Middle East.’’ But Benjamin Netanyahu, the new Likud leader, warned that trusting Arafat and his organization was a historical blunder

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that would endanger Israel’s security. Naomi Chazan, representing the Meretz party, aptly characterized the debate as a battle between ‘‘hopes and fears.’’56 The bitterness of the debate and the narrow margin of the vote reflected the public schism over the Oslo peace. While there is little doubt that the ideological prism of the Left and Right shaped much of the perception of the Accord, the immediate post-Oslo discourse revealed a surprisingly wide and complex range of criticism. OSLO CRITICS: FROM THE PROCEDURAL TO THE APOCALYPTICAL

Much of the procedural objection to the DOP was directed toward the secrecy, evasion, and deception that accompanied the Oslo talks. The right-wing lawyer and activist Yechiel M. Leiter accused the government of breaking the law against contacts with the PLO and of lying to the public when it repeatedly denied rumors of talks. Leiter, who petitioned the Supreme Court to abrogate the agreement, also charged the government with shortchanging the public by its reluctance to release pertinent facts and the rushed cabinet and Knesset debates.57 A different procedural complaint pertained to the virtual exclusion of the security and intelligence services from the Oslo deliberation. Aman’s Saguy disclosed that he had found out about the Oslo channel through his sources and had confronted Rabin, who called Beilin on August 22. According to Beilin, Rabin related that Saguy was anxious to secure a written commitment from the PLO to stop terrorism. Shin Bet, which sent a representative to the Washington talks, was totally surprised and likewise unhappy with being left out of the picture, a sentiment shared by top IDF commanders. The American-born journalist David Makovsky, who interviewed many in the security and intelligence community, would later write that ‘‘it is a testament to Israel’s highly personalized decisionmaking process that so few could make such a momentous decision . . . essentially short-circuiting top-level security institutions.’’58 Other critics pointed out that those ignoring procedural protocols resulted in a lack of professionalism in drafting the DOP. Elyakim Rubinstein, who negotiated the official Washington track, complained that, if given the chance by Rabin, he would have obtained a much better agreement. Efraim Halevy, a future Mossad chief, noted that Singer’s presence did little to enhance the legal standard of the Accord. Halevy asserted that Singer was the first of the many lawyers in the Oslo process who had been hired to ‘‘mislead the public’’ by creating the impression of professionalism. In Halevy’s view, ‘‘lawyers became purveyors of rapid solutions on issues about which they understood next to nothing.’’ Drawing on these and similar opinions, critics described the Oslo agreement as ‘‘one of the more amateurish and unprofessional ones ever to be signed, not just in Israel, but in the world.’’ These and like-minded observers alleged that the DOP was composed by a group of dilettantes.59

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Other critics attacked the substance of the DOP. Yossi Ben-Aharon, Shamir’s chief of staff, argued that the Oslo agreement was fatally flawed because Israel was committed to giving up a concrete entity—land—in exchange for hard-tomeasure Palestinian concessions. Moreover, Israel was bound by a strict timetable of phased withdrawals which was not linked to parallel Palestinian performance, made worse by the failure to include objective standards of implementation, verification, and an absence of ‘‘concrete steps that would be taken in case of violation.’’ In essence, without a real mechanism to redress violations, Israel’s only recourse was to abrogate the peace process, a remedy not likely to be taken by the Labor government whose political existence was tied to the Accord.60 According to government insiders, Rabin privately shared some of the misgivings listed by Ben-Aharon. Allegedly, before the signing ceremony, Rabin was concerned about the ‘‘Swiss cheese’’ quality of the document. Ultimately, the Prime Minister decided that he could ‘‘repair the damage’’ by spelling out the specifics or correct the original agreement by taking ‘‘different steps.’’ Publicly, Rabin assured the population that, should the Palestinians fail to comply, the agreement would be reversed. Gazit and many of the intelligence officials who backed Oslo were likewise convinced that, in case of large terrorist attacks or launching of Katyusha rockets, an immediate reversal was possible. But Oslo critics vehemently disagreed with the reversibility theory stating that the consequences of such a step would be highly destabilizing for the region and devastating to Israel’s international standing. A Jerusalem Post editorial compared Gazit’s ‘‘comforting words’’ that ‘‘we in Israel don’t regard the document as irreversible’’ to an ‘‘empty fire extinguisher.’’ The article went on to say that ‘‘he [Gazit] pens pious and hopeful proposals, practical indeed for a Garden of Eden . . . but is tragically blind to the stark reality.’’61 Oslo opponents also doubted whether the PLO could carry out its obligations. As noted, PLO’s legitimacy was a major concern, leading some to adopt the Jerusalem Post editorial position that the PLO does not represent the Palestinians. In his petition to the Israeli Supreme Court, Leiter asserted that the PLO is ‘‘not a legitimate representative’’ of the Palestinian people and thus unfit to make agreements on their behalf. In another prescient observation, Barry Rubin suggested that the Palestinians may dismiss the PLO as an ‘‘outdated group’’ that no longer ‘‘serves its purpose.’’ The fact that Oslo rescued Arafat from his Tunisian exile irrelevancy and legitimized him, in Rubin’s opinion, might not change the reality on the ground.62 Still others warned that, legitimate or not, Arafat was either not capable of stopping terrorism or unwilling to do so. Ironically, the Jaffe experts who participated in one of the CR workshops sponsored by the American Academy of the Social Sciences were told by their Palestinian interlocutors that Arafat may not be able to stop terrorism. A Jaffe Center report published in September calculated that the Palestinian Authority would need armored personnel carriers, machine guns, and spotter helicopters to effectively fight the Islamists.63

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Speaking on behalf of Likud, Netanyahu declared that the Oslo Accord would create a ‘‘terrorist state’’ that could jeopardize the security of Israeli citizens. The settlers’ organizations went further, arguing that Oslo was part of the PLO plan to destroy Israel in stages.64 An attack on the Oslo Accord was only part of the right-wing critique. Even more scathing was the charge that the leftist intellectual and security elites were blinded to the Palestinian reality. The Right was particularly enraged by the fact that ‘‘the most prominent journalists and a decisive majority of the upper echelons of the army high command were drawn from social and political backgrounds’’ that opposed annexation of the West Bank—Ashkenazim, secularists, and kibbutz members. As one observer put it, there was not ‘‘one Likudnik’’ among them.65 For their part, the Oslo advocates dismissed such critique as nationalist ‘‘sour grapes.’’ As noted, Peres, Beilin, and other peace activists were motivated by their desire to wrest Israel from religious-nationalist ‘‘tribalism’’ and put it on a path toward secular-democratic universalism. Although not given to abstract formulations, Rabin’s dislike of the ultraorthodox and the settlers was long-standing. In 1976, an ultraorthodox party brought his government down over an infringement of Shabbat regulation, and he felt humiliated when Rabbi Shah, who outwitted Labor in the ‘‘stinking business’’ episode, had left him waiting for three hours a few years earlier. His enmity toward the settlers was well known; among others, he referred to them as ‘‘propellers’’ because they ‘‘turn around, make noise and produce nothing.’’ More important, Rabin and elements in the intelligence community were convinced that the settlers were poised to wreck the Oslo agreement, a notion shared by some Jaffe Center analysts. Gazit revealed that his main concern was an ‘‘inter-Israeli problem with radical elements’’ determined to derail the agreement, where the ‘‘worse things are the lunatics,’’ his reference to the settlers. Alpher went so far as to claim that at least 10,000 settlers are willing to take up arms; he also disclosed that Shin Bet beefed up its presence among the settlers to prevent provocations.66 In staking out an early position on the peace process, Oslo proponents and detractors relied on the inner logic of their respective paradigms, the New Middle East and the old Middle East. As Israel prepared to implement the DOP, both of the paradigms were about to be tested in the unchartered waters of the emerging Palestinian entity.

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Creating the Palestinian Authority—A Partner for Peace?

Driven by the New Middle East paradigm, the Oslo Accord was premised on the assumption that the newly created Palestinian entity would enjoy a smooth transition to democracy. Democratic peace theorists postulated that only a democratic Palestinian system would have enough legitimacy to pursue the peace process. The Accord itself reflected this line of thinking; it called for an election and a democratically conceived political process. Many influential political analysts had praised the Palestinian civil society, and opinion polls had testified to the alleged democratic ripeness of the population. At the very least, Israelis expected the Palestinians to ‘‘behave in a responsible and ‘normal’ way,’’ as one prominent peace advocate put it.1 However, the difficulty of state-building in the Palestinian society confounded even this minimal expectation. STATE-BUILDING: A THEORETICAL VIEW

Anthropological literature indicates that the process of state-building is anchored in a developing collective belief system, conceived as a discourse on the validity claims that legitimize the political order of the group. Three dimensions that require some type of collective consensus are regulations for (1) gaining membership and defining territory, (2) establishing an authority system, and (3) distributing resources. The first axis comprises criteria for physical group boundary, known as membership/territory legitimacy. The second axis denotes principles upon which governance is based, defined as authority system legitimacy. The third axis articulates the rules of distributive justice that bind the group membership and authority systems.

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Membership/territorial legitimacy has evolved from the Gemeinschaft community, where validity claims were based on primordial kinship to the Gesellschaft association that bound members through a ‘‘feeling of interdependence’’ to a nation-state. As long as a relatively homogenous group resides in a well-defined territory, few challenges to membership/territorial legitimacy arise. However, in cases of polycentric nationalism, where disparate groups try to create one national roof, tensions are never far from the surface. Even more unsettling are normative disputes over territorial boundary of a group, pitting maximalist nationalists against their more moderate Gesellschaft comembers. Authority system legitimacy comprises a set of validity claims that justify creation of a system of controls over a group; because controls involve exercise of power, validity claims help to ensure members’ compliance. In his widely acknowledged taxonomy of authority system legitimacy, Max Weber identified three pure validity claims—rational, traditional, and charismatic—which have often been conflated into two overarching types: the rational-legal and the numinous-traditional. The former is said to be derived from the consent of the members of a collective and is contractual in nature; the latter is based on claims of a divine right which is conferred on a designated representative of the superrational authority. Procedural rules required to establish and maintain rationallegal legitimacy obviously include those employed by democracies, periodic elections. Complicating dependency upon pure constructs, regimes have historically used a bewildering combination of validity claims to legitimize their rule; various mixes of traditional, charismatic, and rational-legal claims have been bolstered by either restricted or ‘‘ritualistic’’ elections. Distributive justice, part of the larger domain of social justice, is defined as a set of criteria for distributing material resources to members of the group. To satisfy the requirements of social justice, distributive schemes are based on three pure types of validity claims: (1) ascriptive—underpinning traditional economies (based on birthright), (2) utilitarian—underlying market economy (based on merit-driven productivity), and (3) egalitarian—informing communist systems (based on equal distribution of resources). Much as authority system legitimacy these categories mutated into an array of formulas, including socialism and patrimonalism.2 MEMBERSHIP/TERRITORY LEGITIMACY: PALESTINE AS A NATIONAL-ISLAMIC PATRIMONY

Despite the widespread perception that the Palestinians represented a coherent national unit, the evolution of the Palestinian Authority (PA) into a proto-state revealed deep divisions between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Cleavages between the refugees and veteran populations amplified the sense of fragmentation, which was magnified by underlying tensions between the locals and those who had

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returned from the ‘‘Tunis exile.’’ Vastly complicating matter for creating a Gesellschaft-based community was the large Palestinian Diaspora in refugee camps throughout the Middle East. Indeed, a few months after signing the DOP, their membership status and role in shaping the nation-building process emerged as a major concern with which the PA leadership would be forced to grapple. While the symbolism of historical dispossession was part of the imagery of all Palestinians, the Diaspora Palestinians argued that a just CR required the ‘‘right of return’’ to their former homes within the Green Line. A number of studies sponsored by the International Development Research Center (IDRC) and the Palestinian Refugees Research Network (PRIM) confirmed that the latter were more inclined to claim the right of return to Israel. Therefore, helped by Palestinian, Israeli, and Western activists, the refugee community mobilized to exert pressure on the PA leadership. Salim Tamari, the then coordinator of the Project for Palestinian Refugee Rights & Residency at the Alternative Information Center and a member of the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid-imitated Work Group on Refugees (WGR), asserted that any solution to the IsraeliPalestinian conflict would have to encompass the legitimate rights of the Diaspora refugees; the ‘‘right to return to a mini-Palestinian state should not be bartered against the right to return to Israel itself.’’ To bolster their case, refugee advocates pointed out that the UN Resolution 194 of 1948 urged that refugees be allowed to return to their homes ‘‘at the earliest practical date.’’3 Strong pressure from the Diaspora lobby created a profound dilemma for Arafat and his comrades. On the one hand, they were committed to the unspoken Oslo premise that the right of return would be limited to the future Palestinian state. On the other hand, they were aware that the legitimacy of the peace process could be jeopardized by ignoring ‘‘the needs and sensibilities’’ of the refugees.4 In what would become a pattern of Yasser Arafat’s leadership, the PA produced a string of ambiguous and often conflicting statements on the issue. Typically, Arafat articulated realistic compromise when speaking in English to Western audiences, even as he resorted to bombast in his Arabic-language speeches. In mid-May 1994, for example, the PA published a document that referred to the ‘‘legitimate right to return’’ in conjunction with Resolution 194, a widely recognized code for return to Israel. Around the same time, the PLO indicated that the right to return is an ‘‘individual right’’ which the PA could not concede to Israel; it implied, however, that, as a collective, it was bound by the Oslo understanding. Arafat’s public speeches on the issue were much less guarded or nuanced. Buoyed by large crowds, the chairman promised the return of ‘‘our sons’’ to ‘‘Gaza, Jaffa, Lod, Haifa and Jerusalem.’’5 If the membership aspect of nation-building created a serious dilemma for the PA, reaching a consensus on what should be the legitimate territory of the Palestinian people proved insurmountable. Though relegated to permanent status talks, the unofficial Oslo assumption was that the boundaries of the future

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Palestinian state would include both the Gaza Strip and a yet-to-be-determined portion of the West Bank. Anticipating pressure from the Israeli Right, the Oslo agreement did not call for an end to the settlement drive, but the Rabin government hinted that Israel’s territorial demands would be limited to the block of settlements along the Green Line and the Jordan Valley security belt. Translated into square mileage, such thinking implied that the Palestinians would be given 80–85 percent of the West Bank. Still, even the relative PA moderates like Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) felt that such a premise shortchanged the legitimate territorial rights of the Palestinians who had already forfeited most of mandatory Palestine. In his account of the Oslo talks, Abu Mazen evoked the UN Resolution 242 to argue that the Palestinians should regain all the territory occupied prior to 1967. As Yossi Beilin explained, a state within the 1967 boundaries amounted to only 22 percent of the mandate and less than half of the UN partition proposal of 1947. Ron Pundak and other Israeli negotiators confirmed that both Abu Mazen and Abu Ala made it clear that the 1967 boundary represented a great historical sacrifice because the Palestinians gave up 78 percent of their UN designated land.6 Willingness to forgo this amount of territory was pretty much limited to the coalition of Fatah, the People’s Party, and FIDA (the Palestinian Democratic Union, which had broken away from the DFLP). Most of Arafat’s PLO allies, including six prominent members of the Executive Committee, resigned. By all accounts, most painful for Arafat was the defection of the poet Mahmoud Darwish who denounced the Oslo Accord and predicted that it would lead to the breakup of the Palestinian society. Edward Said, another prominent critic, wrote in October 1993 that Oslo was ‘‘an instrument of Palestinian surrender, a Palestinian Versailles.’’ The more radical PLO groups (such as the DFLP and the PFLP) formed the 10-faction Oslo rejection front, the APF, in 1993. The Damascus-based APF reaffirmed the 1974 PLO plan to regain all of Palestine by turning Israel into a ‘‘secular democratic’’ state. Further down the rejectionist spectrum were the Islamists to whom, as noted, any Israeli presence in what was considered a Muslim waqf was anathema. Although wary of the radical secularists, Hamas and Islamic Jihad joined the APF which pledged to liberate Palestine from ‘‘the river to the sea.’’7 Compounding the question of territorial legitimacy was the highly combustible issue of Jerusalem. As with other permanent status issue, the optimistic Oslo assumption was that the Palestinians would accept a ‘‘functional’’ capital in one of the outlying Jerusalem neighborhoods and a symbolic presence in the Old City. Arafat’s own position was not known at the time, but the intensity of the Palestinian discourse on Jerusalem could not have been very reassuring to the PA leader. The holiness of Jerusalem and its importance to Muslims and Palestinians was vigorously promoted by the Islamists and adopted by many secular nationalists who tried to compete with them for votes. Not surprisingly,

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opponents of Oslo were most eager to ‘‘reclaim Jerusalem’’ as a Palestinian patrimony. Said denounced Israel’s claim to Jerusalem as its ‘‘eternal capital’’ and declared that Jerusalem, ‘‘so central to the land itself,’’ constituted ‘‘the struggle for Palestinian determination.’’ His academic colleague, Rashid Khalidi, went one step further. He proclaimed that ‘‘Jerusalem is consistently viewed as a unique symbol which spans all political trends and religious schools of thoughts’’ in Islam. Rashid cofounded the American Committee for Jerusalem (ACJ), tasked with developing educational materials indicating that, as descendants of Canaanites and Jebusites, Palestinians are the legitimate heirs of Jerusalem. Even moderates such as Sari Nusseibeh took to alleging that Israel planned to destroy Palestinian presence in East Jerusalem. With an apparent eye toward bolstering its Canaanite bona fides, the PA Ministry of Culture took to staging festivals that highlighted the alleged links between the Palestinian people and the ancient inhabitants of Canaan.8 Acutely aware of the legitimacy problems embedded in the territorial dimension of the nation-building endeavor, Arafat refined still further his habit of tailoring messages to specific audiences and using coded expressions to signal his resolve to regain the historical Palestinian patrimony. Indeed, as Rubin noted, double talk and code were part of PLO’s traditional technique of delegitimizing Israel while trying to avoid ‘‘being discredited in the West.’’ Speaking in English, Arafat eagerly emphasized that Oslo was the ‘‘peace of the brave.’’ In Arabic, however, he offered reassurances that Oslo is the basis of the 1974 ‘‘phased strategy’’ to liberate the entire ‘‘soil of the homeland.’’ In this latter instance, Arafat compared the Accord to the Treaty of Hudaibiya, a reference to the agreement that the Prophet Mohammed signed with the Quraish tribe only to break it when his military situation improved. The PA chief advocated continuation of Jihad in order to assure control of Jerusalem, which he described as a combined Muslim and Palestinian heritage. Independent monitors of the Oslo Accord found that Arafat repeatedly evoked these themes in many settings, including at a Johannesburg mosque, during a public rally in Gaza, in radio addresses and interviews, and with Arab diplomats attending a closed Stockholm meeting. While leading a ceremony to commemorate Fatah, he even quoted a verse from the Hamas Charter.9 Arafat’s efforts to appeal to Muslim-Palestinian legitimacy were part of a broader rhetoric of ‘‘nationalizing’’ the Quran, a finding supported by a content analysis of his speeches in the month following Oslo. Such an emphasis went hand-in-hand with Arafat’s growing tendency to delegitimize Jewish rights to Israel in general and to Jerusalem/Temple Mount in particular. Noteworthy was Arafat’s apparent acceptance of a popular theory—formalized by a prominent Palestinian historian—which suggested that the Bible story took place in Yemen. Among the material found in Arafat’s residence during the Al Aqsa Intifada was a copy of Mustafa Ahmia’s best seller which alleged that the Jews are not from the seed of Abraham. In what appeared to be the ultimate snub to Zionism,

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Arafat appointed Rabbi Moshe Hirsh (a leader of the fervently ultraorthodox Neturei Karta, which did not recognize the state of Israel) to his cabinet.10 Many Israelis were surprised—if not baffled—by Arafat’s religious-nationalist synthesis, but some Palestinian scholars suggested that it was deeply rooted in Palestinian history. As one explained, ‘‘Israel and everyone else need to recognize the streak of Islamism in Palestinian society,’’ dating back to Haj Amin al Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem. While no doubt correct, such insight was beyond the received wisdom of viewing the conflict in strictly secular-national terms.11 AUTHORITY SYSTEM LEGITIMACY: A PLO-STYLE NEOPATRIMONIAL SYSTEM

Given Arafat’s leadership of the PLO, the expectation that Palestinians would build a model democracy fit for the New Middle East was not universally shared. Noting Weber’s observation that Middle East societies found it difficult to apply the rational-legal legitimacy construct, some scholars argued that a more likely outcome was a neopatrimonial regime. In this view, Arab societies, dominated by premodern forms of allegiance (i.e., family or tribe), have tended to legitimize a patrimonial authority system, where ‘‘patronage displaces legality, renders public institutions superfluous, and takes away an individual’s claim to autonomous rights.’’ In the case of the PA, the formal and legal structures of the proto-state were said to be ‘‘overwritten by patronage and clientelism,’’ creating a climate ‘‘where public roles and private interests’’ became blurred, ‘‘corruption intrinsic,’’ and personalism trumped all procedural guidelines.12 In an early indicator of such trends, Arafat set out to subvert the democratic process as ordained by the Oslo Accord. In May 1994, the PLO was authorized to set up an interim administration in most of the Gaza Strip and an area around Jericho; this was to be followed up, in July, by a general election for the Presidency and a legislative body, the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). In order to shore up his personal position and ‘‘Fatah-proof ’’ the process, Arafat managed to push the original two-month period to January 1996. The ballot system adopted by the PA maximized the chances of Fatah and discouraged wellknown independents (like Haydar Abed Al-Shafi and the human rights advocate Iyad Al-Saraj) from running. In a bid to promote loyalists, Arafat replaced local activists picked by Fatah caucuses with his own slate of candidates. Amidst reports of registration and voting irregularities, Arafat—running against the obscure septuagenarian, Samiha Khalil, a women’s rights activist—garnered 83.7 percent of the vote. With the Islamists boycotting the election, Fatah secured 55 seats in the 88-seat legislative council. Hailed as a personal victory for Arafat, the election results were scorned by critics, prompting Said to excoriate the PA leaders for ‘‘their contempt for democratic procedure and for citizens

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who are genuinely concerned about it . . . Arafat continues to run things as a personal fiefdom.’’13 Once elected, the PLC failed to challenge the personalism of the PA system. Ignored by Arafat, with few exceptions, the Council served as rubber stamp for the executive authority. One observer contended that the legislators ‘‘behave like they belong to a club’’ during sessions: smoke, address each other as ‘‘brother’’ and ‘‘sister,’’ hold private meetings amidst the general debate, and defer to Ahmed Quria (Abu Ala), the chairman’s handpicked speaker. Quria, criticized for his undemocratic ways, terminated sessions featuring hard questions by symbolically placing them in ‘‘the hands of Brother Abu Ammar,’’ the nom de guerre of Arafat. The legislature, under pressure from Arafat, failed to push for adoption of a constitution which the PLO had drafted in 1994.14 Absent a coherent legislative legal infrastructure, the PA relied on rule by decree, much of it emanating from Arafat and his close circle. One analyst stated that such personalist-authoritarian decision-making ‘‘has acquired a central importance in the Palestinian legal system.’’15 The rule of law was further undermined by the legal reforms and the judiciary system instituted by the PA. In one of his first decrees, Arafat abolished some 2,500 regulations promulgated by the Israeli authorities since 1967; he then reinstated the two law systems—for the West Bank and Gaza Strip—that had been in existence on June 4, 1967. The ensuing legal chaos was further compounded when Arafat and senior officials issued contradictory orders as to which Israeli regulations were still binding, even as different judges in different jurisdictions weighed in with their own legal interpretations. Arafat undermined the functioning of the legal system in a number of ways. First, judges with little or no professional qualifications were appointed for political reasons or simply to provide jobs to Fatah loyalists. Seen as part of the vast patronage system of the PA, many judges accepted bribes and encouraged other corrupt practices. The Justice Minister Freih Abu Middain set the tone; by 1997, he exchanged his modest house for a lavish mansion and a matching life style. Second, Arafat personally dismissed judges who displeased him or questioned the conduct of the security forces. For example, in 1996, Arafat summarily fired the Chief Justice of the West Bank Amin Abdel Salam, who had demanded release of 20 Birzeit University students held by preventive security. Not infrequently, judges were threatened and even arrested, creating insecurity among the judiciary and compromising its independence and integrity. Third, the PA refused to enforce court decisions that violated its perceived interests. Fourth, the PA had supplemented the regular criminal courts with the two chambers of the High State Security Court (established in 1995 in Gaza and Jericho), which Israel and the United States requested in order to fight terrorism. However, the Security Court, using the PLO Revolutionary Code of 1979, which Arafat had reinstated, tried civilians for offenses that were broadly described as

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security threats, including political criticism. Staffed by PA security officials with no legal expertise, the Court failed to apply minimum legal standards. In 1999 some one thousand lawyers went on strike to protest the virtual collapse of the judicial system. Cheryl Rubenberg, a scholar known for her sympathies for the PLO, noted that ‘‘Arafat showed flagrant disrespect for the courts and their functionaries.’’ She also contended that the legal and judicial chaos prompted a return to informal tribal and clan law, an arrangement that was prevalent during the Ottoman Empire.16 The problem of law and order was greatly aggravated by Palestinian security forces. Article 9 of the Cairo Agreement, the first follow-up on the DOP, called for a police force (initially 9,000 strong) to keep general order and a security service to protect the Oslo peace. Under Arafat’s orders, the police/security establishment ballooned to some 40,000 personnel in 11 different units, including such obscure entities as an Airborne and Maritime Police. By some accounts, there was one police officer for 50 residents, the ‘‘highest ratio of police to civilian population in the world.’’ One observer noted, ‘‘There was one boss [Arafat] but a thousand franchises.’’ Topping the security pyramid was Force 17, an elite commando and special unit that also served as the presidential guard. The security services—the General Intelligence Service under General Amin al Hindi and the Preventive Security Force (PSS) of Colonel Jibril Rajoub in the West Bank and Colonel Mohammed Dahlan in Gaza—were among the most powerful. But Arafat, who fragmented the services in his customary divide-and-rule fashion, kept close tabs and even created yet another unit, Special Security Force (SSF), commanded by General Abu Yusuf Al-Wahidi, to spy on other agencies.17 With amorphous and overlapping mandates and murky terms of reference, disagreements and competition among the various forces were fierce; settling of scores often turned violent. One long-running feud featured Tawfik Tirawi, the head of the General Intelligence Service in the West Bank, and Rajoub whose men were involved in a number of shoot-outs. Abuses of power yielded torture of suspected terrorists and ‘‘enemies of the state,’’ but it also included killing of former collaborators with Israel, who were to have been protected by the Oslo agreement. Matt Begnon Reese, a Jerusalem-based Time magazine journalist, wrote a harrowing account of the wanton murder of collaborators and their families.18 In line with the practice of other PA agencies, various forms of corruption such as bribe-taking were routine. In one typical case, a police chief in the West Bank amassed a considerable stash of jewelry and gold. Worse, renegade police and security officials and dissenters—such as Fatah Hawks, Black Panthers, and PFLP Red Eagles—formed criminal gangs which dispensed their own brand of justice within the confines of their closely guarded neighborhood turf. These mutaradin vigilantes and regular criminal family-based gangs, notably the Muntaz Dudgmush clan that called itself the Army of Islam and the Abu Muhammad

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group, terrorized the population while unchallenged by the police force and the judicial system. Sara Roy, a Harvard University researcher who made her name defending Palestinians under the Israeli occupation, detailed this aspect of life in Gaza in her account titled ‘‘The Seeds of Chaos, and of Night.’’ She recalled Palestinians telling her ‘‘of the immense relief people felt when they saw the Israeli Army at their door and not the mutaradin.’’ Another critic noted that Arafat’s PA police and the Swedish force that had been commissioned to train it lost control over the situation; this created an atmosphere of fear in what increasingly looked like a police state run amok.19 The budgetary burden of the large police force was considerable, inasmuch as 70 percent of all public sector jobs were security related. According to the World Bank estimate, the initial 9,000 force costs over $180,000 annually; after increasing to four times this size, it was planned to cost $720,000. Still, befitting a neopatrimonial system, security forces which provided thousands of jobs were a vital source of Arafat’s patronage.20 Arafat used the extensive security apparatus to curtail the modest progress that civil society had made under the Israeli rule. The historic PLO model of ‘‘exaggerated centralism’’ was first applied to professional NGOs and boards of trustees of public institutions, which were placed under government control. Their members were often replaced with Arafat loyalists. Human rights NGOs, which criticized the PA record, were particularly offensive to the PA leadership because they attracted international attention. In fact, in 1995, the World Bank established a $15 million trust to nourish the human rights NGOs and the Ford Foundation provided a number of grants to this end. The three most important groups—al Hag, the Palestinian Human Rights Information Center, and the Israeli B’Tselem—were pioneers in documenting human rights abuses prior to Oslo, but the PA managed either to neutralize or to silence them.21 To preempt the independent human rights NGOs, the PA created the Palestinian Independent Commission for Civil Rights (PICCR) under Hannan Ashrawi, who had made her name criticizing the Israeli occupation. Despite the fact that PICCR was a relatively tame group—preferring, in the words of Ashrawi, informal ‘‘interventions’’ rather than public criticism—Arafat, known for his vulgar language, called her sharmutah (a highly derogatory Arabic term for prostitute) and publicly berated and humiliated her colleague, Faisal Husseini, for her role. Ashrawi complained that Abu Ammar ‘‘marginalized women’’ like herself and ‘‘did not like to listen to complaints.’’22 Much worse treatment awaited activists who refused to be intimidated: Raji a-Sourani (the head of the Gaza Center for Rights and Law), Iyad a-Sarraj (a psychiatrist who founded the Gaza Community Mental Health Program), Daoud Kuttab (head of the Modern Communication Center at Al Quds University), and Bassam Eid (a Palestinian researcher for B’Tselem). A-Sourani, a-Sarraj, and Kuttab were repeatedly harassed and arrested; in 1996, a-Sarraj spent a week

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in jail for complaining to the New York Times that he felt a ‘‘hundred percent freer under the Israeli occupation.’’ Colonel Rajoub denounced Eid, whose 1995 report ‘‘Neither Law nor Justice’’ received wide coverage, as an Israeli collaborator. After this episode, B’Tselem terminated its PA-related activities. Arafat simply ignored the PLC’s 1998 bill protecting the NGOs.23 Outside the purview of the PA, both Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch published scathing reports on human rights violations, including unlawful killings, extrajudicial executions, torture, kidnapping, and unlawful detention. According to AI, Palestinian prisoners were subject to ‘‘some of the harshest treatment in the world.’’ AI decried, in particular, the murders of Palestinian collaborators and those who sold land to Israelis. These and other accounts indicated that the hunt for ‘‘traitors’’ often provided a thin cover for settling personal and clan disputes, or even for carrying out honor killings.24 To minimize criticism of the PA, Arafat took stringent measures to control the media. During the Israeli occupation, the PA boasted a relatively free and diverse press, part of the civil society which observers had touted prior to Oslo. In June 1995, the Ministry of Information issued a press law which, in article 8, required journalists to uphold vaguely defined standards; article 37a set restrictions on publications which may ‘‘cause harm to national security.’’ In effect, the law gave the authorities unlimited discretion in interpreting appropriate standards and imposed de facto military censorship. Informally, the media were instructed not to print material that reflected negatively on Arafat and his family, or criticize patronage and corruption, or complain about the lack of political and financial accountability of the PA. Fearing to violate the vague guidelines, journalists chose to err on the side of caution, making self-censorship the hallmark of their profession.25 Even before the law was promulgated, the PA moved against the two large independent newspapers, the pro-Jordanian Al Nahar (which criticized the Oslo agreement and, thus, was barred from publishing in the areas under PA control) and Al Quds. Al Quds unconditionally supported the PLO and adopted selfcensorship with regard to corruption and human rights violations. Even so, Al Quds editor, Maher al-Alami, was detained for five days because he refused to publish a flattering picture of Yasser Arafat’s meeting with a religious dignitary. When a small leftist paper Al Umma ran articles and caricatures mocking Arafat, Rajoub’s PSS raided its offices and burned the building. Coming some years after the cartoonist Naji Ali was murdered for a similar offense, such acts served as a clear deterrence. A local newspaper in Jenin was closed in September 1996 because it criticized the municipality and the trade union that were beholden to Arafat. Six months earlier, the PA closed the Al Istiklal, a weekly published by the Islamic Jihad.26 The PA’s semiofficial dailies, Al Hayat al Jadida and Al Ayyam, were essentially mouthpieces for the administration, compared by one observer to the Soviet Pravda. Still, the Al Hayat al Jadida journalist Munir Abu Rizk was beaten by police for recording a trial in the Military Court in Gaza. The Committee to

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Protect Journalists reported numerous attacks against journalists, including beatings, kidnappings, and arrests. At the carrot end of the equation, the PA manipulated journalists (who, as a rule, lived below the poverty line) through gifts and patronage.27 Palestinian electronic media was even more stringently controlled. In July 1994, the PA created the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation (PBC) headed by an Arafat loyalist, Radwan Abu Ayyash. Launched in September, the PBC’s television broadcast and radio station, the Voice of Palestine, faithfully reflected the views of the PA leadership. In a bid to gain total supervision, Arafat ordered the transfer of the TV station’s control room from Ramallah to his offices in Gaza. The PA moved against privately owned electronic media outlets, dismantling or jamming their broadcasts. Sari Nusseibeh, whose university-affiliated television channel criticized corruption, was threatened and his station jammed. Media manipulation reached a peak before the 1996 election. A report by the Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF) found that Arafat was featured prominently in 75 out of 79 newspaper issues, whereas his opponent Samiha Khalil was practically invisible. With the exception of a few Fatah candidates close to Arafat, the Council races were hardly discussed and the independent candidates rarely mentioned. Bassam Eid, who monitored media coverage for the RSF, was kidnapped by the PA police, days before the election.28 After muzzling the legislature and the civil society, Arafat took on the local authorities, a center of Palestinian politics life under the Israeli occupation. To assure compliance, Arafat ordered Saeb Erekat, the Minister for Local Government, to replace independent council members with Fatah loyalists. Security officers were assigned to ‘‘assist’’ local councils, often under the supervision of other security officials who served as regional governors. Such a naked power grab alienated the population. A widespread sense of bitterness arose in Gaza, after Arafat’s men replaced a popular council that had enjoyed the support of all political faction. In Jericho, the mayor resigned in protest over his security ‘‘adviser,’’ and similar scenes were repeated all over the territories.29 By 1995, observers who tracked the development of the Palestinian proto-state were able to point out that, instead of state formation, neopatrimonialism caused deinstitutionalization and decentralization. The rule by fiat and personalism turned some institutions into shams and contributed to the disappearance of others. Arafat’s efforts to control the political process created extreme duplication, segmentation, and fragmentation which ‘‘reduced the possibility of creating viable institutions and civil formation.’’ The resulting political culture put a premium on loyalty to family and clan, a clear regression from national and civic norms of Gesellschaft to the more primordial Gemeinschaft. William Quandt, the peace activist and a democracy booster, went so far as to accuse Arafat of creating a praetorian police state and turning Gaza ‘‘into a no-man’s land rife with violence.’’ Barry Rubin, who produced the first systematic analysis of the political

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order in the PA, noted that it was a reflection of Arafat’s personality and his long experience of ruling the unwieldy and fractious PLO fiefdom. He suggested that, rather than being a tyrant, Arafat tended to manipulate and deal, turning the PA into a negotiated political order.30 DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE LEGITIMACY: A NEOPATRIMONIAL ECONOMY

Taking a page from the New Middle East paradigm, the Oslo Accord envisioned a market economy that was expected to improve the standards of living of the Palestinians and give them a stake in the peace process. Stanley Fischer who cochaired the Harvard study on economic transition in the territories and Haim Ben Shahar, the head of a similar committee in Israel, urged modernization and liberalization of the traditionally agriculture-dominant economy. Peres and the peace/CR circles, including authors of a 1994 report of the New Yorkbased Council on Foreign Relations, confidently predicted that the Palestinians would be integrated into the larger Middle East economic union of ‘‘market prosperity.’’ The newly created Peres Peace Center, with the help of Yossi Beilin’s ECF, designed a large number of collaborative economic projects. In the initial wave of optimism, few experts gave much thought to the fact that the Palestinians lacked any of the cultural and legal infrastructure that sustain markets, including laws, conventions, and business behavior and practices. There was even less understanding that, fomented by the historically strong socialist and communist parties and spurred by Islamism, preference for egalitarianism did not diminish with the collapse of communism.31 The Paris Protocol on Economic Relations signed between Israel and the PA on April 29, 1994 reflected the New Middle East thinking. The Protocol called for a Palestinian market economy, semi-integrated with Israel via an open border for labor and goods and a custom union. Under the latter, Israel collected import, value-added, and excise taxes, which were transferred to the PA. Israel also collected income tax and health premiums from Palestinians working outside the PA’s control; by some estimates, these transfers amounted to some 50 percent of the PA budget. Much of the rest came from international donors who, in an effort to safeguard the peace process, pledged a total of some $7 billion. As of October 1, the pledges stood at $2.4 billion; both in absolute and per capita terms, this was the largest such undertaking in the history of new nations. The Paris Protocol architects also hoped to attract large-scale investments, an appeal that was taken up in the Barcelona Declaration issued by the Euro-Mediterranean Conference in November 1995. In a gesture of goodwill, the American Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) underwrote Americans willing to invest in the PA.32 Contrary to expectation, none of the economic premises underlying the Paris Protocol materialized. The open border policy was severely undercut by the

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determination of Hamas and Islamic Jihad to sabotage the peace process. After the Islamists, spurred by state sponsors, increased terrorist attacks, Israeli authorities were forced to impose security measures (such as border closures and checkpoints) that adversely affected the Palestinian economy. The number of Palestinians who worked in Israel, once an economic mainstay, stood at 11 percent in 1994, dwindling to 7 percent in subsequent years. Closures hurt the remaining workforce: in 1996 alone, borders were closed for 121 days, causing a loss of nearly 40 percent of GNP in Gaza alone. Samir Huleileh, a former chief of staff of the PA, revealed that the Authority vehemently objected to the frequent closures, but Yitzhak Rabin, pressured by the Israeli public, refused to relax security.33 Palestinian trade unions and their intellectual champions rejected the use of market principles and fought globalization. Adel Samara, a prominent Marxist and editor of the influential quarterly Kana’an, railed against foreign capital and other forms of capitalism, a position that was adopted by the General Trade Union Federation (GTUF), a loose alliance of trade union groups located throughout the territories. The GTUF was also engaged in a bitter dispute with the Histadrut over disbursement of Palestinian workers’ tax and welfare deductions. Charging the Israelis with economic imperialism, the GTUF boycotted the signing ceremony of the Paris Protocol in December 1994 in Brussels.34 Less worried about economic liberalism, many Palestinian businesspeople opposed working with Israel on nationalist grounds. A study conducted in 1994 found that three quarters of its respondents expressed apprehension about collaboration with Israel, an apparent reflection of a deeper Arab fear of Israel’s alleged hegemonic drive to take over the Middle East. Yair Hirschfeld, by then working on Shimon Peres’s regional cooperation projects, admitted that nationalist opposition hindered the Paris Protocol, which some perceived as a prelude to an imperial Israel stretching from the Nile to Euphrates. Arafat himself was a purveyor of this popular theory, for he carried in his pocket an Israeli coin which allegedly showed the map of such an empire. The Casablanca Regional Economic Conference of November 1994—which Peres hoped would herald an age of Palestinian-Israeli cooperation—was therefore felt to constitute a conspiracy to harness international capital to establish Israel’s regional dominance by many Arab participants. Chastened by the experience, Yossi Beilin ordered the Israeli delegation to the next conference in Amman to be limited in size to assuage such concerns. To the consternation of the Israelis, however, the lower profile did little to sway the Arab intellectual elites who were convinced that the New Middle East constituted a plan to destroy the existing Arab order and to replace it with a new regional structure headed by Peres. Eytan Bentsur, the foreign policy official who worked with Peres, admitted to a ‘‘certain insensitivity of the Israeli promoters’’ of such outreach because they failed to realize that ‘‘they are facing an uncooperative, suspicious Arab public.’’35

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Much as such attitudes proved to be a hindrance, the biggest obstacle to creating a viable economy through the PA was Arafat’s neopatrimonial view of the distributive justice system, which wreaked havoc on the well-being of citizens and reinforced chaos and lawlessness in the territories. Compounding this damage was his refusal to accept professional advice, for he subordinated economics— of which his understanding was limited—to the political interests of personal survival and, by extension, of his Fatah movement and a small coterie of Tunis loyalists. To begin with, Arafat had used the state bureaucracy as a patronage system and a personal power base. Unrestrained hiring increased the public sector to some 120,000 workers, some 17 percent of the total labor force and a high figure even by regional standards. Most of the excessive hiring was made through the Gaza Personnel Council (GPC) without coordination with the Ministry of Finance and in total disregard of budgetary constraints. Hisham Awartani, the wellrespected economics professor from al Najah University, argued that this huge labor force was a drain on the state resources, which should have been directed toward stimulating the private sector.36 Worse, Arafat and his chief economic adviser, Mohammed Rashid, created the monopoly system, regarded as the most debilitating factor of economic life in the PA. The U.S. State Department listed 27 such monopolies, encompassing gasoline, car, metal, cement, meat, electronics, tobacco products, and flour. Rashid, known as the ‘‘monopoly king’’ or ‘‘Mr. Ten Percent,’’ doled out exclusive import licenses to senior officials and Arafat loyalists to buy products either abroad or in Israel and to sell them in the PA. Yet, these monopoly holders resold their products for greatly inflated prices and pocketed the difference and, not infrequently, these officials peddled shoddy goods. In one notorious case, a businessman close to the Minister of Supply Abdul Aziz (Abu Ali) Shaheen sold despoiled flour from Rumania—repacked by an Israeli firm—that sickened consumers. An investigation demanded by a PLC member Hussam Khader was quashed because Shaheen refused to provide any information.37 Rashid was also behind the network of monopolistic enterprises and statecontrolled conglomerates which further depressed private enterprise in the territories. These included the Palestinian Commercial Services Cooperation (PCSC), Sharikat al Bahr (Sea Corporation) run by Arafat’s economic adviser Hashem Hussein Hashem Abu Nada, and the Palestinian Development and Investment Corporation (PADICO). In another high-profile case, Arafat and Rashid reversed a deal with a Lebanese entrepreneur to establish a telephone service in the territories in favor of a much more expensive contract with the Palestinian Communication Corporation (Paltel), a subsidiary of PADICO. Arafat’s wife Suha, her uncle George Hawa, and numerous relatives of prominent PA officials (including the sons of Mahmoud Abbas and Nabil Shaath) were involved in these and other monopolistic ventures. To fight the perception of

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public sector corruption, Arafat had Hawa arrested, but he was released after Suha intervened. PA insiders were also known to have profited from a large number of perks. A story circulated in Gaza that some of Arafat cronies were allowed to purchase Mercedes cars without paying import taxes only to turn around and sell them for a hefty profit. More serious were the charges against the PSS’s Dahlan who established local racketeering networks, engaged in extorting protection money from suppliers and had monies collected at the Karni crossing transferred to a personal account.38 The virtual absence of a sound business framework further depressed market activity. The PA failed to replace the Israeli-era laws that regulated economic intercourse, creating a legal and bureaucratic vacuum. Corrupt bureaucrats viewed performance of basic services (such as the issuance of licenses and permits) as a source of private income, and Fatah officials often engaged in extortion and blackmail to generate funds. Tax collectors were rumored to take bribes to scale back assessments. With the judiciary in limbo, district governors and other bureaucrats charged fees to settle ownership and other business disputes. When business leaders from Nablus, a center of opposition to Arafat, demanded that the PA streamline the bureaucracy to spur economic activity and restore law and order, Arafat responded by sending a detachment of security officials from Gaza to bring down the ‘‘rebellion.’’ Individual businessmen who dared to oppose the authorities fared even less well. In one case, Yusuf al-Baba, a Nablus gas station owner who refused to pay a 30 percent ‘‘surcharge’’ to Fatah, was arrested, tortured, and murdered. Another Nablus citizen, Zaki Nahas, was arbitrarily imprisoned because he refused to sell land to a PA official.39 Arafat’s neopatrimonialism extended to how international donations were handled. Fearing mismanagement and corruption, the donor community established an elaborate monitoring system headed by the World Bank and created the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction (PEDCAR). In November 1993, however, Arafat named himself chairman, in effect making PEDCAR accountable only to himself. Abu Ala expressed his ‘‘surprise’’ of such a bold move, but the chairman, who regarded oversight as humiliating and a threat to his control of the money purse, went on confounding both the Palestinians and the international community. He ignored the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee (AHLC), the Consultative Group (CG), and the UN Special Coordinator Office (UNSCO) which coordinated donations of UN agencies such as UNRWA. The PA paid even less attention to donors’ representatives at the local level, such as the Joint Liaison Committee (JLC) and the Local Coordination Committee (LACC). As Arafat defiantly stated, ‘‘I completely oppose any control by anybody on Palestinian autonomy . . . We didn’t finish military occupation to get economic occupation.’’40 Donors retaliated by slowing down money transfers and by conditioning future transactions on transparency and accountability. The United States House

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of Representatives Committee on International Relations requested its own review of PA finances, and Arab donors were even more skeptical. With future contributions tied to performance benchmarks that the PA could not fulfill, pledges were reduced to a trickle. Uri Savir, an early enthusiast of the New Middle East, was forced to acknowledge that Arafat had great difficulty acceding to ‘‘the donors’ demands for ‘transparency’ and ‘accountability,’ concepts that were alien to him.’’ The American negotiator Dennis Ross added that ‘‘Arafat did not want to relinquish any authority or create institutions; he wanted everything to run through him, the ‘fixer.’ ’’ Large-scale projects needed to generate jobs were left on the shelf, and the PA was reduced to haggling with the World Bank over pending administrative costs.41 While donors and Western observes may have been surprised at the failure of market rationality in the PA, Arafat was actually acting in line with neopatrimonial tenet of creating an economic system totally subjugated to his rule. For political reasons, Arafat relied far less on tax collection than on donors, Israeli transfers mandated by the Paris Protocol, and monies skimmed from monopolies, extortions, and bribes. Investigators discovered that, between 1995 and 1997, Arafat drained the Gaza Employees Pension Fund of most of its deposits. Some of this income was used to create dependency and patronage; with few private-sector jobs, by 1998, the PA employed some 90,000 people, almost 20 percent of the labor force. Arafat also created a hidden ‘‘second budget,’’ known as A-Sunduk A-Thani (Fund B), to finance a wide variety of projects such as illegal purchases of weapons, payments to families of Palestinian ‘‘martyrs,’’ and payoffs to myriad friends and foes. The value of the second budget was never revealed, but the British intelligence service (MI6) identified personal accounts in the names of Arafat, Rashid, and other Fatah stalwarts in a large number of banks, including the Credit Suisse in Zurich. Records seized during the Al Aqsa Intifada indicated that the secret budget also paid for holdings in a variety of international companies, including airlines and a string of duty-free stores in airports in Kenya, Nigeria, Mozambique, and Tanzania. A 2002 study found that Arafat was the sixth richest political leader in the world; some estimated his fortune at more than $3 billion.42 Despite its commitment to creating a market economy in the territories, Israelis colluded in corrupting the PA economy, mostly by supporting the monopoly system, part of the more than $1.2 billion annual trade between Israel and the PA. For instance, Rashid recruited the Israeli manufacturer Dubek for his tobacco monopoly. And the Israeli cement company Nesher, which signed a contract with Rashid’s PCSC in 1994, became the PA’s major supplier of cement. Although Nesher’s CEO Yitzhak Davidi denied any impropriety, Israelis were rumored to have gotten Rashid to limit imports of cheaper cement from Jordan and Egypt and to refuse to license a cement factory run by a local businessman and his French partners.43

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Also, in 1994, Rashid abruptly cancelled a contract with PADESCO, an Israeli oil consortium which operated most of Gaza’s gas stations under a contract due to expire in 2000, switching to the Dor Energy Company. PADESCO sued in the Israeli courts, alleging that Dor Energy was picked because of the commission it offered to Rashid and to preventive security chiefs Mohammed Dahlan and Jibril Rajoub, who enforced the ban against PADESCO’s operations.44 Further muddying the ethical waters was the fact that some Israeli middlemen were former intelligence and military officials with good connections with the Palestinian leadership. In the words of one observer, ‘‘Israeli officials facilitated and encouraged . . . the ripping off of the Palestinian people through shady deals and schemes conducted in broad daylight by tens of former Israeli security officials.’’ In April 1997, the leading Israeli investigative reporter Ronen Bergman and a colleague detailed some of these scandals in a Haaretz article titled ‘‘The Man Who Swallowed Gaza.’’ This and further reports revealed that Yossi Ginossar, the former Shin Bet official turned Rabin’s emissary to Arafat, played a particularly prominent role in the monopolies. Shmuel Goren, the former Coordinator for the Territories, was implicated in the PADESCO-Dor dispute. Eli Halahmi, PADESCO’s CEO, asked the Israeli Comptroller General to investigate Ginossar and Goren. Ginossar, a board member of the Peres Center for Peace, was also alleged to have managed, along with Dan Abraham’s associates— Stephen Cohen and Wayne Owen—a string of shell companies that laundered Arafat’s illicit gains. In addition, Ginossar and his business partner, Ozrad Lev, reportedly managed Arafat’s Swiss bank accounts for a fee. The editor of a Palestinian paper that reprinted a Globes article about Ginossar was detained.45 Arafat’s neopatrimonialism was perpetuated by explicit actions by Rabin’s government, such as when Israeli authorities transferred part of the revenues due to the PA to secret accounts maintained by Arafat and Rashid in a Tel Aviv branch of Bank Leumi, a fact noted by a Haaretz article. By some estimates, such accounts received some NIS 6 billion between 1994 and 1999, a sum that exceeded the official Israeli transfers to PA. An International Monetary Fund report stated that the secret bank accounts were used by Arafat without any control or oversight of the PA. According to an Israeli official, the slush fund was, among others, to serve for an emergency rescue for Arafat and for operating an exile government in case of a coup in the PA.46 Consequences of the neopatrimonial economy rapidly emerged. With no ability to create jobs lost to border closure, the Palestinian economy deteriorated; unemployment reached 40 percent in Gaza and 24 percent in the West Bank. The per capita gross national product declined from $2,425 before the Accord to $1,480 in 1996. As another academic formerly sympathetic to the PLO revealed, during her 1999 visit to the territories, she was often told that ‘‘we were better off under the occupation than under Arafat’s rule.’’ The widespread corruption and economic chaos was as harmful to Arafat’s legitimacy as was the

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declining standard of living. The gap between the privileged elites and the rankand-file Palestinians was among the largest in the world. Unlike the Soviet elite, which took elaborate steps to hide its wealth, the PA’s newly rich flaunted their lavish life styles. Many of the ‘‘Tunis boys’’ built ostentatious mansions and drove top-of-the-line cars; when Nabil Shaath remarried in 1996, he threw four lavish wedding receptions. Locals well aware of the profits made by Suha, her family, and Arafat’s loyalists through the Sharikat al Bahr (Sea Corporation) mockingly renamed it ‘‘the al Muheet (the Ocean) that swallowed Gaza.’’47 Arafat’s efforts to ignore or silence his economic critics further undermined his legitimacy. A relatively timid report by the PA Comptroller General (which calculated that, on average, corruption and mismanagement cost the PA more than $300 million annually) went unheeded. A 300-page report by Sari Nusseibeh and a number of Palestinian activists met a similar fate, along with repeated recommendations that Arafat fire some of his most corrupt officials. Tayyib Abd al Rahim, Arafat’s personal secretary, noted that his boss, who had a good sense for details, was not capable of seeing the pattern of corruption that had turned into a rot that ‘‘was undermining his ability to govern and to build up a state.’’ Nusseibeh who described the findings as ‘‘bone chilling’’ and confessed that none of his previous experience ‘‘prepared me for the level of cynicism’’ received death threats; some of his colleagues were forced to take ‘‘long vacations’’ abroad. After publishing a study of the cement monopoly, Awartani received death threats and his car was burned. Jaweed al Ghossein, a trusted Arafat adviser who became concerned about lack of financial transparency, was kidnapped by Palestinian security services but managed to escape to London to tell the story.48 Outside Arafat’s control, a chorus of critics warned about the situation. In early 1994, the highly respected Israeli journalist and Middle East expert Ehud Yaari published an expose on the PA mismanagement and corruption under the headline ‘‘Can Arafat Govern?’’ By the end of that year, he urged to slow down the peace process, stating that Arafat could neither govern his people nor control the Islamists. The investigative journalist Kenneth Timmerman noted that Arafat ‘‘found it easier to run roughshod over . . . an umbrella group in exile, whose purse strings were always under his control, than to learn the new skills of institution building and finance accountability.’’ Mahdi Abdul Hadi, the head of the Jerusalem-based Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs (PASSIA), lamented that ‘‘confusion and instability prevail with regard to spending, accountability and legal matters and no one really knows what is going on and who is responsible.’’ Some Israeli economists asserted that the neglect of the private sectors and Arafat’s penchant for high-profile ‘‘vanity’’ projects (such as the proposed airport and seaport) would do little to create a longterm sustainable economy. Sara Roy supported this conclusion, adding that economic dislocation would add to the alienation caused by the ‘‘seeds of darkness and chaos.’’ In July 1997, a Wall Street Journal editorial decried the

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PA corruption and stated that ‘‘the system is under the direction of a man who does not understand economics and who adheres to a tribal system of giving and receiving.’’ The British journalist David Hirst, whose article ‘‘Shameless in Gaza’’ detailed the Sharikat al Bahr dealings, castigated the Israeli and American authorities for turning a blind eye to the corrosive impact of corruption and mismanagement.49 Arafat’s administrative style made the personalism built into the PA neopatrimony particularly acute. Dating from his days as the PLO chief, Arafat exhibited a profound contempt for order and process, not to mention a pathological suspicion of delegating or sharing power. He staffed his cabinet with ‘‘yes men, sycophants and acolytes’’ and old Tunis hands, whom he verbally abused and humiliated, earning him the nickname alsanu ziphir (dirty tongue). His desire to dominate was so extreme that ‘‘decision-making stopped when he was abroad or away from his office for a day.’’ Documents seized in the Mukata, the PA compound in Ramallah, indicated that Arafat approved even small expenditures. To maintain control, Arafat kept his lieutenants off balance, gave them conflicting instructions, and pitted one against another. At the same time, the chairman could be highly indecisive; he equivocated and failed to settle particularly difficult disputes that festered and paralyzed the bureaucratic system. When truly cornered, Arafat’s response was to ‘‘escape by running forward,’’ that is manufacturing a new crisis. Even under the best of circumstances, Arafat’s behavior was puzzling, prompting one observer to note the ‘‘Chairman, juggling diverse factions in the cutthroat world of Palestinian politics, blew hot and cold, his motives always a mystery, even to those supposedly close to him.’’50 The assorted observers argued that, confronted with the complex task of statebuilding, Arafat had ‘‘no idea of what would be required of him.’’ ‘‘It is not clear whether the Palestinian leader grasped what was involved in participatory democracy.’’ Though he had almost a year to prepare for his return to Gaza, Arafat did not create a proper infrastructure; the PA was saved from utter collapse by the 5,000 employees who had worked in the Israeli administration. Many in his own entourage described him as a mukhtar (village chief ) or, less charitably, as the head of a mafia family. Above all, he failed to understand the need to build a democracy to safeguard the legitimacy of the PA. Peres recalled that Arafat once told him, ‘‘Democracy, my Lord, who invented it? It is so tiring.’’ Many biographers concurred with Peres’s observation. One of them wrote, ‘‘it is not entirely clear whether the Palestinian leader grasped what was involved in participatory democracy.’’51 Arafat’s management style prevented the PA from developing even a modicum of the rational-legal legitimacy needed to sustain a state. Yezid Sayigh, a PLO official turned academic, noted that Arafat’s ‘‘jealous grip on power and reliance on planned corruption prevented rational planning, minimized learning and accumulated experience, and impeded coordination of resources.’’ Based on

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Weberian logic, the rationality deficit turned the PA into a failed state or, more correctly, a failed proto-state. In 1995, the MacArthur Foundation, which sponsored research on transition to democracy, accepted the conclusion of one of its grantees, Dan Connell, who wrote that the PA had suffered from a grave crisis of legitimacy. Connell argued that, instead of evolving into a cohesive state, the historically fragmented Palestinian society had further shattered along tribal, clan, and political lines; this regression generated unprecedented strife and boosted the level of violence to historic highs. In Gaza, in particular, the political disintegration had led to social disintegration down to the level of school and family; the political culture put a premium on the subversion of the system to the point of creating a perceptual ‘‘association between achievement and dishonesty.’’ Roy noted that Gazans and—to a lesser extent—West Bankers were not forced to confront ‘‘their own lack of law abidingness’’ or to acknowledge their ‘‘own dependency on the outside world and their self-indulgent image of themselves as victims.’’52 This legitimacy deficit worked against the most cherished assumptions of the New Middle East paradigm and profoundly affected the PA’s ability to engage in the peace process. YASSER ARAFAT AND THE FAILED PALESTINIAN PROTO-STATE: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE PEACE PROCESS

Even after factoring in the limits of public opinion polling in the territories, the surveys between 1993 and 1998 provided compelling evidence that the Palestinians considered Arafat and the PA to be deficient. As a rule, Arafat received poor marks for his authoritarian style; about 60 percent of respondents wanted their leader to have either less or equal power, when compared with that of the legislative branch. Corruption was a major source of disaffection; some 70 percent of respondents complained about its pervasiveness, and 60 percent felt it would not decrease in the future. An average of 80 percent of those surveyed considered government offices to be corrupt, and 75 percent thought the same about police/security forces. The respondents considered the economic situation to be of paramount importance, followed by the collapse of law and order and the absence of democracy. The legitimacy deficit of the PA had a considerable impact on popular support for the peace process, which had peaked at 68.6 percent in late 1993. By 1997, the same number supported the negotiations, but more than half of those polled had lost faith in a successful outcome. The absence of the ‘‘peace dividend’’ was partially to blame for this erosion, but the reaction to Arafat’s methods of dealing with the anti-Oslo opposition was also a factor. As a matter of fact, rejection of Oslo was highest among the better-educated and politically active respondents. Israeli security measures enhanced disenchantment with the Oslo peace among all classes. In 1995, Ghassan al Khatib, who conducted his own polls, came to a

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conclusion that the transition stage that was expected to promote CBM was actually having the opposite effect. In a little noticed article, he argued that the stage approach to peace was not working and urged an immediate transition to permanent status negotiations.53 Hiding behind these numbers was a deeper delegitimizing dynamic. As noted, Arafat’s conduct put off some of the moderate elites who were ready to give the peace process a chance. It also alienated a large number of the rank-and-file Fatah members who resented Arafat for converting the PA into a ‘‘welfare agency’’ for his supporters and controlling the lives of everyone else. As one of them put it, the Oslo process favored the Israelis because they could ‘‘negotiate forever’’ and ‘‘seduce collaborators with money . . . cars, business and monopolies.’’54 Tensions over corruption and lack of democracy caused a rift between Marwan Barghouti and the Tunis leadership. Barghouti, who established the Higher Fatah Committee (FHC) and headed the Tanzim, used his position to challenge Arafat’s hold on power and his corrupt ways. After the 1996 election, during which most Tanzim candidates were disqualified, relations between Barghouti and Arafat deteriorated further and there were sporadic clashes between Tanzim activists protesting against corruption and the PA security forces. After his demands to elect a new Central Council and a new Revolutionary Council (the two highest decision-making bodies in Fatah) were frustrated, Barghouti increasingly blamed the Oslo peace for mismanagement in the territories. When Arafat moved against him, Tanzim responded by increasing attacks on Jewish settlers.55 Arafat’s legitimacy deficit and his personal style were also evident in the public discourse of the PA. To improve his personal standing, Arafat tried to create a cult of personality reminiscent of Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. Pictures of the PA leader were ubiquitous, and crowds were mobilized to greet him even on short walks from his office. On longer trips, security forces and local inhabitants were lined up along the highways, sometimes waiting for hours to greet the passing motorcade. Newspapers competed with each other to congratulate Arafat on all and sundry achievements.56 The PBC, established under the DOP mandate to ‘‘sell’’ the peace process, complied with Arafat’s need to defend Palestinian historical patrimony against Zionist encroachments. Under Yasser Abed Rabbo, the Minister of Culture, Arts and Information, the radio and TV stations emphasized anti-Semitic themes, Holocaust denial, and stories that delegitimized Israel’s right to Palestine, including the ‘‘Yemen Theory.’’ To cater to refugee rights, the PBC produced a program about return to Haifa and other formerly Arab cities. The electronic media carried a steady stream of Arafat’s speeches praising the Jihadists and hinting at the ‘‘phase plan’’ for regaining Palestine. While much of the programming was designed to perpetuate the PLO themes of struggle, sacrifice, and historic justice, the official media strived to exculpate the PA from blame for its economic failure and violence. It accused Israel of selling despoiled food, poisoning the

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environment, creating birth abnormalities and, in a reflection of Arafat’s own beliefs, collaborating with Hamas and Islamic Jihad against him. In a belated admission, Shlomo Ben-Ami, an Oslo devotee, commented that ‘‘we call incitement was part of their nation-building . . . based on national and religious elements’’ and focused on the shaheed.57 In yet another controversial move, the PA undermined the DOP directive to socialize the younger generation into embracing the Oslo Peace Accord. Under the Israeli occupation, Palestinian schools used Jordanian and Egyptian textbooks from which anti-Semitic material had been excised. However, shortly after returning to Gaza in 1994, Yasser Arafat ordered his Minister of Education, Yasir Amr, to reinstate some of this material. Under pressure from Israel, in 1996, the PA established the Curriculum Development Center that published new guidelines for history and social science textbooks, but the project fell short of the CBM envisioned by CR theorists and attracted intense scrutiny from Oslo critics.58 If Arafat hoped to improve his legitimacy through nationalist mobilization, he was bound to be disappointed. Oslo critics like Edward Said were quick to note that PA propaganda was a smoke screen to deflect attention from the chaos, human rights abuses, and economic collapse. Peace proponents like Sari Nusseibeh lamented that Arafat’s ‘‘myth mongering’’ and his ‘‘crazy theory that Solomon Temple had really been in Yemen’’ had eroded whatever little faith remained following the negotiations. Sara Roy pointed out to the public confusion caused by the ‘‘contradictory messages from Palestinian leadership calling for peace on the one hand and war on the other.’’ Perhaps most important, Arafat and his failed proto-state could neither mollify nor vanquish the Islamist opposition.59 ARAFAT AND THE ISLAMISTS: THE EMERGENCE OF THE NEGOTIATED POLITICAL ORDER

Unlike other secular opponents of the Oslo peace, the Islamists presented a profound threat to the PA. The strategic thinking behind Hamas and the Islamic Jihad was derived from the concept of Quranic theory of war, elaborated by General Brigadier S. K. Malik, a Pakistani Islamist who reversed Clausewitz’s notion that ‘‘policy’’ provides the context and parameters of war. In Malik’s view, it was ‘‘war,’’ defined as ‘‘Jihad,’’ that produces the dynamics which shape policy. As distinguished from Western doctrine, which relied on military balance and deterrence, Malik placed the center of gravity of Quranic warfare in the human heart, with Jihadist terror as its main tool of intimidation. Malik’s writing was adopted by the IRGC and implemented by Hezbollah in Lebanon. While the Quranic concept of war aims at ultimate victory, it allowed great tactical latitudes, including political subterfuges and temporary truce with both Muslims and nonbelievers alike. Indeed, the ‘‘ballot and bullet’’ model which Hezbollah

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perfected in Lebanon was part of such tactical flexibility in pursuit of the ultimate Islamist strategic victory. Barry Rubin, who first conceptualized this phenomenon in the Palestinian Authority, suggested that the Hamas ‘‘ballot and bullet’’ version was probably more extreme, ‘‘one man, one vote, one time.’’60 Taken aback by the peace progress, the fundamentalists in the territories engaged in a spirited debate about tactics. Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, blasted the PLO for accepting the two-state solution and predicted that secular nationalism and PLO practices would eventually doom the PA. Meanwhile, Zahar, who maintained that Hamas was ‘‘not in hurry,’’ urged limited cooperation with Arafat. From his prison cell, Sheik Yassin offered Israel a 20-year hudna (cease-fire) in exchange for withdrawal to the 1967 borders. Mussa Abu Marzuk, the head of the Hamas political bureau in Amman, gave an interview that implied that Oslo is irreversible. Internal deliberation indicated that elements in the political leadership of Hamas were willing to adopt the PLO’s old policy of stages. Driving these tactical concessions was the realization that the Islamists had lost much of their Intifada-era popular support. A JMCC report of September 1993 indicated that almost 70 percent of Palestinians supported the agreement, a 20 percent increase since August. As for the ‘‘bullet’’ part of the equation, the Islamists were worried by the military muscle of the PA, especially the much-feared PSSs of Dahlan and Rajoub. Arafat, anxious to prevent a confrontation that might lead to incidents that could cast doubt on his control, was eager to reach a compromise with the Islamists, a plan that was to be mediated by Sudan’s Hussein al Turabi.61 Even a tactical compromise with the PA was too much for the radicals in Hamas, especially its military wing, the Izzadin al Qassam Brigades, and the ultraradical Islamic Jihad. Spurred by their overseers in the Revolutionary Guards and al Quds, the Islamic militants embarked on a new wave of terrorist attacks; in the six months after the DOP, attacks against Israeli civilians increased dramatically. When, on February 25, 1994, Baruch Goldstein killed dozens of Muslim worshipers in Hebron, the Islamists responded with five suicide attacks within the Green Line which left 35 dead and 135 injured. Arafat, by now frantic to preserve his control and avoid a public clash with the fundamentalists, reached a ‘‘conciliation agreement’’ with the political leaders of Hamas in the spring of 1994. Hamas reportedly promised to refrain from terror attacks in exchange for a long list of political and economic concessions. Among others, Arafat allowed Hamas to expand its social and welfare programs, appointed Sheik Hamad Bitawi, a prominent Hamas religious scholar, to head the religious courts in the West Bank, recruited other Islamists into his administration, and created a special Vice Section (Surtat al-Adab) composed of Hamas activists to oversee morality in Gaza.62 To prevent Hamas from being co-opted by Arafat, Izzadin al Qassam Brigades and Islamic Jihad launched a new wave of attacks. In October 1994, the terrorists

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upped the ante: the Brigades’ Mohammed Deif directed the kidnap of the soldier Naschon Waxman in a bid to release Sheik Yassin. After a week of a highly publicized drama, Waxman was killed in an IDF raid, along with his captors. In the same month, there was a suicide bombing of a bus in Tel Aviv. Under tremendous pressure from Israel to act, Arafat arrested some Hamas leaders, leading to mass protest in the territories. On November 18, a demonstration of Hamas supporters outside a Gaza mosque deteriorated into a bloody clash which claimed 14 dead and a 100 wounded. To send Arafat another signal, acting under a directive from Tehran, Islamic Jihad launched a double suicide attack in Bet Lit on January 22, 1995, which killed more than 20 Israelis.63 The Gaza ‘‘massacre’’ was a turning point in the relationship between Arafat and the Islamists. After lengthy negotiations, the two sides reached an agreement in Cairo on December 21, 1995, which essentially allowed Hamas to operate against Israeli targets outside areas controlled by the PA. Arafat also agreed to a release of Islamist prisoners but won a number of political concessions. The document was signed by Khaled Mashaal on behalf of Hamas and Salim Zanoun on behalf of the PNC, the legislative organ of the PLO. Although the Islamists refused to participate in the January 1996 elections, Hamas promised to refrain from actions that would delegitimize it. When Israel killed the Brigades’ chief bomb-maker, Yahya Ayyash, known as the ‘‘engineer,’’ on January 5, 1996, the Islamists honored their commitment to maintain calm. However, by March, this self-imposed discipline collapsed, leading to a series of spectacular suicide bombings which took the lives of scores of Israelis. Many groups claimed responsibility, including a hitherto unknown organization, Students of Yahya Ayyash; this signaled Islamists were having a ‘‘free for all.’’ According to Uri Savir, bypassing the political Hamas leadership, the instructions to ‘‘kill as many Israelis as possible’’ came from Tehran and Hezbollah.64 Aware that such large-scale terrorism could end the peace process, Arafat arrested 1,200 Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists. However, most of them were subsequently released. Arafat still hoped to split and co-opt the Islamists. Indeed, he scored a small victory in March 1996, when some second-tier Hamas activists created the Islamic Salvation Party (Hizb al-Khalas al Watani), which opened negotiations to join the PA coalition. By mid-1996 Arafat realized that he could not subordinate the fundamentalists without taking radical steps which, as the Gaza mosque incident indicated, could have led to a civil war and cost him the leadership of the PA. As already noted, Arafat faced dissension in his own ranks, where Fatah Hawks and Tanzim members formed ad hoc tactical alliances with the Islamists. Such crossovers were complicated by tribal and family relations. For instance, the driver of Hassan Salameh, who masterminded a number of suicide bombings in 1996, was a relative of Jibril Rajoub, who apparently knew of his affiliation. More poignantly, Rajoub’s own brother, Sheik Nayef, was a ranking

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Hamas leader, making the security chief an emblematic figure in the ambiguity surrounding the PA’s quest to assure peace by eliminating the fundamentalists. Arafat’s own security services clashed over the treatment of Islamists; General Naser Yusuf was an advocate of a strong stand, whereas Dahlan and Rajoub were more cautious. Further down the ranks, local commanders applied their own judgment; while some treated arrested Islamists harshly, others were inclined to follow the revolving door policy, in which terrorists sentenced to long periods of jail time were released after a brief incarceration. In yet another ploy, prison officials turned a blind eye to breakouts and escapes, often lubricated by bribes. On other occasions, Hamas activists ‘‘liberated’’ their jailed comrades with little repercussion.65 Second, Arafat must have been aware of the shift in power in the Islamist movement. By mid-1996, the more pragmatic Hamas leadership in the territories that favored a de facto alliance with the PA lost to hard-line leaders residing abroad. The internal leaders—Zahar, Sheik Sid Abu Mesameh, and Sheik Ahmed Abu Bater—urged cessation of suicide bombings but were overruled by Khaled Mashaal, Mohammad Nazal, Mohammad Qassam Sawalha, and Imad al-Alami who, in turn, answered to Damascus and Tehran. During a ‘‘terrorist summit’’ on June 21–23, 1996, the Iranian President Ali Akbar HashemiRafsanjani, acting as the head of the Supreme Council for Intelligence Affairs, created the Committee of Three that morphed into Hezbollah International, a terrorist umbrella group to fight American interests in the Middle East and undermine the Oslo peace. Imad Mughniyeh, the liaison between the Lebanese Hezbollah and the al Quds unit of the Guards, was already involved in training Palestinian Islamist terrorists. In July, a large delegation of Hamas activists traveled to Tehran to receive its ‘‘marching orders.’’ Although local activists bitterly complained that ‘‘those who live in five star hotels’’ (a reference to the lifestyle of the external leaders) cannot dictate to them, dependent on Iranian support, they quickly fell in line.66 Third, the same opinion polls which showed support for the peace process indicted that the Palestinians opposed coercive measures against Oslo opponents. The Islamists profited from such sentiments when they painted Arafat and his security service as ‘‘Israel’s agents,’’ ‘‘Shin Bet deputies,’’ ‘‘traitors,’’ and ‘‘American agents.’’ The pollster Shikaki suggested that Arafat was ‘‘paralyzed with fear’’ of confrontation with the fundamentalists and, as a result, the PA government had no political will to take substantive steps. The well-informed Egyptian journalist Mohamed Heikal wrote that, after Egyptian and Israeli emissaries tried to push Arafat to act more aggressively, he warned them ‘‘not to put a wedge between us and them [Islamists].’’ Yair Hirschfeld confirmed that Arafat did not intend to confront the Islamists until the wave of suicide bombings occurred in 1996. Savir added that the PA had ‘‘no cogent anti-terror policy’’ and ‘‘no serious effort was made to confiscate Hamas weapons.’’67

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Indeed, a number of observers wondered whether the chairman, already overwhelmed by the problems of state-building, was unhinged by the Islamist challenge. Arafat, informed by the Israelis of a plot to kill him, delayed his return to Gaza. Prodded by Israel, he eventually arrived in Gaza in July 1994, but the reception was not uniformly warm. A visiting journalist observed Arafat’s effort to join mourners for an Islamic leader killed by Israelis; the angry crowd shouted ‘‘collaborator,’’ made threatening gestures and, in a sign of humiliation, ripped off his trademark keffiyah, ‘‘exposing his bald pate to the driving rain.’’ Former CIA Director George Tenet reported that Arafat was surprised to find Hamas ‘‘was stronger than he realized’’ and was taken aback by the violence it had unleashed. The same Arafat who had an exaggerated sense of personal power was also known to retreat under adversity. On such occasions, he would ‘‘suspend his own authority’’ and temporarily detach himself from decision-making.68 Either unable or unwilling to dismantle the Islamists, Arafat settled for an ambiguous power-sharing arrangement with his opponents. In what evolved into a negotiated political order, Arafat made deals with Hamas that led to a fragile coexistence based on an ever-changing ‘‘cost-benefit’’ analysis of a given situation, essentially abrogating part of the PA’s sovereignty. Arafat even more assiduously preserved this tenuous status after Sheik Yassin, who had been released from jail in October 1997, was welcomed as a hero in the Arab world.69 For the Islamists, the negotiated political order had virtually no downside. Operating outside the control of the PA, they developed an autonomous network of social, educational, and welfare institutions. The dire economic situation had swelled their welfare rolls and provided ready recruits for the Islamist cause. Less constrained by censorship, the Islamists’ media routinely castigated Arafat’s failed proto-state. Disciplined and known for personal probity, Islamist politicians contrasted well with the corrupt and dissipated PLO leadership. Well versed in Islamist economics, a blend of Muslim and egalitarian principles developed by the Iranian thinker Ali Shariati, Hamas economists unleashed a scathing critique of the ‘‘capitalist manifesto,’’ their definition of the Paris Protocol. The Islamists were also free to socialize the younger generation into their militant creed. The network of Islamist schools offered anti-Semitic texts and Holocaust denial literature, and their summer camps trained students in martial arts and terrorist warfare. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) schools, where there was a strong Islamist presence among teachers, complemented such efforts. To promote the cult of the shaheed, the Islamists staged Muslim ‘‘Passion Plays’’ which reproduced particularly atrocious suicide bombings. Streets, schools, and clubs were named after local shaheeds, and their posters were plastered in public spaces.70 For the theoreticians of the Quranic doctrine of warfare, the negotiated political order had the added advantage of using terror to shape policy. Even though the suicide bombings fell short of destroying the public morale in Israel, a key

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postulate of General Malik, the violence validated the view that the old Middle East was well entrenched in the region. Most crucial, Arafat’s ambiguous and puzzling relations with the Islamists eroded the trust which the Labor government needed in order to implement the DOP. At a minimum, the belief that the PA was weak lowered the value of peace and, in rational choice terms, ‘‘raised the minimum threshold of trust necessary for cooperation.’’ At a maximum, it corrupted the entire process because the Israelis were not certain whether Arafat was too weak to stop the extremists, unwilling to do so, or both.71 As the Rabin government was soon to discover, the effort to implement Oslo peace turned into an ordeal that tested some of the most cherished assumptions of the New Middle East paradigm.

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Implementing Oslo: The Rabin-Peres Difficult Launch, 1993–96

Given the sketchy outline of the DOP, the Labor government expected that robust and detailed negotiations would necessarily precede implementation of the first phase of Accord, known as the Agreement on Gaza and Jericho. For Rabin, who was concerned with the absence of security provisions in the Oslo Accord, and for the IDF and security officials who were left out of the process, Gaza-Jericho presented an opportunity to fill in some of the gaps. Because Gaza-Jericho did not tackle permanent status issues, Rabin hoped that the Palestinians would be able to conclude the new agreement with relative speed and ease. The true Oslo believers felt enthusiastic about the future. Ron Pundak told a radio interviewer, ‘‘The problem today is not terror; I think that terror is something that history would regard as marginal.’’ Shlomo Ben-Ami was sure that terror will diminish since the PA understands that it harms peace. Yossi Beilin stated that ‘‘we believe that Hamas became weaker because of the Oslo agreement.’’ He added that the peace process would prove Shamir’s negativism ‘‘The sea is the same sea and the Arabs are the same Arabs’’ wrong. Speaking at a memorial to Aharon Yariv, Uri Savir praised the Jaffe Center founder for ‘‘looking at the future unencumbered by past.’’ Shimon Peres, the New Middle East visionary, reminded those who were wary about Oslo that ‘‘it is a mistake to learn from history.’’1 Such expectations notwithstanding, the Gaza-Jericho negotiations served to unmask the internal flaws of the DOP and the PA system it had created.

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NEGOTIATING THE GAZA-JERICHO AGREEMENT: A PREVIEW OF PROBLEMS TO COME

In line with the DOP, Articles III and IV of the Israeli draft of the Gaza-Jericho agreement provided for an elaborate democratic authority system; this was consistent with the democratic peace theory which, as indicated in Chapter 1, stipulated that peace is easier to achieve and maintain between democratic states. Articles IV–VI provided for Israel to transfer power to a PA which, as indicated in Chapter 3, was to be equipped with an executive, legislative, and judicial apparatus. Article VI-2 summed up the economic vision of the DOP and allowed direct negotiations with donor countries and international financial institutions. Still, the Israeli government was cautious enough to retain veto power over the Palestinian legislature, stipulating that legislation should take effect only after approval from a committee comprised of an equal number of Israeli and Palestinian representatives. Rabin was eager to shore up the security arrangements that the DOP had relegated to the realm of constructive ambiguity. Most critically, the Prime Minister wanted to deliver on his promise that Oslo would eliminate terror and increase the security of the Israelis. Spearheading the negotiations were two Oslo supporters, Deputy Chief of Staff General Amnon Lipkin-Shahak and former director of the Shin Bet, Yaakov Peri. In January 1994, Lipkin-Shahak and Peri met in Rome with Jibril Rajoub and Mohammed Dahlan to hammer out the mechanisms entailed in Israeli-Palestinian antiterrorist cooperation. Under the so-called Rome Agreement, after Israel provided intelligence on Palestinian opposition—particularly Hamas—the Palestinian Preventive Services were expected to arrest the perpetrators and, thus, to prevent attacks. Peri described the meeting as ‘‘very productive,’’ and his successor, Karmi Gillon, another Oslo supporter, was equally encouraged. Indeed, that Gillon (an expert on the radical Israeli Right) was promoted instead of Gideon Ezra (the veteran Shin Bet counterterrorist expert) reflected the government’s view that Palestinian terrorism was anticipated to be less of a problem than right-wing Israeli opposition. Gillon explained that Rabin, who wanted a fresh start, feared that Ezra was captive of the ‘‘old conception’’ of the Palestinians.2 Despite this early optimism, the Israelis and the American mediator Dennis Ross were not impressed with Arafat and his negotiating team. Unlike their counterparts, the Palestinians ‘‘came to the table without clearly articulated goals’’ and ‘‘clear sense of their best alternatives.’’ Some of the problems stemmed from Arafat’s management style, which Abu Ala had already identified during Oslo as ‘‘dragging his heels over issues and decisions.’’ As Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Savir blamed delays on ‘‘the jockeying for position within the PLO.’’ Arafat used appointments to reward his allies and punish his foes, a habit that impacted the composition and the dynamic of the negotiation team. The PA chief authorized multiple tracks, creating a fierce competition

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among negotiators ‘‘with the apparent intention of letting a hundred flowers blossom.’’ George Tenet, who represented the CIA, noted that the negotiators ‘‘were also competitors among themselves. It was sometimes hard to know when their official talking-points stopped and their personal agenda started.’’ Abu Ala admitted that Arafat kept the Oslo negotiators ‘‘out of the implementation process,’’ and Mahmoud Abbas felt alienated to the point of withdrawal. Ross confessed that he had ‘‘belatedly’’ realized that Saeb Erekat ‘‘could talk Arafat out of an understanding’’ previously reached by others. Meanwhile, Arafat, in a bid to control the process, constantly reshuffled Erekat, Nabil Shaath, and others who had replaced the original Oslo team. The head of PASSIA observed that ‘‘no one knows if the negotiators of one round will be still in that position for the next round, not even the negotiators themselves.’’ Even Yossi Beilin complained that the rapidly changing situation in the Palestinian camp made negotiations difficult: ‘‘Yesterday’s allies became today’s rival; those who were influential yesterday lost their influence today.’’3 Arafat’s behavior during the talks was a major concern. An authoritative biography noted that, during negotiations, the PA leader would employ a full ‘‘emotional repertoire, throwing tantrums, begging, crying’’ alternated with ‘‘insults.’’ Drawing on personal experience, Shlomo Ben-Ami maintained that Arafat’s act as enfant terrible was designed to signal that ‘‘we cannot expect from him what we expect from a normal child.’’ By creating the impression that one more concession would get the deal, or by putting the onus on the Israelis to come up with creative solutions, Arafat’s hysterics led to a guessing-game subcontext. Rabin and Peres were convinced that such behavior was part of Arafat’s brinkmanship style of negotiations, but Secretary of State Warren Christopher was skeptical. He believed that Arafat was ‘‘still operating as the head of a national liberation movement, creating a mystique, putting on a show, shocking his guests, so they would feel a need to find way to accommodate him.’’ Christopher concluded that the PA chairman was ‘‘irrational and that dealing with him may be necessary but unpleasant.’’ Savir, though, took a more integrated view, writing that Arafat’s ‘‘winsome reticence and [the] vagueness of his responses’’ suggested the Palestinians’ unreadiness to begin implementing the agreement. Savir blamed the difficulties on the ‘‘absence of standard constructs of government, overcentralization of power in Arafat’s hands, in the friction among his close advisers, and in an inherently indulgent approach to time.’’4 The Gaza-Jericho talks provided an early indication of the susceptibility of the Oslo process to the disruption caused by radicals. Following the assault of Baruch Goldstein in Hebron on February 25, 1994, Rabin and Lipkin-Shahak sent a letter of apology to Arafat, but riots broke out in the territories and the talks had to be suspended. The PA leader told Rabin’s personal envoy Jacques Neriya that he wanted all Jewish settlers removed from Hebron, to be replaced by installation of a Palestinian and international police force. Arafat also asked the United Nations

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to condemn Israel for the ‘‘massacre’’ and made other inflammatory statements. Ashrawi explained that Abu Ammar understood that ‘‘he was losing support’’ and had to ‘‘make statements that would not go well in the international community.’’ After an intervention by Ross, Savir, and Uzi Dayan (the head of the IDF Planning Branch), Arafat settled on stationing a contingent of unarmed UN observers, the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH). Savir suggested that ‘‘Arafat had shown himself to be a true partner in the quest for peace . . . and one man in the PLO capable of making difficult decisions.’’ But Rabin accused Arafat of opportunistically using the Hebron tragedy to try to internationalize the peace process, which Rabin felt had been Arafat’s underlying goal all along.5 Despite doubts about Arafat’s behavior during the Hebron crisis, the Israelis pressed for a speedy conclusion to composing the Gaza-Jericho agreement. The Egyptians, who wanted to see the Palestinians join the Arab peace camp, were also heavily involved in the last rounds of talks which took place in Cairo in the spring of 1994. On the surface, its final version seemed to accommodate both the Israeli security concerns and the Palestinian desire to assume some of the coveted sovereignty promised by the newly created PA. To minimize friction and to improve coordination, the Agreement established a Joint Civil Affairs and Cooperation Committee (CAC) and two Joint Regional Civil Affairs Subcommittees for the Gaza Strip and the Jericho Area. Article XIII was crucial to the security arrangements, as it pledged both sides to prevent ‘‘acts of terrorism against each other, against individuals failing under the other’s authority and against their property, and shall take legal measures against offenders.’’ In addition, the PA was obligated to prevent all such acts against Jewish settlers and IDF installations. In a series of last-minute negotiations, the Israelis and the Palestinians, with the help of the Americans and the Egyptians, agreed on a map of what would delineate the Jericho district.6 However, during the publicly televised signing ceremony in Cairo on May 4, 1994, Arafat embarrassed the Israeli delegation and his Egyptian hosts when he refused to sign the document. After tremendous pressure, Arafat changed his mind again, leaving everyone puzzled. Palestinian officials would later explain that the PA chairman concocted this drama to show that he can stand up for his people, but the incident exacted a diplomatic price. Arafat’s behavior left Hosni Mubarak ‘‘fuming’’ and vowing that he would ‘‘never again play peacemaker.’’ Watching the scene, Yossi Beilin invoked the metaphor of ‘‘thin ice’’ to describe his feelings about a possible breakdown of the process and Savir confessed that ‘‘the outrageous scene on the stage left a bitter taste in our mouths.’’ Gideon Sher, a future Israeli peace negotiator, described Rabin’s reaction as ‘‘looking [at Arafat] in wonderment, detachment, almost in despair, [as] Mubarak is cursing at him.’’ Sher resolved to keep a framed picture of the ceremony as a reminder of ‘‘the fragility of the framework within which we live.’’

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Sher’s gesture was prescient, given the fact that the next stage of the negotiations brought the Oslo peace to a breaking point.7 NEGOTIATING THE INTERIM AGREEMENT: STRETCHING THE OSLO PEACE TO THE LIMITS

Unlike Gaza-Jericho, the talks on the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, known as Oslo II, were much more complex. Scheduled to start almost immediately after the Cairo ceremony in order to meet the nine-month DOP deadline, the teams were tasked with creating a complicated matrix for Israeli redeployment beyond the Gaza and Jericho areas. Working on an equally tight timeline, Israel and the Palestinians were also mandated to offer a preliminary plan for tackling the permanent status issues which, as already noted, loomed potentially as a deal breaker. The new round of negotiations, delayed until the fall of 1994, was beset with a formidable array of problems. The most obvious was disarray in the PA, which the Labor government aggravated by blatantly disregarding the violation of the democratic process. Danny Rothschild, the former security official, complained to Rabin that Arafat, as head of the PA, could veto any law of the legislature. Much to Rothschild’s chagrin, Rabin dismissed his concern, implying that dictatorial conduct was the norm for the region. Savir admitted that this was a common outlook in the government: ‘‘Most of us took a rather cynical view of the Palestinian elections, which was also expressed around Rabin’s conference table.’’ The Labor team was equally unperturbed by warnings by some Palestinians to act against corruption, despite the fact that Aman had evidence about dubious dealings between the PA and former Israeli military and security officials. Beilin explained, ‘‘We did nothing to react to corruption’’ because ‘‘we did not listen to the warnings.’’8 Deficiencies in the negotiation process, already well established during the Gaza-Jericho round, were compounded by the complexities of the issues and the growing hostility among the Palestinian team. The Palestinians did virtually no serious preparatory work, rules of the various teams were not well defined, and the parsimonious expert advice that was actually sought was described as ‘‘whimsical,’’ merely derivative of the politics of the day. This contrasted with the rigor of the Israeli team which Rabin, apprehensive about the ‘‘feel good’’ Oslo approach, staffed almost entirely with military men, including LipkinShahak and Dayan. Edward Said warned that ‘‘a Palestinian negotiation style that has been neither well-organized nor well-stocked with both real experts and hard facts is simply going to repeat the mistakes and the passivity of the past.’’ To make matters worse, decisions reached by senior negotiators were often reversed by those who had replaced them or by Arafat himself. Fueling Palestinian passivity was a sense of entitlement which, according to Ross, pervaded the

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entire negotiation process as ‘‘victims’’ whose land had been taken; they felt ‘‘it was up to the Israelis’’ to provide the initiative and concessions.9 The chairman’s management style exacerbated bitterness among the Palestinians. Ross blamed the mischief-making Erekat for derailing a conceptual agreement that Abbas had achieved with Lipkin-Shahak. In a bid to save the sagging talks, Abbas pleaded unsuccessfully with Arafat to serve as a ‘‘symbol’’ rather than to oversee the actual process. The situation was especially acute in the Palestinian Leadership Committee—created to coordinate all the talks—which deteriorated into a public forum for posturing among the negotiators. At times, the chaos was so great that Ross was reduced to wondering whether Arafat understood the DOP process, whether his negotiators had ‘‘sold him a bill of goods,’’ whether Arafat truly was in charge, or alternatively, whether Arafat was just trying ‘‘to see what he could get.’’10 If the negotiation pattern fell short of the Oslo expectations, the assumption that the phased process would provide both sides with confidence-building opportunities was a total debacle. As already indicated, the PA failed either to co-opt the Islamists or to eradicate terror. In fact, shortly before the Cairo ceremony, Arafat signed the first ‘‘conciliation agreement’’ with Hamas that enabled it to continue its attacks. For Rabin and Peres, who in 1993 had reassured the public that ‘‘we are approaching a stage at which it will transpire that there is no future for terror and it will vanish,’’ the increase in suicide bombings and other terror acts in 1994 constituted a serious political problem. Between July and December, 15 Israelis were killed and scores wounded. Labor’s decision to refer to the victims as korbanot shalom (victims of peace) infuriated the Israeli public; attempts to draw a distinction between Arafat and his Islamist enemies belied the Oslo promise of territory for security. The December 1994 ceremony in Oslo—where Rabin and Peres, together with Arafat, received the Noble Peace Prize—was marred by protests from families of victims. A vigil outside Rabin’s residence in Jerusalem kept a running tally of Israelis killed in terror attacks since the Accord was signed. Beilin, who worried about the toll on the peace process, noted that Benjamin Netanyahu, the newly elected head of the Likud party, was gaining on Rabin in the opinion polls.11 Greeted by the mournful headline, ‘‘The Children Will Not Return Home,’’ the Bet Lit junction attack on January 22, 1995 that claimed the lives of twenty soldiers and one civilian was a turning point for the Labor government. Following an emergency cabinet meeting, Rabin announced that ‘‘terror had assumed strategic proportions’’ because it is ‘‘threatening the peace process’’ and Peres threatened to halt the negotiations if the PA could not assume responsibility. Privately, Rabin asked Ross to convey to Arafat a set of specific security demands as a precondition for future negotiations. He added that ‘‘peace will not be possible until Arafat has his own Altalena,’’ a reference to the 1948 decision of David Ben Gurion to sink a ship which was to have brought military supplies for the Irgun, his right-wing opposition.12

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However, by mid-1995 the Israeli government was increasingly split in its assessment of whether Arafat had either the capacity or the will to mount a successful effort to curb terrorism. Much of the doubt came from Aman, where Major General Moshe ‘‘Bogy’’ Yaalon had taken over from Saguy and Brigadier General Yaakov Amidror was put in charge of the influential Research Division. Under their leadership, Aman developed a new estimate of the balance of power in the PA and a new profile of Arafat. Ever since the end of the Intifada, intelligence officials struggled to estimate the real power of the Islamists as opposed to the forces loyal to Arafat. New Aman estimates put the support for the Islamists at some 50 percent, a figure significantly higher than that the Oslo advocates had suggested. Both Yaalon and Amidror believed that, at best, in response to the negotiated political order, Arafat was playing a complex game of ‘‘multiple narratives’’ to his various audiences; at worst, he was willingly colluding with the Islamists as part of the two-phase policy to regain Palestine. Arafat’s state of mind, especially his insistence that Israel was helping Hamas to derail him, was factored into the new assessment.13 Going beyond psychology, on December 13, 1994, Colonel David Yahav, the IDF Judge Advocate-General’s Assistant for International Law, delivered a detailed list of Palestinian violations of the DOP and the Gaza-Jericho agreement. The 16-page report cited the excessive size of the police force, the illegal arms arsenal, shooting incidences between the IDF and the PA police force, the smuggling of terrorists into the PA who had been banished by Israel, and the killing of collaborators. Arafat himself smuggled (using the trunk of his car) Mamduh Nawfal, the mastermind of the 1974 attack in Maalot in which 27 school children had been killed; he attempted to smuggle Jihad Amarin, another known terrorist. Yahav and other officials also identified cooperation between Arafat’s PA and Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as numerous instances of incitement against Israel. The Mossad chief Shabtai Shavit shared the view of Aman and personally distrusted Arafat, whom he accused of being a congenital liar. The Shin Bet, however, harbored few such misgivings. Its relations with Aman Research had been strained in the wake of the Oslo Accord over data gathering and sharing; as Gillon explained, unlike Aman and Mossad, his agents had ‘‘daily contacts with the Palestinians.’’ As a result, Shin Bet had a more positive evaluation of the cooperation between the PA and the IDF and even ‘‘a certain amount of understanding about the difficulties’’ under which Arafat operated and about his frequent passive behavior.14 Among the doubters in the cabinet was Rabin who, in a bid to counterbalance the Peres-Beilin peace group, picked Ehud Barak for the post of Minister of Interior in July 1995. The former chief of staff, whose misgivings about the DOP were well known, once testified before the Knesset’s Foreign Policy and Defense Committee that the PLO and Hamas enjoyed close relations. Rabin, who had retained a special adviser on terrorism, Brigadier General (ret.)

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Yigal Pressler, was reluctant to give up his Defense portfolio, but he hoped that Barak’s presence would signal the government’s toughness in dealing with the PA.15 Most significantly, cabinet members (including Rabin and Barak) were also increasingly willing to consider construction of a separation fence, a suggestion introduced by the Minister of Police, Moshe Shahal, following the terrorist attacks in January. The concept of a barrier had been first suggested by Arnon Soffer, the Haifa University geographer, long concerned about the democratic balance in Israel. In a paper ‘‘Unilateral Separation of Israel from the Palestinian Authority by Means of a Separation Fence: Advantages and Disadvantages’’ circulated in security circles, Soffer had argued that the Oslo paradigm had failed. He had urged erection of a barrier ‘‘more or less’’ along the Green Line which, in his view, would address many problems simultaneously. It would stop illegal entry of suicide bombers and other terrorists, prevent Palestinians from residing within the Green Line, and cut the theft of automobiles, tractors, and agricultural products. While Soffer’s main concern was demographic (the ‘‘silent’’ return of thousands of Palestinians who settled illegally within the Green Line), the Ministry of Police was especially perturbed by the huge increases in vehicles stolen in Israel and driven to the PA to be either sold or cannibalized for spare parts. Although not as dramatic as terrorist attacks, car theft created a sense of vulnerability among the public, prompting Savir to comment on its corrosive effect. Opposition to the security fence was expressed vehemently both by the settlers who feared it would end their dream of Greater Israel and by Peres and other Labor peace advocates. Shlomo Ben-Ami recalled that during a meeting of the FADC, he objected to the view that ‘‘we have to prevent the infiltration of the Palestinians.’’ He described such sentiments as an indicator of ‘‘our lack of faith in the maturity of the Palestinians and the seriousness that guides their efforts to build their promised state.’’16 Ultimately, despite his misgivings, Rabin was forced to side with Peres, as public opinion indicated that Labor’s electoral prospects were irrevocably tied to the success of Oslo. A March 1995 poll was characteristic in this regard; almost 50 percent of the respondents believed that the situation was more dangerous than before September 1993, and 64.4 percent were dissatisfied with Oslo. Commenting on these findings, one leading analyst wrote that ‘‘people were losing confidence in Oslo because they did not feel secure.’’ And widespread cultural acceptance of suicide bombings by the Palestinians was a source of profound dismay. To undo the public relations damage, Rabin adopted the formula of ‘‘fighting terror as if there is no Oslo and negotiating Oslo as if there is no terror.’’ While conveyed in a catchy slogan, implementing this contradictory policy proved daunting.17 Not surprisingly, the need to provide physical security for the Israelis collided with the CBM of the Palestinians. The security checks and closures had not only a negative impact on the Palestinian economy but actually violated the

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Gaza-Jericho agreement on safe passage. The increasing difficulty of movement embittered the Palestinians who blamed both Israel and the PA for the new state of affairs. Mahdi Abdul Hadi, the head of PASSIA, pointed out that, paradoxically, his freedom of movement had actually been curtailed by Oslo. The planned transfer of more territories to the PA had promised to create even a large problem in this respect.18 The proposed release of 5,000 Palestinian prisoners, another key confidencebuilding measure of Gaza-Jericho, was equally adversely impacted by the poor security situation. Because of continuous terrorism, the Labor government was highly constrained with regard to the categories of prisoners who could be released. Meant to reassure the Israelis, the policy of barring those who had ‘‘Jewish blood on their hands’’ (a reference to those who killed Israelis) created bitterness and frustration in the PA where prisoner release was a highly emotional issue, bolstered by an array of prison advocacy groups and the unceasing activism of the families. As Beilin would later concede, ‘‘We did not understand the prisoner issue.’’19 Still, it was the actual Interim Agreement talks that were affected most adversely by the deteriorating security situation. Both Karmi Gillon and Dennis Ross described the negotiations as extremely ‘‘intense,’’ with the latter pushing for a deadline before the Jewish Holidays of September 1995. The final draft, which was signed in Taba, Egypt on September 24, 1995 and in Washington four days later, called for further Israeli redeployment, first from major urban areas, and later from rural areas, with the exception of Jewish settlements and military installations. The redeployment schedule created three administrative areas: Area A (including most cities, where all controls were transferred to the PA), Area B (comprising 450 towns and villages with PA civilian administration and Israel overriding security control), and Area C (mostly unpopulated stretches, where Israel retained full control). The IA stipulated three further Israeli withdrawals from Area C, except for settlements and security zones.20 The official language glossed over several potential problem spots in the relations between Israel and the PA. First, failing to enforce control over the PA legislative process, Israel essentially gave up the veto provision. Second, contravening its own democratic design, Israel recognized Arafat’s de facto hold on the PA by creating the office of the ‘‘Rais,’’ the head of the PA, whose power superseded that of the other members of the executive body. Third, Israel accepted the de facto operation of the Orient House and other PA institutions in Jerusalem. Fourth, Israel acceded to the Palestinian demand to acknowledge that residents of Jerusalem will vote in Jerusalem, where campaigning was also allowed. Security-related clauses indicated even graver problems. Israel was forced to accept a fait accompli, raising the number of policemen in Gaza to 18,000 and increasing the number of policemen in the West Bank by 18,000. The safe passage provision was reaffirmed, but the additional language made it clear that it

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‘‘should not prejudice Israel’s right for security and safety considerations.’’ Perhaps the most difficult issue pertained to terror suspects which, according to Gaza-Jericho, were expected to be handed over to Israel. The PA ignored such a policy, especially as most of the prisoners were jihadists. In spite of tremendous resistance of the Palestinians in the final weeks of the negotiations, the transfer clause was included in the IA. Beilin mentioned that Rabin ‘‘wanted this article badly,’’ because of his domestic problems. He added that ‘‘the Israelis knew that the Palestinians would not transfer the prisoners’’ but signed the agreement anyway. Because the PA developed the ‘‘revolving door’’ policy of imprisoning and then quietly releasing terrorists, Beilin felt that Rabin gave peace opponents a public relations victory.21 Beilin’s reservations were not limited to the handling of the prisoner issue. Although by most indications, the historical rivalry between Rabin and Peres was replaced with a more civilized approach, the relation had a few rough edges. Ross reported that ‘‘at times between 1993 and 1995 Rabin would disparage Peres’s [New Middle East] vision with me.’’ Peres and his people were unhappy with the fact that ‘‘military men’’ like Barak and Dayan took center stage in the talks. Peres was critical of the way in which ‘‘too many generals’’ were involved and felt that Barak was not fully committed to the peace process. He became highly upset when the IDF Planning Branch allegedly leaked sensitive information to the press. Some Foreign Ministry officials were ‘‘said to be jealous’’ because Rabin seemed to favor his personal adviser Jacques Neriya, who felt that Arafat had failed to challenge the Islamists and once wrote a secret report describing the PA chief as ‘‘ranting and raving.’’ The Peres camp allegedly leaked the report to the media in a bid to discredit the adviser. For their part, Nabil Shaath and other Palestinians felt that the Rabin-Peres tensions were compromising the negotiations.22 Such misgivings—and the very public way in which the Gaza-Jericho and the IA negotiations had been conducted—persuaded Beilin that an urgent round of Oslo-style Track II talks was needed to resolve the final status issues. To recreate ‘‘the Oslo spirit,’’ Sten Andersson, the former Swedish foreign minister, offered to host the Stockholm talks, which were initiated in September 1994 by four academics, the Israelis, Yair Hirschfeld and Ron Pundak, and the Palestinians, Ahmad al-Khalidi and Hussein al Aghah. Subsequently, the talks were joined by others, including Nimrod Novik, Uri Savir, Sari Nusseibeh, Faisal Husseini, Hassan Asfur, assistant to Mahmoud Abbas, and PASSIA’s Mahdi Abdul Hadi. Many of the position papers came from the ECF, prompting Beilin to comment that ‘‘the peace factory started to work full time.’’ Among the new contributors were Gilad Sher, Gidi Greenstein, and the Jaffe Center’s Yossi Alpher who credited his own plan for inspiring the final status paper, a claim supported by Shlomo Ben-Ami. Critics charged that it was highly irregular for a private group, ‘‘not particularly liked by the public,’’ to sideline the intelligence community, whose task it was to guide final status negotiations.23

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On October 31, 1995 the talks produced the so-called Beilin-Abu Mazen final status agreement. According to a version posted on the Internet, this document delineated secure and recognized borders comprising some 95 percent of the West Bank and Gaza and envisaged the creation of a demilitarized Palestinian state no later than May 5, 1999. Israel was allowed to maintain three reinforced battalions, two existing military emergency depots and three early warning stations and three Air Defense Units until May 5, 2007 or ‘‘until peace agreements and bilateral security arrangements between Israel and the relevant Arab parties are attained, whichever comes last.’’ Jerusalem was said to ‘‘remain open and undivided’’ with expanded municipal borders that would have incorporated several neighborhoods. The Western part was to be recognized as ‘‘Yerushalayim’’ run by an Israeli sub-municipality and the Eastern part ‘‘al Quds,’’ the capital of the Palestinian state, by a Palestinian sub-municipality. The Old City Area was to be run co-jointly: the Palestinian sub-municipality was to assume responsibility for Palestinian citizens and the Israeli sub-municipality for the concerns of the Israeli citizens. The Israeli and Palestinian sub-municipalities were to appoint a Joint Parity Commission to manage ‘‘all matters related to the preservation of the unique character of the Old City Area.’’ Although the document noted that the ‘‘rights of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes is enshrined in international law and natural justice,’’ it stated that ‘‘the realities on the ground since 1948’’ and the ‘‘prerequisites of the new era of peace’’ have ‘‘rendered the implementation of this right impractical.’’ Instead, the refugees could return to the Palestinian state and have the right to compensation. Israel was called upon to acknowledge the moral and material suffering caused to the Palestinian people as a result of the war of 1947–49.24 It is not entirely clear to what extent this Track II agreement reflected the opinions of the official leadership on both sides. Abbas subsequently denied that he had signed the document. Given the attitude of Arafat and the negotiated political order in the PA, it is hard to imagine that Abbas had the necessary authority to push it through, even if he actually endorsed it. Rabin was not privy to the deal and was assassinated a few days later, on November 5. Peres, who was shown the document a few days later, refused to endorse it, fearing political repercussions.25 Even with Rabin alive, the Beilin-Abu Mazen document would probably not have fared well inasmuch as, by the fall of 1995, the Israeli discourse on the Oslo peace had turned into a bitter societal cleavage. THE OSLO PEACE DISCOURSE: FROM DIVISION TO KULTURKAMPF

With the black box of ‘‘Palestinians’’ pried open by the difficult implementation process, the national discourse on the Oslo peace picked up pace, exposing

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the deep cultural cleavage. Yossi Alpher warned that at least 10,000 settlers may take up arms to reverse Oslo. Shulamit Hareven, a noted author and peace activist, declared that Oslo represented a coalition of the ‘‘sane elements’’ among the Israelis and the Palestinians. Michael Keren, a Tel Aviv University political scientist, explained that the ‘‘professionals’’—his generic term for well-educated, secular Ashkenazi elites—supported the peace process; they did so, he asserted, because it promised to turn Israel into a ‘‘stable, well-functioning society,’’ adhering to ‘‘the norms of the industrial world’’ as opposed to ‘‘messianic yearning and populist rhetoric.’’ Keren added that the first Intifada brought the picture of the ‘‘tribal war’’ with its raw emotions and ‘‘primal tools’’ into sharp focus. In his detailed account of the cultural war, Yoram Peri contrasted the position of the peace camp with what one observer defined as the ‘‘tribal primitivism’’ of its opponents, identified as the National Religious elements and the ultraorthodox Ashkenazim and Sephardim. The leftist activist, retired Major General Benny Peled, was said to have compared Israel to a ghetto, albeit in better economic shape than the Warsaw and Lodz ghettos. Alluding to the ghetto imagery, the poet Aharon Shabtai wrote in Haaretz that ‘‘already from the window of the parked airplane, one can see that we have returned to the same excrement from which we came.’’26 Arieh Stav, the head of the right-wing Ariel Center for Policy Research (ACPR), compiled a long list of derogatory and anti-Semitic terms which some on the Left used to describe religious Jews. The settlers were often compared to Nazis, their children to the Hitlerjugend, and the religious soldiers to the Wehrmacht. In one highly publicized case, Shlomo Gazit was forced to apologize for stating that ‘‘the only army that I know where members of a political party were allowed to wear an identifiable, external symbol was in the Nazi army.’’ According to Stav and other commentators, the hatred toward the ultraorthodox was especially palpable; they were described as ‘‘black ants,’’ ‘‘black forces,’’ ‘‘bloodsuckers,’’ ‘‘evil and primitive,’’ ‘‘parasitic,’’ ‘‘death causing plague,’’ ‘‘rude baboons,’’ and ‘‘black genies.’’ Stav quoted a journalist who wrote: ‘‘We are disgusted by their black garb, the alien wigs on the heads of their women . . . the necrophilia, the obsessive interest in people’s bowels.’’ One leftist observer allegedly confessed that ‘‘When I see the ultra-orthodox, I can understand the Nazis.’’27 While it was easy for the intellectual elite to dismiss Oslo’s opponents as part of the ‘‘irrational’’ camp, it was much more difficult to portray the Palestinians as members in good standing of the ‘‘coalition of the sane.’’ In fact, given the reality of the PA described in Chapter 3 and the continuous terrorist attacks, any such endeavor was a tall order. Kenneth Levin, the author of The Oslo Syndrome, and other critics would later blame the ‘‘intellectual cheerleaders’’ of the Oslo peace for a deliberate effort to suppress news that would cast doubt on the New Middle East in general and the Palestinian ability or willingness to act as a

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bone fide peace partner in particular. The notion of a deliberate academic media ‘‘cover-up’’ has been particularly popular in right-wing circles; Yisrael Medad and Eli Pollack from the Israel Media Watch, a right-wing media monitor, went so far as to accuse the Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) of ‘‘managing’’ rather than reporting news. Still, a more dispassionate analysis of the pro-peace discourse reveals a much more complex and nuanced reality, with many factors converging to produce the favorable coverage of the PA.28 First, the CR and peace research funding increased dramatically following Oslo. This led directly to creation of a plethora of new institutes, centers, journals, projects, and workshops. With a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Herbert Kelman turned his unofficial seminar into the Program on International Conflict Analysis (PICAR) at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. PICAR ran the high-profile Joint Working Group on Israeli-Palestinian Relations that generated a large number of meetings and reports. The USIP stepped up its own CR efforts; it named John Wallach, the peace activist and Arafat biographer, to head the Seeds of Peace, a summer camp for Israeli and Palestinian youth. The Institute also offered fellowships to Israeli and Palestinian peace activists and funded Keshev, the Center for the Protection of Democracy. David Grossman, Keshev’s director, published ‘‘Reading between the Lines. A Guide to Critical Media Consumption’’ that accused the Israeli media of excessive coverage of terror. The Konrad Adenaur Foundation and the German-Israeli Foundation (GIF) helped turn Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research at Tel Aviv University into the flagship of the CR movement. Another beneficiary of the peace industry was the PalestineIsrael Journal, established in 1994 by Victor Cygielman. Cygielman was the former deputy editor of the New Outlook, a far left magazine published by the veteran peace activists, Simcha Flapan and Ziad Abu Ziadd, with the latter also a former publisher of Gesher, a Palestinian weekly in Hebrew. As a rule, CR and peace research foundations created matching programs in the PA; in some instances, the grants mandated a Palestinian-Israeli partnership and mutual use of data. Guided by its mandate, the large volume of material published by the CR/ peace research programs made a compelling case that the PA had developed according to the New Middle East paradigm. For instance, in the special issue of the Palestine-Israel Journal devoted to the PA economy, one contributor asserted, ‘‘The Middle East is at the threshold of a new era . . . that would mold a new Middle East order.’’ Others found the Palestinian economy well positioned to integrate into the New Middle East. Such positive evaluations frequently extended to Arafat as well. The Journal’s review of Alan Hart’s biography of Arafat found that ‘‘the author should be commended for such a comprehensive biography [of ] the man who led his nation from revolution to state-building.’’ The Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI) under the veteran activist Gershon Baskin was another PA booster. In 1995, IPCRI published

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a paper on banking law reforms in the Palestinian territories underwritten by the Private Enterprise Institute and the Government of Switzerland. The report failed to mention the corruption and financial mismanagement in the PA.29 The Van Leer Institute was equally upbeat about the Oslo peace. In 1996, Van Leer, together with the Queen Noor Foundation and Palestine Consulting Group (PCG), hosted the Middle East Study Mission for Foundations, which planned CBM to expedite the peace process. Van Leer published Learning the Peace Process for students and teachers in some 400 Israeli schools. A weekly compilation of news clippings, the project focused on positive developments such as the ‘‘peace dividend,’’ regional economic cooperation, and other items in line with the New Middle East paradigm. However, it was very circumscribed about Islamist terror; one issue (January 19–February 1, 1996) quoted a Hamas spokesman who asserted that there is a majority that wants to stop suicide bombings.30 Out of the 28 research projects commissioned by the Tami Steinmetz Center between 1992 and 1998, only two dealt with the Islamists and their patron, Iran. Two studies discussed the emerging political order in the PA; one found that the PA established a semi-democratic system, and the other asserted that the Palestinian Diaspora in the United States would play a role in imparting the ‘‘democratic ethos’’ to the PA. The rest were devoted to mediation, CR, and CBM, and included hopeful examples of cooperation between Israelis and Arabs. Only one essay criticized the creative ambiguity concept embedded in the Oslo peace. The Center’s authoritative Peace Index, a periodic survey of Israeli public opinion, was also quite upbeat. Tamar Hermann, the Center’s Director, noted that ‘‘the findings of our polls create grounds for relative optimism.’’ She asserted that, despite terrorism, the ‘‘Palestinians are today seen as a partner in the debate,’’ and that ‘‘no one sees the process as reversible.’’31 Second, unrelated to funding, the CR methodology made it easier to downplay the problems in the PA. Since CR required moral equivalency, it became customary for the Left to compare the Israeli Right to the Islamists. The Hebron killings inspired the Palestine-Israeli Journal to describe the credos of Gush Emunim and Hamas as the ‘‘covenants for mutual destruction.’’ Prominent Oslo advocates took to arguing that the settlers were the major impediment to the peace process. Writing in 1996, Amos Oz stated that the ‘‘real compromise’’ is not between Rabin-Peres and the Palestinians but rather between Rabin-Peres and the settlers.32 Critics of CR/peace research observed that the ‘‘excessive emphasis’’ on Jewish fundamentalism contributed to the downplaying of the serious difficulties that the PA had faced in implementing Oslo. Others decried what they believed to be double standards of the Left. Benny Begin, the son of Menachem Begin, and a Likud MP noted that, while leftists treated the PA incitement as ‘‘mere rhetoric for internal consumption,’’ they accused in a ‘‘wholesale manner’’ the Israeli Right of fascism.33

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CR’s psychological-psychoanalytical orientation was equally focused on the Israeli part of the peace equation. One popular theory held that, traumatized by the Holocaust, the Israelis lived in ‘‘fortress Israel,’’ a permanent state of mental siege and dread of the ‘‘other,’’ also known as the Masada complex. Daniel Bar-Tal, an educational psychologist from Tel Aviv University and leading exponent of this view, constructed the Israeli Siege Mentality Scale (ISMS) to support his findings. He suggested that the Holocaust/Siege conditioning made it difficult for Israelis to register the real political change made in the New Middle East. As he put it, the Israelis were inclined to follow the Shamir axiom ‘‘The Arabs are the same Arabs and the sea is the same sea.’’ Critics denounced the validity of what they considered to be a past-oriented and selective approach. In their opinion, Bar-Tal’s ISMS and similarly inspired studies did not carry any references to the more contemporary threat perceptions such as suicide terrorism, the antiSemitic incitement in the PA media, and Islamist publications that denied Israel’s right to exist.34 Bar-Tal and his colleague offered a list of measures to ease this psychological condition, including purging Israeli text books of negative stereotypes and ‘‘narratives’’ injurious to the Palestinians, and renouncing the military-security ethos. Using a more poetic language, David Grossman urged the Israelis to give up not just geographic territories but ‘‘territories of the soul’’: ‘‘They must surrender their belief that it is of overriding importance for the Jewish people to have the military capacity to defend itself in its land, the belief that the Holocaust was further evidence of this.’’ Some social scientists were hopeful that, ultimately, the ‘‘fear of the other’’ could be dissipated ‘‘through joint projects in the economic and cultural fields . . . [where] it will be possible to relate to the other with respect, to learn from him and to facilitate the development of mutual fertilization.’’ Presumably, such close interactions would lead to what one observer defined as a ‘‘truly creative discourse with the enemy’’ that comes from ‘‘our willingness to immerse ourselves in the potential space we both share.’’ Others, evoking Joseph Montville’s therapeutic approach to CR, urged Israel to apologize to the Palestinians. The idea that Israel, ‘‘without implying moral equivalency,’’ should study Germany’s apology to the Jews after WWII was mentioned by Ian Lustick, a noted Middle East expert, and taken up by other analysts.35 Third, Palestinian CR/peace research groups and NGOs, which often collaborated with their Israeli counterparts, furthered the positive evaluation of the peace process, including issuing frequent praise for the alleged flourishing of the civil society in the PA. According to a former insider, faced with so much Western enthusiasm and money, some Palestinians learned to ‘‘work the system’’ to help ‘‘extract the dollars.’’ With few prospects for real jobs, some of the best and the brightest graduates of Palestinian universities flocked to the ‘‘peace industry,’’ where they quickly mastered the art of producing the required positive reports. Ron Pundak, a major beneficiary of the peace industry, seemed to agree,

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writing that ‘‘In the early 1990’s, something called the ‘peace industry’ was in full bloom. It was hard to distinguish between those who pursued peace out of decent motives and those who abused the resources that suddenly became available.’’36 The CR/peace researchers were apparently oblivious to the impact of intimidation on some of their Palestinian experts. For instance, when the Tami Steinmetz Center organized a panel on the Palestinian economy, Hisham Awartani, undoubtedly mindful of the threats against him, did not address the issue of monopolies or corruption. Instead, he and the other panelists dealt with the problem of border closures. In yet another sign of ignorance about the real state of the Palestinian economy, Dan Abraham’s Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation featured Mohammed Rashid as a speaker at its conference on December 6, 1996.37 By design or default, the positive assessment of the PA tended to blame Israel for the implementation problems. The CR/peace research methodology facilitated avoidance of discussion of the Islamists, the PA incitement, and the impact of terror on the security perceptions of the Israeli public. The rise of the Islamic fundamentalism, clearly not anticipated by the New Middle East paradigm, was handled gingerly by the CR/peace researchers. Only one participant in the round table ‘‘Reflections on the Peace Process and a Durable Settlement’’ urged a ‘‘more serious Palestinian dialogue aimed at defining the line between legitimate resistance and acts of terror.’’ A Palestine-Israel Journal article asserted that ‘‘pragmatism can be found in fundamentalist organization such as Hamas,’’ and ventured that ‘‘it is also probable that, in Gaza, some of the Hamas people will similarly aspire for cooperation with the PLO.’’ Writing from a feminist perspective, Galia Golan, though visibly frustrated with the increase in polygamy, early marriages and other forms of ‘‘placating Hamas,’’ was still able to declare that Palestinian women— ‘‘no longer content’’ with verbal praise for their role in the national struggle— would unite in a women’s movement.38 Under normal circumstances, direct academic input into a national discourse is limited. However, with virtually no private think tanks and independent centers in Israel in the early 1990s, the academy played a substantial role in shaping the perceptions of the Oslo peace. Critics complained that the Israeli broadcast media afforded preferential treatment to pro-Oslo scholars and, more to the points, that academic supporters of peace were involved in the Ministry of Education program to rewrite history and social science texts, part of the CR prescription for healing long-standing conflict. Yoram Hazony, the cofounder of the neoconservative Shalem Center, pointed out that Moshe Zimmerman, the Hebrew University professor who chaired the Committee for History Curriculum, had compared national religious youth to Hitlerjugend and the Bible to Mein Kampf. Oslo critics were particularly concerned that scholars sympathetic to the peace process such as Asa Kasher, a philosopher from Tel Aviv University, were charged with writing the new IDF code of ethics, ‘‘The Spirit of IDF.’’39

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Benny Begin, a Knesset member from Likud, blamed academics for ‘‘whitewashing’’ Arafat and the PA; he noted that, in April 1995, a group of scholars met with Arafat and praised him on the pages of Haaretz for his warm welcome and his ‘‘partnership in peace.’’ Begin also complained that scholars and the media created a whole peace vocabulary that ‘‘normalized’’ Islamic violence; among others, Hamas was described as a mere ‘‘opposition’’ to the Arafat government.40 Fourth, the elite media were reluctant to publicize the state-building problems of the PA. Zeev Schiff, the Haaretz military correspondent whose optimistic assumptions about Palestinian behavior legitimized the Oslo peace, had initially little to say about the subject. Ironically, Schiff ’s first serious criticism of the disarray in the PA was related to the epidemic of car theft in Israel. His colleague, Amira Hass, the Haaretz correspondent in Gaza, made her name with the publication of Listhtot me’haim shel Gaza (Drinking the Sea at Gaza: Days and Nights in a Land under Siege). The book was translated into English and nominated for the 1999 Robert F. Kennedy Award that honors the ‘‘outstanding reporting’’ on disadvantaged people throughout the world. Hass, a self-proclaimed peace activist, blamed all the economic problems in PA on Israel, a position upheld by Haaretz editors who also overlooked the fact that she was once fined by a court for falsely accusing the Hebron Jewish community of abusing a corpse of a Palestinian. The U.S.-based CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America), a conservative media watchdog, described Hass, along with Akiva Eldar, Gideon Levy, and Gideon Samet, as ‘‘Oslo cheerleaders.’’ Nahum Barnea, a columnist for Yediot Ahronot, later charged that Hass and her colleagues failed to pass the ‘‘lynch test’’; this was a reference to journalists who could not bring themselves to criticize the PA, even when two Israeli reservists were murdered by a mob in Ramallah, let alone expose massive violations of the Oslo peace. While limited in circulation, Haaretz coverage influenced members of the media in Israel and abroad. So much so that one American scholar who compared the coverage of the New York Times and Haaretz concluded that the former ‘‘covered up’’ for Israel whereas the latter provided a true picture of Palestinian suffering and Israeli brutality.41 Critics pointed out that there was a serious conflict of interest embedded in the Oslo discourse in the media-academy nexus. Many of the scholars who shaped the perception of the PA in Israel were either peace activists or were associated with the Labor and Meretz parties. Galia Golan, then a Soviet expert at the Hebrew University, was a senior spokesperson for Peace Now. Yoram Peri, a professor of communication, was the president of the New Israel Fund, a leftist NGO which was once accused of funding an Israeli activist seeking to promote a boycott of Israel. Anat Biletzky, a philosophy professor at Tel Aviv University, was the head of B’Tselem which, as noted, terminated its coverage of human rights abuses in PA. Tamar Hermann, who directed the Tami Steinmetz Center, was a veteran peace activist and a fixture in the CR/peace research community.

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Ephraim Yuchtman-Yaar, the head of the Center, also served as a pollster for the Labor party. Yuchtman-Yaar allegedly urged Yossi Beilin during the losing 1996 election to ‘‘go to Peres’’ to formulate an emergency plan, adding that ‘‘we shall never forgive ourselves if we do not.’’ The journalist Ari Shavit, a critic of the Oslo coverage, wrote in Haaretz that there exist ‘‘positive relations between the media’’ and ‘‘those persons dedicated to peace . . . in its most radical dovish version.’’ He noted that the journalists, lawyers, and academics in this group perform multiple roles: they are the players, they judge, they report and explain the process ‘‘on the various media outlets.’’ His colleague, Uzi Ben Ziman, noted that the media were brutally critical of Likud and its leader Benyamin Netanyahu.42 While leftist scholars were accused of blurring the lines between scholarships and politics, their post-Zionist colleagues were proud to proclaim that their academic credentials served political ends. Indeed, in spite of fierce criticism by scholars like Efraim Karsh, by the mid-1990s, the post-Zionist perspective of the conflict became popular in the Oslo discourse. The charge that Israelis expelled the Arabs during the 1948 war and then falsified the record—first made by Benny Morris in the 1980s—went mainstream. Amnon Rubinstein, a professor and a politician, explained that a ‘‘small minority in our universities seized control of some of the humanities and social science departments and silenced the Zionist discourse.’’ Rubinstein blamed the commanding influence of the post-Zionists on the lack of American-style countervailing conservative and neoconservative institutions. Critics charged that the Van Leer Institute provided the post-Zionists with an important platform for disseminating their views. Still others noted that USIP, which awarded grants to Oren Yiftachel and Uri Ram, two post-Zionists from Ben Gurion University, helped to mainstream postZionist research in the United States.43 Institutional explanations aside, the symmetry built into the CR amplified the post-Zionist claim that the Palestinian Nakba of 1948 was akin to the Jewish Holocaust. Some post-Zionist scholars went so far as to actually use the term Holocaust in parenthesis to translate Nakba. Indeed, the alleged CR properties of post-Zionism were strongly emphasized. Gershon Shafir pointed out that ‘‘the coincidence of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the maturation of the new historiographical and sociological perspective on Israeli society allows a measure of interlocking political and intellectual openness’’ that ‘‘will prevent morbid phenomena and their symptoms to prevail.’’ At the very least, Shafir hoped that, by presenting an ‘‘alternative perspective,’’ the ‘‘historiographical revolution’’ will likely ‘‘contribute to averting the backlash and panic that spreads so easily after acts of terror and political assassinations.’’ Politically more damaging, some post-Zionists pushed for a boycott of Israel, arguing that the Oslo Accords amounted to a ‘‘neo-colonial’’ agreement justifying the ‘‘apartheid strategy.’’ Starting in the mid-1990s, the boycott movement spread to academic circles in Great Britain and the United States.44

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Potentially, the conflict of interest in the media was more severe. As noted, journalists-turned-advocates were reluctant to discuss Palestinian negatives. While coverage of terrorism was driven by the modus operandi of the Islamists and could not be avoided, critics charged that the mainstream media virtually ignored incitement. Daniel Polisar, who founded and directed Peace Watch, a group that monitored Palestinian compliance with the Oslo agreement, and Hazony noted that the media ‘‘dismissed with mild derision’’ any ‘‘ominous cultural-political developments’’ in the PA. Arafat’s Arabic-language speeches praising jihad served as a flash point in this debate. Begin, who obtained tapes of the Johannesburg address and other speeches, asked repeatedly the TV Channel One and Two to air them. They were broadcast months later, when Peres claimed during a hearing of the Knesset’s Foreign and Security Relations Committee that someone had tampered with the recordings. Evidence of incitement, a sore spot for the Labor government, angered Rabin, who ordered Aman and the Mossad to find out how Begin had managed to embarrass him in public. Dan Schueftan, a well-regarded expert at Haifa University who had received recordings of Arafat’s Gaza speeches, was also rebuffed. In a bid to publicize the tapes, Schueftan persuaded a member of the same committee to hold a hearing that received a scant mention in the press. During 1994–95, Yigal Carmon, a former intelligence official, who recorded a number of Arafat’s ‘‘Jihad’’ TV speeches was similarly rebuffed. He was told by a senior journalist that ‘‘every news item must be judged by the question of whom it serves. And you are serving the enemies of peace.’’45 Frustrated by their failure to influence the mainstream Oslo discourse, Oslo critics had gradually created their own channels. Peace Watch provided detailed reports on Oslo process violations, often carried by Arutz 7, an alternative radio broadcast. David Bedein organized the Israel Media Resource and Aaron Lerner directed the Independent Media Review & Analysis (IMRA). In 1996, Itamar Marcus founded the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). Yigal Carmon, who had already published an expose on the Oslo talks, started his own monitoring effort that eventually led to the creation of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) in 1998. In a March 7, 1996 interview on Arutz 7, Carmon accused the then Prime Minister Shimon Peres of denying knowledge about the PA-Hamas agreement before the Knesset FADC, but again, there was no reaction from mainstream media.46 By their own admission, the alternative outlets fought an uphill battle to compete with the mainstream media and the international CR advocates. When the then virtually unknown Polisar published a scathing review of the 1996 election in the PA, he was simply brushed aside by Jimmy Carter, the official election monitor, who praised Arafat and the democratic spirit of the PA. Incidentally, Carter also rejected a plea from Palestinian activists to pressure Arafat on human rights, stating ‘‘I would like Palestinians to become an example to the world.’’47

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In December 1995, the National Policy Institute at the Shalem Center published a report by Boaz Ganor detailing PA’s violations of the security provision of the DOP, Gaza-Jericho, and Oslo II. Ganor, who went on to establish the CounterTerrorism Center at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, charged that the PA had a tacit agreement with Hamas, that it had reneged on its own ultimatum after the Bet Lit bombing to collect arms from the Islamists, and that it gave Jihadists Israeli intelligence information. He maintained that Colonel Rajoub, the head of PSS in the West Bank and a key figure in the Israeli-PA security cooperation, was liquidating collaborators who had worked for Israeli intelligence. Without naming the Shin Bet, he expressed concern that many intelligence officials had ‘‘too rosy’’ an assessment of the PA due to personal contacts with the Palestinians, while others who had became ‘‘euphoric’’ after Oslo were likely to contribute to a ‘‘conceptual mistake.’’ Ganor was also critical of the ‘‘disregard’’ that Labor politician had for the assessments of intelligence officials. He noted that, when confronted with a skeptical evaluation of the Casablanca Conference, Peres dismissed experts because ‘‘most of the things which happened were not predicted by experts.’’ Though Ganor’s warning that the lull in attacks would not last long was prescient, the report made virtually no impact.48 The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA), founded in 1993 by Bar-Ilan University to compete with the Jaffe Center, faced similar problems. Operating on a shoestring budget, BESA scholars and associates produced some of the best-informed studies of the PA. As was discussed in Chapter 3, Barry Rubin (then at BESA) was the first to conceptualize the negotiated political order of the PA and its failure of state-building. Eliyahu Kanovsky was virtually alone among Israeli observers to challenge the popular ‘‘peace dividend’’ theory. Yehezkel Shabbat, a former employee of the Civil Administration, described in great detail the political links that Hamas and Islamic Jihad enjoyed with Tehran. BESA’s head, Efraim Inbar, articulated the danger of Islamist extremism to the peace process and the degrading of Israel’s deterrence in fighting a Quraninspired jihadist war. Building on this and other work, Inbar and Shmuel Sandler pointed out the many problems of Palestinian state-building and its impact on the peace process. They were especially concerned about the PA’s failure to monopolize the use of military power. Still, BESA was overshadowed by the high-profile and well-endowed Jaffe Center, whose leading analysts continued to be quite optimistic about the PA. Indeed, Survival, the journal of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies that published the Inbar-Sandler article, asked Mark Heller to write a ‘‘balance’’ paper that refuted their arguments.49 Further to the right, the ACPR mounted its own effort to question the Oslo peace. ACPR’s journal Nativ featured Soffer’s article that urged immediate cessation of the Oslo process. Soffer suggested that the Oslo assumptions had failed on three accounts. The Palestinians had developed a culture of suicidal

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martyrdom and an operational infrastructure to match. Even if 80 percent of the population did not support terrorism (an argument made by the Left), the remaining 20 percent had acted as ‘‘peace spoiler’’ and had forced Israel to take steps against the entire population. Soffer described the notion that the PA would fight terrorism as naı¨ve or worse since, in his view, the authorities tacitly encouraged the jihadists. The belief that economic well-being would attenuate the hostility was equally misplaced in his opinion because the neopatrimonial structure of the Palestinian society was bound to leave large pockets of poverty. In any event, Soffer pointed out that Islamist terrorism was religiously based and had little to do with socioeconomics. Soffer, an ardent opponent of annexation, repeated his call for a separation barrier. Nativ hosted Rachel Ehrenfeld, a noted expert on terror financing, who detailed the corruption in the PA. Ehrenfeld charged that the ‘‘international media, organizations and donor governments’’ are willfully blind out of ‘‘some irrational anxiety that cleaning house will signify the end of the PA and Arafat’s leadership’’ and the peace process. She urged the West ‘‘to help the Palestinian people to build democratic institutions and develop a free market system,’’ instead of promoting ‘‘Arafat’s Kleptocracy.’’ ACPR published a number of studies detailing anti-Semitism in the PA and the Arab world.50 Much as these studies provided a fairly accurate description of reality, ACPR’s vehement rejection of a territorial compromise had detracted from its credibility. ACPR’s occasional use of intemperate language was a further distraction, feeding into Yehoshafat Harkabi’s assertion that the right wing was too emotional and irrational to be trusted with political analysis. Even observers critical of the Oslo process conceded that the ‘‘hysterical and boorish reaction’’ of some on the Israeli Right hurt their standing in the discourse. Much worse was the right wing’s own Kulturkampf waged against the Left in general and Rabin in particular. Rabbinical authorities, including National Zionist rabbis associated with the settlers’ movement, issued rulings based on Halacha (religious law) that prohibited relinquishing Judea and Samaria. Former Chief Rabbi Abraham Shapira decreed that members of the IDF were not allowed to participate in evacuation of the territories. Combining biblical precedence and Halachic jurisprudence, some rabbis issued a verdict of din rodef against Rabin. Based on a Talmudic passage that allowed the killing of a rodef (pursuer) in order to save his victims, these rabbis argued that Oslo would give the Palestinians arms which could be used to kill Jews. As Rabin was partially responsible for the situation, killing the Prime Minister-turned-pursuer was halachically justified in this view. At the secular end of the anti-Oslo agitation, right-wing protesters compared the Labor party to the Nazis, the IDF to Wehrmacht, and Rabin to Adolf Hitler. Participants in Likud rallies often carried pictures of Rabin dressed in a Nazi uniform. When Yigal Amir, a student at Bar-Ilan University, the flagship of National Religious Zionism, assassinated Rabin, the Oslo-driven Kulturkampf came to a bloody climax.51

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Rabin’s murder greatly intensified the cultural wars. Tom Segev suggested that, for Oslo proponents, ‘‘Amir, although born in Israel, is a mutation of all that was despised the Diaspora . . . [and] his spiritual teachers were children of the Jewish ghetto.’’ Messiah’s Donkey, Saffi Rachlevsky’s highly unflattering portrayal of the Religious Zionists, became a best seller in 1998, greatly upsetting many of them. Eliezer Don Yehiay, a Bar-Ilan political scientist, called Rachlevsky’s book a ‘‘fraud, a distortion of facts, an ancient blood libel.’’52 Many of these themes played out in the May 1996 election, during which Peres, who had replaced Rabin as the Prime Minister, competed against Netanyahu. The Shas party, a pivotal swing voting bloc, joined forces with the Likud; the octogenarian Rabbi Yitzhak Kadoorie (revered as a sage in the Sephardi ultraorthodox community) blessed Netanyahu and his amulets were distributed during election rallies. As Savir noted, the election ‘‘was as much a socio-cultural referendum as a rational choice between peace and its alternative.’’ Peres was much more explicit. He allegedly complained that ‘‘large parts’’ of the population hate his party, ‘‘because we are for peace, because we are modern, because we are Ashkenazi, because we are moving Israel forward.’’ He blamed ‘‘backward and senile rabbis’’ who want to ‘‘go back and live in a ghetto’’ for fomenting such hate. After Likud won, Peres commented that ‘‘we, the Israelis,’’ lost; when pressed to explain, he added that by ‘‘Israeli’’ he meant those ‘‘who have an Israeli mentality,’’ as opposed to the ‘‘Jews.’’53 Though the Left blamed the Jewish ‘‘tribalists,’’ it was actually the Islamists who had had a major role in disrupting the Oslo process and destroying Labor’s chance at the ballot box. THE PERES TENURE: PRESIDING OVER THE FALL OF THE NEW MIDDLE EAST PARADIGM

While paying public respect to the slain leader, peace advocates were hopeful that as a Prime Minister, Peres, unfettered by the cautious Rabin and his ‘‘generals,’’ would be able to create a new dynamic for Oslo. Even post-Zionists, who normally maintained that there was no difference between Labor and Likud, gave Peres high marks. Avi Shlaim, a prominent post-Zionist, wrote, ‘‘Peres has far more empathy with the Arabs than Rabin, a better understanding of economics, a clearer appreciation of the declining utility of military force in modern world, and a vision for the region’s future, inspired by the European Union.’’54 By all accounts, upon taking office, Peres was still a staunch believer in the New Middle East. Ross recalled that the new Prime Minister had told him, ‘‘Why do we need to set our sight low? If we don’t try, we surely would not succeed.’’ Ross contended that ‘‘the grand vision informed Peres to move quickly’’ to renew the stalled Syrian-track negotiations. During his trip to the United States in December 1995, Peres presented Clinton with his ‘‘Comprehensive Peace Plan’’ that offered

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substantial economic incentives to Syria in exchange for a peace agreement. During the Davos economic conference in January 1996, he proclaimed that, with proper economic investment, the Middle East could be stabilized and that ‘‘terror is on the run.’’ Many of his aides shared the same view. Savir believed that ‘‘we could overcome terrorism and become members of a regional coalition,’’ and Hirschfeld was busy with plans for economic cooperation, which, in view of the ECF, would lead to a Middle East Community in 50 years. The New Middle East paradigm nourished the optimism of the new Prime Minister on other issues as well. He dismissed the Palestinian demand to the right of return as an ‘‘Arab dream that is bound to remain a dream’’ and was quite sanguine about Iran, noting that ‘‘I am not afraid of them [Iranians]; they are the old world, we are the new world.’’55 Still, Peres was less sure that the Beilin-Mazen agreement, about which he was briefed on November 11, 1995, would satisfy the permanent status requirements. Among others, he felt that the Jerusalem issue was not entirely resolved and the co-joint regime would generate conflict in the future. Although the mass revulsion over Rabin’s murder benefited Labor in the polls, Peres feared that Beilin-Mazen would hurt his chances. According to one source, Peres was ‘‘paralyzed with fear’’ that Netanyahu would obtain the document and make use of it during the campaign. There was even more trepidation on the Palestinian side. The PA leadership was not sure whether Peres could make the difficult decision needed to push the process forward or stand up like Rabin to the settlers. Marwan Kanafani, Arafat’s press spokesman and confidant, related that ‘‘We realized the size of the catastrophe when we met Peres for the first time [after Rabin’s death] and came to the conclusion he did not have the leadership qualities to go forward.’’56 Peres’s relative weakness might have also contributed to the decision to assassinate the Hamas master bomb-maker Yahya Ayyash on January 5, 1996. Nicknamed the ‘‘engineer,’’ Ayyash was responsible for scores of suicide bombings and he was high on the Israeli list of wanted terrorists; contrary to the Interim Agreement, however, Arafat had refused to extradite him. The PA told Israel that it was close to getting the ‘‘engineer’’ and would try him but, by the end of 1995, the number of Arafat doubters in the intelligence community had increased, making it harder on the ‘‘peace club’’ in the government to ‘‘coddle terrorists.’’ As the Shin Bet Chief Karmi Gillon wrote, ‘‘I did not think for a moment that Arafat would turn Ayyash in.’’ Whatever the motives for the decision, the consequences of Ayyash’s death were probably not anticipated. Some 100,000 people marched in the funeral procession and Arafat, who eulogized Ayyash as a martyr, bitterly criticized Israel. More to the point, a brutal wave of suicide bombings in late February and March of 1996, in which scores of Israelis were killed and wounded, brought the Oslo process to a standstill and threatened the electoral prospects of Labor.57 Peres, who was described as badly shaken by the events, had only to consult the opinion polls to realize that Labor had lost whatever sympathy it had garnered after the Rabin murder. Under pressure from Yossi Beilin and the Meretz

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ministers, Peres rejected an offer from the Likud to form a National Security government with Ariel Sharon in the Defense Ministry. In a series of meetings, the cabinet decided on a number of steps to bolster its security credentials. First, it created the Mate Lohama Be’terror (Headquarters for Fighting Terrorism— Counter-Terrorism Center) under Ami Ayalon, whom Peres had picked to replace the disgraced Gillon (whose detail had failed to protect Rabin). Invoking the security clause of the Interim Agreement, the government imposed a hermetic closure of the territories. Although Peres still opposed the separation fence which Shahal had again raised, it was agreed that Peres would mention a separation plan on election-related TV broadcasts.58 The new Prime Minister applied extraordinary pressure on the PA to take on Hamas, writing that he personally ‘‘read the riot act to Arafat.’’ In an angry encounter, Peres asked the PA chief to strike against the Islamist infrastructure, confiscate illegal weapons, and arrest known jihadists. Amnon Lipkin-Shahak and Yossi Ginossar, who replaced Shlomo Gazit as Peres’s secret liaison to Arafat, delivered a whole series of angry messages and ‘‘categorical demands.’’ As Savir, who was also dispatched to Gaza, put it, ‘‘We decided to help Arafat to help himself.’’ In what was first for him, Peres publicly lashed out against the chairman, much to the detriment of Labor’s prospects. Stating the obvious, Savir commented that the public rebuke against the ‘‘peace partner’’ delegitimized Oslo and handed a propaganda victory to the Right.59 Acting behind the scenes, the Clinton administration did its own share of armtwisting. Ross told Arafat that ‘‘the peace process is over unless you do something on the security issue. And you can’t fake it; it has to be real.’’ President Clinton, who disliked Netanyahu, was most anxious to secure Labor’s reelection. Clinton and Ross came up with the idea of organizing an Anti-Terrorist Summit in March (in Sharm-el-Sheik, Egypt) to ‘‘demonstrate to the Israelis that they are not alone.’’ Signaling a deeper American involvement, Clinton asked the then CIA Director John Deutch to provide independent intelligence for the negotiation process. Deutch’s deputy, George Tenet who was placed in charge, registered his reaction, ‘‘The new plan called for taking on a quasi-diplomatic role [for the CIA] in what was largely a political process.’’60 The combined Israeli-American pressure seemed to bear some fruit. The PSS arrested more than a 1,000 suspected terrorists, killed another 20, and agreed to intelligence-sharing in ‘‘real time.’’ On April 17, Arafat and Peres approved an informal document on antiterrorist cooperation. A week later, on April 24, the PNC, the legislative body of the PA, voted to void the part of the Palestinian National Charter which denied Israel’s right to exist. Arafat’s delay in amending the Charter, part of the Oslo agreement, had been a public relations problem for Labor and a boon for critics who traced the failure of the PA compliance.61 However, as already indicated in Chapter 3, the action against the jihadists was short-lived. Arafat refused to give up any of the 88 Islamist terrorists on a list that

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Shin Bet had prepared in 1996, most of whom had been given positions in the PA security services or worked in the private sector. Arafat was particularly deceptive about Mohammed Deif, a prominent leader in Izzadin al Qassam and a skilled bomb-maker in his own right. When General Yaalon went to Gaza in March to request the extradition of Deif, Arafat and Dahlan denied knowing who Deif was. Aman officials, who had evidence that Dahlan had met the bomb-maker, were taken aback by Arafat’s deceit.62 While Arafat had a short-term incentive to bolster Labor’s electoral chances, he might have been no match for the broader Iranian plan to derail the peace process and the putative Israel-Syrian talks. Richard A. Clarke, the counterterrorism expert in Clinton administration, confirmed that the Israeli intelligence linked the bombings to the Hezbollah-Jihadist nexus. As a matter of fact, a highly classified Aman assessment in 1996 predicted that Iran would use Imad Mughnieyeh and Hezbollah to stir up trouble in a bid to defeat Labor. To wit, at the end of March, Hezbollah unleashed a barrage of rockets on Northern Galilee. The so-called ‘‘Hezbollah rain’’ directed at the largely Sephardi residents of Kiryat Shmona and other border towns stirred up the Sephardi community in the country. Peres, a target of much of this protest, was pelted with tomatoes during rallies. Overruling the objection of the Meretz ministers, Peres ordered a largescale retaliatory action code-named Operation Grapes of Wrath on April 2, in which the Israeli Air Force flew 1,500 sorties.63 The suicide attacks and the Hezbollah provocation achieved the intended goal. Itamar Rabinovitch, then Israeli ambassador to Washington and the chief negotiator with Syria, acknowledged this fact: ‘‘The wave of suicide bombings . . . was very difficult for our . . . negotiations’’ because Syria refused to condemn the attacks. Rabinovitch revealed that Peres actually suspected Assad of fomenting the tension and tried to warn him through the Americans, angering the Syrian leader.64 With little impact on the politics of Tehran, Grapes of Wrath turned into a major public relations debacle when the IDF mistakenly fired at a UN compound in Qana where hundreds of Lebanese civilians were being sheltered, killing more than a hundred and wounding many more. The Qana bombing angered the Israeli Arabs, a crucial Labor constituency. According to reports which Labor strongly denied, in March, Peres visited Arafat at the Erez Crossing to elicit his support in mobilizing the community. Arafat allegedly gave Peres a list of 30,000 potential voters and promised additional help. In the end, though, many Israeli Arabs boycotted the election, handing Likud a razor-thin victory.65 For Tehran, the Qana incident was a lucky break in its increasingly strenuous efforts to undermine Labor. According to CIA Director R. James Woolsey, Iran provided more than $100,000 over a number of years to Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Ibrahim Ghawashah, a Hamas spokesman, claimed that his group worked hard to elect Likud. Savir revealed that Aman, Palestinian sources, and Hamas

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detainees ‘‘all corroborated the idea that Iran ordered Hamas to ‘terror out’ Labor.’’ Savir also noted that Iran planned to extend its campaign to Europe. On March 14, authorities in the Netherlands found a short-range missile aboard a ship in Antwerp that was to be used in an attack on an unspecified Israeli embassy.66 Labor’s fortunes took a further beating when a number of high-ranking officials decried the out-of-control situation in Gaza. On May 3, Amnon LipkinShahak told a newspaper that ‘‘The security situation in Gaza is far from being something to which one can give a passing grade.’’ Shaul Mofaz denounced Arafat for failing to adhere to the Accords, adding that ‘‘he [Arafat] . . . had failed, failed, failed.’’ With Oslo in the balance, Bill Clinton intensified his efforts to help Labor. Clinton’s pollster Douglas Schoen was dispatched to Israel to fashion a hard-hitting campaign against Likud and the President took to praising. According to some critics, Clinton became the election agent of Peres, but all these efforts failed.67 When Likud won on May 29, Netanyahu, a bitter critic of Oslo who often ridiculed Peres’s vision of the New Middle East, proclaimed that the election vindicated his own reading of political reality. The Likud leader promised to rectify what he considered to be glaring deficiencies in the Accords and bring peace with security. As Netanyahu was soon to discover, neither of these goals was easy to achieve.

5

Netanyahu’s Midcourse ‘‘Correction’’ of the Oslo Peace, 1996–99

Benjamin Netanyahu’s narrow right-wing coalition government faced a grave dilemma regarding Oslo. By law, the government was obligated to implement the Accords, but the hard-line parties were either committed to Greater Israel or, like Netanyahu, profoundly suspicious of Arafat and the PA. Indeed, the new government wasted little time in announcing a ‘‘midterm correction’’ of the Oslo process. In Netanyahu’s view, all the Oslo Accords (DOP, GazaJericho, and Oslo II) were fundamentally flawed since it forced Israel to give up a tangible asset—land—for fuzzy, hard to verify, and easy to elude Palestinian commitments. To correct this flaw, the new government declared that the negotiations would have to be based on the principle of ‘‘reciprocity’’: ‘‘We must honor agreements . . . on the condition that the other side also honors them to the latter.’’1 The demand for full Palestinian compliance was welcomed by Oslo opponents who had complained all along that the PA ‘‘was getting away with murder.’’ But Oslo advocates charged that Netanyahu was trying to change the rules of the game in order to sabotage the peace process. As Itamar Rabinovitch explained, ‘‘Rabin and Peres had argued that Israel, as a senior and more powerful party to the agreement, did not have to insist on a literal interpretation and implementation.’’ In his view, to shift from a liberal approach to a strict insistence on ‘‘full compliance’’ was ‘‘widely seen’’ as a negative. Jibril Rajoub, the head of Palestinian Preventive Security in the West Bank, put it more succinctly. He claimed that under Netanyahu, the motto was yaasu, ykablu; lo yaasu, lo ykablu (if they do it, they will get it; if they don’t do it, they will not get it).2

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The policy of reciprocity was part of a larger policy change of the Likud government. To please his right-wing ideological base, Netanyahu had to demonstrate his resolve to shore up the Jewish presence in the West Bank and Jerusalem. TESTING NETANYAHU’S APPROACH: THE FRAGILITY OF THE PEACE PROCESS

Immediately upon taking office, Netanyahu ordered a review of Oslo compliance which, as already noted, had been monitored by Peace Watch, MEMRI, Palestine Media Watch, and other Oslo critics. Netanyahu’s Government Secretary, Danny Naveh, who was in charge of the project, eventually produced a 55-page report on the principles of reciprocity. In addition, Brigadier General Uri Shoham, the Chief Military Prosecutor, noted that the PA had ignored its legal obligations under the Oslo Accords. Most of the items on the list were well known: the illegal size of the police force, the failure to arrest terrorists, incitement (including efforts to delegitimize Israel in international forums), and refusal to respond to requests for due process regarding Palestinians who fled to the PA after having committed crimes in Israel. The government questioned the legality of the way in which the PNC abrogated the anti-Israel clause in its Charter. Also, according to the government, the Orient House in Jerusalem (run by Faisal Husseini, PA’s minister in charge of the Jerusalem portfolio) not only violated the Oslo provision against PA activity in Jerusalem but was involved in incitement and violence. Faced with a huge public outcry in Israel and abroad, Netanyahu closed three minor PA offices in the capital but let Orient House stand.3 The government’s decision to repeal the Rabin settlement freeze produced an even harsher reaction. The Peace Now Settlement Watch Team published an extensive report and the United States and Western governments registered their deep displeasure. The CIA was collecting data on the settlements through the National Security Agency’s satellites. Secretary of State Madeline Albright was so upset that she once called Netanyahu at five o’clock in the morning to complain about new constructions. Under intense pressure, the Prime Minister was forced to backtrack by qualifying the ‘‘de-freeze’’ resolution; the government announced that only settlement extensions would be permitted and that each construction plan would require the personal approval of the Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai. Still, monitored closely by Peace Now, each extension created agitation in the Arab world and the PA. The government policy of demolishing Palestinian houses built without having first acquired a permit created a public relations nightmare in East Jerusalem, where permits were particularly difficult to obtain. In one prominent case, the Jerusalem municipality, assisted by a large IDF detachment, destroyed a facility for training handicapped youth built with donations from Europe.4

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Netanyahu’s Jewish policy in East Jerusalem attracted even more scrutiny. As part of the ‘‘creative ambiguity’’ of Oslo, Jewish settlement activity in the territories and Jerusalem was not mentioned. Mindful of the sensitivity of the issue to the peace process, the Labor government froze most of the construction, limiting development to the blocks of settlements slated to be included in the final agreement. Long-standing plans to improve tourist circulation in the Hasmonean Tunnel, which was not linked physically to Temple Mount, were delayed due to the same sensitivity. Between 1987 and 1996, the Ministry of Religious Affairs, on the advice of the security services, refrained from opening a north exit from the Tunnel. In February 1995, Yossi Beilin consulted with Faisal Husseini, who warned that tampering with the Tunnel was dangerous. To create a quid pro quo, in January 1996, the Ministry agreed to allow the waqf authorities to convert Solomon Stables, an underground structure near the Temple Mount, into a mosque for Ramadan prayers. Although the waqf did extensive renovation, the Peres government had hesitated to proceed with the deal.5 While Netanyahu was aware of the sensitive nature of the Tunnel, he was determined to test the limits of the Oslo Accord. The Likud chief was also under considerable pressure from one of his American contributors (Irving Moskowitz, a wealthy orthodox Jew from Miami) that was on a personal mission to increase the Jewish presence in East Jerusalem and the Old City. Moskowitz, who was a major contributor to the renovation of the Hasmonean Tunnel, apparently persuaded Ehud Olmert (then, the mayor of Jerusalem) to authorize opening a north exit from the Tunnel, without prior announcement, on the night of September 24, 1996.6 The Palestinian reaction caught both the government and the military-security establishment by surprise. Yasser Arafat declared that Israel had tunneled under the Haram al Sharif (Temple Mount), placing at risk the foundations of the two mosques situated thereupon: Al Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock (where the Prophet Mohammed had ascended to heaven). The PA was institutionally involved in the widespread riots that engulfed the territories. The Voice of Palestine disseminated these false accusations and called on the population to rise in protest. PA authorities rented buses to ferry protesters. Palestinian policemen killed Israeli soldiers, including their partners in joint patrols. Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus and the adjacent yeshiva were destroyed and six soldiers guarding the site were gunned down. Altogether, the IDF lost 16 soldiers before the riots subsided.7 The Hasmonean Tunnel incident turned into a serious public relations debacle for the young and inexperienced Likud leader. Netanyahu was roundly criticized by the Israeli peace camp and condemned by the international community. In a stinging rebuke, Israel’s President Ezer Weitzman invited Arafat for a private visit to his residence, and Ami Ayalon, the head of Shin Bet, announced publicly that he had opposed opening the new Tunnel exit.8

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The government’s vulnerability to right-wing activism in Jerusalem was on full display during another incident instigated by Moskowitz who, unbeknownst to the Israeli government, had purchased a number of properties in Ras al-Amud, a heavily populated Arab neighborhood two miles from the Old City. In September 1997, Moskowitz, who worked closely with Amana (the settlement movement of Gush Emunim) and Ateret Cohanim (a group dedicated to restoring the Third Temple), moved a number of Jewish families into a building in Ras al-Amud. The project, named Maale Zeitim, was designed to extend Jewish contiguity to the Temple Mount. Fearing a new round of violence and international opprobrium, Netanyahu moved quickly to defuse the situation by denouncing the project on Israeli radio on September 15. In addition, Foreign Minister David Levy described the entry of the Jewish families as ‘‘unnecessary,’’ ‘‘harmful,’’ and ‘‘unacceptable,’’ and Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai admitted that ‘‘he was surprised’’ and promised to ‘‘study how the decision was made.’’9 Behind-the-scenes maneuvering revealed the extent of Netanyahu’s predicament. A number of radical right-wingers threatened to leave the government if the settlers were evicted. Netanyahu, who relied heavily on opinion polls, was informed that 76 percent of those who had voted for him in the recent election opposed a forced eviction. A compromise formula acceptable to Moskowitz was forged during a cabinet meeting on September 16; the families agreed to leave, but ten students were left to safeguard the building and to study there. Danny Naveh asserted that the Prime Minister was deeply angered by Moskowitz, but critics suggested that the government had been behind Ras al-Amud, as part of its plan to sabotage the peace process.10 Questions about Netanyahu’s commitment to Oslo combined with the violent reaction of the Palestinians plunged the Clinton administration into despair. Dennis Ross noted that ‘‘fundamental questions about the premise of the peace process’’ were raised by the ‘‘electoral defeat of those in Israel ready to make far-reaching concessions for peace’’ and the Palestinians’ use of violence. The President, Madeline Albright, the National Security Adviser, Samuel ‘‘Sandy’’ Berger, and Martin Indyk, Washington’s ambassador to Israel, blamed Netanyahu for most of the problems. According to Ross, Clinton found Netanyahu to be ‘‘nearly insufferable,’’ commenting once that Netanyahu ‘‘thinks he is the superpower and we are here to do whatever he requires.’’ Naveh confirmed that, with the exception of Ross, the Clinton team was highly critical of Netanyahu and determined to push him along. Indeed, Ross related that Clinton saw Netanyahu as an ‘‘unmistakable threat to [Rabin’s] legacy and [that] he would not sit idly by.’’ Acting upon this resolve, the administration, already considerably involved in the peace process, decided in effect to take over the negotiations.11

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THE HEBRON MEMORANDUM AND THE WYE AGREEMENT: NEGOTIATING UNDER THE AMERICAN BATON

Negotiating the Israeli redeployment from Hebron presented the first challenge to the Americans. Hebron was a test case for both the Israelis and the Palestinians. Netanyahu, under severe pressure from the right wing, was reluctant to redeploy from Hebron, which the Interim Agreement (Oslo II) had divided into the H-1 Palestinian zone and H-2 area containing some 20,000 Palestinians and 400 Jewish settlers. Although the IDF was mandated to redeploy from H-1, the Jewish presence in H-2 required complex security and civil arrangements, including the IDF’s right to reenter H-1, buffer zones between the two areas, and other restrictions on the Palestinian inhabitants of H-2. The Palestinians insisted that H-2 should be equivalent to the B areas where, according to Oslo II, the PA would manage civilian affairs while Israel would retain overall security responsibility. However, given the role of the PA police in the ‘‘Tunnel revolt,’’ the Israeli government insisted on special protection for the Hebron Jews.12 Despite his domestic difficulties, Netanyahu decided to enter the Hebron negotiations. Yet, the conceptual gap between the two sides was so great and the formal channel so unwieldy that Ross, who arrived in Israel in October 1996, decided to create a ‘‘back channel’’ between Amnon Lipkin-Shahak and Abu Mazen. However, reminiscent of prior negotiations, the disarray among the Palestinians made progress difficult. Saeb Erekat scuttled the understanding reached by Lipkin-Shahak and Abu Mazen on the crucial issue of ‘‘hot pursuit,’’ and Arafat insisted on adding Yasser Abu Rabbo to the back channel, apparently as a counterpart to Abu Mazen. But it was Arafat’s posture that proved most detrimental to the negotiations. According to Ross, Arafat felt that Netanyahu, despite the clear breach of the Oslo Accords by the PA during the Tunnel incident, had no alternative to pursuing the peace process. The chairman, a veteran of the Middle East game of hard bargaining, therefore concluded that he was in the ‘‘driver’s seat’’ because Netanyahu needed him.13 By complicating the negotiations and holding out on a deal, Arafat hoped to get a better bargain; this, in turn, promised to increase his standing in the ‘‘Palestinian street’’ that was still savoring the police attack on the IDF. In a version of his ‘‘Cairo performance,’’ the PA chief could once again demonstrate to his constituency that he was fighting for the Palestinian cause. While Arafat’s tactics made good domestic sense, it left the negotiations in tatters. Ross, partially out of personal frustration and partially as a calculated effort to prod the Palestinians, developed his own style of brinkmanship diplomacy. His array of tools (dramatic displays of anger, threats to leave if deadlines were not met) provided only short-lived boosts. By December, there were clear indications that there would be no progress without intense American involvement.

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At a high-level meeting in the White House in the second week of December, Clinton and Vice President Al Gore expressed anxiety that expected terrorist violence (to coincide with the anniversary of the 1995 killing of Fathi Shikaki, the founder of the Islamic Jihad) might destroy the peace process altogether. Despite his reluctance, Ross was sent back to the Middle East and the President admonished both leaders in separate letters. Netanyahu was asked to stop settlement activity and Arafat was rebuked for PA’s security failures and for his reluctance to conclude the negotiations. The President’s letter goaded Netanyahu, who was widely criticized for displeasing the Americans, always a sensitive issue for the Likud. However, Ross was less sure that Arafat could be budged, because as he put it, Arafat’s ‘‘clock and his calculations’’ were more difficult to decipher. ‘‘The problem is that the clock is in Arafat’s head and no one knows what is there. Sometimes I wonder if he does.’’14 Even the liberal New York Times chided the PA chief for dragging his feet. In the end, it took an additional several weeks of wrenching negotiations, replete with breakdowns and last-minute reversals, to clinch the deal. When finally signed on January 15, 1997, the Hebron deal proved to be much more complex than the original attempt to negotiate the Israeli redeployment. The official Hebron Protocol spelled out the special security for Hebron: a District Coordinating Office (DCO), Joint Mobile Units (JMUs) in H-2 to handle incidents that involved Palestinians only, two Joint Patrols in H-1, and a Joint Coordination Center (JCC) within the DCO. The JMUs were substituted when the Palestinians categorically rejected Israel’s demand to be empowered to engage in ‘‘hot pursuit.’’ The Protocol also included a set of arrangements for the protection of the Jewish holy sites and special arrangements for the Cave of the Patriarch/Ibrahimi Mosque. The PA was allowed a 400-strong police presence in H-1 armed with mini-submachine guns, a point that Israel, mindful of the ‘‘Tunnel riots,’’ had been reluctant to permit.15 To handle the sticky issue of further Israeli redeployment, originally scheduled for September 1997, the Americans created the Notes for the Record, a lastminute deal brokered by King Hussein of Jordan. According to the Notes, Israel committed itself to a final redeployment in mid-1998, a year later than the original date, giving the PA a substantial territorial stake even before the final status talks. To bolster the Notes, Clinton ordered the outgoing Secretary of State Warren Christopher to write a letter to Arafat, assuring him of American support for the new timetable. The Notes also listed all the unfulfilled obligations of both sides. Featured prominently on the Israeli side was the request to delete Zionist rejectionism from the Charter and to address the issues of terrorism, violence, incitement, and other noncompliance issues. The PA demanded further release of prisoners and easier transit between the Palestinian enclaves.16 The American triumph over the Hebron Memorandum was short-lived. The right wing accused Netanyahu of perpetuating the failed Labor policy of trading

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land for fuzzy concessions. Some, like Yitzhak Shamir, declared that Netanyahu had betrayed his party. The cabinet vote to ratify the agreement on January 16, 1998 had to be momentarily suspended to reassure some ministers that a newspaper rumor about further redeployments was false. To appease his own colleagues, Netanyahu had to request a statement from the Americans. Ross noted that ‘‘in what became a pattern for the future, he [Netanyahu] needed our word because his colleagues did not take him seriously.’’17 Actually, the situation in the Likud government transcended simple mistrust of the Prime Minister. The personal relations among a number of ministers were poisonous, leading to unseemly public brawls and efforts to manipulate the peace process. Mistrust was so rampant that officials were forced to take polygraph tests. To convince the Shas party to vote for the Hebron Memorandum, for example, Netanyahu appointed Ronnie Bar-On as Attorney General because Bar-On was thought to be open to dropping corruption charges against the Shas leader Arieh Deri. Following a huge public outcry, Bar-On resigned after two days and Netanyahu, who was investigated for the affair, narrowly escaped an indictment. Perhaps most important, Netanyahu failed to convince large parts of his own party and his more radical coalition partners to endorse his approach to the peace process.18 While some of the radicals left the government in protest, other right-wingers used Har Homa as a quid pro quo for Hebron. The 17-member ‘‘Greater Israel’’ group in the Knesset, supported by Moskowitz, mounted an effort to start construction of a 6,500-unit housing project in Har Homa located in southeast Jerusalem and known as Jabal Abu Ghneim; once completed, it would have cut off Bethlehem from the Arab neighborhoods in Eastern Jerusalem. The Har Homa project had been optioned by the Labor government, but construction had been delayed because of Oslo-related considerations. Mindful of the risks, the Americans were greatly upset. Secretary Albright argued that a Jewish settlement in Jabal Abu Ghneim threatened to undermine the contiguity of any future Palestinian state and worried that retaliatory suicide bombings would disrupt the peace process. Ross warned Netanyahu, who replied ‘‘I have no choice on Har Homa.’’ Indeed, a number of Labor MKs joined in the clamor for the project, making it virtually impossible for the government to retreat. On February 26, 1997, the cabinet approved the project and, on March 18, Netanyahu gave his final consent despite warnings from Shin Bet of possible violence. Almost as incendiary as the Tunnel, Har Homa enraged the Palestinians who considered it an ‘‘act of war’’ and earned Israel a condemnation by the General Assembly of the United Nations. Worse, Hamas retaliated for Har Homa by launching a suicide attack in Tel Aviv on March 21.19 Bearing out the Secretary of State, following the attacks, virtually all security cooperation between Israel and the PA ceased, leaving Ross scrambling to restart the process. After considerable effort (including a meeting with Arafat,

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Lipkin-Shahak, and Ami Ayalon), a halfhearted coordination—mediated by the American intelligence official—was established. Limited sharing of security information resumed, but the PA was reluctant to arrest those on the Israeli list of terrorists and few meaningful steps were taken to dismantle the Islamist terrorist infrastructure. Taking credit for the relative calm, on July 28, Netanyahu boasted in a TV interview that his tough policies had taught the PA to restrain the terrorists. Two days later, on July 30, Hamas took credit for a twin suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed 16 and wounded 178. On August 1, Albright appealed to both sides ‘‘to make hard choices’’ but, on September 4, suicide bombers attacked on Ben Yehuda Street, a major pedestrian mall in Jerusalem, killing 4 and wounding 181. Faced with a virtual collapse of the Oslo peace, the Clinton administration increased its involvement. Albright arrived on September 10 to appeal ‘‘directly to the Israeli and Palestinian people.’’ Neither her trip nor the behind diplomacy of the President, who wanted to move to final status talks, helped. The Palestinians were especially adamant that Israel make good on the further redeployment (FRD) commitments under the Oslo II agreement. According to Arafat’s interpretation of Oslo II, Israel needed to transfer some 90 percent of the territories by the end of the three final FRD. He asserted that the only issues not included in Oslo II were Jerusalem, the settlements, and the IDF special depots which, by his recounting, amounted to some 9–10 percent of the West Bank. While Arafat expected to receive nearly 30 percent in each of the FRDs, Israel was ready to offer a paltry 7 percent transfer from areas B to A and an additional 2 percent from C to B. The Palestinians rejected the offer—in which only 2 percent would be added to their control—as outrageous, a position supported by the international community.20 Off the record, the Americans found the offer laughable; Albright and Berger were convinced more than ever that Netanyahu was not committed to the peace process. However, the Israelis felt under no compulsion to negotiate as long as terrorist activities continued. To move the process forward, in mid-December 1997, a trilateral Israeli, Palestinian, and American meeting produced a 16-point memorandum of understanding (MOU) on security. While it was a rehash of previous commitments—full cooperation with Israel on security matters, arrest of terrorists, confiscation of weapons, dismantlement of the terrorist infrastructure—the Americans were convinced that the MOU would pave the way for a more meaningful Israeli gesture on the FRD. Netanyahu’s serious diplomatic mishap with Jordan, where in September the Mossad botched an assassination attempt against Hamas chief, Khaled Mashal, added to this optimism. To placate the outraged King Hussein, Israel was forced to release the imprisoned spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheik Yassin, a move that prompted Arafat to complain that his effort to arrest Jihadists were undermined by Israel’s action. Hoping to cash in on Netanyahu’s weekend position, Ross suggested that the FRD should compromise on a more respectable 13 percent of the territory.21

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But in an unexpected reversal of roles, the Monica Lewinsky scandal that broke on January 21, 1998 took the pressure off Netanyahu. Naveh, who participated in a White House meeting with Clinton and Netanyahu, described the President as outwardly calm but distracted and making frequent visits to the bathroom. Ross commented that ‘‘Bibi [Netanyahu’s nickname] knew that the pressure was on the President and off him.’’ Emboldened by the President’s problems, Netanyahu took to lobbying Congress, the evangelicals, and the Jewish community, arguing that redeploying from more than 10 percent would put Israel in mortal danger. Netanyahu’s lobbying infuriated Albright and Berger, but Clinton and Ross cautioned patience. Clinton would later write that ‘‘psychologically, Netanyahu faced the same challenges Rabin had; Israel had to give up something concrete—land— in return for something far less tangible, the best efforts of the PLO to prevent terrorist attacks.’’ The President revealed that both he and King Hussein had tried to move both sides to final status talks; he promised the Palestinians an independent state and offered Israel a security treaty. Anxious to receive the territories promised under the Oslo II’s FRDs, Arafat rejected the American offer out of hand.22 The tortured negotiations over the 13 percent FRD demonstrated anew all the ills of the Oslo peace. To prove to his right-wing base that Israel was not going to relinquish territories without ironclad security guarantees, the Israeli negotiators produced a long laundry list of demands upon the PA. The length and specificity of the demands upset not only Arafat but Dahlan and Rajoub, the heads of the PSS, who objected to being turned into ‘‘Israel’s jailer.’’ In his own version of ‘‘reciprocity,’’ Dahlan claimed that he could not make arrests unless Israel released Palestinian political prisoners. Right-wing members of the coalition, whether out of conviction or acting as ‘‘spoilers,’’ repeatedly warned that the 13 percent redeployment would jeopardize Israel’s vital security, arguing that 10 percent was the maximum that Israel could afford. Ross’s bridging proposal that the additional 3 percent would comprise a nature reserve only created more bickering. Labor’s misgivings were equally vehement; Ehud Barak, by then the head of the Labor opposition, warned Ross that Netanyahu’s excessive security demands ‘‘went beyond what Palestinians would be able to accept.’’ He referred to such demands as ‘‘land mines,’’ likely to ‘‘detonate the agreement.’’ Barak implied that such an outcome would leave Netanyahu looking like a peacemaker ‘‘when in fact he had no intention of carrying out the agreement.’’23 The back-and-forth on the Palestinian side was even more vexing for the Americans. When Abu Ala reached a conceptual agreement with the Israelis and the Americans, Arafat, instead of approving it, appointed a review committee under Saeb Erekat and Yasser Abu Rabbo who wanted to renegotiate the issues. Abu Ala resigned in protest, leaving Erekat free to raise more objections. Ross, who disliked Erekat, noted that ‘‘the dysfunctional side of intraPalestinian competition would plague us throughout the negotiation process until the very end of the Clinton administration.’’24

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With Clinton eager to show some progress on Middle East to offset the Lewinsky scandal, the Americans scheduled a summit at the Wye River Plantation on October 15, 1998. The nine-day conference tested American resolve to the limits. Predictably, Arafat and other Palestinian negotiators pushed for substantial land transfer under the first and second FRD, clarification of the third FRD, safe passage between Gaza and the West Bank, and release of prisoners. The Israelis were most anxious to demonstrate that, in exchange for land, they were getting ironclad security commitments from the PA. The security plan, under the CIA’s Tenet, proved highly contentious. On each of the four issues raised by the Israelis—list of suspects to be arrested, vetting prisoners’ release, collection of illegal weapons, and the surplus Palestinian police force—Erekat provided vague formulas. Dahlan complained that the ‘‘goalposts’’ were too high and constantly shifting. The Palestinians were most unhappy with the demand that the PA arrest 30 Palestinians, including 13 policemen, for killing Israelis; for example, the chief of Gaza police, Ghazi al Jabali, was accused of ordering attacks on Israeli settlers in the Gaza Strip. Dramatizing Israel’s security concerns, on October 19, the fifth day of the conference, a terror attack in Ber Sheva threatened to terminate the summit; yet, after learning that there were no dead and ‘‘only’’ 67 wounded (including 20 soldiers), Netanyahu decided to stay. Tenet observed that the ‘‘Israelis took an enormous risk betting that the Palestinians would fulfill their obligations’’ and that Defense Minister Mordechai had been instrumental in selling the [security] agreement to his political leadership.’’25 The release of Palestinian prisoners, always an emotional issue, became complicated when Netanyahu wanted the President to free Jonathan Pollard, who had become a cause ce´le`bre in right-wing circles for spying for Israel. After Tenet categorically rejected the idea, Netanyahu, who had agreed to release 750 prisoners, decided to change the mix by increasing the ratio of ‘‘criminal’’ to ‘‘security’’ inmates. Israel’s insistence on changing the Charter produced an impasse which Clinton broke by promising to attend a special session of the PNC where delegates would ‘‘vote’’ for the change.26 The Wye River Memorandum gave little indication of the excruciating negotiations and the somewhat convoluted solutions needed to overcome the deep division between the sides. As part of the first and second FRD, the Palestinians received 13 percent of additional territory (1 percent to Area A and 12 percent to Area B). The Palestinians agreed that 3 percent of the area would be designated as a nature preserve. Within the ongoing implementation of the first and second FRD, 14.2 percent of Area B was to become Area A. However, reflecting Israeli objections, no timeline for the third FRD was provided. Israel’s security considerations were addressed through a long list of clauses such as outlawing and combating terrorist organizations, prohibiting illegal weapons, collecting illegal weapons, and establishing close antiterrorist cooperation. Although Netanyahu conceded acceptance of the outsize police

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force, the Palestinians were committed to providing a list of the policemen ‘‘in conformity’’ with the prior agreements. To prevent incitement, the PA was obligated to issue a decree ‘‘prohibiting all forms of incitement to violence or terror, and establishing mechanisms for acting systematically against all expressions or threats of violence or terror.’’ This decree was modeled on comparable legislation in Israel.27 However, even the sanitized Wye prose could not conceal the extraordinary Americanization of the peace process. So much so that Robert Satloff, the executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, called the Americans ‘‘full partners’’ in the Oslo peace. Part II (the security arrangements) stipulated that the Palestinians would share with the United States a ‘‘work plan’’ prior to implementation, and numerous monitoring committees were constituted to promote ‘‘bilateral Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation.’’ Three U.S.-Palestinian committees were established, tasked with (1) reviewing the steps being taken to eliminate terror (meeting biweekly); (2) reviewing and evaluating ‘‘information pertinent to the decision on prosecution, punishment or other legal measures’’ affecting terrorist suspects; and (3) preventing smuggling or ‘‘other unauthorized activities.’’ The United States also took a leading role in highranking, U.S.-Palestinian-Israeli trilateral committees, tasked with (1) monitoring ‘‘incitement to violence or terror’’ (meeting biweekly); (2) assessing ‘‘current threats dealing with any impediments to effective security cooperation and coordination and addressing steps being taken to combat terror and terrorist organizations’’; and (3) addressing the issue of external support for terror, a reference to the role played by Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah.28 The Americans hoped that their extraordinary engagement would put the peace process on track and facilitate the final status negotiations. Tenet wrote that the Wye formula was working because the CIA was ‘‘nurturing trust with the Palestinians’’ and ‘‘our diplomats were pushing Arafat,’’ giving the ‘‘political process the oxygen it needed to keep breathing.’’ But a less exuberant evaluation showed that, with the situation as fragile as ever, Wye made Washington the designated handler of all problems, big or small. Netanyahu, facing a hostile reception in his cabinet, demanded constant clarifications and reassurances from the Americans. Some pertained to leaks of the secret deals built into Wye, such as commitments to arrest the 30 Palestinians listed by the Israelis and rumors about the third FRD. Others were needed to buttress Netanyahu, such as when Arafat—breaking the incitement clause—called for the ‘‘raising of the arms’’ if Palestinians were denied the right to pray in ‘‘Holy Jerusalem.’’ After hectic conferencing among Washington, Jerusalem, and the PA, Arafat went on Israeli TV to retract his statement but, pointedly, not on Arab-language media. In yet another incident, Naveh called Ross to complain that Abu Ala denied in public that there would be a PNC vote on the Charter. Greatly annoyed, Ross advised Naveh to use bilateral channels to pressure Abu Ala, who refused to retract his statement.29

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For their part, the Palestinians relied heavily on the Americans to settle their grievances against Israel. Ross was also aggravated by the fact that the Palestinians, in an effort to bolster public support for Wye, overstated some of their achievements. Realizing that prisoner release was highly popular, Arafat announced that all the 750 prisoners were security/political, something that Ross described as ‘‘patently not true.’’ Dahlan was so concerned about the possible disappointment that he had urged a delay of the release. When the Israeli government freed the 250 prisoners required in the first phase, only 150 were political, creating a huge uproar in PA. Some of the prisoners’ families went on a hunger strike and others organized daily demonstrations which Fatah, in an effort to preempt Hamas, took over. In what resembled a repeat of the ‘‘Tunnel riots,’’ a crowd near Ramallah seized two Israelis, including one soldier, and proceeded to beat them. Although the two escaped, the Israeli media pointed to the incident as a violation of the Wye Memorandum.30 This type of dynamic on the ground complicated Netanyahu’s effort to portray Wye as an exchange of territory for security. On November 6, a suicide attack in Jerusalem that killed the two bombers and wounded 24 Israelis forced Netanyahu to postpone the cabinet vote on Wye. When the cabinet finally passed the Memorandum on November 11, it fell short of the broad approval sought by the Americans. The decision stated that ‘‘the implementation of the Palestinian obligation is a condition for the implementation of the Israeli obligation under the Agreement.’’ To ensure that the Palestinian obligations were implemented, the government stipulated that ‘‘the implementation of each phase of the Further Redeployment in the Agreement will be brought before the government for prior discussion and approval.’’ In other words, the cabinet reserved the right to inspect very closely the level of PA compliance ahead of each Israeli move.31 Even the seemingly creative Wye ideas turned out to have unintended, mostly negative consequences. Clinton’s trip to Gaza to address the PNC to be followed by a vote on the Charter produced many tense moments for the Americans. After reading the advanced text of Arafat’s speech, Netanyahu’s aides complained to the Clinton team that the PA chief did not mention peace with Israel. Ross admitted to being stricken with anxiety when Abu Mazen and Erekat questioned whether they would be able to have the required 450 members to vote. The Americans nearly panicked when told that, instead of the promised hand vote, the delegates might just clap. Although the PNC delivered on the promise to alter the Charter, Clinton’s Gaza trip turned into what Ross, the architect of the idea, described with unintended irony as a ‘‘political disaster.’’ Both the Israeli Right and the Left agreed that Clinton’s visit ‘‘brought the United States and the Palestinians together, advanced the cause of Palestinian statehood with an American emblem of support for the first time,’’ but gave Israel nothing in return.32 The Clinton team blamed both sides for failing to make Wye work. Albright vented her anger at Arafat, writing that ‘‘however reluctantly Netanyahu risked

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his career for peace’’ but nothing that he had done, returning the territory or releasing prisoner, was enough for the Palestinians. Ross lambasted the Likud leader for ‘‘surrendering to the right,’’ explaining that ‘‘had he [Netanyahu] been willing to foreswear his right-wing base after the Wye agreement, he might have redefined the center of Israeli politics.’’ Ross was strongly convinced that reservations about the PA’s ability to live up to its Oslo commitments were limited to the Right. However, by 1998, doubts about the Palestinians had crossed party lines.33 Many peace advocates still insisted that Arafat and the Palestinians were partners for peace, but the number of mainstream skeptics was rising. Unlike the Kulturkampf-laden debate of the early 1990s, the new discourse was a less dispassionate examination of the PA and, more subtly, a quest to define the post ‘‘New Middle East’’ reality and its implications for the peace process. PA AND ARAFAT: THE PROBLEM OF THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

Growing exposure of PA’s nation-building problems served as a backdrop for the new debate. As noted, the scandal involving Arafat’s secret bank account, car theft, and other criminal activity across the Green Line made headlines in the press. Even Zeev Schiff, an ardent peace advocate, was outraged enough to write an article about Israel ‘‘being robbed blind.’’ Unlike Labor, which held a closed session to debate the economic mismanagement in the PA, the Likud government was eager to highlight the PA’s violations. Yigal Carmon’s MEMRI published a number of analyses demonstrating that the PA turned into a fullfledged kleptocracy.34 Academic works provided a more systematic perspective on the failed protostate. Hillel Frisch explained how institution-building was inhibited by Arafat’s neopatrimonial state and chronic violence. Building on his earlier theme of a negotiated political order, Barry Rubin suggested that, contrary to the assumption of the Oslo architects, the balance of power was shifting from Arafat to his opponents, both Islamist and secular. For Arafat, ‘‘Hamas’s challenge was a very difficult task requiring a delicate mix of pressure and accommodation, of suppression and persuasion.’’ His ‘‘genuine desire’’ to co-opt Hamas failed because he could not control Jihadist violence without provoking civil war; in the end, he was labeled an ‘‘appeaser of Israel.’’ Although still optimistic, Khalil Shikaki detected significant erosion in support for Arafat, quoting his weak grades on democracy and high scores on corruption in a Foreign Affairs article entitled ‘‘Peace Now or Hamas Later.’’ Other observers were blunter; one asserted that pressure on Arafat to contain Hamas had led to the perception of the PA by the Palestinians in general and by the Palestinian NGO community in particular as a ‘‘puppet of the Netanyahu government.’’35 Polls aside, public behavior in the PA showed signs of radicalization. Redeploying IDF troops were often cursed and jeered by the population; in Jenin a

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large mob gathered to stone the departing contingent. Uri Savir commented that the ‘‘bitterness of the mob was not surprising, but the insensitivity of the Palestinian leadership toward Israeli public opinion continued to amaze me.’’ Savir added that Arafat failed to understand the effects of these scenes because he was ‘‘obsessed with his own domestic predicament.’’ Efraim Halevy, the Mossad chief, observed that ‘‘since Palestinians were in the formative stage of state-building, they had blinders concerning all other issues.’’ Naveh disclosed that, during American bombing raids in Iraq in December 1998, he urged Erekat to prevent a repeat of the 1991 scenes of Palestinians ‘‘dancing on the roofs’’ in a gesture of identification with Saddam Hussein. Going beyond the rational, the Palestinian political culture was said to exhibit many of the indicators of a Middle East, paranoid style of thinking driven by ‘‘a conspiracy dominated historical record.’’ In the words of Rubin, this political culture was nourished by ‘‘bizarre conspiracy theories about Israel, which provoked mistrust and undermined support for the peace process.’’36 This internal power-shift in the PA engendered a large literature on the Islamists. Two Dayan Center scholars published a number of new studies on Hamas and Islamic Jihad that charted their growing strength. The Hamas Wind, a collaborative effort of Shaul Mishal and Amnon Sela, asserted that Hamas might have surpassed the influence of Arafat: ‘‘The nationalist vision of the PLO was being replaced by the national-religious maximalist vision of the Islamists.’’ After years of writing about generic ‘‘Palestinians,’’ the Jaffe Center commissioned Nahman Tal, a retired Shin Bet expert on Islamism, to coauthor a report on Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The Islamist revival in the PA had even attracted the attention of the American Chronicle of Higher Education, which noted that ‘‘radical Islamic parties flourish on West Bank and Gaza campuses.’’ The article questioned whether public opinion polls might have overestimated support for Arafat, placing Ghassan al Khatib from the JMCC on the defensive.37 This round of research on the Palestinian Islamists highlighted the role of Iran and other terror sponsors. The International Institute for Counterterrorism in the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya headed by Boaz Ganor published reports that showed the extensive terrorist network emanating from Iran. Reuven Paz and Yoram Schweitzer, researchers at the Institute, drew attention to the pervasive nature of ‘‘Terror International’’ run by Tehran. Rekhess and Litvak pointed out that, guided by Iran, Hamas was increasingly determined to derail the peace process. The Iranian leadership was particularly encouraged by the release of Sheik Yassin and Israel’s refusal to accept Mussa Abu Marzuk, the former political head of Hamas, who was deported from the United States. Melissa Boyle Mahle, a key CIA operative in the Middle East, explained that sending Abu Marzuk to Israel was nixed because intelligence indicated that it ‘‘would inflame the Arab street,’’ making it harder for Arafat to implement Wye. Indeed, in September 1997, a high-level terrorist summit in Tehran adopted a plan to launch a new assault on

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the peace process, as well as to destabilize Turkey and other American allies in the Middle East. Ramadan Salah, who replaced Shikaki as the head of Islamic Jihad, representatives from Hamas and the secular rejectionist front participated in the conference, which also tightened cooperation between Osama bin Laden and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. Hojatolislam Ali Akbar Mohtashemi-Pur, the Secretary-General of the International Conference on Palestine, vowed that his country would do its utmost to defeat the Washington-Tel Aviv design on the region, his term for the Oslo peace. On May 19, 1998, Osama bin Laden, the head of the World Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders, promised to fight the ‘‘Wounds of Al Aqsa Mosque’’ and the Christian-Jewish alliance centered in Israel. Several months later, a member of Izzadin al Qassam Brigades, with the financial support of Sheik Yassin, established an operational connection to al Qaeda.38 While the full extent of this design was not known at the time, Bernard Lewis (1998) warned that the Osama bin Laden phenomenon was bringing the ‘‘clash of civilizations’’ one step further. Rubin asserted that Iran, Sudan, and other members of the Islamist nexus acting through the Palestinian Jihadist had constrained Arafat’s room to pursue the peace process. Rubin was also one of the few to provide an early summation of the impact of the ‘‘violent opposition to peace,’’ writing that it ‘‘severely disrupted the process,’’ hardened Israel’s stand, damaged the PA economy, and hampered ‘‘progress toward achieving a state.’’39 In what seems to be a belated realization of the Islamist resolve, leading peace advocates grudgingly acknowledged the role of Iran. Uri Savir noted that ‘‘rogue states’’ like Iran and Sudan had excoriated Arafat for ‘‘ignominious surrender to the Zionist enemy’’ and the ‘‘Muslim fundamentalists’’ regarded Oslo as a liability because ‘‘their movement thrived on social and economic instability.’’ Amos Oz asserted that Iran is ‘‘conducting a sophisticated campaign’’ to ‘‘cause a chain reaction that would increase the fire of hatred and destroy the tender shoots of reconciliation.’’ Oz argued that it is impossible to deal with this phenomenon by ‘‘striking back’’; he urged isolating the fundamentalists instead. Writing in a collection of essays on peacetime intelligence, Alouf Hareven listed Iran and its sponsorship of terror organizations as one of the ‘‘three difficult problems’’ in the peace process. Hareven complained that Iran is a hard country to penetrate, but he urged to ‘‘initiate a dialogue of clarification with others’’ which, in his view, could supplement traditional spying. But Oz offered no practical suggestions as to how to isolate the fundamentalists, and Hareven was at a loss to explain how the ‘‘dialogue of clarification’’ would change Iran’s behavior.40 Drawing on these and other themes, as well as on his earlier misgivings about Arafat’s personality and politics, Dan Schueftan pronounced the Oslo process dead in his book Korah Ha’hafrada (The Necessity of Separation). Like his Haifa University colleague Arnon Soffer, Schueftan believed that Palestinians had failed to live up to most of the Oslo assumptions. The book, dubbed the ‘‘separation

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bible,’’ packed a particular punch because, unlike right-wing critics, Schueftan harbored no Greater Israel agenda as a motivation for criticizing the PA. On the contrary, Schueftan shared Soffer’s view that total separation from the Palestinians was the only viable option.41 Faced with a crisis of confidence in Oslo, the Israeli Left fought back through the media and academic channels. The post-Zionists were especially vocal; evoking the apartheid theme, they accused Netanyahu of sabotaging the peace process by creating ‘‘overcrowded reservations’’ and ‘‘Bantustans’’ that made the life of the Palestinians miserable. Radicalized by Netanyahu, some peace groups went so far as to call on third-party intervention to protect the Palestinians. During the late 1990s, an increasing number of petitions signed by leftist intellectuals and academics called for the United Nations or the EU to station troops in the PA. One such group, Israeli Citizens for International Intervention (CII), was particularly active in urging the international community to prevent Israel from ‘‘abusing the Palestinians.’’ Leading professors from the Hebrew University (Yaron Ezrachi) and from Tel Aviv University (Anat Biletzki, Yoav Peled, Dan Rabinowitz, Daniel Bar-Tal, and Yehuda Shenhav) were listed as CII supporters. Oslo advocates in the media took to lambasting Netanyahu for ‘‘gambling with peace’’ and for ‘‘dancing on blood,’’ a reference to what was seen as excessive exploitation of the terrorist attacks and rigid bargaining. As one of them lamented, ‘‘our stubborn quibbling over one percentage point of tiny West Bank’’ based on the argument that ‘‘we are trying to protect Israeli citizens.’’42 Supported by large grants, the CR/peace research community produced yet another round of positive reports on the PA. Two scholars who analyzed data gathered by Shikaki lauded ‘‘an emerging political culture hospitable to democratic values and practices.’’ The authors also found no support for the ‘‘clash of civilization’’ theory, noting that there ‘‘was no correlation between Islamic piety and attitudes toward either Arab-Jewish coexistence or peace negotiations.’’ Manuel Hassassian, a stalwart of the peace research movement, found that ‘‘policy and attitude changes’’ in the PLO amounted to ‘‘a democracy in the making.’’ In April 1999, the Tami Steinmetz Center organized a conference on the future of relations between a Palestinian state and Israel. In the introduction to the proceedings, Tamar Hermann and Ephraim Yuchtman-Yaar stated that they chose to use the term ‘‘Palestine’’ because of the assumption that a ‘‘Palestinian state is a done deal.’’43 Academic supporters of Oslo were particularly concerned about the impact of the continuing violence on the ‘‘peace education’’ and other CBMs. An analysis commissioned by the Tami Steinmetz Center, ‘‘Constructing News about Peace: The Role of the Israeli Media,’’ criticized the Israeli media’s portrayal of terrorist attacks and victims as a ‘‘marathon of mourning’’ with ‘‘hours of sad music’’ and ‘‘lurid coverage of funerals,’’ which was most likely to hurt the peace process. A project underwritten by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation at the Leonard Davis

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Institute at the Hebrew University included research on the roles of Israeli media and public opinion in shaping the peace process. Except for vague discussion of the image of the ‘‘other,’’ there were no specific references to the Islamists or terrorist attacks. However, a detailed accounting listed the alleged damage to the Oslo peace by the right wing.44 The Israel/Palestine Center for Peace Research and Information urged development of ways to promote education for peace in the next generation while peace actually remained elusive. The report offered suggestions such as reassessing the ‘‘enemy image’’ as broadcasted through the Israeli media, education, and sustaining ‘‘creative efforts to develop and disseminate common visions and ideals,’’ since ‘‘peacemaking is ultimately a collective psychotherapy.’’ The Palestine-Israel Journal published a number of articles which dealt with the Economic Permanent Status (EPS), a project sponsored by Norway during June–November 1998. The EPS model was engineered by Beilin’s ECF and the Higher Commission for Investment and Finance (HCIF) on behalf of the Palestinians and mentioned no corruption or mismanagement. On the contrary, the model promised a ‘‘comprehensive and cohesive set of principles and guidelines, which are based on a shared vision of partnership for economic and social growth and prosperity.’’45 A good deal of CR/peace research literature was devoted to demonstrating how its precepts helped to create the successful Oslo breakthrough. Herbert Kelman praised the Oslo tools: ‘‘constructive ambiguity,’’ the distinction between interim and final status issues, and the early empowerment of the PA. His occasional collaborator stated that Oslo should be used as an empirical study to highlight the nature of successful mediation in international conflicts. William Zartman saw in the Oslo peace a vindicating of his ripeness theory. Other scholars proclaimed that Oslo represented a change from conflict management to CR. Yair Hirschfeld published a laudatory report on Oslo as a model for handling difficult negotiations. These and other observers expressed hope that the Oslo model would be widely adopted to solve intractable conflicts.46 Responding to criticism of ‘‘creative ambiguity,’’ one scholar urged to continue the Oslo spirit of a ‘‘process as a politically strategic, inevitably adapting, and intrinsically ambiguous framework for incubating trust and reconciliation.’’ He criticized Netanyahu for treating Oslo as a ‘‘legal document . . . punishing Palestinians for ‘violations,’ substituting adversarial legal standards for the modus operandi of a political partnership.’’ He found that Netanyahu’s mutual reciprocal approach ‘‘was a calculated technique to destroy the credibility of Oslo.’’47 The USIP intensified its own efforts to bolster Oslo. Steven Raskin, the Senior Program Officer in the Grant Program, wrote that he ‘‘takes solace in the fact that there are more regularized contacts between Arabs and Jews, particularly those who support the peace process.’’ In April 1999, the Institute, together with the British-based Airey Neave Trust, convened a working group to study

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‘‘how terrorism ends.’’ The International Research Group on Political Violence, which included prominent terror experts, felt that Oslo was a successful model of transition from terror to diplomacy. The report did not mention Islamist terrorism or Fatah-related terror groups.48 The Institute appointed Ehud Sprinzak, a Hebrew University expert on rightwing Jewish extremism and terrorism, to serve as a Senior Fellow in 1997–98. Writing in the influential journal Foreign Affairs, Sprinzak condemned Netanyahu and his constituency—the hard-line Zionist right, the ultraorthodox, and the immigrants from the former Soviet Union—for undermining Oslo. Equally important, he disputed warnings of a coming Islamist attack on the United States by Bernard Lewis, Daniel Pipes, and Steven Emerson. Rejecting the ‘‘clash of civilization’’ theory, Sprinzak mocked in an article in Foreign Policy ‘‘the great superterrorism scare,’’ his reference to Osama bin Laden. He asserted that ‘‘terrorists who threaten to kill thousands of civilians are aware that their chances for political and physical survival are slim’’ and explained that, as during the nuclear scare, some circles in the United States had a ‘‘vested interest’’ in spreading the panic. In a book written during his stay at the Institute, Sprinzak put most of the blame for undermining the peace process on the Israeli Right. As for the Islamists, he attributed their success to the fact that both Netanyahu and Peres ‘‘humiliated’’ and ‘‘demonized’’ Hamas. A critic would later note that Sprinzak had failed to mention Hamas’s rejection of Israel’s right to exist in any of his writings. Shlomo Ben-Ami, using his credentials as a professor of history, charged that, unlike Americans, the Europeans rejected the Lewis-Huntington ‘‘anti-utopia’’ of a ‘‘clash of civilizations’’ with its vision of sudden attacks.49 Given the divisiveness of the Oslo process, it was hardly surprising that the merits of the PA were in the eye of the beholder. More astounding was the fact that the intelligence community was sharply divided along the lines that echoed the public discourse. DIVIDED COUNCIL: THE SECURITY/INTELLIGENCE ASSESSMENT OF THE PA AND ARAFAT

When Israel signed the historic peace agreement with the Palestinians, few understood the tremendous challenges that Oslo would pose to the security/ intelligence process. Three interlocking factors accounted for the problem: the difficulty of understanding the negotiated political order of the PA, the multiplicity of roles performed by the security/intelligence establishment, and the epistemic limitations of intelligence analysis. As already noted, relations among the Palestinian players were in a constant flux, with subtle signaling and bargaining rendering the true power balance at any given time difficult to estimate. Deciphering complex links among the Palestinian terrorist groups and their state sponsors—an important part of the

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negotiated political order—was even more daunting. Former Mossad chief Shabtai Shavit observed that the distinction between enemies and non-enemies became blurred. Zvi Lanir, a noted intelligence expert, claimed that the IDF, which represents a ‘‘simple fighting system,’’ could not properly respond to a ‘‘complex internal order [of the Palestinians] that the observer cannot detect.’’50 In addition, Oslo forced a multiplicity of roles on the security and intelligence forces. The IDF, whose historical function was to protect the population and provide deterrence, was tasked with creating some of the CBM required by the peace process. As a result, between September 1993 and September 1998, the IDF adhered to the policy of havlaga (self-restraint) and, as already noted, adopted a new code of ethics. The Israeli version of the American ‘‘hearts and minds’’ campaign had rules to prevent ‘‘dehumanization of the enemy’’ and to preserve human dignity. Indeed, even critics acknowledged that ‘‘despite the perceived gravity of the suicide bombings, the government imposed significant constraints on the use of force by the IDF.’’ In a search for new ways to redefine Israel’s national security, in 1997 the Ministry of Defense launched a project teaming up military and academic strategists, including some ‘‘with unconventional views’’ of security and strategy. High on the agenda was finding ways to fight what was proving to be a cross between a LIC and an effort at Palestinian nation-building. Two years earlier, in 1995, the IDF picked Brigadier General Shimon Naveh to develop a new doctrine for handling such a task. As head of the IDF’s MALTAM—Operational Theory Research Institute (OTRI), Naveh used the work of the postmodernist theoreticians Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, and Felix Guattari to fashion a decentralized, irregular form of ‘‘post-modern military warfare.’’51 The conflicting roles of intelligence were even more confusing to sort out. As indicated in the preceding chapters, in addition to intelligence collection and analysis, Aman, Shin Bet, and Mossad officials were often involved in negotiations with the Palestinians and served on committees that dealt with problems related to oversight of the Accords, conflict mediation, confidence building, and others. In the words of the Mossad chief Halevy, ‘‘We were fighting in the field, conducting a dialogue, and providing evaluation.’’52 Finally, the multiplicity of roles was incongruent with the prevailing epistemology of intelligence analysis, that is the set of rules guiding perceptions of reality. Derived from the work of Sherman Kent—the ‘‘founding father’’ of the CIA analytical branch, the Directorate of Intelligence—it was based on a strong positivist belief in a rational political universe in which objective experts could parse reality in order to reach a ‘‘truthful’’ conclusion based on incontrovertible evidence. Wilmore Kendall, Kent’s leading rival, strongly criticized this so-called ‘‘smoking gun’’ theory, claiming such ‘‘truth’’ cannot be segregated from the personal beliefs of the analysts or isolated from the strategic culture of a deceptive adversary. Multiple failures of the CIA to predict epochal events (the fundamentalist

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revolution in Iran, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the 9/11 attack) bolstered the position of Kendall’s disciples such as Abram N. Shulsky, who urged adoption of a new methodology to penetrate complex deception systems. Although the Israeli intelligence tradition was never fully Kentian, the Oslo peace posed tremendous analytical obstacles. As the former Mossad chief observed, ‘‘the purveyors of terror . . . were diabolically sophisticated; their culture and modus operandi did not lend themselves to the traditional methods of data gathering’’ and, more important, analysis. Compounding these considerations with uncertainty regarding the strategic culture of terror groups and state sponsors— themselves built around Malik’s notions of ambiguity, fuzziness, and tactical flexibility—yielded an analytic hurdle that had became impossibly high.53 Combined with the tradition of political appointments to key positions in the security/intelligence establishment, these factors turned the PA estimate into a duel among different officials. The Hasmonean Tunnel riots were a case in point. Convinced that Chief of Staff General Lipkin-Shahak and top IDF brass were loyal Oslo supporters, Netanyahu tried to limit their input into decisionmaking. The Prime Minister cancelled meetings with IDF chiefs and criticized their ‘‘exaggerated salaries.’’ In an effort to isolate the IDF even further, Netanyahu ordered creation of an American-style National Security Council headed by the respected chief of the Air Force, David Ivri. But the NSC was ‘‘emasculated’’ by stiff resistance from the IDF and Defense Minister Mordechai. Netanyahu’s clandestine decision to open the Tunnel angered the IDF chiefs. As one observer put it, the fact that the military figures were no longer in the ‘‘game’’ consigned them to the awkward position of having to provide military solutions for political contingencies about which they had not previously been consulted. According to rumors in the press and some insiders, the relations between Netanyahu and the intelligence/military chiefs were extremely tense. The Prime Minister disliked in particular the dovish head of the Shin Bet, Ami Ayalon, and did not appreciate the Mossad chief Danny Yatom either. Netanyahu’s relations with the IDF high command were even worse. During a memorial for Rabin in November 1996, Lipkin-Shahak openly alluded to these difficulties. Zeev Maoz, the head of the Jaffe Center, went so far as to predict a military coup against Netanyahu.54 Still, virtually all Israel watchers of the Tunnel riots agreed that Arafat gave the ‘‘green light’’ to the Palestinian police to escalate the riots. Ross suggested that Arafat, ‘‘ever prone to create and spread new mythologies [the threat to Haram],’’ was probably trying to exploit an ‘‘obvious misstep by Bibi.’’ Beilin lamented that ‘‘we could not accept it [the use of force] because one of the Oslo concepts was that conflicts could not be resolved through violence.’’ He added that ‘‘we could not understand how they embraced violence.’’ Even Ayalon, whom Netanyahu banned from cabinet meetings, allegedly advised the government to break off the peace process because of Arafat’s blatant violation of the Oslo Accords.55

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Beyond consensus on Arafat’s role in the Tunnel riots, however, the intelligence community was badly split regarding just about every other detail of the PA estimate. Amos Gilad, the new head of Aman Research (who had established his reputation by correctly predicting that Saddam Hussein would attack Israel during the 1991 Gulf War), took an integrated look of the PA and the region. In his 1996 National Threat Assessment (NTA), Gilad stressed Iran’s regional ambition, including its budding WMD program and long-range Shahib-3 missiles. Gilad predicted that, by 2005, Iran would pose an existential threat to Israel. The Research chief also asserted that Iran, through its ‘‘Terror International,’’ would do its utmost to derail the peace process. Ephraim Sneh, a Labor politician, credited Gilad with informing him about the Iran nuclear project and the ‘‘terrorist cooperative,’’ but Gilad could not prevail against the existing consensus in the intelligence community. The Aman Control Office (the ‘‘Devil’s Advocate’’) charged that there ‘‘was too much emotionalism’’ in Gilad’s NTA and forced a rewrite. Gilad’s critics believed that, while a threat, Iran was self-moderating, since the Iranian hard-liners were allegedly subject to considerable public pressure. Still, writing anonymously in an Israeli collection of essays on intelligence, a senior official in the Shah’s administration stated that it was ‘‘amazing’’ how the international community has allowed the Iranian rogue state ‘‘to sabotage all the efforts of peace making.’’ Avi Dichter, then in charge of the southern division of the Shin Bet, confirmed that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards had a profound influence on Hamas. However, the revised NTA held that, ‘‘while the Palestinian problem was real,’’ Israel could look toward a peace settlement.56 Gilad had a particularly low opinion of Yasser Arafat, whom he accused of using the Oslo process to regain Palestine in stages by banking on the demographic option, a reference to the rapidly growing Palestinian population. Gilad explained that, once it was decided ‘‘that Arafat was the only game in town,’’ Aman did not carry a proper evaluation of the PLO chief. Gilad’s boss, Moshe Yaalon, shared much of this assessment. Yaalon argued that, on March 9, 1997, Arafat met with the heads of the rejectionist organizations and gave ‘‘a green light’’ for the string of suicide bombings as a retaliation for Har Homa. Shaul Mofaz, the future IDF chief, shared the same view. He explained later that Arafat was always a terrorist and used terror either directly through his Force 17 or indirectly through Hamas. Later revelations indicated that Arafat’s duplicity was even greater than Gilad and Mofaz had suspected. The West Point project that evaluated documents seized by the United States in 2003 in Iraq uncovered detailed information provided by Force 17 about Israeli military and scientific sites to be targeted by Saddam Hussein in a possible attack.57 Both Gilad and Yaalon believed that Arafat collusion with the Jihadists was turning the PA into a violent Hamastan, a term that Gilad had coined. The two top officials were especially perturbed about the possible role of the chairman

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in the Har Homa wave of terror. While it was impossible to establish with certainty whether Arafat ‘‘green lined’’ it, his silence on the subject could have been construed as approval. What is more, the PA released Ibrahim Makadmeh, the cofounder of Hamas and a violent critic of Oslo. Aman was, of course, fully aware that Arafat used the revolving door to arrest and release Islamist prisoners. According to one local joke, they were known as the ‘‘Albright’s show,’’ political arrest for the sake of the American Secretary of State and as a way to deflect Israeli-American pressure. According to the Wye provision, the Americans had the veto right on prisoner release but, in the murky PA bureaucracy, such arrangements were often ‘‘too little, too late.’’ Indeed, when Ross complained about the release of Makadmeh, Arafat refused to budge. Aman was also keeping a close eye on Fatah’s anti-Oslo spin-offs that had flourished in the lawless PA. In 1997, analysts in the Research Division (‘‘M’’) wrote a lengthy report on Marwan Barghouti’s Tanzim, forecasting its trouble-making role.58 Another concern was Arafat’s penchant for conspiracy theories which sometimes triggered actions by the PA. For example, in response to rumors that Israel had sold spoiled flour and settlers had distributed chewing gum to infect Palestinian children with AIDS, the PA police blocked roads used by settlers around the Morag junction on July 5, 1998. This was a serious breach of Oslo and was eventually solved through a series of complex negotiations between Shin Bet and Dahlan. A few days before the incident, Aman obtained information that Arafat would try a confrontation to break the political stalemate.59 Gilad argued that Arafat would pose four demands for final status negotiations: a return to the 1967 borders, an Arab capital in Jerusalem, a Palestinian right to return to Israel of 300,000 Palestinians, and control of the Haram (Temple Mount). He recalled that, during the Wye negotiations, a Palestinian leader had told him secretly that Arafat would resort to violence if not granted these concessions. Interestingly enough, Carmon, who had good contacts in the intelligence community, reached a similar conclusion. In a February 13, 1997 briefing, Carmon noted that, as the head of the PLO, Arafat could not cross his ‘‘red line’’ on the refugee issue, since it represented all the Palestinians, ‘‘past, present and future.’’ The MEMRI head predicted that ‘‘an impasse is in the card’’ and that more violence, along the Tunnel riots, can be expected.60 Gilad’s theory of Oslo as a Trojan horse had many detractors in the intelligence circles. One of them was Gilad’s new superior, Major General Amos Malka, the head of Aman from 1998 until 2001. The ‘‘bad blood’’ between the ‘‘two Amoses’’ was partially personal, as Gilad felt that Malka, who came up through the armed corps, was not ‘‘up to snuff.’’ In an interview with the Israeli press in 2004, Malka disclosed that during internal debates, he objected to Gilad’s assertion that Arafat was not a ‘‘peace partner’’ or the view that Arafat was behind every terrorist incident. In fact, Malka felt that the PA chairman wanted to create a Palestinian state alongside Israel, but that his maneuverability

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was limited by the ‘‘Arab street.’’ Ephraim Lavie, the head of the Palestinian section in Gilad’s own Research Division, and Ami Ayalon and his senior adviser in the Shin Bet, Matti Steinberg, shared Malka’s view. Ayalon, a Peres prote´ ge´, adopted the thesis that Netanyahu was to blame for Arafat’s seeming embrace of Hamas because the Likud government was treating him as an ‘‘agent.’’ As Peres explained, ‘‘We [Rabin-Peres] looked at Arafat as a partner, not an agent. You have to offer him incentives, not just give orders.’’ Like Ayalon and Malka, Amnon Lipkin-Shahak believed that Netanyahu had alienated Arafat, causing him to ‘‘act out.’’61 Ayalon was an ardent believer in Arafat’s willingness to proceed with the peace process and his ability to subjugate the Islamists. Like Shimon Naveh, Ayalon asserted that asymmetrical warfare mandates the use of a new conceptual framework, because deterrence is not practical and there is no point at which terror groups can be vanquished (for their minimal goal is survival). Ayalon was also opposed to targeted killings because ‘‘we won’t get rid of people’s convictions by killing their leaders.’’ Invoking Yehoshafat Harkabi, Ayalon called for a fresh conceptualization process which would fuse civilian and military concepts. His analysis entailed comparing Shikaki’s polls with the level of terrorist activity; this correlation prompted the Shin Bet chief to conclude that, when Palestinian public opinion was satisfied with the progress of the peace process, it deterred Hamas from launching suicide bombings. Noting that Hamas also claimed to be a welfare and religious organization, Ayalon reasoned that it was responsive to public perceptions: ‘‘As long as the public opinion is happy with the process, it is keeping them from terror.’’ Matti Steinberg wrote in the same vein that the ‘‘Palestinian leadership’s willingness to confront internal opposition was dependent on a single factor, progress in implementing the agreement.’’62 Gilad and other critics ridiculed Ayalon’s philosophical premise and his empirical analysis. Yaakov Amidror, by then head of the National Defense College, described Naveh’s approach as ‘‘non distinction between truth and lie, prattle in the best postmodern tradition.’’ Amidror also blamed the new IDF code of restraint for a drop in deterrence. Responding to Malka’s charges, Gilad noted that Arafat’s position was not just an ideological belief but part of his tactical code. Others speculated that Malka, perhaps disappointed by being bypassed for the top IDF job, wanted to distinguish himself from the hard-line Chief of Staff, Shaul Mofaz, who replaced Lipkin-Shahak in 1998 and Moshe Yaalon who was appointed the CO of the Central Command in the same year.63 Whatever the reasons, the split in the intelligence community became so intense that Danny Naveh referred to it as the ‘‘wars of the Jews.’’ Meir Dagan, the head of the Counterterrorism unit, mediated an agreement between Aman and Shin Bet, but the underlying tension did not subside as, the head of the IDF Planning Branch and deputy chief of staff, Mofaz ordered the IDF to fashion a tough policy of retaliation following the Tunnel incident. Dagan was put in charge of a team to improve the deterrent posture of the IDF. According to

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an internal document, the Tunnel riots created a new situation: ‘‘The central assumptions on which the relations and the coexistence in the territories were based, collapsed.’’ The IDF responded with tough new contingency programs for dealing with future Palestinian violence code-named kesem mangina (the charm of music) and plada lohetet (blazing steel) and sdeh kotzim (a field of thorns).64 Both Aman and the IDF were aware that the joint patrols, a key element in security cooperation, were less than successful in stemming terrorism and, on occasion, degenerated into serious disputes between the Israelis and their Palestinian counterparts. Gilad, whose charismatic personality translated into a commanding media presence, was also quick to blame Arafat for terror attacks and Oslo violations. Journalists were convinced that Aman leaked stories about Arafat’s behind-the-scenes involvement in the Islamist attacks.65 The split in the security/intelligence community created two distinctive views about the Palestinian compliance with the Oslo process. The dovish officials in Shin Bet and Aman asserted that Arafat was doing his utmost to fight terror and implement the other clauses of the Accords. Ayalon, in particular, urged the Netanyahu government to do more to show Israel’s goodwill in order to strengthen the forces of moderation in the PA. Ayalon was also convinced that Arafat and his preventive services were responsible for the lull in terrorist attacks. However, Gilad and many in the Netanyahu circles believed that the decrease in terrorist attacks should be attributed to the increased vigilance of Shin Bet, Aman, and the Mossad ‘‘who understood that they have to perform themselves’’ rather than to rely on Arafat to deliver. Yaalon, whose Central Command was in charge of the territories, developed the ‘‘Tunnel metaphor’’ to describe the new situation: the Israelis and the Palestinians were in a tunnel leading to an agreement, but the IDF had to make sure that the Palestinians would not get off on one of the tangents in the tunnel.66 Still others assumed that, as long as Netanyahu presided over a stalled peace process, the Islamists had no incentive to launch terror attacks. Karmi Gillon, the former Shin Bet chief, wrote that Hamas had no interest in terror during Netanyahu’s tenure because the ‘‘political process was not going anywhere.’’ They predicted that a Labor victory in the upcoming election would revive the Jihadists. Uri Saguy, the former Aman chief, summed up the divided view on terror activity in a tongue-in-cheek fashion; he noted that some related it to lack of progress in the peace process and some to too much progress.67 Because of Arafat’s centrality in the PA, much of the subtext of the debate between the hard-liners and their opponents focused on the personality of the PA chief. Yaalon asserted that Arafat saw himself as a modern-day Saladin destined to liberate Jerusalem. Unlike Saladin’s frontal assault on Jerusalem, however, Arafat accepted the theory of Hezbollah that Israel was a weak society that could be undermined from within, thus making gradual attrition, the preferred

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mode of struggle. Gilad maintained that Arafat had believed himself to be a Palestinian/Arab/Islamic leader of ‘‘major significance’’ and ‘‘is obsessed with his place in history’’; as a result, he would be unlikely to compromise his vision by giving up principles. Gilad suggested that Arafat developed a sophisticated game of playing both the diplomatic and the terror cards. To critics who questioned how someone as ‘‘primitive’’ as Arafat could engage in such a sophisticated strategy, Gilad responded by stating that Arafat had years to learn how to finetune his policy. The Mossad chief Efraim Halevy admitted that he struggled with the seemingly split personality of Arafat: ‘‘I tried to fathom the thoughts and emotions of a man, a political leader who was an anointed symbol of an entire national movement and who was able to resort to strategies . . . which were at one and the same time debased and ridiculous.’’ Halevy revealed that his Arab interlocutors told him that Arafat’s ‘‘lying and prevarications’’ had reached an all-time degree of ‘‘infamy’’ in Arab circles. Some of his informants also suggested that there was a possibility that Arafat actually believed in what he was saying, which made the situation much worse: ‘‘If this is true, he lived and functioned in a world of fantasy and he therefore did not relate in practical terms to life the way it was.’’ Halevy felt that, if this was the case, one could not negotiate ‘‘with a person so divorced from reality.’’68 The chairman’s penchant for embroidering fact and embracing conspiracy theories worried many observers. On one occasion he told Ross that Netanyahu moved 250 tanks into the Gaza Strip when in fact only three armored personnel carriers were sent. Ross concluded that there was a ‘‘method to Arafat’s madness’’; he was trying to undo a deal and put the onus on the Israelis who allegedly put him under the tank threat. Arafat’s contention that the Shin Bet had a secret unit that worked with the Jihadists to promote suicide bombings was more puzzling. According to some of his ministers, Arafat became totally unhinged upon hearing the news of the release of Sheik Yassin, for, in his stated view, it was part of an Israeli game plan to weaken him. Uri Savir related that after the Baruch Goldstein incident in Hebron, Arafat told Lipkin-Shahak that Rabin was in danger from his own officers. After hearing this story, Savir commented that ‘‘Arafat tended to drift between reality and melodrama.’’69 Clinical studies probing Arafat’s state of mind were inconclusive. Naveh revealed that the intelligence services had medical reports indicating that Arafat might have suffered from Parkinson’s disease or lingering effects of the brain injury sustained in the plane crash, a fact noted by some lay analysts as well. There were rumors that Arafat had collapsed during a meeting in Cairo and that his behavior was changing for the worse, with his exhibiting frequent tantrums and a short attention span. Analysts also mentioned his bizarre working habits, with meetings routinely starting late in the evening and lasting until early morning hours. Arafat’s nocturnal lifestyle made it difficult on the Israeli and American negotiators to adjust. Adding to the problem was Arafat’s utter

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unpredictability. Even his close allies admitted that it was impossible to know how Arafat, whose moods varied widely, would react to any particular issue under negotiation; sometimes he would become obsessed with a minor detail while neglecting the larger problem. Gilad Sher noted that, ‘‘During large parts of the conversation, [Arafat] did not grasp either the information transmitted or the nuance . . . [and] suddenly a somewhat detached Arafat would cut in making strange statements on unrelated issues.’’ Sher also described Arafat’s style as ‘‘theatrical,’’ with excessive use of his arms and frequent listing of ‘‘the myriad titles he holds.’’ More worrisome though, he found Arafat’s associative world to be ‘‘rather enigmatic,’’ ‘‘jumpy and confused, and in stammering anger, he sometimes shares—out of any context—details of his biography.’’ His poor command of English did not help, as he was sometimes reported to have difficulty in following the discussion.70 Oslo proponents angrily rejected such unflattering portrayals of Arafat. Some alleged that Israeli intelligence orchestrated ‘‘an alarmist campaign’’ about Arafat’s health in order to ‘‘unleash a struggle for succession’’ in the PA. The Left blamed Gilad’s ‘‘obsession’’ with Arafat for skewing intelligence reporting. The former Aman chief Uri Saguy wrote that ‘‘Arafat is an interesting individual’’ who understands the political game in Israel. Saguy added that ‘‘in spite of his lies and manipulations, he is clear-headed’’ and rational. He related that ‘‘Arafat projects a great deal of tranquility and softness and gives his interlocutors a sense of ease.’’ Beilin asserted that Arafat was a mature leader ‘‘who became legitimate in the world.’’ The Wallachs found a ‘‘noticeable change in Yasser Arafat from our first biography.’’ ‘‘In the last four years Arafat emerged as a leader’’ because he learned to speak ‘‘openly and directly.’’ The Wallachs were convinced that ‘‘Yasser Arafat has redeemed his lifelong dream of putting the Palestinian people on the road to statehood and making peace with Israel.’’71 With a large stake in the peace process, the Americans were trying to reach their own conclusion about Arafat. Secretary of State Albright was resolved to ‘‘find out for myself ’’ who was correct: the ‘‘optimists’’ who believed that Arafat made a genuine commitment to peace, or the ‘‘pessimists’’ who asserted that he was playing games. Despite misgivings about Arafat, Ross was convinced that, with the return of Labor to power, peace was a distinct possibility. The Clinton administration certainly did its utmost to help Barak to win and thus secure the coveted peace deal. As occurred previously, there were rumors of a LaborPalestinian-American collusion against Netanyahu. Dan Margalit, a highly respected journalist, mentioned allegations that Peres advised Arafat not to sign the Hebron agreement and that he apparently told the New York Times that the Americans should reduce aid to Israel, a version of the loan guarantee ploy that ended Shamir’s tenure. Even though Clinton did not embrace this suggestion, the political dynamics in Israel bode ill for Netanyahu. The continuous terrorist attacks made a mockery of his promise to deliver ‘‘peace and security’’ and his

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coalition unraveled, forcing a new election scheduled for May 17, 1997. Sensing an opportunity, in a number of fund raisers in the United States, Clinton brought out the ‘‘big guns’’ for the Labor’s Ehud Barak, including Charles Bronfman. Clinton’s public relations experts and pollsters such as Stanley Greenberg and James Carville were dispatched to help with the Labor campaign. Ross watched the election outcome with Abu Mazen, who commented that ‘‘either we toast the outcome or we jump out the window together.’’ When Barak won by a landslide, Ross was jubilant: ‘‘Bibi was out, Barak was in, and overnight expectations in Israel, among the Palestinians, and within the administration were sky-high about the possibility of peace.’’72 The Israeli Left fully shared these hopes. Convinced that Netanyahu’s dependence on the Right and his conflicted, foot-dragging policies had derailed the process, Oslo supporters expected Barak, the general-turned-politician who emulated Yitzhak Rabin’s tough-yet-compromising attitude, to deliver peace. As they were soon to discover, clinching the Oslo deal proved to be a tall order.

6

Barak’s Acceleration: The Push for Final Status Negotiations, 1999–2000

The Labor primaries in 1998—during which Ehud Barak won against Yossi Beilin, Shlomo Ben-Ami, and Ephraim Sneh—clearly indicated that faith in the Oslo peace had declined considerably since 1993. Beilin received only 28 percent of the vote and Ben-Ami, another peace stalwart, fared even worse. Most important, Barak, who had voted against Oslo II, accepted much of the Netanyahu critique of the peace process when elected in May 1999. While not entirely convinced of the Trojan horse theory, he was concerned that Arafat had been able to increase the PA’s land assets while getting away with noncompliance, an outcome of which Wye detractors like Douglas Feith had warned. Barak, who was personally convinced that Arafat was a liar, was also unhappy with Arafat’s negotiation style which, as already noted, featured frequent reversals of previously agreed-upon positions. In the words of one observer, Barak demanded a ‘‘more straightforward approach,’’ despite the fact that his Arab experts advised him to adopt a ‘‘more flexible’’ stand.1 Barak who, by all accounts, had a remarkable analytical capacity and an empirical bend concluded that expediting the final status negotiations was the only way to test Arafat’s true intention without giving up more land. As he frequently noted, an effort to finalize the deal would reveal the ‘‘true face of Arafat,’’ especially as the intelligence community was divided over the PA assessment, creating tensions between the ‘‘two Amoses’ (Amos Malka and Amos Gilad) and Gilad and the Shin Bet chief, Ami Ayalon. Although Dennis Ross praised Barak as a ‘‘very smart, strategic thinker,’’ a straight shooter who ‘‘did not play games and tricks,’’ and a man ‘‘who did not fear peace but saw it as a strategic imperative,’’ the Americans were anxious about skipping the Wye-mandated FRD from

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the West Bank. They were taken further aback by Barak’s plan to renew negotiations with Syria. For Barak, who had run on a pledge to withdraw the Israeli forces from southern Lebanon, a peace deal with Syria would have been not only a welcome way out of what was essentially an unilateral withdrawal but also an important bargaining chip with the Palestinians. During his July 15, 1999 meeting with Clinton, Barak laid out his comprehensive peace plan with Syria and the Palestinians. While the President accepted Barak’s conceptual approach, his foreign policy team was somewhat skeptical about the feasibility of such a grand design. Ross and Madeline Albright in particular were apprehensive about Barak’s efforts to defer Wye. As a compromise, the Americans agreed to help with the Syrian and final status talks, but they insisted on a new round of negotiations to implement some of the outstanding Wye provisions.2 THE BALANCING ACT: SHARM AL SHEIK MEMORANDUM AND THE SYRIAN TRACK

As much as Barak hoped to finalize the peace process, he faced considerable obstacles from a variety of sources. The political limitations of his unwieldy 75-seat coalition were the most obvious. On the right, it included four nationalistically inclined parties: the National Religious Party (NRP), Shas, the Russian immigrant party Yisrael BeAliya (led by Natan Sharansky), and Gesher (a small Likud splinter under the veteran Sephardi politician David Levy). NRP’s leader Yitzhak Levy became the Housing Minister (charged with the responsibility for settlements in the West Bank), Sharansky secured an appointment to the influential Ministry of Internal Affairs, and David Levy won the Foreign Ministry. The Centre party, a remnant of the Third Way party which left Labor in 1994 over the prospects of leaving the Golan Heights, was represented by Amnon Lipkin-Shahak and Yitzhak Mordechai. On the left was the dovish and secularist Meretz party whose leader Yossi Sarid, the Minister of Education, repeatedly clashed with Shas over the issue of financing the latter’s independent educational system, Maayan HaHinuch HaTorani. Sarid’s secularist views and his decision to teach the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish, one of the measures recommended for healing the relations between Jews and Palestinians, outraged the rightists in the government and beyond. Critics pointed out that Darwish had never accepted the Oslo peace and, worse, had continued to glorify armed struggle against the ‘‘Zionist enemy.’’ If the right-wing coalition partners felt that Barak went too far, the peace ministers of Labor and Meretz, known as the peace cabinet or by its press moniker shovah yonim (dovecote), doubted the Prime Minister’s commitment to the Palestinians. Barak was known to dislike Shimon Peres (whom he had relegated to the newly created Ministry of Regional Development), but he had been forced to appoint Yossi Beilin to be the Minister of Justice and Shlomo Ben-Ami to be the Minister for Internal Security. Anxious to prevent the repeat of the

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unauthorized contact under Rabin, Barak banned the peace group from negotiating with the Palestinians. Still, the political dynamics soon forced a change. Ben-Ami had to take over from David Levy, who was reluctant to be involved in Oslo-related dealings. When Peres, helped by the ECF and the Peres Peace Center, turned his Ministry into a virtual alternative peace outreach, Barak was said to have questioned the disbursement of its 20 million shekel budget. The Attorney General allegedly asked Peres not to commingle the funds, but he could not track the hundreds of trips and meetings which Peres had held. Also working against Barak was the influence of his major donors, including the Slim-Fast mogul Dan Abraham, the French businessman Jean Freedman (who had financed the peace rally where Rabin had been killed), and Jacques Segala. For example, Abraham, Barak’s ‘‘Moskowitz,’’ let it be known that he was upset with the Prime Minister for refusing to meet with him to discuss the peace progress.3 The Peres-Beilin-BenAmi group, as well as Yossi Sarid and the major donors, criticized Barak’s view that the territories were an Israeli asset not to ‘‘be given away’’ for inconclusive gains. As Abraham explained, Peres thought that this argument was flawed because the territories were a major liability and belonged to the Palestinians.4 Peace activists were especially upset about Barak’s plans to conclude an agreement with the Syrians before completing the Palestinian track, a misgiving shared by Arafat who was reported to be deeply offended. Disagreements between Barak and the ‘‘peace club’’ were routinely aired in the press, with Peres lamenting that the Oslo peace could fail because of Barak’s ‘‘missteps.’’ Bureaucratic and personal rivalries complicated efforts to achieve consensus on the peace process. Barak, who had pushed for a unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon and cuts in the defense budget, was not popular with senior IDF officials, including the chief of staff, Shaul Mofaz. Despite his military background, the Prime Minister showed little interest in his commanders, who often found it hard to schedule meetings. The new Mossad chief, Efraim Halevy, was reported to have difficulties providing Barak with input. Senior security officials often blamed Danny Yatom, the former Mossad head, whom Barak appointed as his security adviser, for the breakdown in communication. According to Haim Mandel-Shaked, Barak’s senior aide, the heads of the Mossad and Aman were not on speaking terms with Yatom. Personal tensions were enhanced by ongoing political differences. Shaul Arieli, the head of the Peace Administration (Mifkedet Shalom) created by Barak to prepare plans for negotiations with the Palestinians, complained about lack of cooperation from the IDF. According to Ben-Ami, the Map Division was even reluctant to provide Arieli with maps, which in his view reflected the apparent hard-line position of the IDF’s Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz. Moshe Yaalon, by then the influential CO of Central Command, was reported to be ‘‘upset’’ with Peres, Beilin, and Amnon Lipkin-Shahak (the Minister of Tourism in the Barak coalition) for undermining the official peace process.5

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Much as Barak’s complex domestic structure impeded his plans to skip Wye for a permanent status agreement, it was American pressure that compelled the new government to proceed with the piecemeal approach. Although Clinton seemed to go along with Barak’s proposal in their July meeting, Albright and Ross were far more skeptical. Both were keenly aware that the combination of a Syria track and Barak’s refusal to implement the Wye-mandated third FRD could derail the entire process. In a secret meeting with Barak’s representatives in Zurich on August 8, 1999, Ross stated that ‘‘he wanted to start the conversation on the Palestinians, not Syrians,’’ and chastised Israel for offering Arafat a ‘‘Wye minus’’ instead of going above Netanyahu’s concessions to signal a new beginning. This was especially crucial given that the first meeting between Arafat and Barak in July had been disappointing. According to Israeli and Palestinian accounts, Barak and Arafat had had bad ‘‘chemistry,’’ perhaps because, according to Yasser Abed Rabbo, the Prime Minister treated the PA chief as a ‘‘Western governor’’ speaking to a ‘‘village mukhtar.’’ As the Americans expected, Arafat was highly suspicious about Israel’s compliance with Wye. For his part, Saeb Erekat—who coled with Abed Rabbo the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations—placed an angry call to Ross to inform him that the new Israeli proposals are ‘‘Netanyahu leftovers’’ or less.6 To resuscitate the faltering peace process, the Americans convened a high-level summit in Sharm el Sheikh, where President Mubarak and King Abdullah of Jordan were among the invitees. The Sharm el Sheikh Memorandum of September 4 gave both sides reason to rejoice. Reversing course, Barak committed himself to a further Israeli redeployment: in stage one, on September 5, a transfer of 7 percent from Area C to Area B; in stage two, on November 15, 2 percent from Area B to Area A; and on January 20, 2000, 1 percent from Area C to Area A and 6.1 percent from Area B to Area A. Israel also promised to release 350 prisoners and fulfill its pledges on safe passage, an airport and a sea port in Gaza. Barak achieved his goal of creating a short timetable for finalizing Oslo. A Framework Agreement on Permanent Status (FAPS) dealing with borders, refugees, Jerusalem, and settlements was planned for January 30, 2000, to be followed by a Comprehensive Agreement on Permanent Status (CAPS) on September 13, 2000. Mindful of the embarrassment to Rabin during the Cairo ceremony, Barak warned Clinton that he would leave if there was a repeat of ‘‘Arafat’s theatrics.’’7 With the Oslo peace seemingly on track, the Americans gave their blessing to the Syrian negotiations. The administration shared Barak’s view that a peace treaty with Syria would make Israel’s exit from Lebanon more dignified and, in the long run, isolate Iran and Hezbollah. Ross reported that Clinton saw the deal as doable because it was ‘‘state to state’’ and a straightforward exchange of ‘‘full withdrawal for full peace and security,’’ which had been at the core of the Rabin proposal. But the President and his Secretary of State were somewhat taken aback by Barak’s initial reluctance to follow up on the ‘‘Rabin’s pocket.’’ As Albright noted, Assad was not likely to accept anything less than a full withdrawal to the June 4, 1967

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lines (the 1949 armistice borderline) ‘‘without tarnishing his own carefully burnished image’’ (as a tough negotiator and an equal to Anwar Sadat). Still, Clinton was convinced that the increasingly frail Hafez Assad could be persuaded to conclude the deal, provided it did not hurt the succession of his son Bashir. Lord Michael Levy, a highly placed British intermediary who had visited Damascus, formed the same impression, describing Assad’s reaction as optimistic.8 Upon further investigation, the Americans concluded that Barak’s hope of renegotiating the ‘‘Rabin’s pocket’’ was based on the so-called Lauder paper, a 10-point agreement which the American businessman Ronald Lauder purportedly had negotiated with Assad during Netanyahu’s tenure. Lauder, who was summoned to the White House, explained that Assad was willing to accept the international border of 1923, which Israel preferred, because it would keep Syria away from the waterline of the Sea of Galilee and several security arrangements, including monitoring stations. Ross proved to be more realistic when he commented that the paper ‘‘was too good to be true.’’ Indeed, Assad denied knowledge of the document and insisted on the June 4 border. Although the difference between the two lines represent less than 7 square miles, for Assad the latter was crucial. Physically, it would have restored Syrian’s position over the Sea of Galilee; symbolically, it would have placed Assad on par with Sadat. Still, Barak was hopeful that, given Assad’s seeming willingness to strike a deal, better terms could be negotiated. Indeed, preliminary contacts between high-ranking Syrian officials and Israelis— mediated by Ross—had revealed certain flexibility on the part of Damascus. But much of the initial optimism was dashed during the Shepherdstown meeting in early January 2000 attended by Farouk Shara, Syrian foreign minister, Barak, Clinton, and Clinton’s foreign policy team. Barak, aware that the public opinion polls rejected a return to the June 4 border, refused to reaffirm ‘‘Rabin’s pocket.’’ Shara felt betrayed by the Israeli stand and fearful of Assad’s reaction. The Syrian delegation also refused to link a settlement in Lebanon to the putative deal, an item high on Barak’s agenda. To complicate matters, a copy of a draft treaty prepared by the Americans was leaked to the Israeli press. According to some sources, Nimrod Novik, who was close to Yossi Beilin, obtained the paper and shared it with his colleagues in the ECF. It was subsequently made available to Akiva Eldar from Haaretz. As one journalist put it, there were grounds to believe that the ‘‘Oslo fanatics’’ tried to torpedo the Syrian deal to help the Palestinians. In a rare move, Barak ordered the Shin Bet to investigate the matter; in 2002, Ayalon told Ambassador Martin Indyk that Beilin and his circle ‘‘who were troubled by Barak’s focus on Syria’’ were responsible. It was also reported that, at the time, Barak was worried about Peres’s ability to sabotage the Syrian deal, but Ross noted that ‘‘the question remains whether Beilin and his staff ever obtained an actual copy of the draft treaty.’’ Whatever the source of the leak, the damage was quite considerable.

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The Syrians, who had insisted on very strict secrecy, refused to return for further negotiations, prompting Yatom to lament that Shepherdstown was a ‘‘sad story.’’9 Still, it was a change in the perceived Syrian attitude that doomed the prospects for an agreement. By early spring 2000, Barak, facing withdrawal from Lebanon, was ready to accept the June 4 border with minor adjustments to compensate for the considerable shrinkage of the Sea of Galilee during the subsequent two decades. Ross claimed that Barak had suggested 600 meters, but that Lipkin-Shahak had informed him that ‘‘Israel could live’’ with 100 meters off the waterline. While the Americans were encouraged by the change in the Israeli position, they were stunned by Assad’s behavior during the pivotal Geneva meeting on March 26. When Clinton informed him that Barak had accepted the June 4 border demarcation, Assad dismissed it and, in a dramatic reversal of the previous Syrian position, claimed that Syria should have sovereignty over the water as well, noting that ‘‘the lake has always been our lake.’’ Moreover, even by minimal diplomatic standards, Assad seemed intent to humiliate the American president, reducing Clinton to ‘‘literally asking for the courtesy of being heard.’’ In Ross’s view, shared by Albright, Assad’s hard-line position was related to the fear that a deal with Israel would compromise his hold on power and, more importantly, the succession of his son. Although Ross conceded that there might have been a very short and fragile window of opportunity, he felt that, for Arab leaders in general and Assad in particular (whose legitimacy was questionable), peace with Israel was a luxury fraught with risk.10 The Americans were also aware that, by accepting the ‘‘Rabin pocket,’’ Barak became at odds with his domestic audience. The powerful Golan Height lobby with deep roots in the Labor camp was shaping to become a formidable opponent and some ministers in the Barak cabinet, including Lipkin-Shahak, voiced their misgivings. Even such peace stalwarts like Amos Oz were wary of Syrian intentions. Many in the intelligence community were concerned that a focus on Syria would lead to an explosion in the territories. In late December 1999, Ayalon, Malka, and Halevy met with Barak to warn him that negotiations with Syria would alienate the Palestinians. Ross revealed that, in December 1999 and January 2000, Ayalon pleaded with him to stop the Syria track and helped to persuade Barak of the urgency of dealing with the Palestinians. Ayalon also petitioned Ambassador Indyk, stating that peace with Syria can wait 20 years, whereas an ‘‘explosion is coming’’ in the territories. In what Ross described as ‘‘a major surprise,’’ in February 2000, Mofaz, who had previously supported the Syrian deal, entered a similar plea. The IDF chief explained that there was no support in the country for giving up the Golan Heights, but proceeding with Oslo had the potential to prevent a major outbreak of Palestinian violence.11 In any event, most of the peace camp was relieved that the failure of the Syrian bid had forced Barak along with the Clinton administration to turn their attention back to the Palestinian track. Anticipating a Syrian breakthrough, the

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Prime Minister was slow in following up on his robust Oslo timetable. Still, the growing disarray on the Palestinian side was also a serious hindrance, prompting Ross to comment that, ‘‘to be fair, Israel could not negotiate with itself.’’12 As the optimism generated at Sharm al Sheik faded, it became clear that implementing the Memorandum would be much harder than anticipated, even after Israel turned its full attention back to the Palestinians. IMPLEMENTING THE SHARM AL SHEIK MEMORANDUM: AN UPHILL BATTLE

By 1999, the delegitimization of the PA skyrocketed, especially as Arafat took to using the anti-incitement clause of the Wye agreement to persecute the enemies of his regime. In November 1999, as a result, 20 prominent Palestinians issued a declaration ‘‘A Cry for the Homeland.’’ Responding to the widespread civil rights violations, the Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator in the Occupied Territories (UNSCO) unveiled a campaign to support the rule of law, including a $20 million grant for civil rights NGOs. PA officials denounced the NGOs as ‘‘a bunch of thieves, fat cats, and foreign agents,’’ and in May 2000, Arafat’s Minister of Justice tried to force the Palestinian Bar Association to expel employees of the NGOs, claiming they were ‘‘nonpracticing lawyers’’ and ‘‘foreign agents.’’13 Economic corruption was also prominently on display, highlighted by the donors’ conference in Tokyo. According to frequent complaints, since the beginning of the Oslo process, some $2 billion in international aid had been transferred to the PA but had disappeared into its ‘‘black hole.’’ Multiple investigations launched by the EU and other donors gradually revealed the extraordinary extent of PA corruption. In May 1997, under pressure from the donors, Arafat was forced to release a report which found that the PA had lost $326 million as a result of corruption. Bowing to the EU dictate, the chairman announced a reform of his government, but instead of firing the corrupt ministers, he reappointed them to 34-member cabinet that spanned even more corruption. In 1998, the EU discovered that its $20 million donation to the Palestinian Housing Corporation for building low-income housing was used to construct luxury apartments for PA officials and other hangers-on. Israeli intelligence estimated that Arafat’s net worth amounted to some $1.3 billion. A subsequent IMF report found that 8 percent of the PA budget was spent at the sole discretion of Arafat and that, between 1995 and 2000, $900 million in PA revenues vanished.14 Despite its delegitimizing effect, the Israeli connection to corrupt practices did not cease. Yossi Ginossar, now on the board of the Peres Center for Peace, was recalled by Barak to act as an intermediary in the negotiations. In fact, the Peres Center itself increased its involvement with the PA economy through its Peace

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Technology Fund, a joint venture with the fugitive American businessman Mark Rich, whose Mark Rich Foundation in Israel was chaired by Andrei Azulay, a board member of the Center. The Fund took a $60 million stake in Paltel, the Palestinian telephone company implicated in an early scandal and awarded a grant to the Palestinian Housing Corporation.15 PA’s growing legitimacy problems complicated Arafat’s ability to deal with the radicalization of the two crucial nation-building issues, Jerusalem and refugees. The American Committee on Jerusalem established by Rashid Khalidi intensified its efforts to emphasize the Muslim character of Jerusalem. Such steps meshed well with the position of the Islamists who, as noted, viewed Jerusalem as the center of the holy waqf of Palestine. While Khalidi suggested that Jerusalem should be viewed as the capital of both Israel and the Palestinian state, the Islamists dismissed the importance of Jerusalem to the Jews. As one observer would later write, ‘‘The strength of Islamist sentiments constrained the Palestinian negotiators and obliged them to cloak their positions in increasingly religious rhetoric.’’16 The radicalization of the refugee issue was equally obvious. In June 1999, Dr. Assad Abed Al Rahman, a member of the PLO Steering Committee in charge of the refugee portfolio, published a report advocating a return of a considerable number of Palestinians to Israel. Al Rahman wrote that Palestinians could justifiably return to the Galilee, because Jews did not populate it; he calculated that they should be entitled to a grant of $114,000 each. Although in a January 2000 letter to the Egyptian ambassador to Israel, Mohammed Bassiouni, Mahmoud Abbas (then overseeing the refugee portfolio in the PA) stated that the solution should not interfere with Israeli demography, Arafat’s own message was mixed. The PA chief ordered his representative to the United Nations, Nasser al Kidwa, to explore the issue of the right to return. Al Kidwa, who was in contact with the radical American human rights activist Ramsey Clark and other pro-Palestinian advocates, was reported also to have a good rapport with Kofi Annan, the UN chief. Following the PA’s long-standing efforts to delegitimize Israel in the international community, al Kidwa’s activity was seen as a big problem by the Foreign Ministry, long concerned with Arafat’s ploys to use world public opinion. Arafat also raised the right to return with Ross. More attuned to internal Palestinian dynamics than either the Israelis or the Americans, Arafat was aware that many of the human rights NGOs increasingly incorporated the right to return into the vocabulary of civil liberties. For instance, the ‘‘Cry for the Homeland’’ declaration equated Arafat’s abandonment of national goals, notably the right of refugees to their former homes, with a violation of basic human rights.17 Less visible but potentially more serious was the increasing power base of Marwan Barghouti’s Tanzim and the Islamists. Although, as noted, Barghouti’s initial opposition stemmed from the schism between the Tunis leadership and the locals, by 1999, Tanzim rejected the PA’s commitment to diplomacy as the

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only means of solving the conflict. Even after the Palestinian Charter was changed, many Fatah activists, whose frustration with the Oslo process had grown over the years, demanded to retain the military struggle against Israel as a legitimate option. With no elections to influence politics in the PA, Tanzim increased its military presence, especially in the West Bank. As for the Islamists, they profited from a decision of Iran to bolster the political opposition to Arafat in advance of the final status negotiations. Shortly after the Sharm el Sheikh conference, Barak received intelligence that senior Hamas leaders in Jordan were ordered to mobilize supporters in the West Bank and Gaza. George Tenet, by then the CIA director, persuaded King Abdullah to disrupt this campaign. The Jordanian authorities arrested Khaled Mashal, Ibrahim Ghosheh, the Hamas spokesman, and Mussa Marzuk upon their return from Teheran on September 24. After a brief imprisonment, they were expelled to Qatar in November.18 If the Israelis and the Americans hoped that such an action would stop the anti-Oslo agitation, they were bound to be disappointed. Finding themselves under public pressure, Abed Rabbo and Erekat adopted what Ross described as ‘‘anything but the most maximal position.’’ Although the lead Israeli negotiator, Oded Eran, persisted, it was quite clear that the Sharm al Sheik’s FAPS deadline of January 30, 2000 would not be met. Barak, who was still preoccupied with Syria and unhappy about the negotiations, complicated matters by hesitating with regard to the third part of the FRD, scheduled for February 15 to transfer 6.1 percent of territory from Area B to Area A. Arafat asked Barak to include three villages that bordered the municipality of Jerusalem (Abu Dis, Al Ezariah, and a-Ram) in the 6.1 percent, an apparent allusion to the Beilin-Abu Mazen plan to enlarge the boundaries of the metropolis. Abu Dis, the closest to the Old City, was long thought to be a candidate for a future Palestinian capital. Arafat argued that such a gesture would provide him with a boost at the time when Palestinians considered themselves a Syrian ‘‘sideshow,’’ but Barak, aware of the political sensitivity of giving up territory around Jerusalem, made no promise beyond acknowledging his interlocutor’s concern. When the Israeli media reported that Barak would not transfer the three villages, Arafat retaliated by refusing to accept the 6.1 percent and suspended all negotiations. Ross observed that, for Arafat, greatly upset about the Syrian track, the villages were a way to show that he was not ‘‘Barak’s slave’’ and that he could deliver for his people.19 Facing criticism from Oslo supporters in his own government and under pressure from the Clinton administration to show progress, Barak changed his mind. In a deal brokered by Ginossar, Barak agreed to transfer two villages on April 23 and the third one on May 23, which would also become the new deadline for the FAPS. Knowing that the proposal would create political difficulties, Barak asked for the villages part of the deal to be kept secret but agreed to a public meeting with Arafat in Ramallah on March 8 where it was announced that permanent status negotiations had resumed.

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With the collapse of the Syrian track, Barak turned his energy to what ultimately became a unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon and a continuation of the Oslo process. During an April 11 meeting in Washington, Barak told Clinton that he was ready to a territorial compromise based on a 66-22-12 formula: 66 percent after singing the permanent agreement and 22 percent over a period of some five years. The remaining 12 percent would be annexed to Israel to accommodate the large settlement blocks. Barak’s 88 percent was in sharp contrast to his assessment of the previous November when he had told Clinton that Israel ‘‘can close’’ on 50 percent of the territory. But when Eran presented the figures to the negotiators who met in Eilat at the end of April, Mohammed Dahlan cursed and left the room, along with Abed Rabbo and Erekat. After being coxed back by Ross, Dahlan suggested that Israel retain 4 percent of the West Bank provided there would be an equal swap of territory elsewhere.20 The very public nature of the jostling and the rigid position of the Palestinians prompted Ross to initiate a back channel, an idea that was supported by Abu Mazen as well. After much internal wrangling, Arafat authorized a team that included Abu Ala and Hasan Asfour but rejected, on the recommendation of Mohammed Rashid, the two academics close to Abu Mazen (Hussein Agha and Ahmed Khalidi). Shlomo Ben-Ami and Gilad Sher, a lawyer close to Barak, led the Israeli side. The talks, which started in April in Israel, were moved to Sweden where Par Nuder, the chief of staff of the Swedish prime minister, facilitated the meetings that were held in Oslo-style secrecy. Over several rounds of negotiations, Israel presented what it considered an improved formula: 88 percent of the West Bank for the Palestinians, 12 percent for the Jewish blocks and Jerusalem suburbs, and a long-term security regime in the Jordan Valley. Jerusalem was expected to be governed by a special regime run by both sides. The Israelis hoped that flexibility on the territories would translate into Palestinian goodwill regarding the refugees, especially as this so-called non-paper seemed to have the support of Abu Ala, in contrast with the previous inclusive negotiations between Dan Meridor and Abu Mazen enacted since 1997.21 While the Swedish track made more progress than the official channel, those who expected to repeat the Oslo experience were bound to be disappointed. Most troubling was the fact that none of the principle negotiators had much influence on Arafat, who as Tenet noted, ‘‘was [as ever] difficult if not impossible to move.’’ Abed Rabbo and Erekat chafed under the new mandate limiting the official channel to functional matters such as water, environment, and legal issues, a division that Barak tried to institute. Characteristically, Arafat was reluctant to impose a division of labor on his negotiators because he wanted to control and manipulate the negotiators by fostering competition. Arafat also tried to avoid insulting Abed Rabbo, the head of the small FIDA party, a splinter from the DFLP, which added legitimacy to his mostly-Fatah government. In any event, on May 12, the existence of the Swedish channel was leaked to the press,

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apparently by Abu Mazen who was reported to be ‘‘extremely upset’’ by the fact that Abu Ala had been picked over him and by his ‘‘extreme animus’’ toward Asfour. Sher recalled that ‘‘I suspect Abu Mazen,’’ adding that he was ‘‘afraid the exposure would paralyze him [Abu Ala].’’22 Indeed, Palestinian media attacked Abu Ala who, during the next meeting on June 1, became quite rigid. When Ben-Ami complained that Abu Ala turned tough, especially compared to Abu Mazen, the latter took out a copy of the Beilin-Abu Mazen agreement marked up with Abu Mazen’s reservations ‘‘almost the size of the manuscript.’’ The Israeli team realized that Abu Ala not only had to fight Abu Mazen but also had to accept the fact that he got essentially no support from Arafat. Even without the leak, the Israelis had reservations about Abu Ala’s negotiating style, for he insisted on an agreement on principles first and the details later. As Ben-Ami noted, after the Palestinians forced Israel to compromise on principles, there were no details forthcoming from the PA delegation.23 For their part, the Palestinians had some grievous misgivings about Israel’s ability to pursue the Oslo peace. By spring 2000, the unwieldy coalition that Barak had assembled was showing increasing signs of stress. David Levy was opposed to large-scale concessions to Syria and apprehensive about a Palestinian deal. In both the official and secret negotiations, Barak bypassed Levy, who quit the government in April and was replaced by Ben-Ami as acting Foreign Minister. The NRP claimed that the three villages (especially Abu Dis, long rumored to become the capital of Palestine) amounted to a division of Jerusalem; Yitzhak Levy threatened to leave the government if they were turned over. Shas, whose dispute with Yossi Sarid reached a boiling point, conditioned its support on the long-delayed budget for its educational system. To complicate matters further, Attorney General Eli Rubinstein offered a written opinion that the transfer of the villages required Knesset approval. Even though Shas received its payment, Barak had to postpone the vote until May 15, after the Passover recess. Barak’s domestic difficulties were well understood in Washington. Ross, who by then had mastered the intricacies of the Israeli political system, wrote that the Shas defection would force Barak either into a national unity government with Likud or into an early election. ‘‘Either outcome would spell the end of the process for the Clinton presidency, and probably mean that the historic moment would be missed.’’ He added that ‘‘This was a recurring fear for us.’’24 The Palestinians, on the other hand, had little appreciation for Barak’s predicament. Early in May, Israeli intelligence received firm information that the Palestinians were planning massive and violent demonstrations for May 15, their Nakba Day—intended to recognize the ‘‘catastrophe’’ that had befallen them with the creation of the Jewish state. On May 11, Barak dispatched Ginossar to plead with Arafat to abstain from violence, given that the upcoming Knesset vote on the villages was scheduled for the same day. On May 14, Danny Yatom called Ross, who was mediating the Swedish channel, to urge American intervention.

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Albright sent a short blunt message in Clinton’s name, but Arafat could ‘‘not guarantee anything.’’ As Ross put, in ‘‘Arafat-speak,’’ it meant that ‘‘he would not take any serious steps to stop the violence.’’ When the Nakba violence erupted the next day, it dramatically impacted the Israeli discourse on the peace process.25 THE NAKBA VIOLENCE: RECONFIGURING THE OSLO PEACE DISCOURSE

Well before the Nakba events, Aman’s Research Division concluded that the Palestinians were ready to start a new round of violence as a way to break the political impasse. According to military analysts, the decision was taken in the winter of 2000, leading Arafat to adopt a ‘‘very aggressive tone’’ in his addresses, among others, before al Shabiba, the youth organization, where Marwan Barghouti had made significant inroads. Aman, which apparently had placed the PA headquarters under surveillance, was aware that Arafat had given orders to stockpile food supplies for the ‘‘impeding political crisis.’’ Aman noted that the PA had continued to violate the Oslo agreements with respect to incitement, evasion of legal obligations, and the size of its security force, which reached 40,000 by early 2000. Mofaz and other senior officers considered the force to be offensive in nature, promoting the IDF to expedite its own training, instituted after the Tunnel riots, to quell Palestinian violence. In April, the army conducted a large exercise, Forward Gear, around Ramallah, simulating occupation of a Palestinian city. After Barak replaced Ayalon with Avi Dichter, the Shin Bet estimate moved closer to that of Aman’s. Under Dichter, Matti Steinberg, a close adviser to Ayalon with dovish views, lost his influence. Reversing the strict selfrestrain trend, Daniel Risner, the head of International Law Division in the IDF, began drafting a new code of conduct for troop engagement in the territories.26 As anticipated, on May 15, large-scale and well-organized violence erupted; repeating the Tunnel episode, Palestinian policemen took aim at Israeli forces. Still, evaluating Arafat’s role in the disturbances was not easy, especially as the fractured political order in the PA made the relative input of the various actors difficult to assess. Aman and Shin Bet told Barak that Arafat’s cousin Mousa Arafat, who was later appointed the head of the security forces in Gaza, had organized the shootings. At the same time, it was also clear that Barghouti’s Tanzim and what was described as ‘‘the street’’ had a major part. It probably did not help Arafat’s standing that some leading Fatah activists crossed over to Barghouti. Shin Bet was aware that the leadership of the refugee camps where Arafat was increasingly unpopular pressed the PA to back up diplomatic process with violence. The Islamists, freshly from their successful hunger strike against prison conditions in Israel, were most eager to escalate the situation. Aman was persuaded that either on his own or under pressure, Arafat had decided to make ‘‘armed struggle’’ part of the diplomatic process.

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Sari Nusseibeh suggested that Arafat, the inveterate schemer, might have contributed to this assessment by trying to scare Barak into more concessions. Convinced that there was a microphone hidden in a potted plant in his office, the chairman allegedly faked calls to his Minister of Supply declaring in a dramatic tone that the situation was ‘‘intolerable’’ and demanding that food be stored because of the ‘‘impending crisis.’’27 Whatever Arafat’s true intentions, the Nakba vastly complicated the issue of the villages. Ben-Ami compared it to the Tunnel riots, noting that Barak could not transfer territory in response to violence. Beilin disclosed that he had told Barghouti and other ‘‘moderates’’ that Israel was dismayed because ‘‘institutional bodies’’ engaged in the violence. Beilin warned Barghouti that the Israeli public would lose confidence in the peace process. Indeed, opinion polls indicated that the faith in the Palestinians as a peace partner virtually evaporated. Faced with increasing opposition in his own government, Barak was forced to freeze the transfer of the villages. Ben-Ami recalled that, in early June, Barak told him and other negotiators that Nakba had a devastating result on the peace process in Israel. Barak explained to Ross that ‘‘even traditional peaceniks’’ were pressing for a suspension of talks because of the ‘‘image of armed Palestinians—armed under the terms of Oslo—firing on Israeli soldiers.’’ Ironically, Barak’s standing among the Palestinians took a beating as well. As Beilin put it, the Palestinians understood that he ‘‘was a weak leader.’’28 Coming on the heels of Nakba, the hasty withdrawal of IDF from Lebanon at the end of May strengthened the image of Israel as a weak country. Neither Barak nor the peace camp, which strongly supported the move, expected such unintended consequences. Yossi Beilin, who organized the Movement for the Withdrawal from Lebanon in July 1997, predicted a peaceful coexistence. As Amoz Oz wrote in his article ‘‘Try a Little Tenderness’’: ‘‘The minute we leave South Lebanon, we will have to erase the word Hezbollah from our vocabulary.’’29 Confounding the Israeli Left, Hezbollah took a page from Brigadier Malik’s book to assert that, unable to sustain more casualties inflicted by its Jihadist fighters (averaging 25 soldiers a year), the ‘‘Zionist enemy’’ was forced to flee. Hezbollah’s perceived victory emboldened the Palestinian Islamists who could now furnish empirical evidence that force and perseverance pay more than negotiations. Ross called it the Hezbollah model: ‘‘Don’t make concessions, Don’t negotiate. Use violence. And the Israelis will grow weary and withdraw.’’ Both Sher and Ben-Ami recalled Abu Ala telling them that the withdrawal from Lebanon embarrassed Arafat in the eyes of the Arab world and his domestic public to the point that he had to temporarily close the TV station in Ramallah. Ross provided a more vivid description, writing that in a ‘‘profanity-laced monologue’’ with the interpreter for the American team: Arafat complained that Barak is ‘‘screwing me. He fulfilled his commitment to Lebanon, but not to me.’’ Although the PA leadership might have exaggerated its plight to score points in the

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negotiations, Iran, buoyed by Hezbollah’s success, intensified its effort to mobilize the Islamists against the Oslo process. On June 1, Hussein Sheik Al Islam, Tehran’s ambassador to Syria, met with Ramadan Saleh, to urge Hamas and Islamic Jihad to continue with the rounds of attacks on Israel without taking credit for them. The new strategy had the advantage of creating a public outcry in Israel while implicating the PA.30 Arafat, for his part, did little to dispel the notion that the PA reverted to armed struggle of which terrorism was an integral part. In a May 29 meeting, Arafat told the Labor MK Dalia Yitzhik that the ‘‘clock is ticking’’ to September 13, 2000, the date for achieving a permanent settlement. To those familiar with ‘‘Arafat-speak,’’ the message was clear: if there is no political progress, the Palestinians would use violence. Still, because of the complex deception system created by the multiple terror actors and the complicated ties among them, the Israeli intelligence services had difficulty sorting out who was behind the attacks in the spring of 2000. Before his retirement, Ayalon told Barak that the heads of the Palestinian preventive services, Rajoub and Dahlan, had assured him that they were working to contain the terror, but others were not sure as to what was going on in ‘‘Arafat’s head.’’31 Arafat’s view that, despite the Nakba violence, Israel was required to fulfill its third FRD, rescheduled for June 23, was much clearer. As noted, the PA chief felt that the third FRD should leave the Palestinians with 91 percent of the territories. Ross called it a ‘‘mythology,’’ noting that Barak was only prepared to accept a 50 percent withdrawal after the third FRD. As it turned out, Barak was highly reluctant to execute the 10 percent withdrawal consistent with the third FRD because of the perception that the Palestinians would be getting more territories even though they had, once again, violated the Oslo agreements. Furthermore, negotiations were stalled even though Sher and Ben-Ami, working in the now exposed Swedish channel, offered progressively more generous concessions. Indeed, Ben-Ami was accused of overstepping the guidelines imposed by Barak. Overall, the Israeli team suspected that, as in the past, there was little coordination between Arafat and his negotiators, making it impossible to figure out what the chairman’s position was.32 Adding to Barak’s concerns, the coalition was getting progressively frayed: reacting to rumors that Barak was poised to divide Jerusalem, the NRP and Yisrael BeAliya threatened to quit, leaving Shas, in spite of the payments to its educational system, in a precarious position. In a bid to avert a defection, Barak met with Rabbi Yosef Efrati, an aide to the leading rabbinical authority Rabbi Shalom Eliashiv, whom he tried to persuade of the need for concessions, due to the ‘‘gathering [Palestinian] storm’’ ahead of the September deadline. Failing that, the Prime Minister resolved to push for a summit to settle the permanent status issues. Barak reasoned that an agreement could produce a peace dynamic robust enough to give him a majority in a referendum. In case of a failure, the

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summit would amount to ‘‘empirical proof ’’ that the PA is not serious enough ‘‘to go all the way’’ and spare Israel the need to cede more territory.33 Barak’s decision to bet on a summit was affected by intelligence estimates showing that the PA had progressively flaunted the Oslo Accords. One clear indicator was the deteriorating quality of cooperation in the joint Israeli-Palestinian patrols. Despite the efforts of the CIA, which under Wye was heavily involved in security measures, Palestinian policemen were turning against their Israeli counterparts. On a number of occasions, they cocked their guns, prompting Brigadier General Yair Nave to recommend the suspension of the patrols. Intelligence officials also noted that the Palestinian security services were smuggling large quantity of weapons through the tunnels in Gaza and increasing their ‘‘revolving door’’ policy whereby Islamist prisoners were either let go or given long-term furloughs. In yet another sign of growing militancy, Arafat took to delivering inflammatory speeches to his Fatah supporters and others. In a rare consensus, the Israeli intelligence community concluded that, with no political progress, Arafat was ready to launch a new uprising before September 13. Both Mofaz and Yaalon concurred with this estimate.34 Still, the intelligence and security chiefs were not optimistic with regard to the planned summit. During a June 15 meeting, Gilad told Barak that the summit had less than a 50 percent chance of success because Arafat was not likely to compromise on more than 5 percent of the territories. Gilad also noted that Arafat could not settle for any substantive Israeli presence in the Old City and on Temple Mount, and that he would insist on the right to return to Israel. For once, his boss, Amos Malka, concurred with Gilad’s pessimism. Malka revealed that he had suggested to Barak that Arafat would not accept 90 or even 93 percent of the territory because he is not a ‘‘real estate trader.’’ Ben-Ami related that during a May 9 meeting in the Ministry of Defense, he was told that Arafat would agree to give up some 5–6 percent of the West Bank. On June 5, Malka, Gilad, and another senior officer visited Ben-Ami in his home and talked about Arafat as a ‘‘historical leader, not a tactical politician’’ preoccupied with his place in history. In other words, the intelligence officials did not expect Arafat to compromise on Jerusalem or refugees. Ephraim Sneh, Deputy Defense Minister in Barak’s cabinet, speculated that Arafat had become more intransigent because of the radicalization in the PA.35 As expected, the PA leadership vehemently rejected the summit idea. Arafat sought to persuade the Americans that, given the wide disparities between the sides, the meeting was premature. More to the point, as two observers commented, to Arafat, the ‘‘take it or leave it deal,’’ which the Israelis planned, represented a ‘‘nightmare.’’ According to Ross, Arafat was determined to get his third FRD, at one point telling the President that Barak accepted his ‘‘right to get 91 percent of the territory’’ after the third FRD. Ross reported his anger at such patent falsity. But the President, in an effort to assure Palestinian cooperation,

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declared that he ‘‘would not blame Arafat if the summit failed and [that he] would support a substantial FRD,’’ even if there was no FAPS. On June 28, Clinton agreed to sponsor the summit scheduled for Camp David on July 11. In doing so, the President accepted Barak’s position that the only way to proceed would be to test Arafat’s resolve and, if necessary, to expose him. In ways of justifying his decision, Clinton would later write that Barak was persuaded that the Oslo peace process was a ‘‘death by a thousand cuts.’’ A few days earlier, Beilin had been dispatched to Egypt to ask President Mubarak to influence the chairman, but there was not much optimism about the outcome. In addition to the Palestinian reluctance, the leaders of the religious parties and Yisrael BeAliya were showing signs of growing anxiety. After a June 21 cabinet meeting, Ben-Ami observed that these ministers were not ready to face their members. Indeed, all resigned before the summit, leaving a minority government of Labor and Meretz in place.36 In spite of this setback, Barak’s decision to proceed with the summit was a logical extension of his larger view of the Oslo peace process. Unlike Peres and the ‘‘peace club,’’ he had little faith in the New Middle East paradigm. Barak, an early supporter of the separation fence in the Rabin administration, was convinced that, even in the case of a peace agreement, Israel should abandon the vision of an integrated economic Palestinian-Israeli entity. During his first meeting with Clinton in July 1999, Barak insisted that, after the final agreement, PA should pursue separate economic development, an argument he repeated to Clinton’s economic adviser Lawrence Summers. Barak was reported to have resisted a suggestion made by another Clinton’s adviser, Stuart Eizenstat, to increase the quota for Palestinian laborers in Israel. Two weeks before Camp David, Barak alluded to the idea that a physical separation between Israel and a sovereign Palestinian state would be preferable to a cooperative framework envisaged by the Paris Protocol. For Barak, physical separation was also part of a safety net in case of Camp David’s failure. In essence, Barak, his National Security Adviser, Uzi Dayan, and Sneh conceived of a unilateral separation, leaving Israel in charge of the large settlement blocks and parts of the Jordan Valley that amounted to some 25 percent of the territories.37 Sensing a trap, the hard-core Oslo advocates mobilized to provide alternatives. Peres and Beilin felt that the summit was premature and feared the consequences of a failure. Peres also argued that Barak’s demand for an ‘‘end of conflict resolution’’ was likely to spook the Palestinians. After doing some research, the ECF found that neither the peace agreement with Egypt or Jordan carried a similar clause. The ECF’s Ron Pundak and Yair Hirschfeld conducted secret negotiations in London with the two academics close to Abu Mazen, Khalidi, and Agha. At the time the ECF was involved in an ambitious project to create an IsraeliJordanian-Palestinian security force that would control a demilitarized Palestine. However, with the exception of King Abdullah, who sent a high-ranking retired

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military official, there was little interest in the plan. Under Novik, the ECF also produced a fallback position to Camp David, a ‘‘slim agreement’’ that would had required Israel to transfer an additional 10 percent of the territories to establish a Palestinian state. An angry Barak chastised Novik on the grounds that such a plan would provide a ‘‘bailout’’ for Arafat; he also rebuffed Beilin who had supported the arrangement. Upon hearing that his own Peace Administration was preparing a somewhat similar alternative for any potential summit failure, Barak ordered Arieli to stop.38 At the paradigmatic level, the Nakba events seemed to strengthen the Oslo pessimist. Daniel Pipes suggested that because of ‘‘self-absorption’’ and moral exhaustion, Israel had paid little attention to Arab and Palestinian deeds and words. He noted that Shimon Peres and other Oslo advocates tended toward the ‘‘delusional . . . thinking that peace in the Middle East is Israel’s for the making’’ and that ‘‘key decisions are made in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.’’ Pipes asserted that the growth of Islamism came to represent a new and more pernicious form of Arab rejectionism. A Dayan Center scholar, Shimon Shapira, maintained that the peace process had challenged Iran’s revolutionary ideology and its geopolitical position, and that Tehran ordered Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamists to derail it. Noting that Hezbollah and its patron attributed Israel’s ‘‘step down’’ from Lebanon to a sign of weakness in a ‘‘soft society,’’ Shapira expressed skepticism that exchanging territory for security would bring calm neither in Lebanon nor elsewhere. Another Dayan Center paper concluded that the rise of Islamism in the region was bound to negatively affect the Oslo peace. Barry Rubin, who had long argued that the authoritarian regimes in the Middle East were threatened by peace, questioned the assumption that Syria was ready to make an agreement with Israel. A Tel Aviv University IR expert lambasted the original Oslo agreement for its ‘‘overdose of evasiveness masquerading as constructive ambiguity.’’ In a sign of the times, the idea of physical separation from the Palestinians was gaining momentum.39 In what was an increasingly uphill battle, the CR/peace research community redoubled its efforts to prove that the Oslo peace was viable. First, members of the community hastened to show that the peace dynamics and the confidence measure that it had allegedly engendered changed the Israeli ethos, making a transition from conflict to peace possible. Much of the empirical evidence came from the then popular workshops of Israeli and Palestinian youth. A study published by the Tami Steinmetz Center found that the peace process had changed the ideology and political orientation in Israel and the PA. Its author, Gabriel Scheffer, who used the Khalil Shikaki polls, concluded that there was a growing moderation among the Palestinians and a commitment to build a state and state institution. He also noted that Arafat was fully supportive of the peace process, quoting as proof the latter’s repeated assurance that ‘‘we are going to conduct the peace of the brave.’’ As for the Islamists, the study noted that Hamas was

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espousing a rigid anti-Israeli attitude at the ideological level but, at the tactical level, there was ‘‘flexibility and change.’’ Indeed, Scheffer found that, despite the pressure of the rank and file, the Hamas leadership tended to be cautious, with most of the attacks launched as a reaction to events like the Hebron killings or the assassination of the ‘‘engineer.’’ Yaron Ezrachi, a leading political scientist at the Hebrew University, was equally upbeat. He pointed out that the ‘‘ability to share blame’’ for the costly historical struggle ‘‘has led former fighters, some of them notoriously ruthless, to meet again as diplomats around the negotiating table and convert their military reputation . . . into the political authority’’ required for ‘‘painful compromises with erstwhile foes.’’40 Second, there was an increase in the number of studies devoted to solving the core issues of Jerusalem and the refugees. Still defending his concept of role of a ‘‘scholar-practitioner,’’ Herbert Kelman chaired PICAR’s the Israeli-Palestinian project that asserted in a May 2000 report that, in line with the need to respect ‘‘the national, cultural, political, legal, and historical rights of both people,’’ Jerusalem ‘‘should be an open and undivided city, with free access to the holy sites, serving as the capital of both states.’’ As for the refugee issue, the experts urged a balanced approach that would satisfy the ‘‘deep-seated needs’’ of both people: Israel was called upon to acknowledge their right to return, without jeopardizing ‘‘the Israelis’ concerns about the security, identity, and stability of their state.’’ John Whitbeck, who had led CR groups in the early 1990s, argued that the ‘‘road to peace starts in Jerusalem’’ and suggested a ‘‘condominium solution.’’ Ephraim Yuchtman-Yaar, the head of the Tami Steinmetz Center, and the Haifa anthropologist Joseph Ginat participated in a number of workshops on Jerusalem and refugees dating to July 1999. Reflecting some of these deliberations, a report ‘‘Negotiating Jerusalem: Guiding Principle’’ was submitted to Barak on January 23, 2000. The report, also signed by Shlomo Gazit and some U.S.-based scholars, urged the Prime Minister to create two side-by-side municipalities in Jerusalem and a division of Temple Mount. A large task force at the Teddy Kollek Center for Jerusalem Studies detailed a number of alternative power-sharing arrangements in Jerusalem; one of them advocated a condominium option.41 Third, a number of experts tried to bolster the vision of a cooperative IsraeliPalestinian relationship in the wake of peace. Leading the way was PICAR, which urged an advanced form of cooperation. The authors, who included, on the Israeli side, the Haaretz’s Zeev Schiff and Moshe Maoz, a Hebrew University professor, established four categories of cross-border relations. In an apparent rebuke of the Soffer-Schueftan separation thesis, they claimed that Model A, ‘‘total separation, hard borders and total disengagement between the two societies,’’ was ‘‘completely unrealistic.’’ The PICAR analysts castigated all those Israelis ‘‘who see it as a way to minimize security threats and demographic changes in Israel.’’ They also rejected Model B, characterized by diplomatic contacts and other exchanges that are ‘‘common among states that are at peace with one another.’’ Instead, they advocated

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a combination of Model C and D: the former was said to include ‘‘extensive cooperation that goes beyond normal relations between states’’; the latter aimed at achieving a ‘‘high degree of integration between the two states’’ characterized by the institutionalization and constitutional grounding of relations. Among others, Model D envisaged ‘‘a variety of joint institutional mechanism with decision making power’’ such as ‘‘joint airports [and] joint military and police units.’’ Although the PICAR analysts cautioned that a ‘‘gradual movement’’ toward Model D should await a successful implantation of Model C, they, as others in the CR/peace research community, were clearly confident that the Oslo peace process was within reach.42 As the Barak administration was preparing for the summit that became known as Camp David II, both sides of the Oslo discourse were waiting to vindicate their assumptions.

7

The Collapse of the Oslo Peace: Camp David II, the Outbreak of the Al Aqsa Intifada, and the Taba Talks, 2000–2001

For long-term observers of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, convening at Camp David vividly recalled the 1978 Israeli-Egyptian Peace Treaty, finalized during negotiations—hosted by the United States at that site—between, respectively, Prime Minister Menachem Begin and President Anwar Sadat. While Barak’s ‘‘make or break’’ strategy faced larger challenges, there was hope in Israel and the United States that, presented with a historic opportunity, Yasser Arafat would follow in Sadat’s footsteps. However, such expectations were dashed when the summit ended in failure; indeed, the ‘‘moment of truth’’ offered to Arafat at the summit was extended a number of times, to no avail. CAMP DAVID II AS THE ANTITHESIS OF THE DOP: AIMING AT SPECIFICITY AND TERMINALITY

At a procedural level, Camp David II tried to recreate the original Oslo setting. To prevent unwieldy discussions and to minimize leaks, each side was allowed eight negotiators. The American team headed by Clinton was also trim. Only Arafat and Barak had outside telephone lines and the support staff for the delegations, located nearby, had limited and highly controlled access. But unlike in Oslo, the principals, Barak and Arafat, were not in direct contact, a strategy which the Americans felt was better suited to their frosty relations. The Palestinians’ team was riddled by rivalries that reflected the changing contours of PA’s politics. Abu Mazen and Abu Ala were now allied against the ‘‘young guard’’ of

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Mohammed Dahlan, Mahmud Rashid, and Hassan Asfour. The hard-liners, Yasser Abed Rabbo and Arafat’s public relations expert and editor of the Al Ayyam newspaper, Akram Hanieh, were in tune with Saeb Erekat, whom Ross accused of misinforming and ‘‘stoking up’’ Arafat during the negotiations. The Israeli delegation was much more cohesive, but it had a broader ideological span than the Oslo team; to the right of Barak were Dan Meridor and Eli Rubinstein and to his left was Shlomo Ben-Ami, a representative of the peace cabinet.1 Although the Americans tried to position themselves as honest brokers in the style of the Norwegians, the Palestinians considered them to be in cahoots with the Israelis. This view stemmed from a long-standing conviction in the Arab world that American foreign policy was controlled by the Jewish lobby working as an agent for the state of Israel. It was exacerbated by the fact that many on the American teams were Jewish; Dennis Ross was most frequently accused of harboring a strong pro-Israeli bias. According to Akram Hanieh, the State Department Peace Team wanted to build a world according to ‘‘the occasional papers some of them produced’’ working for the Israel lobby in Washington. Worse, in his view, Americans were committed to ‘‘Kissinger’s pledge’’ not to present to Palestinians anything without prior Israeli approval. As for the Clinton administration, Hanieh held that Washington exercised its role according to the ‘‘needs, requirements and concerns of the current Israeli government.’’ Ross, who was well aware of this attitude, did his best to dispel the notion that the American proposals were cleared in advance with Barak but had little success.2 Unlike Oslo, both the Americans and the Israelis came well prepared. In what was a first for any American administration, the Clinton team drafted a position paper on all the outstanding issues: territories, security, Jerusalem, and the refugees. The Israelis came with detailed plans and maps. The Palestinians, though, did little if any preparation, prompting Sher’s comment that the meeting reflected long-standing trends: the Israelis resembled ‘‘A’’ students who had done their homework, whereas the Palestinians were ‘‘always laying lifeless on a stretcher.’’3 Failure to prepare could have been Arafat’s way of demonstrating either that the Palestinians had been pushed into a premature summit or simply that they harbored a lackadaisical approach to negotiations. Collectively, these contrasting approaches immediately produced a negative dynamic at the summit. Ross’s preferred strategy of using the position paper as a framework for the negotiations was undermined when Barak demanded modifications and the Palestinians rejected it because they reflexively suspected Israeli pressure. The default strategy of asking each side to present its position directly worked even less well. When the Israelis offered a map of the territories, Abu Ala refused to consider it; the President ‘‘blew up,’’ shouting that this ‘‘was an outrageous approach’’ and stormed out. After the outburst that took place in front of the Israeli delegation, Ross suggested to Dahlan to produce a Palestinian counter-map or a blank map on which the Palestinians could draw their own

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borders, but he refused. Barak, who once told Albright that ‘‘Israel was constantly moving its position by jumping forward, [but] when Arafat jumped . . . he always ended at the same point,’’ wanted to turn Camp David into a ‘‘pressure cooker.’’ He hoped that under intense pressure and facing a ‘‘moment of truth,’’ the PA chief would finally ‘‘move.’’4 However, as the 14-day summit dragged on, the increasingly desperate Israelis offered the most far-reaching concessions in the history of the conflict with no perceptible movement from the Palestinians on the core issues of borders, Jerusalem, and refugees. Since 1993, the axiomatic assumption in Israel had been that the Palestinians would agree to accept less than a 100 percent of the West Bank. Determining the precise figure was to be relegated to final status negotiations but, over the years, it was incrementally discovered that the percentage of territory expected by the Palestinians to constitute their independent state had increased. Rabin envisioned returning some 70–80 percent and Barak’s opening gambit in Camp David was 85 percent; this figure was abandoned on the sixth day, when Ben-Ami and Sher offered 89.5 percent. Arafat rejected this concession, claiming that it was less than the 90 percent offered by Rabin, leading Clinton to another outburst in which he ‘‘threatened to go home’’ because the Palestinians did not negotiate seriously. After American prodding, Barak presented his ‘‘bottom line’’ of 90 percent, with 1 percent swap of Israeli territory. Although Dahlan and Rashid seemed to be prepared to accept a compromise on 4–5 percent with a swap, they were overruled by Arafat. On the last day of the summit, Abu Ala offered to let Israel annex 2 percent of the territory for the settlement blocs.5 Barak’s willingness to deviate from the traditional notion that a united Jerusalem should remain the capital of Israel represented a much larger compromise. The American position paper and further clarifications at Camp David refined the Palestinian claim to East Jerusalem in four categories: the outer neighborhoods (i.e., Beith Hanina, Shuafat, Kafar Aqab, and Kalandia), the inner neighborhoods (i.e., Sheik Jarrah and Wadi Jouz), the Old City, and the Holy Basin (Temple Mount/Haram al Sharif ). In the initial round of negotiations, the Israeli delegation, apparently reflecting the condominium option developed by the Jerusalem Institute, offered the Palestinians sovereignty in the outer neighborhoods and a functional autonomy in the inner neighborhoods administered from the proposed capital in Abu Dis. The status of the Old City and the Holy Basin was more problematic; after intense negotiations, the Americans proposed Palestinian sovereignty in the Muslim and Christian quarters of the Old City and guardianship on the Haram. Although the Israelis were clearly unhappy, Ross offered the Palestinians a sweetener: ‘‘special sovereignty’’ over Haram, with Israel gaining the identical status in the area of the Western Wall.6 The Israeli negotiators were not sure whether Barak would be able to accept this formula, but a resounding ‘‘no’’ from the Palestinians brought the discussion to an end. Indeed, Arafat took to claiming that the Palestinians could not cede

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full sovereignty over the Haram/Temple Mount because they were responsible for Jerusalem on behalf of the entire Muslim community. Hanieh quoted Arafat as saying, ‘‘If anyone imagines that I might sign away Jerusalem, he is mistaken. I am not only the leader of the Palestinian people, I am also the vice president of the Islamic Conference [Organization of the Islamic Conference, OIC] . . . [a]nd will not sell Jerusalem.’’7 Yossi Ginossar, who pleaded for more flexibility, was told by Arafat that Jews had no right to the Temple Mount because the ‘‘real’’ Temple was in Nablus. Without mentioning the alternative location, Erekat expressed his own doubts about the ‘‘imagined Temple’’ during a dinner conversation. On one occasion, an angry President Clinton hotly protested that the Holy Basin was also important to Jews and Christians. The new emphasis on the pan-Islamic importance of Jerusalem astonished both the Americans and the Israelis. They were left guessing whether this was a new tactic or a genuine consideration, especially since Arafat had told some interlocutors that he would be killed if he relinquished sovereignty over East Jerusalem. The sincerity of this claim was questioned by the members of the Israeli delegation and, in particular, by Barak, who had consistently suspected Arafat’s motives; nevertheless, Ginossar asserted that the Islamic angle should not be dismissed offhand. Ross wondered aloud to George Tenet (who had joined the summit on the 12th day) that he was not sure whether Arafat could not accept even a nominal Israeli sovereignty on the Haram or whether ‘‘he was simply holding out to see what more he can get.’’ Ross asked Tenet, who was close to Arafat, to sound him out. Whatever Arafat’s true intention, Sher quickly recognized the damage, writing that ‘‘The Palestinians put themselves in the position of protecting Jerusalem on behalf of the entire Muslim world, in essence compromising their interests.’’ In a last-minute attempt, Clinton tried to enlist the heads of the Arab states to persuade Arafat on Jerusalem, but only King Abdullah and President Ben Ali of Tunisia were willing to help ‘‘move Arafat’’ on such a short notice.8 Overshadowed by Jerusalem, which was recognized as a ‘‘deal breaker,’’ the refugee issue received only limited attention. The position paper took the somewhat vague stand that Palestinian ‘‘symbolic needs’’ should be reconciled with Israel’s ‘‘practical needs.’’ In other words, refugees would have the right to be repatriated to a future Palestinian state, or to a third state, but Israel would retain the sovereign right to ‘‘determine who would be repatriated to Israel.’’ Although the Americans did not anticipate major problems with the right to return, they were apparently not aware of the high-pitched refugee advocacy that had developed in the run-up to Camp David. Assad Abd a-Rahman, whose paper laid out a maximalist position, resigned and Tanzim activists took up the refugee cause. Aman, having tracked the refugee discourse in the PA, was pessimistic but, with the expectation of Meridor and Rubinstein, the Israeli negotiators shared the more optimistic American view. Clinton was reported to be stunned

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when the Palestinians mentioned that some 400,000 Palestinians should have an outright right to return to Israel. On the last day of the summit, Ross raised the possibility of allowing the refugees ‘‘the right to apply to go to Israel as one of their choices, provided it was understood that only Israel had the right to decide who could be admitted,’’ but the formula failed to satisfy both sides.9 While only tangential to the main debate, the refugee issue signified the type of profound perceptual differences unmasked during the summit. Robert Malley, one of the two note-takers at Camp David, observed that Palestinians viewed Israel’s acceptance of the principle of return as a logical extension of their historical rights. For Israel, on the other hand, such phrasing was ‘‘threateningly vague’’; were such a demand accepted, the absence of a ‘‘logical break point’’ for the number of refugees eligible for repatriation to Israel would constitute a dangerous ‘‘legal loophole.’’ Yossi Beilin noted that the Palestinians seemed to be genuinely puzzled as to why Israel would not allow the refugees back. His interlocutors kept stressing that, in spite of being a tiny minority, the Jews in the United States had tremendous influence, the implication being that Jews would still retain power in a mixed Palestinian-Jewish Israel.10 Whether born of political naı¨vete´ or of a sophisticated understanding of the PA’s political reality, Arafat’s uncompromising stand at Camp David lifted his political fortunes. Hanieh wrote that the Pakistani cab driver who transported some of the negotiators to the airport told them, ‘‘You were excellent, Jerusalem is ours; we should not give up any part of it.’’ In Hanieh’s view, Palestinian defiance in Camp David went beyond Jerusalem. ‘‘They had stated a clear No to the United States on U.S. territory. It was a No that was politically, nationally and historically correct and necessary to put the peace process on the right track.’’ Indeed, Arafat returned to a tumultuous reception in Gaza, not unlike the one in 1994. Hannan Ashrawi and Marwan Barghouti were among those who congratulated him on not giving in. Nabil Shaath observed that Arafat ‘‘rode home on a white horse’’ because he showed the Palestinians that he ‘‘still cared about Jerusalem and the refugees.’’11 The very intransigence which won Arafat points at home angered President Clinton, whose investment in the peace process had been unsurpassed. Throughout the summit, the President had emphasized that the Palestinians, who had missed every opportunity to create a state since 1948, should seize upon this unprecedented opening. Upon his return from his short trip to Japan, Clinton was said to have pled with Arafat to live up to the moment; when the summit failed, the President blamed Arafat, whom he once called ‘‘the skunk in the party.’’ In his memoir, Clinton noted that ‘‘Arafat’s rejection of my proposal after Barak accepted it was an error of historical proportion.’’ According to the President, Arafat’s reluctance was psychological; he noted that during the summit, ‘‘Arafat was confused, not wholly in command of the facts . . . not on top of his game,’’ and worse, he could not make the necessary compromise of

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accepting less than 100 percent of the territory and giving up on the right to return. Clinton revealed that both King Abdullah and the Tunisian president had warned him that Arafat was too frightened to make momentous decisions. Secretary Albright shared this opinion, writing that Arafat showed ‘‘no sign of compromise, and no sign that his vision extended to anything more forwardlooking than victory over Israel.’’ She added that, in addition to showing ‘‘stubbornness’’ and ‘‘flatly rejecting the deal,’’ Arafat offered the usual excuse that he had no authority to compromise over Jerusalem, and worse, ‘‘he fed us the lies’’ that ‘‘Jews have no claim on Jerusalem.’’ Even Ross’s deputy Aaron David Miller, who was critical of the alleged pro-Israeli bias of Clinton, wrote that Arafat did not come to summit to ‘‘negotiate in any meaningful sense of the word.’’ Condemnation of Arafat went hand-in-hand with praise for Barak. The President went beyond an agreed-upon statement to single out Barak’s willingness to achieve peace. Albright spoke for many in the administration when she wrote that ‘‘it was impossible not to admire Barak. I personally found him to be a remarkable person, with courageous ideas . . . a dedication for peace.’’12 Still, not all Israeli and American observers were ready to accept this assessment. Hard-core peace activists argued that a different strategy could have produced better results. Beilin felt that the Beilin-Abu Mazen document would have served as a better basis for the negotiations; he claimed that Barak ‘‘erred in his objection’’ to using Beilin-Abu Mazen. Uri Pundak and Shaul Arieli pointed out that the Palestinians could not accept anything less than 100 percent because they expected to be treated like the Egyptians and Syrians had been. They quoted Asfour as telling the Israeli delegation that ‘‘you are killing our honor.’’ Pundak and Arieli were behind the so-called ‘‘chemistry theory,’’ namely that the aloof Barak ‘‘humiliated’’ his Palestinian counterpart. Israeli journalistscum-peace-activists spread the humiliation thesis further afield. In a characteristic article, Gideon Levy from Haaretz related that Arafat told him that he was humiliated because Barak did not speak to him for 10 days.13 Rob Malley and Hussein Agha went further in their revisionist interpretation of Camp David. They reiterated the argument that the Palestinians wanted to be treated like the Egyptians or the Hezbollah but also suggested that the Israelis’ confusing negotiating strategy had a highly adverse impact on the summit. In this view, by presenting early on their positions as ‘‘bottom line,’’ the Israelis ‘‘provoked Palestinian mistrust; by subsequently shifting them, they whetted their appetites.’’14 Indeed, some analysts seemed to agree with the latter observation, noting that Barak’s increasing willingness to compromise made him resemble a ‘‘lemon’’ to be squeezed further. One observer wrote that Arafat emerged with the feeling that he ‘‘won Camp David,’’ and that there would be better offers after the presidential election in November. Another added that ‘‘Barak’s urgency’’ signaled to a ‘‘weak and wily Arafat that he could get more from the Israelis simply by holding

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out for more.’’ Much as Ross suspected that Arafat was not capable ‘‘of doing a deal to end the conflict’’ as a professional diplomat, he could not rule out the assumption that Camp David had represented a ‘‘typical set of moves by Arafat to improve the terms of what he can get.’’ With time running out on the Clinton presidency and with the Barak coalition disintegrating, both sides in the debate were keenly focused on the post-summit developments.15 THE PRELUDE TO THE INTIFADA: DIPLOMACY AND ARMED STRUGGLE IN THE BALANCE

Publicly, there was little to indicate that Arafat regretted the failure of Camp David II. The PA chief went on a tour of Arab countries where he was received as a hero. Ross commented bitterly that Arafat reverted to his old role as a ‘‘symbol of defiance,’’ nourishing anew the idea that ‘‘Palestinians should not surrender their rights.’’ Ben-Ami was equally bitter, writing that Arafat was received as a hero and his ‘‘ideological mouthpiece’’ Akram Hanieh was fanning the flames in the Al Ayyam. The Israelis learned from their sources that, away from the cameras, Arafat tried to present the summit in the worst possible way to the Arab leaders. Rashid, Dahlan, and Erekat, however, informed Ross that Arafat was interested in further negotiations. On August 9, the chairman sent a letter to the President asking for American help, but Ross speculated that the initiative might actually have been pushed by his aides.16 On the Israeli side, Camp David II strengthened the anti-Oslo sentiment, prompting Barak to defend his decision, a theme that he developed in a speech to the nation. Bereft of a parliamentary majority, the Prime Minister considered a national unity government with Likud’s Ariel Sharon. Some Labor party hawks as well as the Centre party ministers supported such a move. Protest against far-reaching compromise came from some unexpected quarters; Leah Rabin wrote a letter claiming that her late husband would never have ceded Israeli control over the Temple Mount. Ultimately, the effort of the peace advocates that had dominated the discourse through most of the 1990s to prove Arafat was a serious partner suffered a major reversal. Ben-Ami admitted that when President Clinton blamed Arafat for summit failure, it was a blow to the Israeli peace movement, for it had considered the PA chief to be its ‘‘main asset.’’ New intelligence reports fed suspicion about Palestinian intentions. On July 25, Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz told a Knesset committee that the PA authorities had been smuggling weapons into the Gaza Strip in preparation for an armed struggle.17 Well aware that creating national unity cabinet or calling an early election would destroy the peace process, the peace cabinet intensified its own effort to sway Barak, who conceded that further negotiations could dissuade Arafat from proclaiming independence on September 13. Ross, who was concerned that Arafat would try to profit from the ‘‘sense of desperation’’ of the peace cabinet,

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counseled against haste. He need not have worried. Sher and Yisrael Hasson, the deputy head of the Shin Bet who had a good rapport with the Palestinians, met with Dahlan and Erekat almost daily throughout August and September. The talks produced little progress on Jerusalem and bogged down over security issues that had been already resolved during Camp David II. Both sides urged the Americans, as the official record-keepers, to step in. Ordered back by the President, the somewhat reluctant Ross arrived in Israel on August 19. If the administration hoped for a new start, Arafat’s actions were bound to be discouraging. Acting upon his request, the OIC met in Agadir, Morocco at the end of August and strongly supported the Palestinian position on Jerusalem. Buoyed by the representatives of 19 Muslim countries, the chairman reiterated that Palestinian sovereignty in East Jerusalem was nonnegotiable, adding that ‘‘This is a red line which cannot be crossed.’’ Summing up the obvious, Ben-Ami noted that the Agadir conference ‘‘did not make things easy.’’ Ben-Ami also disclosed that he had talked to the Norwegians—who agreed that the Europeans tended to ‘‘cosset Arafat,’’ and that he needed to be pressured to help him ‘‘to climb down from the high tree he had climbed up’’—but that nothing had been done.18 As before, it was up to the Clinton team to try to help Arafat to ‘‘climb down.’’ Ross, now fully engaged in mediation, enlisted the Egyptians who, in a first after the Cairo debacle, showed a serious interest. Although the Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa reiterated that the Haram was a real ‘‘sticking point’’ for Arafat, he provided new options for solving the impasse. Indeed, Moussa gave Ross a paper based on a discussion that President Mubarak, his National Security Adviser, Osama al Baz, the chief of intelligence Omar Suleiman, and himself had held with Israeli visitors and the Palestinians. Ross noticed that the Egyptian paper approximated the stand of Palestinians who had ‘‘pocketed’’ the most advanced positions of Camp David such as a withdraw from 94 percent of the territory and a swap; still Ross hoped that this was an opening position for future negotiations. However, the Egyptian involvement, including a visit with President Mubarak on August 21, did little to budge Arafat. In fact, during a subsequent meeting with Ross and the State Department interpreter, Gamal Helal, Arafat repeated that the Temple was located in Nablus. When Helal protested, Arafat and the interpreter embarked on heated debate; at one point, Arafat stated that he was an expert ‘‘on all religions, especially Judaism’’ and that the Temple did not exist in Jerusalem. After 10 minutes of ‘‘increasing invective,’’ Ross intervened, telling the chairman that Clinton believed that the Temple was in Jerusalem and would ‘‘never take Arafat seriously’’ if he denied it existed at that site.19 Theology aside, Ross planned to get the sides together during the Millennium Summit of the United Nations General Assembly in early September 2000. Knowing Arafat’s fondness for the international stage, Ross hoped that the forum would inspire the PA chief to pursue the peace process. To sweeten the

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Palestinian deal, Ross envisioned offering more concessions on territory and the refugees, but he felt that the OIC position on the Haram/Temple Mount was not acceptable. Ross recruited Tenet to convey the same message to Arafat, but President Clinton chose to bypass the issue when he met the PA chief. As a matter of fact, to negotiate the thorny issue of sovereignty in Jerusalem, the Americans developed a new formula whereby neither side would claim sovereignty over the entire Holy Basin. Much to Ross’s surprise, the Palestinians, who had been happy to accept this formula during Camp David II, now stiffened their position. Ross commented that ‘‘this was another classic case of the parties being out of sync.’’ When the Israelis came to see the value of no sovereignty for the Temple Mount, ‘‘the Palestinians were no longer willing to accept this.’’20 Although Ross reported that Ben-Ami and Sher were ‘‘intrigued’’ by the new proposals, the view in Jerusalem was quite different. Ben-Ami reported that, during the United Nations Summit, in a reverse of the usual pro-Palestinian atmosphere, the Israeli delegation was ‘‘basking in glory.’’ Barak, who met with some 50 heads of state, asked them to pressure Arafat. While the Prime Minister was said to be ‘‘euphoric’’ because of his hero’s reception, a rare happening for an Israeli politician in the United Nations, Arafat apparently felt snubbed; he refused to meet Barak, who followed him into the elevator to shake hands. Ben-Ami speculated that the chairman, sidelined on his own turf, probably decided to resort to violence. Indeed, during September, a number of meetings in the Defense Ministry and the National Security Council discussed the potential for violence. Barak was also reported to be worried about the Israeli Arabs, questioning the readiness of Israeli police for large-scale rioting.21 Fearing the unraveling of Oslo, the peace cabinet sought ways to stimulate the process. In a move designed to demonstrate Oslo’s viability, Beilin leaked the Beilin-Abu Mazen document to Newsweek, which published it on September 16. The leak could not have come at a worse time for Abu Mazen, who was under attack by Barghouti and other radical elements in Fatah. He denied ever having agreed to the document and let it be known that he had lost trust in Beilin. In turn, Abu Mazen’s noisy protestations undermined the credibility of Beilin and his colleagues. A credibility deficit was accumulating on account of Arafat as well. Ben-Ami observed that ‘‘Oslo people’’ raised doubts about the peace process when, on the one hand, they insisted that Arafat was the only able to close the deal and, on the other hand, accused critics of the chairman of an ‘‘obsession with Arafat.’’22 With few options remaining, Ben-Ami took to prodding the Americans to accelerate their attempts to fashion a package deal, a request supported by some of the Palestinian negotiators. In the third week of September, Sher, on behalf of himself and Erekat, called Ross to ask for a meeting in Washington. Around the same time, on September 20, Daniel Abraham and Wayne Owens arrived in Israel to pursue their own mediation. They met separately with Barak

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and Arafat to press for a joint meeting between the two leaders. The Slim-Fast mogul hoped that such a meeting would generate a new momentum, but his discussion with Arafat was not encouraging. The chairman told Abraham that he could not compromise on the Haram and the right to return because his people would ‘‘kill him,’’ prompting the latter to wonder whether this was ‘‘rhetoric or real fear.’’ The normally optimistic Abraham noted that ‘‘he was picking up a new threat’’ in the way in which the Palestinian leadership was defining the issue of Jerusalem. Still, he pressed for the meeting, a first since Camp David II. Unwilling to upset a major donor, Barak agreed to host Arafat in his home at Kochav Yair on September 25. According to Ben-Ami, who attended along with Sher, Lipkin-Shahak, Danny Yatom, and Yisrael Hasson, Abraham was very happy when, during a prearranged phone call from the White House, Barak told Clinton that ‘‘I will be a better partner with the Chairman than even Rabin.’’ Erekat sounded equally upbeat in a report to Ross.23 On September 26, Ben-Ami and Sher—as well as Erekat and Dahlan and Hanieh—arrived in Washington for three days of talks. Although there was no breakthrough, Ross felt that progress had been made. He also implied that the President was contemplating convening another summit on October 2. On September 28, Dahlan called Tenet to let him know that ‘‘There would be an agreement.’’ Given that Ariel Sharon was scheduled to visit Temple Mount on the same day, this was especially encouraging. Indeed, a day before, Erekat, at Arafat’s behest, had asked the Americans to intervene with the Israelis to stop the visit. Ross felt that an American intrusion would be detrimental, but he asked Ben-Ami (in his capacity as the Minister of Internal Security) to bloc Sharon on security grounds, a practice used in the past to prevent potential trouble in the highly combustible Haram. Ben-Ami claimed that he could not cancel the visit because Israeli intelligence did not anticipate problems. After an exchange with Jibril Rajoub, the head of Preventive Security in the West Bank, who advised barring the Likud leader from entering the mosques, Ben-Ami approved the modified visit. Rajoub, who was also in touch with Israeli intelligence, was confident that such a visit would be safe. In Jerusalem, Peres petitioned Barak, who argued that barring Sharon from the Haram would feed suspicions that the government was ready to give up sovereignty on the Temple Mount.24 Abraham, fresh from his Kochav Yair success, was uncharacteristically troubled by the planned visit. On September 26, he met with Abu Ala to suggest that, in order to confound Oslo opponents, the Palestinians should actually welcome Sharon. Abraham confessed that he was ‘‘puzzled’’ when Abu Ala responded that it is ‘‘too late.’’ Recalling the conversation some time later, Abraham allowed that there was ‘‘some reason to believe’’ that the protest had been organized ‘‘ahead of time.’’ Such a possibility could not be ruled out given Arafat’s penchant for ‘‘escaping forward’’ which, as noted, meant manufacturing a new crisis to deal with some current difficulty. Indeed, Ben-Ami revealed that, during Camp

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David, Erekat told him ‘‘out of the blue’’ that Arafat may want to create a crisis in the wake of a failed summit.25 While Erekat’s confession might have been a negotiating ploy, some signs on the ground were highly troubling. The Islamists, bolstered by Hezbollah, decried the visit as a defilement of the Haram. The Voice of Palestine radio in Ramallah quoted the speaker of the PA parliament as claiming that Sharon’s visit ‘‘defiles the Haram,’’ and the Ministry of Information under Imad Falouji called upon the citizens to defend the mosques should Sharon and ‘‘his gang’’ try to defile it. Not to be outgunned, Fatah distributed leaflets urging the visit be blocked. Sakhr Habash—the head of Fatah ideological and educational department— and Falouji later asserted the Intifada had been planned, although the latter subsequently denied having made such a comment.26 Repeating the Nakba episode, on September 28, Dani Yatom called Ross to warn that the Palestinians were planning massive violence the next day, ‘‘ostensibly to respond to Sharon’s visit.’’ Yatom emphasized that such action would destroy any chance for conducting the deal, as the Prime Minister could not negotiate under pressure. Secretary Albright called Arafat to ask for his intervention, but hope was dashed that any new violence could be either prevented or put down after a few days when the protest turned into a full-fledged Intifada.27 THE AL AQSA INTIFADA: DIPLOMACY BY OTHER MEANS?

During the first days of the disturbance, many in Israel hoped that, as in the past, the riots would die down. Indeed, on the day that the Intifada started, the Mossad chief was reported to be away on legal business.28 However, by midOctober it became clear that the violence was escalating, in both scope and intensity. A number of dynamics fueled anger on both sides. After the commander of the Jerusalem police was knocked unconscious by one of the large boulders heaved by the Palestinians on Jewish worshipers at the Western Wall, the officers responded with live fire, killing five protesters. The rumors that Israel committed a ‘‘massacre’’ on the Haram provoked more violence in the territories, including an exchange of fire at the Netzarim junction in Gaza, where a 12-year-old boy, Mohammed al Dura, caught in a cross fire, died in his father’s arms. Although a number of subsequent investigations and reenactments concluded that the boy had died from a Palestinian bullet, the constantly replayed televised image became emblematic of what was soon dubbed the Al Aqsa Intifada. The lynching of two IDF reservists, who had taken a wrong turn near Ramallah and had been arrested by the local police, created an equally emblematic moment for the Israelis; to the cheers of a large mob, the killers threw the mutilated bodies out of a window and held up their bloody hands. The Israeli public experienced deep revulsion when a television crew captured the image of such wanton blood lust, in contrast with al Dura’s accidental shooting. The perception of Palestinian

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savagery was compounded by the attack on Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus where, after the withdrawal of the IDF contingent, rioters desecrated the synagogue and burned the holy texts and scrolls. For the already embattled Barak government, the Al Aqsa Intifada presented a number of grave obstacles. Public opinion polls indicated an almost total loss of faith in the Oslo process and there was a growing demand for a national unity government. The peace cabinet, however, overruled this suggestion, for the Left blamed Sharon for having triggered the violence. Instead, Ben-Ami and Beilin offered to negotiate with Shas, a short-term ‘‘security net’’; according to the arrangement, the party was to abstain from participating in a vote of no confidence against the coalition. Meanwhile, Barak’s efforts to contain the growing Intifada and to restart the peace process were complicated by deep divisions within his own government. In line with his long-standing assessment, Amos Gilad argued that Arafat seized upon Sharon’s visit to foment unrest as a way of redeeming his tarnished image and eliciting more concessions from Israel. As noted, Gilad’s views were shared by Mofaz and Moshe Yaalon, his new deputy chief of staff. Shin Bet seemed to be on the same page; on October 15, it handed Barak a report which stated that Arafat had become a danger to national security. Some in the intelligence/ security establishment went even further; Lt. Colonel Yehontan Dahoah Halevy, an intelligence analyst with Central Command, argued that Arafat, after taking a tactical detour through Oslo, was returning to the idea of armed struggle. He rejected the view that the violence was a short-term diversion and predicted a long struggle. Significantly, Dahoah Halevy, who articulated his arguments in an essay titled ‘‘The Other Way,’’ received the 2001 IDF Chief of Staff Prize for strategic writing. Taking an opposite position were Amos Malka and Ephraim Lavie, who claimed that the Intifada was a spontaneous event precipitated by frustration with the peace process. This view was shared by Peres, Ben-Ami, and other peace ministers who pushed for negotiations with Arafat. Caught in another round of the ‘‘Jewish wars,’’ Barak’s government developed somewhat of a split personality. As one journalist recalled, he was invited to two meetings in the Prime Minister’s Office. In one, presided over by Danny Yatom, the participants were told that ‘‘Arafat chose terror’’; in the other, headed by Sher, the message was that ‘‘Arafat was still a peace partner.’’29 The question of how to deal with the Intifada was even more polarizing. As noted, senior military commanders believed that, after years of restraint, the IDF had lost its deterrent posture. Thus, determined to crush the violence, the IDF responded with tanks, helicopter, and other heavy weapons, causing significant casualties among the Palestinians. Indeed, in the first month of the Intifada, 141 Palestinians were killed, compared with 11 Israelis. In an effort to minimize attacks on civilians and soldiers alike, the army imposed checkpoints and other security measures in the territories, virtually paralyzing travel therein.30

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The IDF tactics outraged the peace cabinet, which pressured Barak to contain the military. Lipkin-Shahak who was in charge of arutz hargaa, a mechanism established by the cabinet to restore calm, complained that the IDF frequently ignored his requests to ease travel, remove checkpoints, or lift the siege off the coast of Gaza. Sher would later accuse the IDF of ‘‘deviation from the democratic procedures and government hierarchy.’’ He wrote that ‘‘assessment and analysis by the intelligence community found their way to the public before even being presented to the government’’ and noted that, ‘‘on several occasions,’’ the military ignored the cabinet’s decisions to pull tanks or to open fishing areas in Gaza. For their part, Mofaz and Yaalon were critical of ongoing negotiations with the Palestinians which, in their opinion, destroyed the chance of putting down the Intifada. They also pointed out that every time security measures were relaxed, terrorist activities resumed, costing more Israeli lives that, in turn, necessitated a strong military response.31 To break this cycle of violence, Ben-Ami, after consulting with a number of European leaders and Ross, suggested a meeting between Barak and Arafat that took place on October 4 at the American embassy in Paris. By choosing Paris, Ben-Ami hoped to involve the French, who had good relations with Arafat, in negotiating a cease-fire. However, the meeting, dubbed by an Israeli journalist as ‘‘The Last Tango in Paris,’’ backfired badly. Arafat, in a quest to internationalize the conflict, pressed for a commission of inquiry to probe Israel’s use of force and the stationing of foreign observers. His personal behavior was problematic. When asked by Barak to curb Barghouti’s Tanzim, Arafat denied knowing who Barghouti was; the scene was so surreal that his aides broke out in laughter. At another point, Arafat abruptly announced that the meeting was over and left, prompting Albright to chase after his car. Cajoled back by the Secretary, he finally agreed on a cease-fire and the compromise proposal of an American factfinding mission. However, upon returning from a dinner with President Jacque Chirac, Arafat, encouraged by Chirac, refused to sign the document. He reverted to his original idea of an international tribunal, greatly upsetting the Americans and the Israelis. Tenet, who tried to calm the atmosphere, noted that Arafat wanted a ‘‘show trial with a stacked jury that Israel would never agree to.’’32 With the situation on the ground escalating, the Egyptians, who feared the destabilizing impact of the Intifada, volunteered to host another mediation effort in Sharm el Sheik on October 16–17. The Egyptian chief of intelligence, Omar Suleiman, and the CIA director worked out the security arrangement for a new cease-fire but, once again, Arafat’s performance was unnerving, including toward his hosts. Tenet recalled that during one of his talks with Arafat, President Mubarak, seated outside of Arafat’s field of vision, used a universal gesture to indicate that Arafat ‘‘was nuts’’ and ‘‘dissolved in laughter over his little gig.’’ Despite concurrence regarding a new cease-fire agreement, the conference— also attended by the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and

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King Abdullah of Jordan—was a failure. Ross reported that Palestinian violence continued unabated, despite Israeli compliance with the cease-fire provisions. After calling Rajoub and Dahlan, the Americans were told that Arafat would implement the Sharm agreement after the Arab League summit on October 21–22. Ross was less optimistic, noting that the Intifada gave Arafat a new standing in the Arab world: after having being ignored and snubbed for years by the Arab leaders, they were compelled to respond favorably to him in order to assuage the anger in the ‘‘street.’’ Indeed, the Arab summit ended with a highly hostile anti-Israel message prompting Barak to condemn the ‘‘language of threat’’ and announce a ‘‘time-out’’ from negotiations.33 Barak’s announcement, taken without consulting his colleagues, indicated a deepening debate in the government with regard to relations with Arafat and the PA. Arafat’s role in the Intifada was a subject of intense scrutiny. The shifting power equation in the already confusing negotiated political order in the PA was a major hindrance in intelligence analysis, especially as Rajoub, considered to be a supporter of the negotiated solution, seemed to be losing power to his rival, Toufik Tirawi, the head of the General Security Service in the West Bank. Rajoub, who later denied that Ben-Ami had called him to ask for quiet, was said to have failed to stop the Tirawi people from firing from the Jericho casino and other locations. Arafat’s relations with Barghouti’s Tanzim were equally difficult to decipher. Although it was known that Arafat met with Barghouti after the start of the Intifada, Israeli intelligence was not clear whether the chairman ordered the Tanzim into action or simply joined in. Those inclined to accept the latter version found Barghouti’s comment that the Sharm al Sheik accord had ‘‘failed to read the genuine message of the Intifada’’ telling. As one observer put it, Barghouti used the first days of the Intifada to solidify his position as the ‘‘king of the street.’’34 The creation of the Al Aqsa Brigades in October further muddied the intelligence waters. Like Barghouti, Nasser Awais, one of the senior Fatah leaders and a cofounder of the Brigades, was persuaded that terror against Israel should replace negotiations. Hussein Al Sheik, the secretary of Fatah in the West Bank, explained that the Brigades, which developed their own suicide squads, were needed to compete with the Jihadists. Initially, Arafat reportedly tried to limit terrorist activity to the territories but was overruled by his former chieftains or local commanders or both. The shooting from Beit Jala toward the adjacent Jewish neighborhood of Gilo was illustrative of such anarchy. With the Bedouin from the Tamra tribe and criminal gangs joining Fatah and Tanzim fighters, the local Fatah commander loyal to Arafat complained that he could not stop the shooting. Though attacks from Beit Jala were eventually stopped, questions persisted about who was in charge where. Asked in an interview whether Arafat could stop the violence, Barghouti responded, ‘‘No one man started the Intifada and no one man can stop it.’’ When officers from Dahlan’s PSS murdered an

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Israeli in the Gaza Strip, Israeli intelligence could not ascertain who had authorized the killing. Documents subsequently seized in the PA headquarters in Ramallah indicated that Arafat authorized payments to the Al Aqsa Brigades but did not resolve the question of who was in charge of the operations.35 Whether Arafat actually initiated the Intifada or jumped onto the bandwagon, it was painfully clear that he did little to limit those who were spreading the violence. In the words of Arafat biographers, ‘‘Indifferent to the casualties and material damage, Arafat had returned to his classic conception of victory through violence.’’ Ross commented that Arafat ‘‘rode the emotional waves of the violence’’ to reclaim his image as a victim and to divert attention from his corrupt rule. Somewhat surprisingly, Beilin would later confirm this observation, adding that Arafat not only refused to calm the population but also encouraged violence to justify his refusal to negotiate. Such tactics, however, came at a price. A new CIA intelligence report concluded that the inveterate master manipulator had lost control of the Intifada. Tenet shared this estimate with the American team; concurring, Ross noted that the ‘‘different forces—the Fatah activists, elements of security forces, and Hamas—seemed to regard the Intifada as an opportunity to gain power for themselves.’’36 Among those in the government who concurred with Gilad’s assessment or accepted the more nuanced view of the CIA, there was a determination to break off the negotiations and invite Likud into a national unity government. Barak, who told Tenet in Paris that Arafat could stop the Intifada with ‘‘two phone calls,’’ was now siding with the Arafat doubters. Early in October, the Prime Minister ordered the Peace Administration and the IDF Planning Branch to accelerate work on the separation plan which, as indicated, was part of a budding strategy of a unilateral withdrawal. Barak was also increasingly contemplating an alliance with Sharon. However, for the peace advocates, dislike of Sharon was very personal, dating back to the Lebanon War. Beilin once described the Likud leader as ‘‘the ugly Israeli . . . all that is wicked in our society, with his cynicism and the unnecessary war he brought us into.’’ To create more pressure on Barak, Peres allegedly concocted a scheme to have Leah Rabin, dying of cancer, write a letter expressing her anger that the Intifada had undermined the legacy of her husband and urging negotiations. The peace cabinet, the members of which also opposed the separation plan, argued that Arafat was still interested in a peace deal.37 Under pressure from what was his only constituency, Barak abandoned contacts with Likud, which, in any event, was increasingly confident that it could do better in a general election. After tortuous negotiations, Beilin and LipkinShahak secured Shas’s promise to provide a month-long ‘‘safety net’’ in exchange for 20 million shekels. Well aware that a Likud victory would terminate Oslo, the peace cabinet was increasingly desperate to achieve a breakthrough. Transcending politics, this was a highly personal quest to vindicate not only the Oslo peace but the vision of a New Middle East. The much more skeptical Barak reasoned at this

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point that negotiations could, perhaps, help to dampen the violence. Indeed, during much of November, the Israelis urged Arafat, directly and through intermediaries, to appeal publicly for calm. On November 1, Peres reported that Arafat had agreed to address the Palestinians but, the next day, a car exploded in Jerusalem killing, among others, the daughter of NRP’s Yitzhak Levy. On November 18, Ben-Ami asked Arafat to generate some CBM but, the next day, an attack in Gush Katif killed a number of settlers; three children of one family lost parts of their legs in the same attack.38 The decision to continue with the talks enhanced intra-governmental tension. The military chiefs argued that Israel’s self-restraint and the one-sided cease-fires were eroding the IDF’s ability to fight the Intifada, a point made during a November 8 cabinet meeting at which the peace negotiators delivered a report. Ironically, Ross supported the IDF view that Barak could have stopped the violence by refusing to negotiate but ‘‘came under pressure from his cabinet, dominated by the Left.’’ For their part, the peace ministers were upset with the IDF’s security measures and with public proclamations of Mofaz and Yaalon which they considered to be disrespectful of Arafat.39 The division in the intelligence branch had intensified as well. When Barak ordered Aman to produce a White Paper on Arafat’s violation of the Oslo Accords, Ephraim Lavie refused. Gilad ordered another analyst to write the report that was published on November 20. The White Paper titled ‘‘Palestinian Authority and PLO Non-Compliance—A Record of Bad Faith’’ concluded that ‘‘The present wave of violence—led by Fatah Tanzim—is essentially an attempt by Arafat to achieve, through violence, his maximal goal; and [to] avoid the choice necessary to bring the negotiations to a successful conclusion.’’ In another sign of disarray in the government, the Foreign Ministry, under Ben-Ami, refused to distribute the document; Barak’s aides handed out copies on their trips to the United States, but the dossier did not achieve a wide circulation.40 Ross, who had developed his own doubts about Arafat’s willingness or ability to pursue the peace process, tried to talk Clinton out of meeting with the PA chief in the White House on November 9. He was overruled by the President who, like the Israeli peace advocates, was desperate to bring an end to the historical conflict. In the view of many observers, the President, seared by the Lewinsky scandal, was most eager to establish his own legacy and even win the Nobel Price for Peace.41 In a new strategy, informed by the Camp David failure, Clinton decided to summarize his own ‘‘understanding’’ of the core issues. On territory, the President offered a ‘‘mid-90’’ position. On East Jerusalem, the principle was ‘‘what was Arab would be Palestinian and what was Jewish would be Israeli.’’ On the Haram/Temple Mount, each side would have control of ‘‘what was holy to them,’’ with no one claiming sovereignty. On refugees, there would be right to return to Israel. However, during the White House meeting, Arafat was his usual

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ambiguous self. After reluctantly conceding that the points were acceptable, he produced a Haaretz article that claimed that many of the Russian immigrants were not Jewish and asked why, if the Israelis had admitted the Russians, they could not also admit the Palestinians. As Ross noted, this was Arafat’s standard way of arguing the right to return case.42 To prevent Arafat from claiming that the Muslim world would not allow him to compromise on the Haram, the administration enlisted the help of Saudi Arabia and other Arab states. Key to this effort was Prince Bandar, the longtime Saudi ambassador to Washington and a confidant of the Saudi royal family. Although the Prince had doubts about Arafat’s ability to strike a deal, he offered to try. Ross figured that, should the negotiations at the Bolling Air base scheduled for December 19 produce a deal, it would be imperative to have the ‘‘Saudis to back it unequivocally.’’43 On the surface, the meeting looked promising. Before the start, Sher told Ross that Barak’s bottom line on territory was 7 percent, but Ben-Ami took it upon himself to lower this figure to 5 percent. Yet, despite this gesture and the substantial concessions on Jerusalem, the talks quickly bogged down. When both sides appealed to the Americans to break the logjam, the administration responded with its final proposal. On December 23, the President presented what became known as the Clinton Parameters to both of the delegations in the White House. In a nutshell, the President envisioned a 4–6 percent annexation of the West Bank to accommodate some 80 percent of the settlers in the three settlement blocs, and a swap of 1–3 percent of the land. On security, an international monitor force was gradually expected to replace the IDF in the Jordan Valley, but Israel would be permitted to have three early warning stations and could deploy to the Jordan River in case of emergency. On Jerusalem, the President adopted the principle of Jewish sovereignty over Jewish neighborhoods and Palestinian sovereignty over Arab ones with contiguity for both areas. The Old City would be similarly dealt with. On the Haram/Mount Temple, two alternatives were offered. One option was Palestinian sovereignty over the Haram and Israeli sovereignty over the Western Wall and ‘‘the space sacred to Judaism of which it is a part’’ or the Western Wall and ‘‘the holy of holies of which it is a part.’’ The other option provided for Palestinian sovereignty over the Haram, Israeli over the Western Wall, and ‘‘shared functional sovereignty over excavations under the Haram or behind the Western Wall.’’ On refugees, the Parameters made it clear that, while ‘‘not negating the aspiration of the Palestinian people to return to the area,’’ there would be no specific right of return to Israel. In practical terms, the refugees were offered a number of resettlement options, including the Palestinian state, other Arab states, or relocation to a third country. Refugees residing in Lebanon would be given priority in relocation. Together with compensations, these arrangements would fulfill the requirements of the UN General Assembly Resolution 194.

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The Parameters noted that the agreement would clearly mark the end of the conflict and its implementation would put an end to all claims. This could be implemented through a UN Security Council Resolution ‘‘that notes that resolutions 243 and 338 have been implemented and through the final release of Palestinian prisoners.’’ To avoid further haggling, the President stipulated that negotiations could place within the parameters, but not on the parameters themselves. Both sides had five days to respond either with a ‘‘yes’’ or a ‘‘no’’; failure to respond would count as a ‘‘no.’’44 Clinton’s plan created an outcry among the Israelis who felt that a minority government does not have the legitimacy to make an agreement. There was also dissension in the government, with Mofaz and Yaalon strongly objecting to the security-oriented parts of the deal. On behalf of Shin Bet, Dichter voiced his concerns as well. Mofaz send a long letter to Barak detailing the PA’s noncompliance with previous agreements, which was leaked to the press. Some observers pointed out that the Parameters demonstrated that violence paid off, for Palestinians made considerable gains—both on territory and on Jerusalem—in comparison to Camp David II. Despite all the pressure, on December 27, the cabinet voted to accept the Parameters.45 If the Israeli decision showed Barak’s resolve, the Palestinian reaction indicated Arafat’s customary vacillation. Through his negotiators, Arafat requested more ‘‘clarifications’’ and signaled that he needed more time to consult with Arab leaders. Anticipating this maneuver and knowing that Arafat was likely to misrepresent the terms of his plan, Clinton notified President Mubarak and other leaders immediately after his presentation in the White House and before word got to Gaza. According to Albright, the Arab leaders supported the deal, calling it ‘‘historic.’’ Indeed, Prince Bandar and the Egyptian ambassador to Washington, Nabil Fahmy, went to meet Arafat in his hotel room to assure him that the Palestinians have the Saudi and Egyptian commitment to support the peace deal. The two envoys pressed Arafat to accept the Parameters in his meeting with Clinton scheduled for next day, January 2, 2001. In an interview with the New Yorker, Bandar recalled that Arafat, who conditioned his acceptance on such support, returned from the White House declaring that he had reached an agreement. Bandar, who was informed by Sandy Berger that Arafat had actually rejected the deal, was furious, and he made it clear to the chairman and his aides that the decision was not only a folly but a ‘‘crime’’ against the Palestinians. Subsequently, Crown Prince Abdullah told Clinton that it was widely known that Arafat’s word could not be trusted. More ominously, according to some reports, Arafat had apparently fallen more deeply under the spell of conspiracy theories. In December, Arafat accepted a report by the Hamas-run Al Quds Center for Research claiming that Israel was poised to destroy the Temple mosques by creating an artificial earthquake.46

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If Arafat’s obfuscation came as no surprise to the Arab leaders, it shook the Americans who had hoped that, faced with a firm deadline, the chairman would settle. Ben-Ami echoed this sentiment, writing that ‘‘We thought all along that, even though he was a master of brinksmanship, eventually he would come through.’’ Still, acceding to Mubarak’s plea for yet another chance and Barak’s request for one more try, the President offered to travel to the region. But Arafat responded that he was too busy and suggested a meeting between Erekat and Peres instead.47 With time in the White House running out, the Clinton administration was forced to admit defeat of its almost decade-long quest to implement the Oslo peace. A clearly frustrated Ross asserted that no excuses could be made for Arafat and ‘‘his extraordinary rebuff of the President’s extraordinary offer to come to the area in his final days as a President.’’ The chief American negotiator added that ‘‘Arafat was never good at facing moments of truth’’ and could not end the conflict. ‘‘We had made every conceivable effort to do what we now had to accept was impossible with Yasser Arafat.’’ The Secretary of State was equally disappointed, noting that, after the tremendous effort to negotiate the best offer the Palestinians had ever received, Arafat rejected Israeli sovereignty over the Western Wall, refused any Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley, and demanded the right to return. Tenet wrote that ‘‘Arafat always wanted one more thing, and one more thing was never enough because what he really wanted was for the peace process to be ever-active and eternally-unresolved. Walking up to the edge of agreeing and then backing away made him a central player on the world stage . . . stamped him as legitimate . . . his own people would see him splashed all over CNN.’’ Sher argued that, in private, the Americans were even blunter. Accordingly, Clinton was reported to have told Bush that ‘‘Arafat was a liar who destroyed the whole process and cheated us.’’ Ross allegedly told the incoming Secretary of State Collin Powell: ‘‘Don’t believe a word that Arafat says. He’s a con man.’’ Tenet warned the new foreign policy team of George W. Bush ‘‘not to let [Arafat] in the front door. No more conveying the image of him as a global player. No more reward for behavior that led us nowhere.’’48 Indeed, the Bush team wasted little time in making up its own mind; the White House signaled that it had little regard for Arafat and no interest in repeating Clinton’s high-profile and intensely personal engagement. Barak, presiding over a rump government and facing an upcoming election, could hardly afford such a detachment. THE TABA TALKS: THE NEW ‘‘MOMENT OF TRUTH’’ AND THE COLLAPSE OF THE OSLO PEACE

After two months of increasing violence, punctuated by short lulls, the Intifada became dominated by terrorist attacks. On January 1, 2001, a large bombing in

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downtown Netanya, a coastal city near Tel Aviv, sent a signal that Israel’s center was as vulnerable as were the territories. Barak, supported by senior IDF staff, was determined to ‘‘declare war,’’ but Beilin, Sarid, and other peace ministers objected. Although Arafat had rejected the Parameters, on January 5, Sher met in Washington with Mohammed Rashid, who told him that the PA chief was ready to move on but needed a ‘‘face-saving’’ formula. Although the IDF reported an increase in violence, Peres met Arafat in Gaza on January 12. At that point, Barak came to share Gilad’s assessment that the PA chief would not be able to strike a deal because of the right to return, but the peace cabinet was in favor of further negotiations. Barak, who had previously tried to limit contacts with Arafat to security matters, reluctantly decided to approve a new round of talks. The meeting was to take place in the Egyptian resort town of Taba on January 21, 2001, a day after Bush took office and two weeks before Israel’s election.49 The talks, dubbed by the media as ‘‘the phony negotiations,’’ were underpinned by a complex calculus of motives. True believers like Beilin were convinced that a peace deal was still possible. When Barak put him in charge of the refugee portfolio ahead of Taba, Beilin described his sense of mission, writing that ‘‘something new was in the air . . . for many years we saw each other as a group of peace-makers standing against the world, against cynicism, against radicalism.’’ At the very least, by offering far-reaching concessions, the Oslo advocates hoped to limit Sharon’s maneuverability. To pressure Barak, it was rumored that Shimon Peres would try to replace Prime Minister as the head of the Labor party, despite polling data that indicated Peres would fare even less well than Barak against Sharon.50 The Taba talks quickly dispelled hopes for a last-minute breakthrough. On the contrary, the Palestinians seemed to stiffen their position on all the core issues. In the first map produced since the Oslo process started, they offered Israel essentially some 2 percent of the territory. They rejected Israel’s sovereignty over the Western Wall and demanded the right to return with an immediate emphasis on the more than 200,000 Palestinians in Lebanon. Attempts by Beilin and Ben-Ami to save the talks by offering more creative concessions made little difference to the Palestinians and upset many in the Israeli delegation. The IDF representatives (Shlomo Yanai, Isaac [Mike] Herzog, Daniel Risner, and Yisrael Hasson) were said to be ‘‘dismayed’’ and ‘‘demoralized’’ by the ‘‘liquidation sale’’ being promoted by Beilin and Ben-Ami. They argued that it was not democratic to conclude a historic agreement days before a general election, and they accused Beilin of living ‘‘in his own world.’’ Sher, who already had clashed with Ben-Ami over the unauthorized territorial concession at Bolling, was deputized by Barak to be part of a ‘‘shadow delegation.’’ The ‘‘shadow negotiators’’ were to inform the Palestinians that Israel could not compromise much beyond the Clinton’s Parameters and to remind them that this was their last ‘‘moment of truth.’’ In the end, though, no amount of concessions or warnings by the Israelis could help because,

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as Abu Ala told Sher and Hasson, the ‘‘boss [Arafat] did not want the deal.’’ Ben-Ami confirmed this assessment, writing that he saw ‘‘no sense of urgency’’ among the Palestinians.51 After the talks ended on January 27, Beilin and Ben-Ami urged Abu Ala, the head of the Palestinian delegation, to release a positive statement to the assembled journalists. Reneging on his agreement, Abu Ala announced that, despite the presence of some common ground, Taba had broken down because the Israelis had rejected the right to return. Dahlan was even blunter, using a derogatory Arabic expression harta de’harta to describe the talks. Beilin, who had confessed to being angry with the Palestinians for rejecting once again a humane solution to the refugee problem, lamented Abu Ala’s ‘‘flip flops.’’ Despite this setback, it was agreed that Barak would meet Arafat on the last day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, starting on January 28.52 For the few Oslo proponents who still hoped for yet another ‘‘moment of truth,’’ Arafat’s incendiary speech in Davos came as a shock. The PA chief accused Israel of waging a ‘‘savage barbaric war,’’ of ‘‘blatant fascist aggression,’’ and of using lethal weapons against Palestinian civilians. He even alleged that Israelis had tried to assassinate Mary Robinson (the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights) and that she had survived only because she had been driven in Arafat’s armor-plated car. Ben-Ami explained that, given a spot at the prestigious international conference, Arafat ‘‘could not help himself ’’ from putting Israel in the ‘‘defendant’s seat’’ and engaging in other theatrics. Others were less forgiving. An angry Sher noted that Arafat repeated his ‘‘shameful [Cairo] scene’’ in a rude, willful, and premeditated speech. Sher went on to add that ‘‘Arafat went too far,’’ and that ‘‘all of us in the Prime Minister’s Office’’ knew it was the end. Even so, the Oslo diehards did not give up. Despite the looming February 6 election, Ben-Ami was determined to arrange a meeting between Barak and Arafat in Egypt and Yossi Ginossar was mobilized to get Arafat onto Israeli television. The new assessment of the peace cabinet was that, at the very least, Labor would be boosted in the elections if it were demonstrated that the peace process remained alive.53 Any such hope was destroyed when Ariel Sharon won with the largest margin in Israel’s history. While the result represented a personal repudiation of Barak, it also constituted an overwhelming vote of ‘‘no confidence’’ in the Oslo peace process. The defeated Prime Minister acknowledged as much in his concession speech that blamed the collapse of Oslo on the lack of maturity of the ‘‘Palestinian neighbors.’’ In broadening the analysis to include the Palestinian political culture, Barak essentially embraced the argument of Oslo opponents who had argued all along that the PA was a failed proto-state. That the problem went beyond the leadership of Arafat was made clear by subsequent abortive attempts to return to the Oslo framework.54

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TRYING TO RESURRECT THE OSLO PEACE: MISSION IMPOSSIBLE?

The Al Aqsa Intifada had elevated the power of the Islamists who had managed to inflict unprecedented casualties on the Israeli population. The military wing of Hamas, Izzadin al Qassam Brigades, had far surpassed Fatah, Tanzim, and the Al Aqsa Brigades in its ability to stage devastating suicide bombings in virtually all major Israeli cities. With the need to protect the hinterland, Ariel Sharon, long resistant to the idea of physical division, was compelled to initiate the separation fence in earnest. Not incidentally, Sharon’s security adviser, Brigadier General (res.) Eival Gilady, was heavily involved in the Labor-era separation plans as head of the IDF Planning Branch. The barrier (which was virtually complete by 2008) put an end to the expansive Oslo-envisioned peace as part of the New Middle East.55 Although not fully recognized at the time, the change in the PA’s balance of power obviated the ability to negotiate even a limited cease-fire between the two sides. After a series of particularly severe terrorist attacks, on March 28, 2002, the IDF launched Operation Homat Magen (Defense Shield). This action, which isolated Arafat in his Ramallah headquarters, the Mukata, uncovered a large military infrastructure in the West Bank; the analysis of documents found in the offices indicated a larger than previously suspected role of Arafat in antiIsraeli activities, including authorization of payments to families of suicide martyrs. When Israel seized the Karina-A, a freighter loaded with Iranian weapons destined for the PA, on January 3, 2002, the crew revealed that the PA had spent millions of dollars on arms in violation of prior agreements. In a bid to stop the violence, the newly constituted Quartet—the United States, the EU, Russia, and the United Nations—launched in June 2002 the ‘‘road map’’ that restated the general terms of the Oslo peace. A more detailed proposal was contained in ‘‘The People’s Plan,’’ unveiled by Amy Ayalon and Sari Nusseibeh in June 2003. The Plan called for a return to the June 1967 borders, with ‘‘small border’’ modifications for Jewish settlements, based on an ‘‘equitable and agreed upon territorial exchange.’’ The Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem would be under Palestinian sovereignty and the Jewish ones, Israeli sovereignty. Neither side would exercise sovereignty over the holy places, but Palestinians would have guardianship over the Haram and the Israelis over the Western Wall. The Palestinians could return to a future Palestine, but there would be no right to return to Israel.56 A version close to Clinton Parameters was included in the Geneva Accord of December 1, 2003, the brainchild of Yossi Beilin and a number of Israeli academics. Representing the Palestinian side was the former hard-liner Yasser Abu Rabbo, who turned peacemaker after the unraveling of the Arafat coalition left his tiny party marginalized.57 Celebrated in the peace circles, the Geneva Initiative made

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virtually no impact on the ground, especially in the PA where the Islamists gained power while Fatah was engaged in a fierce competition to replace the fast-fading Arafat, who died on November 11, 2004 at the age of 75. His successor, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), had even less control over the PA, while Hamas was able to use its political and military power to virtually duplicate state institutions. Flexing its muscle, the Islamists intensified terrorist attacks on the Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, prompting Sharon to decide on a unilateral withdrawal. In announcing his Disengagement Plan in December 2003, the Prime Minister said that the withdrawal (executed in August 2005) would increase the security of the residents of Israel and reduce friction with the Islamists. Like the decision to leave Lebanon in 1999, the unilateral withdrawal was based on the premise that, even in the absence of a formal agreement, the conflict could be minimized by evacuating highly contested territory. Enthusiastically welcomed by the Israeli Left, the withdrawal was also thought to have the capacity to help Abbas’s Fatah in the January 2006 election. However, in a stunning surprise, Hamas won 76 seats to Fatah’s 43 in the 132-seat legislature. As Hamas refused to renounce terrorism and recognize Israel, the United States and the EU, in line with policies adopted after September 11 attack, cut their aid to the PA. Its short-lived coalition government with Fatah was plagued by military tension which, despite mediation by Saudi Arabia, ended when Hamas ousted Fatah in a bloody coup in Gaza in June 2007, effectively creating two Palestinian entities. In yet another unanticipated development, the Islamists used their new power base in Gaza to fire Kassam rockets into Israel, killing and wounding dozens. The daily barrage was supported by Hezbollah, as part of its own strategy to pursue the military struggle against the ‘‘Zionist enemy’’ that culminated in the 2006 second Lebanon War. The IDF’s retaliatory raids killed scores of Palestinians and the blockade severely degraded their standards of living, fueling the cycle of violence. In an attempt to defuse the tensions, the United States hosted a summit in Annapolis, Maryland in November 2007 that included Mahmoud Abbas, in charge of the West Bank, and the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Both sides committed themselves to finalizing a peace deal by the end of 2008, but Abbas rejected Olmert’s new proposal, encompassing somewhat less than the Clinton Parameters. As before, the main sticking points were Jerusalem and the right to return. Complicating Fatah’s ability to compromise was the growing militancy of the Islamists in Gaza. Spurred by Hezbollah that rewarded each successful rocket launch financially, in early 2008, Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, and the Islamic Resistance Movement extended their rocket ranges to the city of Ashkelon, located less than an hour from Tel Aviv. Failing to deter Gaza through a combination of raids and a stringent blockade, Israel signed a cease-fire with Hamas in 2008, but the long-term prospects are not clear. In a backlash against the political leadership

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that agreed on the cease-fire, the warlords of the Izzadin al Qassam Brigades increased their power in the August 2008 elections to the Shura (Consultative Council of Hamas). The seemingly unstoppable radicalization of the Palestinian political culture has made a return to a meaningful peace process difficult to conjure. This change in the political culture, taking place against the background of a triumphant Islamist revival, underscores the reason for the failure of the Oslo peace. As will be demonstrated in the concluding chapter, the collapse was primarily paradigmatic in nature and was compounded by problems at the foreign policy and intelligence levels.

8

Reflections on the Predictive Failure of the Oslo Peace

Efforts to understand the failure of the Oslo peace have preoccupied scholars, journalists, intelligence officials, and, above all, scores of Oslo participants. Complicating the task is the fact that the issue has been subject to an intense and divisive political debate about ‘‘who lost Oslo.’’ While the number of studies has increased exponentially, this book is the first attempt to present a longitudinal, intergraded chronological-thematic analysis of the highly complex process that shaped Israeli views of the Palestinians and the larger Middle East conflict, the attempts to find avenues of transit to CR, and the tools to modify the behavior of the Jews and Palestinians to sustain peace. With this task accomplished, it remains the burden of the concluding chapter to sum up the predictive predicament that Oslo has posed by recalling the paradigmatic, foreign policy, and intelligence dimensions of the problem. This analytic scheme allows for reducing the highly synergetic process of prediction and estimation to manageable categories. Equally important, to the extent that problems of forecasting are comparable, this format can provide insight into future predictive hazards. PARADIGMATIC LEVEL: NEW MIDDLE EAST VERSUS OLD MIDDLE EAST

The theoretical chapter makes it clear that political change in IR has been conceptualized through models generated by competing strands of IR theory. Dissatisfied with the power-oriented school of realism and neorealism, scholars and practitioners turned to alternative views of international change such as peace

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studies, CR, and ripeness theories. In the absence of critical empirical evidence, these models—derived from different ontological and epistemic assumptions about social reality—guided the discursive community of academics, lay commentators, practitioners, and other observers in Israel and abroad. As noted, the New Middle East paradigm, with its built-in assumptions of linearity, saw the Middle East evolving into a Western-style polity with a matching market economy. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the Iraqi defeat in the Gulf War in 1991 signaled, to some, the ripeness moment for the pending transformation. According to Shimon Peres, its most forceful spokesman, the rational legitimacy embedded in this construct of the New Middle East would triumph over ‘‘irrational’’ and ‘‘tribalist’’ sentiments like excessive nationalism and/or a fundamentalist religiosity among the Palestinians and, indeed, in the region at large. To the peace advocates, the new paradigm offered an important bonus; with the Palestine-Israeli conflict solved, they expected Israel to discard its own tribal-particularistic culture shaped by the ultraorthodox and national religious Zionists in favor of more a universalistic-secular creed. The contending paradigm postulated a diametrically different trajectory. Articulated by Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington, it warned that the Middle East was increasingly embracing a radical form of Islam ready to embark on a ‘‘clash of civilizations’’ with the Judeo-Christian West. These and other scholars pointed out that fundamentalist Iran had driven much of this vision in an effort to export a permanent Islamist revolution first enunciated by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979. Followers of the Lewis-Huntington thesis in Israel, including Barry Rubin, Martin Kramer, and other scholars at BESA and the Dayan Center, asserted that, as the discursive community celebrated the dawn of the New Middle East, the old Middle East was actually taking root in the region. Unlike in the United States, where the ‘‘clash of civilizations’’ received considerable academic and public coverage, the view that Islamism was remaking the Middle East in a theocratic image barely registered in the Israeli discourse. To recall, long before the DOP was signed, the peace industry, in numerous seminars, symposia, and empirical research, furnished seemingly solid proof that the Palestinians were in the vanguard of the New Middle East. In the early 1990s, neoconservative think tanks and other venues that could have promoted an alternative Middle East paradigm were in their infancy. The handful of Dayan and BESA scholars fought an uphill battle against the well-endowed academic peace research/CR centers that dominated the debate. Coupled with the activist elite media that privileged the Left, the vision of a New Middle East became virtually unbeatable. Speaking at a conference of Israeli and Palestinian journalists sponsored by UNICEF in July 1998, the veteran television anchor Chaim Yavin proclaimed that, without the Israeli press, the first Intifada would not have led to Oslo.1

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The political reality of the emerging Palestinian entity posed a challenge to New Middle East assumptions about the generic ‘‘Palestinians.’’ Instead of becoming the democratic leader in the region, the PA—riddled by corruption, violence, and lawlessness—turned into a failed proto-state. The behavior of Yasser Arafat, the would-be ‘‘Palestinian Mandela,’’ was especially problematic. By design or default, Arafat was responsible for much of the pathology in the PA, robbing it of the legitimacy necessary to pursue the peace process. Confronted with a serious power grab by the Islamists, aided and abetted by Iran, the PA chairman chose to pursue what Barry Rubin identified as a negotiated political order that led to the evolution of the ‘‘ballot and bullet’’ model of democracy. In turn, this peculiar political structure made it virtually impossible for the PA to fulfill its obligations under the Oslo Accords, notably to fight terrorism and to curb anti-Israeli incitement. Squaring the PA reality with the New Middle East paradigm posed a tall order for Oslo advocates. Indeed, over time, Oslo critics provided ample empirical evidence that the PA’s performance was woefully lacking on measures of statebuilding and, especially, that it had failed to establish a monopoly on the use of coercive powers. A number of biographical studies of Arafat contradicted the early accounts of the ‘‘Palestinian Mandela.’’ Even Danny Rubinstein, a Haaretz journalist and ardent Oslo booster, was forced to admit that Arafat’s personality and modus operandi rendered him less than ideal to lead his people into the ‘‘promised land’’ of national sovereignty. Oddly enough, Arafat had a better insight into himself than the CR community that vouched for him. One account noted that, when pressed on some hard point in the negotiations, the PA chief muttered, ‘‘I am not Nelson Mandela, I am not Mandela.’’2 Equally important, by the mid-1990s, BESA and Dayan Center scholars had documented the Iranian effort to use Islamic Jihad and Hamas to torpedo Oslo. Taking all these considerations into account, in 1995, the geographer Arnon Soffer asserted that the New Middle East was a false vision, proclaimed the peace process dead, and urged a return to conflict management bolstered by a unilateral, physical separation from the Palestinians. However, with few credible public outlets, critics were relegated to the sidelines of the discourse dominated by the academic and media Oslo supporters. They were overwhelmed by the voluminous CR/peace research output, fueled by Western foundations determined to solve the conflict. In the words of one insider, ‘‘Throughout the 1990s, the easiest way of getting cash between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River was to get a Palestinian and an Israeli together, (preferably) someone with a degree in peace studies, . . . to establish a center/institute/organization/group . . . and the money would roll in.’’ As detailed, virtually all these studies were able to portray the PA in a favorable fashion. Many journalists, on their own quest to vindicate the wisdom of Oslo, were equally wary of negative coverage which, on some occasions, led them to

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suppress evidence damaging to the New Middle East paradigm. Moshe Yaalon, a major critic, suggested that elite media went so far as to shield corrupt politicians deemed supportive of the peace process. The former chief of staff termed this phenomenon etrog journalism (a reference to the well-cocooned, unblemished citrus fruit used in the Succoth decoration). In an about-face, the activist Haaretz editor Hanoch Marmary would later decry the ‘‘phenomenon of journalists obsessed by a personal mission’’ and urge editors to remove the ‘‘over-enthusiasts.’’3 In any event, the increasingly bitter discourse was overshadowed by the underlying Kulturkampf between the Oslo universalist-secularists and their right-wing and religious opponents that culminated with Rabin’s murder in 1995. The ensuing national trauma made it easier for Oslo advocates to ignore information contradicting their paradigm. Bar-Ilan University, where Rabin’s assassin was a student, was virtually marginalized. As one historian noted, it ‘‘was accused of propagating death and discrimination under the guise of democratic discourse.’’4 To the extent that the Left was willing to acknowledge such New Middle East anomalies as Arafat’s corrupt neopatrimonial proto-state, the paranoid and conspiracy-laden style of Palestinian culture, and the spectacular growth of terrorism, they were explained by ‘‘root causes’’ like poverty, political immaturity, and/or disappointment with the peace process. Like other Western liberals who found their paradigm threatened, Israeli leftists have argued that radical movements are not motivated by an extreme doctrine but rather by ‘‘unspeakable social conditions.’’ Alternatively, they have dismissed the claim about there being a radical, intransigent other side as ‘‘phony’’ or exaggerated by right-wing groups.5 Not surprising, the Right, which routinely mixed forecasting and advocacy for Greater Israel, made it easier for Oslo proponents to discredit its rivals. Echoing Yehoshafat Harkabi’s dictum, the Left could dismiss the Right as dangerously delusional in its view of the PA while claiming the mantle of the sober and detached chronicler of reality in the PA and beyond. In the words of Rubinstein, ‘‘There was a need to be cautious about the stories of corruption’’ because they came from ‘‘the right-wingers in Israel.’’6 Still, despite leftist intellectual dominance, qualms about the New Middle East and its PA creation became widespread in the public discourse at the end of the 1990s. Fueling these misgivings was the puzzling and erratic behavior of Yasser Arafat, whose public theatrics and private malfeasance could not be explained away as harmless idiosyncrasies of Israel’s ‘‘partner for peace.’’ So much so that Labor’s Prime Minister Ehud Barak pushed to test empirically the PA’s resolve to conclude the peace process. The collapse of Camp David II, the outbreak of the Al Aqsa Intifada, and especially, the 9/11 attack discredited the New Middle East paradigm and the epistemic community that had coalesced around it. In the Kuhnian sequence,

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Oslo doubters could now claim victory in the predictive game and legitimize their own position in the national discourse. Barry Rubin, perhaps the most thoughtful and consistently prescient analyst of the Oslo peace, called the New Middle East paradigm utopian, triggered by the collapse of communism. After the ‘‘seemingly permanent Cold War vanished, things that had once seemed utopian appeared to be within reach.’’ Rubin also blamed its Oslo followers for disregarding the role of ideology because of the then fashionable belief that ‘‘everyone is alike’’ and ‘‘everyone wants peace and prosperity’’ (just as in the West). In a Dayan Center lecture delivered on January 8, 2001, eight months before 9/11, Bernard Lewis expanded on his ‘‘clash of civilizations’’ thesis: he claimed that things in the Middle East ‘‘went wrong’’ and warned of an impending backlash. Writing in the summer of 2001, Yehezkel Dror took issue with the notion of linear progress in the Middle East. He noted that modernization and Westernization could produce rapid nonlinear change and predicted a ‘‘shock’’ event such as a ‘‘local’’ nuclear war or a massive terrorist attack, possibly with biological weapons. David Bukay, an expert on Middle East at Haifa University and a leading Israeli proponent of the Lewis-Huntington theory, argued that Oslo failed because of cultural and religious factors that were antithetical to the tenets of the New Middle East. He noted that the Palestinian culture was permeated with rumors, exaggerations, flights of fantasy, and outright lies. Meir Hatina claimed that a ‘‘proper reading of the Qur’an and understanding of history’’ would lead to the ‘‘unequivocal conclusion that Palestine is the focus of the religio-historical confrontation between Muslims and their eternal enemy, the Jews.’’ Boaz Ganor declared that the Oslo paradigm failed because it assumed that the conflict was ethno-national rather than ethno-religious.7 Moreover, these critics were joined by a number of disillusioned Oslo advocates, whom one observer dubbed ‘‘repentant doves.’’ These former insiders charged that the Oslo peace collapsed because most of the paradigmatic premises of the New Middle East were faulty. As Yossi Alpher put it, ‘‘the link between prosperity and progress toward peace and stability was proven wrong.’’ Citing ‘‘corruption, cronyism, poor leadership and endemic violence,’’ he concluded that the ‘‘Palestinians failed spectacularly at state-building.’’ Shlomo Gazit wrote that ‘‘twelve years of PLO leadership in the territories had proven beyond a shadow of doubt that the PLO is not ready to become a legitimate and stable government.’’ Shlomo Ben-Ami lamented: ‘‘we tried to build a negotiations and a peace process based on international law . . . on the principles of the Westphalia Peace of 1694,’’ but Arafat broke all the agreements of Oslo by returning to violence. Ben-Ami added that the Palestinians ‘‘failed to build a culture of compromise’’; instead, they built a ‘‘culture of struggle and sacrifice’’ centered on the shaheed. Perhaps most astounding, some of the leading intellectuals of the Left had a similar epiphany. Amos Oz came to a belated realization that the ‘‘Palestinians are fighting two wars.’’ One war was to end the occupation;

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the other war was Islamic Jihad. Benny Morris blamed the rejectionist Palestinian culture and the duplicity of Arafat for torpedoing Oslo. Taking a broader historical look, Morris concluded that this stubborn rejectionism was at the roots of the conflict and the subsequent misfortunes of the Palestinians.8 Still, parts of the Oslo-centered epistemic community, whom one commentator identified as ‘‘a large number’’ in the academy and the media, were not ready to concede defeat. Menachem Klein, a political scientist involved in the Geneva Initiative, recalled that, three months after the failed summit, a peace group ‘‘got together to fight the official interpretation of Camp David.’’ The Israeli activists and their international counterparts resolved to correct the ‘‘potent simplistic narrative [that] has taken hold in Israel and to some extent in the United States that Barak ‘offered the moon in Camp David’ and Arafat turned it down.’’ Terje Roed-Larsen, by then the UN special envoy to the PA, called the notion that Arafat alone caused the ‘‘catastrophic failure’’ a ‘‘terrible myth.’’ Anchored in the Hussein Agha and Robert Malley’s article in the New York Review of Books, the new initiative generated scores of revisionist interpretations of Camp David II. Daniel Bar-Tal, the Tel Aviv psychologist and editor of the PalestineIsrael Journal, even alleged the Israeli version of the summit constituted a ‘‘smear campaign’’ prepared well in advance to show that Arafat was ‘‘not a peace partner’’ and that the Palestinian had no interest in settling the conflict.9 The CR/peace research scholars were equally reluctant to concede the paradigmatic shortcomings of the New Middle East. Sponsored by yet another wave of grants, some veteran CR experts tried to demonstrate that peace is still possible. One group of ‘‘well-connected’’ Israelis and Palestinians convened at Colgate University in late March 21, 2001 and produced ‘‘an agreement.’’ However, the next day, much to the disappointment of the conference leaders, the Palestinians who opposed the strong language against terror refused to sign it. A project of the European Center for Conflict Prevention, supported by the USIP and the Dutch government, blamed ‘‘skewed perceptions’’ and ‘‘mutual dehumanization’’ for the failure while unveiling yet another series of suggestions for resolving the conflict. Using a Ford Foundation grant, the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace offered, in conjunction with Khalil Shikaki’s Center for Policy and Survey Research, a new program, ‘‘Crossing Borders: Reciprocal Explorations of the Narratives and Realities in Palestine and Israel.’’ Its aim was ‘‘to give Israelis and Palestinians an opportunity to become familiar with the narratives and realities of the other side.’’ Ephraim Yuchtman-Yaar, by then the head of the Evans Program of Conflict Resolution at Tel Aviv University, coedited a volume hopefully titled The Anatomy of a Paradox: The Oslo Process as a Breakthrough Failure. Written as a postmortem analysis of Oslo, the essays offered new suggestions for peacemaking. In yet another postmortem, Gershon Baskin, the head of the Israel/ Palestine Center for Research and Information, urged creation of a Ministry for Peace in order to ‘‘advance a culture of peace.’’ Commenting on the new round

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of CR/peace research, Alpher noted that ‘‘one could sense between the lines’’ certain desperation, each new project ‘‘has its own gimmick, its own discovery of the missing ingredient’’ for making peace.10 In what seemed like another bid to save Oslo, some on the Left tried to persuade the Palestinians to concentrate their resistance on the occupied territories. Zeev Sternhell, a Hebrew University professor, stated that there is no doubt about the legitimacy of resistance in the territories. But even Sternhell had to admit that the Palestinians did not have ‘‘enough sense’’ to limit their terror attacks to settlers and Israeli assets outside the Green Line.11 The efforts to prove that the New Middle East still existed were not confined to the PA. A group of academic strategists from the Jaffe Center argued that there were some promising trends for building regional stability. Zeev Maoz went so far as to argue that Israel should give up its nuclear program and join with Arab states to create a nuclear-free zone. He found that there are ‘‘several important trends’’ that ‘‘offer a possibility of a more promising future scenario.’’ In his opinion, the domestic developments in Iran where ‘‘there is a growing level of democratization’’ suggested ‘‘a fair chance of liberalization of one of the key members of the region.’’12 The victory of Hamas in the Palestinian election in February 2006 chastened even the diehard devotees of the New Middle East paradigm. A handful of the most hopeful predicted that, once in government, the Islamists would be compelled to moderate, a forecast invalidated when Hamas expelled Fatah from the Gaza Strip during a bloody confrontation in 2007. Despite Western sanctions, the Islamists refused to recognize Israel and renounce terror. The specter of a nuclear Iran under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who promised to wipe Israel from the face of the earth, convinced a majority of Israelis that the old Middle East with its overtones of a ‘‘clash of civilizations’’ had never been vanquished. FOREIGN POLICY LEVEL: CONFLICT RESOLUTION OR CONFLICT MANAGEMENT

The high-profile Israeli-Palestinian conflict virtually assured that it became the testing ground for a number of innovative CR theories such as Track II diplomacy, stage-by-stage approach, CBM, and creative ambiguity. The Israeli architects of Oslo and their international supporters credited the historical breakthrough to these and similar methods while disparaging traditional diplomacy. Social psychologists involved in crafting some of the CBM urged a wholesale change in public attitudes through purging of textbooks and media programs of stereotypes and negative representations of the ‘‘other.’’ Under the Labor governments, the Ministry of Education consulted Oslo-friendly academic experts to craft a new generation of texts.

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However, the great difficulties in implementing the DOP and the subsequent agreements cast serious doubts about the methodological underpinning of the Oslo foreign policy. In a systematic critique, Gerald Steinberg, a BESA scholar, pointed out that the ‘‘ripeness’’ and ‘‘fuzzy’’ Track II diplomacy was singularly unsuitable for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Steinberg was equally critical of what he called Montville’s ‘‘cathartic mode of forgiveness,’’ a reference to the deep-seated attitudinal changes allegedly required for healing profound conflicts. Aharon Klieman, an early critic of creative ambiguity, reiterated the systematic roots of its failures. Some erstwhile Oslo advocates concurred with this assessment. Gilad Sher wrote that creative ambiguity (which excluded the core issues of territory, Jerusalem, and the refugees) papered over a chasm between two sides that, ultimately, could not be bridged. Avraham Burg, a leading Labor politician and a cofounder of Mashov, mocked the ‘‘Woodstock-like idea of peace’’—‘‘did you hug your Palestinian today’’—and proclaimed it over. Beilin stated that it was in the interest of both sides to reach a final agreement as early as 1993, as the peace process amounted to a walk on ‘‘thin ice.’’ Dennis Ross added that ‘‘you can’t have one environment at the negotiation table [and] one on the ground.’’ Even some post-Zionists conceded that a number of assumptions about Oslo were wrong: the ‘‘constructive opaqueness’’ and the ‘‘gradual step-by-step process of arrangements’’ designed to build trust and confidence resulted in an ‘‘incremental process of mistrust.’’13 Much as denouncing the shortcoming of the Oslo methodology became de rigueur, there was less agreement about whose policies should be held responsible for the collapse of the peace process. The heated discourse has, predictably, followed ideological lines and matching epistemic outlooks. With the exception of the post-Zionists, who have consistently blamed Israel for ‘‘colonial’’ policies and creating ‘‘apartheid-like conditions’’ in the territories, the Left adopted the symmetrical approach. As indicated in the theoretical chapter, it required assigning an equal measure of responsibility to both sides. Thus, leftist observers argued that the Israeli radical right-wingers were as disruptive of the peace process as the Palestinian Jihadists. Amos Oz, a leading practitioner of symmetrical blame, seized upon the Baruch Goldstein attack in Hebron to declare that there is no difference between ‘‘this murderer and these inciters and the Islamic Jihadists [because] both are doing their best to torpedo the peace process and turn the conflict into a religious one.’’ Naomi Chazan, a professor of political science turned Meretz politician, lamented that both Palestinian and Israeli extremists have silenced ‘‘the moderate majorities in both countries.’’14 In yet another application of the symmetrical approach, Oslo advocates have charged that the Israeli settlement policy soured moderate Palestinians and provided the Islamists with an opening. Beilin stated that the DOP should have banned settlements, whose numbers had well exceeded the pre-Oslo level. Beilin explained that Palestinians saw in the settlements a negation of the Oslo spirit,

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especially as some projects, especially around Jerusalem, threatened to compromise the territorial contiguity of a future Palestine state. Beilin’s argument that equated the role of the settlements and Palestine incitement in the outbreak of the Al Aqsa Intifada has been repeated by virtually all observers sympathetic to Oslo.15 Both opponents and doubters of the Oslo project vehemently denied the validity of this approach, noting that it implied a similarity where none had existed. They pointed out that the settlers and other radical right-wingers had never acquired the type of legitimacy or organizational base enjoyed by the Islamists. Barry Rubin, by then the head of Global Research in International Affairs at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, denied that the settlers were a main barrier to peace. He asserted that the main barrier to peace ‘‘was the inability or unwillingness of the PA leadership to make a comprehensive agreement.’’ More to the point, Rubin dubbed the Left’s tactic of inflating the power of the settlers to satisfy the symmetrical regiments of CR the ‘‘Judea and Samaria Syndrome.’’ As for settlement policy, they found the listing of aggregate numbers deceptive, since the bulk of the growth had taken place within the settlement blocs slated for a swap with the Palestinians (such as Gush Etzion and Ariel). These and other observers argued that Arafat’s lack of legitimacy and his failure either to co-opt or to disarm Hamas was the real impediment to peace. While allowing that continuing Israeli construction on the West Bank might have stirred some Palestinians toward the Islamists, they pointed out that the first Intifada had irrevocably changed the balance of power in the territories.16 Serving as a proxy for the larger issue of the feasibility of the Oslo project, the heated debate on the real balance of power in the PA prompted Oslo opponents to challenge the methodology of CR and opinion polls which, in their view, had concealed the real power of the Jihadists and/or opposition to peace. Efraim Karsh, a vocal Oslo critic, suggested that, from the very outset, Oslo advocates and their ‘‘supporters worldwide’’ were on ‘‘a desperate search’’ for Palestinian moderates such as Sari Nusseibeh. Karsh noted that this quest was underlined by deep-seated ‘‘narcissistic and patronizing mesmerization’’ among educated Westerners with the ‘‘Westernized native,’’ the ultimate product of the ‘‘white man’s civilizing mission.’’ Karsh implied that, whether consciously or not, Oslo supporters overrepresented the influence of Nusseibeh and other moderates in the PA.17 Indeed, Oslo doubters intensified their scrutiny of the Shikaki polls which, as noted, had shown a fairly constant picture of political moderation. Martin Kramer pointed out that Khalil Shikaki, who received money from foreign governments and foundations, was considered a ‘‘respectable pollster’’ and his polls became ‘‘a font of conventional wisdom’’ for policymakers in Israel and the United States. Less than a month before the Hamas victory in the 2006 election, the USIP published a report based on Shikaki’s surveys that found the

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Palestinians supportive of peace. The American State Department used the same data to push for the elections; Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice subsequently admitted that the United States had underestimated the public trends in the PA. Forced on the defensive, Shikaki explained that Hamas was ‘‘deliberately hiding its position on violence’’ during the campaign, thus presumably tricking voters. However, Rubin noted that in the PA, as in other countries in the region, it was not just ‘‘cynical rulers’’ who mislead the public, but that ‘‘the masses embrace extremist world views.’’ He suggested that, in line with the negotiated political order, elections tended to sanction an existing balance of power, and their results could be challenged by violence. In this ‘‘ballot and bullet’’ democracy, violence could be also used to protest opinion polls as, indeed, has happened to Shikaki himself. When, in 2003, Shikaki published a survey showing that most Palestinians were ready to forgo the right to return, a mob acting on behalf of the Committee for the Defense of Palestinian Refugee Rights ransacked his offices. The attack was an unmistakable message to Palestinian leaders willing to wave the right to return to reach a peace agreement.18 Much as the question of who was to blame for the collapse of the peace process took center stage in the post-Oslo discourse, the balance of power issue in the PA also served as a subtext of the hotly disputed issue of how far apart the sides were in the final stage of the talks. Yossi Beilin ignited the debate by suggesting soon after Taba that the Israelis and Palestinians had been ‘‘very close’’ to reaching an agreement, a claim that his fellow negotiators vehemently denied. In what became part of the revisionist writing on Oslo, Beilin and hard-core peace activists such as Ron Pundak also minimized the dispute over the right of return which, as detailed, had proved to be the ultimate deal-breaker. But critics alleged that hiding the depth of the disagreement was a ploy to justify the Oslo project. In fact, a detailed article, coauthored by a former foreign policy assistant to Ehud Barak, claimed that the issue of the Palestinian refugees was central.19 Whatever the view of the past, the Al Aqsa Intifada contributed to a growing consensus that CR, once touted by many as inevitable, should be replaced by a modified version of the pre-1993 concept of conflict management. Shortly after the start of the Al Aqsa Intifada, a leading political scientist and a former director general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Shlomo Avineri stated, ‘‘we have to move from conflict resolution to conflict management.’’ He went on to add that unilateral disengagement would not solve all the problems but would ‘‘minimize the points of inflammation.’’ Another prominent IR expert observed that the 1993–2001 assumption that ‘‘conflict resolution was not only possible; that it was in Israel’s favor’’ was replaced by a new paradigm that ‘‘there is no Palestinian partner; it is impossible to settle the conflict,’’ and thus, the only option is conflict management. Major General (res.) Giora Eiland, a former National Security Adviser, went one step further; he claimed that the new approach to managing the conflict should send a message that Israel is only partially responsible for

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solving the Palestinian problems. Amos Gilad, by then the head of the politicalsecurity division in the Ministry of Defense, suggested that Israel’s role should be limited to preventing a humanitarian crisis. Because of what he described as a high level of anomie and dysfunctional leadership in PA, Gilad saw no hope for settling the historical conflict. Of course, Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the near completion of the separation barrier, and Islamist control of Gaza made the goal of reaching a breakthrough even more remote. Edward Luttwak, an eminent American strategic expert, made the ‘‘politically incorrect’’ argument that, as a ‘‘backward society,’’ the Palestinians should be left alone until they mature enough to participate in a civilized diplomatic process. In spite of the low-key negotiations engendered by the Annapolis initiative, there are few signs that CR would soon turn into the preferred modus operandi of Israeli foreign policy.20 INTELLIGENCE LEVEL: ADVOCACY OR OBJECTIVITY?

Historically, the analytical tradition of Israeli intelligence has never reached the standards of objectivity urged by Sherman Kent, the founding father of the CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence. This work detailed how the absence of a clear division of labor between the different branches of the security/intelligence community, combined with political appointments and/or the need to tow the political line of the frequently changing prime ministers, made the Kentian tradition hard to attain. Coping with disagreement in assessment was even more difficult, as the case of Varash (the committee of the heads of the services) illustrated. As long as terrorist activity dominated all forms of Palestinian resistance, however, such divisions were manageable. The rise of civil disturbances in the 1980s, the loss of the Jordanian option, and finally, the upset of the first Intifada changed the internal dynamics in the community. An influential group of intelligence officials such as Shlomo Gazit, Aharon Yariv, and Yehoshafat Harkabi came to argue that the democratic character of the state precluded a military solution of the nexuses of civil resistance and terrorist activity. This intelligence assessment gradually mushroomed into political advocacy that urged CR with the PLO, a call taken up by the Council for Peace and Security. Albeit retired, the high-ranking Council members retained considerable influence in the tightly knit intelligence community. It was this group that first adopted the New Middle East paradigm that, as indicated, also colored the thinking of top officials in Aman and Shin Bet at the time. Testifying to Syria’s ripeness, Uri Saguy predicted that a peace deal with Damascus was close and Yaakov Peri supported negotiations with the PLO on the grounds of its new found ‘‘maturation.’’ Although neither top intelligence officials nor IDF leadership were made privy to the ultra-secret Oslo talks, many top brass embraced the DOP. By appointing a number of like-minded officials, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres virtually assured that the intelligence/security

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community would be on the same page as the government. As will be recalled, since intelligence officials also served as negotiators, mediators, and envoys, such blurring of roles tended to create personal involvement with the peace process. This high-profile partisanship did not go unchallenged by intelligence skeptics of the New Middle East or Palestinian ripeness. Under Yaakov Amidror and Amos Gilad, Aman Research, the national evaluator, asserted that the PA violated the Accords and that the Islamists, supported by Iran and Hezbollah, were gaining on Fatah and forcing Arafat into a power-sharing agreement. Gilad, who warned of an emerging ‘‘Hamastan’’ in Gaza, also charged that Yasser Arafat had used the Oslo peace as part of his Trojan horse strategy to regain Palestine in stages. The head of Aman, Moshe Yaalon, and the Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz supported these views, but Yaalon’s successor, Amos Malka, Efraim Lavie, the head of the Palestinian section in Aman Research, Shin Bet’s Ami Ayalon, and his chief adviser, Matti Steinberg, strongly disputed this evaluation. As noted, at the beginning of Barak’s tenure, this unprecedented fragmentation plunged the intelligence/security community into a virtual ‘‘Jewish war’’ that spilled into the public arena in a cascade of leaks and counter-leaks. Although sharp divisions in intelligence are not unique to Israel, the peculiarities of the PA exacerbated these ‘‘Jewish wars.’’ When Barry Rubin first drew attention to the fact that Yasser Arafat presided over a negotiated political order, few grasped the intelligence implications of such a ‘‘fuzzy,’’ non-hierarchal system. With shifting alliances and duplicitous relations not just between Arafat and the Islamists but also among the numerous factions that dotted the political landscape of the PA, the negotiated political order translated into a complex deception system that overwhelmed intelligence officials. As noted, the community could not reach a consensus on the Arafat-Tanzim nexus, nor could it decide whether Arafat instigated and controlled the violence to which the Palestinians periodically resorted, or just took opportunistic rides on public discontents. Research on intelligence epistemology indicates that, when presented with murky information and lacking ‘‘smoking gun’’ grade evidence, analysts subconsciously draw on their existing paradigms to provide interpretations. Indeed, this work makes clear that intelligence officials who shared the New Middle East vision were most inclined to evaluate Arafat and the PA in a favorable way. Like their political counterparts in Labor, Oslo boosters could not easily afford to admit that their initial predictions were faulty. The same politicization drove the post-Oslo discourse where leftist commentators propagated the theory of an ‘‘intelligence scandal’’ in Aman. In particular, they accused Amos Gilad of creating the ‘‘conception’’ that ‘‘Arafat was not a peace partner.’’ By invoking the term ‘‘conception,’’ these observers hoped to link Gilad to the infamous ‘‘conception’’ that caught Israel unprepared for the Arab attack in the 1973 War; some even insisted that Gilad should be investigated by a special committee. While castigating Gilad, the Left embraced Amos Malka,

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Matti Steinberg, and Ephraim Lavie who, after retiring, worked for the Peres Center and later headed the Tami Steinmetz Center. When the investigative journalist Ronen Bergman published a book that painted a scathing picture of Arafat and his corrupt domain, prominent Oslo advocates took umbrage. Yair Hirschfeld accused Aman of feeding Bergman ‘‘selected documents’’ from the Mukata cache in a bid to turn him into an Aman ‘‘spokesman.’’ Leftist commentators who were eager to undermine the view that the right to return tripped up Camp David II routinely quoted Yossi Ginossar and Matti Steinberg who downplayed its significance. That the Left, which normally vilified the intelligence/security community, would embrace some of its members was indicative of the depth of the revisionist effort. In an ironic turn of events, Ginossar, who personified the Israeli policies of aiding and abetting the corruption in the PA, was rehabilitated to serve as Gilad’s detractor.21 For their part, Oslo doubters charged peace advocates with erroneous forecasts and a willful disregard of reality despite facts to the contrary. Gilad stated that Aman provided correct assessments of Arafat and predicted that the PA chief would ‘‘escape forward’’ by resorting to violence, but ‘‘some’’ rejected these forecasts because ‘‘the image of the Palestinians did not fit their expectations.’’ Amidror argued that a key Oslo assumption—Arafat’s willingness and/or readiness to fight terrorism—was a ‘‘naı¨ve and costly belief’’ and accused Beilin and others for downplaying the right to return issue. Major General Amatzia Hen singled out his colleagues in the Council for Peace and Security who used their high military ranks, first, to vouch for Arafat and the Palestinians in the run-up to Oslo but, second, after Oslo failed, to embrace separation without apologizing for their previous stand. Hen felt that such behavior amounted to a moral dereliction of responsibility on the part of these officials. Others claimed that some peace boosters, notably Shimon Peres, distorted the intelligence/security process in their zeal to strike a deal. As one of them put it, IDF officers discovered that promotions were ‘‘tied to the enthusiasm with which they embraced Palestinians as partners.’’ For others, the ‘‘lucrative deals’’ to be had with senior Palestinian ‘‘security bosses’’ were enough of an allure for professing belief in the Oslo partnership. Gilad and other critics suggested a committee to investigate the entire process but conceded that there was little public appetite for exposing Oslo for what it really was. As one like-minded analyst put it, ‘‘Oslo was not a political process, but a state of mind among dreamers of dreams and peddlers of illusion who misled an entire people.’’22 Because much of the ‘‘partner for peace’’ construct rested on Yasser Arafat, the psychology and behavior of the chairman was front and center of the post-Oslo discourse. As this work details, even Oslo architects and their staunch supporters like Daniel Abraham found Arafat’s behavior puzzling and disturbing. Yair Hirschfeld revealed that the Israelis urged Arafat to stop using the language of liberation and Jihad while trying to explain to him that such public utterances damaged Palestinian credibility with the Israeli public. After Arafat introduced

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his ‘‘minister,’’ the Neturei Karta Rabbi Hirsh, to King Hussein, Peres commented that Arafat was ‘‘supersized in his wisdom and in his stupidity.’’ Danny Rubinstein admitted that Arafat repeatedly lied, denied reality or produced ‘‘implausible commentary,’’ but explained that such habits reveal ‘‘something authentic,’’ reflecting the incorrect information as ‘‘false reality’’ experienced by the Palestinian people. Others were less chartable. George Tenet came close to portraying Arafat as a bizarre megalomaniac. The CIA director recalled that Arafat went into a ‘‘sudden rage’’ after Moshe Yaalon addressed him as ‘‘Rais’’ (President). In front of Secretary Albright and a large number of negotiators, the chairman shouted that he should be addressed as General Arafat, because he was ‘‘the greatest general in the Egyptian army.’’23 If these and other contemporaneous accounts raised doubts about Arafat’s psychological fitness to serve as a peace partner, much of post-Oslo literature was downright pessimistic. The cache of documents seized at the Mukata corroborated that Arafat was involved in minute details of running the PA, including funding terrorism. But neither the documents nor the numerous biographies or psychological profiles could resolve all the questions surrounding Arafat’s peculiar behavior. As a matter of fact, virtually every work noted that, ultimately, Arafat remained ‘‘elusive.’’ Barry Rubin and Judith Colp Rubin, the authors of a leading biography, wrote that ‘‘despite the millions of words spoken and written,’’ Arafat remained ‘‘elusive.’’ Another biographer pointed out that the thousands of publications by both journalists and academics ‘‘resort to words such as ‘mystery,’ ‘myth’ and ‘hard to explain.’ ’’ Danny Rubinstein, an early booster of Arafat as a ‘‘peace partner,’’ ended up writing about the ‘‘Arafat Enigma.’’ Utilizing his perspective as an insider, Gilad Sher confessed that ‘‘As always, Arafat reminded the largest unknown.’’24 Still, there were sufficient details to paint a dim portrait of Arafat as a person and a leader. Jerrold Post, who coauthored a psychological profile of Arafat for the International Institute for Counterterrorism, found that Arafat, who desires to be honored and receive recognition, ‘‘responded well to gestures of respect and good will’’ but cautioned that no concessions could be expected in return for such gestures. Others drew attention to indicators of his weak and ineffectual leadership, including his affinity to espouse conspiracy theories, ability to present defeat as victory, personal history of violence and cruelty, proclivity for manipulation and deceit, denial of responsibility, tendency to blame others, negativism, unpredictability, irrationality, chronic indecision, mismanagement to the point of anarchism, oversensitivity, and insecurity. Sher noted that ‘‘The reasonable possibility of ending this violent conflict . . . was undermined by Arafat’s manipulative indecisiveness, deceitfulness and potentially explosive political maneuvering.’’25 Transcending the particulars of Oslo, the virtual fragmentation of the intelligence/security community during the decade-long process has dispelled the long-standing leftist view that Israeli policy is controlled by the so-called

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‘‘military mind.’’ Zeev Maoz, a former head of the Jaffe Center, characterized this phenomenon as the ‘‘domination of Israel’s national security and foreign policy by a centralized, narrow-minded, self-serving, and self-perpetuating security community.’’26 Not was only this alleged ‘‘old boys’ network’’ split along the same paradigmatic lines as the country at large but, as indicated, many of its members turned into high-profile Oslo champions. The Intifada and 9/11 restored much of the consensus to intelligence analysis and a greater measure of cohesion to the community. Aharon Zeevi (Farkash), who headed Aman during this period, wrote that Palestinian resistance is part of global Jihadism shaping Israel’s strategic environment. Zeevi also noted that the 9/11 attack discredited the traditional view of terrorism in general and suicide terrorism in particular as a response to deplorable economic conditions, feeling of hopelessness, and/or personal pathology. The voluminous post-9/11 literature has indicated that, far from following this simplistic causal structure, suicide terrorism tended to combine features of diffusion of innovation with elements of ‘‘outbidding’’ among multiple groups competing for power and control in an insurgency environment. By giving up life for the cause, suicide terror groups hope to prove their commitment to the national/religious goal; if their domestic public approves of such means, such groups can claim the mantle of the ‘‘legitimate representative’’ of its people. To recall, faced with the growing legitimacy of the Jihadists, Fatah and Tanzim felt compelled to establish their own suicide squads. Equally important, more updated research has described such non-state actors as ‘‘peace spoilers’’ ready to use any means at their service. In the words of one scholar, ‘‘suicide bombings were doubly effective because they killed Israelis and damaged the Palestinian economy through closures.’’27 While this new research created a better appreciation of suicide terrorism, few predicted that the Islamists could evolve into a more prominent strategic threat. Neither intelligence/security officials nor civilian strategists, including those who supported unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, took into account the victory of Hamas or its use of rocket and missile technology to compensate for restricted access to Israel’s civilian centers. In what was billed as ‘‘a strategic plan for peace and security,’’ Martin Van Creveld, a highly respected military historian at the Hebrew University, failed to list such a scenario in his otherwise detailed analysis. Much like Oslo supporters, Van Creveld relied on the alleged rationality of the generic ‘‘Palestinians’’ to predict that, once separated from Israel by a barrier, they would strive to build a prosperous economy. As for Iran’s use of Hamas as a proxy, Van Creveld noted that the successors of Ayatollah Khomeini, having been in power longer, ‘‘are both less fanatical and less irrational.’’ 28 That such an assessment was proffered at a time when it was widely recognized that the intersection of state sponsors of terror and their proxy organizations presented a huge threat to the West in general and Israel in particular was a testimony to the enduring pull of the Oslo paradigm.

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It would be impossible to conclude an analysis of the predictive failures of the Oslo project without mentioning its impact on the ongoing search for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. According to Kuhn, not only does the failure of a paradigm discredit its epistemic champions, but it also colors the underpinnings of the replacement. BACK TO THE FUTURE: THE LESSONS OF OSLO AND THE SEARCH FOR PEACE IN THE OLD MIDDLE EAST

The end of the first decade of the twenty-first century has dampened the once widespread expectation that peace was ‘‘just around the corner.’’ Despite lavish funding, the CR/peace research stalwarts have, as noted, failed to demonstrate that their methodology could put a dent in the Islamist rejectionism of Israel. Struggling to adjust, Herbert Kelman, the intellectual father of the CR approach, has conceded that ‘‘Hamas cannot deliver what Israel wants . . . acceptance of its right to exist.’’ Given this reality, Kelman has counseled that ‘‘at this stage’’ such acceptance is not necessary; but he still has urged Israelis to employ ‘‘issueoriented negotiations’’ as a ‘‘bridge to the resumption of final status negotiations,’’ ‘‘exploratory and pre-negotiation talks, and finally, a visionary strategy . . . a joint vision of principles of peace.’’ Using the language of CR has not been limited to the academy. In spite of his admitted and well-documented disappointment with Oslo, in a new book, Uri Savir has pushed for ‘‘peace first,’’ described as a ‘‘new model to end the war.’’ Savir has criticized Oslo as reflecting ‘‘a narrow security doctrine’’ and urged pursuit of ‘‘creative diplomacy.’’ In a book written before Hamas’s takeover of Gaza, Galia Golan, the Peace Now leader, was optimistic about the peace process. She suggested that the pro-Hamas vote was a backlash against Fatah’s corruption or an artifact of the voting system adopted by the PA. Apparently unaware of the ‘‘ballot and bullet’’ model, Golan drew comfort from opinion polls that showed relative moderation. In a more updated response to the impact of Hamas’s rocket barrages on Israeli public opinion, the journalistpeace activist Akiba Eldar called on the Israeli government to show images of assassinated Islamist leaders and closed border crossing in order make the point that ‘‘Hamas can hardly sit idly by.’’ Brigadier General (ret.) Shlomo Brom, a former head of IDF’s Planning Branch and a longtime peace advocate, called for Israel to ‘‘engage Hamas’’ and support ‘‘a Palestinian dialogue that might lead to national reconciliation’’ between Fatah and the Islamists. Engaging Hamas has also been on the agenda of CR advocates in the United States, where some foreign policy practitioners called for talks with Hamas and its patron, Iran.29 Critics have heaped scorn on such suggestions, pointing out that this was but one more indication of the utopianism of the CR disciples and their proclivity to use generic/formulaic language divorced from reality. They asserted that the lessons of Oslo mandate a return to conflict management in the foreseeable

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future, a strategy that Likud politicians have recently enunciated. Although the Israeli government has been officially committed to the Annapolis agenda, top officials in the Kadima coalition have admitted that there is virtually no chance for a final status breakthrough despite Ehud Olmert’s offer which bested the Clinton Parameters. In an interview in September 2008, Olmert declared that Israel would need to make considerable concessions in East Jerusalem and to give up ‘‘nearly all of the territories, if not all of them.’’ In a rare convergence, both the Left and the Right criticized the Prime Minister, with Likud warning that Hamas would dominate the new state. More to the point, the Palestinian response was muted, forcing Olmert to concede that ‘‘the Palestinians don’t have the necessary courage, strength, internal determination, will or enthusiasm.’’30 The Oslo experience has also been cited with regard to the issue of Palestinian political culture and nation-building. Both the Israeli authorities and the Quartet headed by the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair have emphasized that true internal reforms need to precede any formal agreement; the Quartet launched several programs to purge corruption and mismanaged from the West Bank. But some observers have doubted whether a ‘‘cleaned-up’’ Fatah could compete fairly with the ‘‘ballot and bullet’’ approach of Hamas. As one critic put it, Hamas is not likely to give up power, even when faced with an electoral defeat. To wit, ‘‘its commitment to the use of violence as a religious duty means it will never accept a political arrangement that does not fully correspond to its radical precepts.’’ Moreover, according to some estimates, both parts of the PA have seen an increase in self-radicalization related to the extreme Sunni doctrine of Salafism, which seeks to establish a new caliphate centered in Jerusalem.31 To some though, the lessons of Oslo have dictated a total revision of the ‘‘long-standing peacemaking paradigm’’ based on the repartition of historic Palestine. In a far-ranging analysis, Giora Eiland suggested that the assumptions extant in 1993 were invalided by the peace process and do not exist anymore. As Eiland sees it, a demilitarized Palestine cannot safeguard Israel because of the nature of new weapons and because the right to return proved to be virtually insurmountable. Most worrisome, though, is the fact that an agreement with a Palestinian state in the West Bank—the cornerstone of Annapolis—is untenable because of a possible takeover by Hamas. In his view, Israel may be able to live with a Hamas takeover of Hebron but not of East Jerusalem and other areas in close proximity to strategic locations, including the airport. Because of these and other challenges, Eiland has urged rejection of the two-state solution in favor of the Jordanian option or a regional solution.32 The Islamist behavior in the Gaza Strip generated more doubt about the viability of a Palestinian state. As sole rulers, Hamas and its partner, the Islamic Jihad, lobbied thousands of Kassam rockets and missiles into the adjacent Israeli towns and farms. The constant barrage forced the IDF to launch Operation Cast Lead (December 27, 2008–January 18, 2009) that resulted in high civilian toll

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and heavy material damage to Gaza City and the surrounding area. Israel was roundly condemned for harming civilians, but the IDF asserted that Hamas positioned its forces in civilian sites, including schools and mosques, in effect turning the population into human shields. Undoubtedly influenced by these developments, the Israeli electorate handed a victory to the right-wing parties on February 10, 2009. The head of the new coalition, the Likud Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, stated that Israel was committed to the two-state solution envisaged by the Oslo peace, but senior ministers in his government publicly questioned the wisdom and viability of such a scheme. As the Obama administration signaled its resolve to push for a twostate solution, a move that has strong support in the European Union, the debate about an independent Palestinian state has intensified again. It is in this context that the lessons from the failed Oslo peace should feature prominently.

Notes

INTRODUCTION 1. Henry A. Kissinger, For the Record: Selected Statements, 1977–1980 (Boston: Little Brown, 1989), 283–84. 2. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of the Scientific Revolution, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970). 3. Michael D. Shaffer, Deadly Paradigms. The Failure of U.S. Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 34; Robert L. Rothstein, Planning, Prediction and Policy Making in Foreign Affairs. Theory and Practice (Boston: Little Brown, 1972), 159. 4. Ole R. Hosti, ‘‘The Belief System and the National Image. A Case Study,’’ Journal of Conflict Resolution 6 (1962): 244–52. 5. Martin Staniland, American Intellectuals and African Nationalism, 1955–1970 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), 275–76. 6. Ralph Pettman, Human Behavior and World Politics (New York: Saint Martin’s Press, 1975); Giandomenico Majone, Evidence, Argument and Persuasion in the Policy Process (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 161–67. 7. Eva Eztioni-Halevy, The Knowledge Elite and the Failure of Prophecy (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1985), 26.

CHAPTER 1 1. Milton Schwebel, ‘‘Introduction: Peace and Conflict,’’ Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology 1 (1995): 1–2. 2. John Galtung, ‘‘A Structural Theory of Aggression,’’ Journal of Peace Research 1 (1964): 95–119.

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3. Herbert C. Kelman, ‘‘Informal Mediation by the Scholar Practitioner,’’ in Mediation in International Relations, ed. Jacob Bercovich and Jeffrey Z. Rubin (New York: St. Martin Press, 1992), 64–96; Interview with Joseph Montville, M. J. Zuckerman, ‘‘Defining Track II Diplomacy,’’ Carnegie Report 3 (2005); Kelman cited in Ofira Seliktar, ‘‘Paradigms of Reality. The Art and Science of Evaluating the Middle East Peace Process,’’ in The Arab-Israeli Conflict. Two Decades of Change, ed. Yehuda Lukacs and Abdallah M. Battah (Boulder: Westview Press, 1988), 344–64. 4. Thomas Boudreau, ‘‘Intergroup Conflict Resolution through Identity Affirmation: Overcoming the Image of the Ethnic or Enemy ‘Other,’ ’’ Peace and Conflict Studies 10 (2003): 87–108. 5. William I. Zartman, Ripe for Revolution. Conflict and Intervention in Africa (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985); Richard Haass, Conflicts Unending the United States and Regional Disputes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990). 6. Arieh Naor, Greater Israel. Theology and Policy (Haifa: Haifa University/Zmora Beitan, 2001), 226 (Hebrew). 7. Shlomo Gazit, Trapped Fools: Thirty Years of Israeli Policy in the Territories (Tel Aviv: Zmora Bitan, 1999), 59 (Hebrew); Amnon Cohen, ‘‘The Changing Patterns of West Bank Politics,’’ Jerusalem Quarterly 5 (Fall 1977): 112. 8. Dilip Hiro, Sharing the Holy Land (New York: Olive Branch Press, 1999), 258; Christopher Reuter, My Life as a Bomb, trans. Helen Ragg-Kirkby (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 96; Emanuel Wald, The Owl and Minerva. Strategic Decisions under Uncertainty (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronot Books, 1994), 11 (Hebrew); Shmuel, ‘‘Intelligence Research during the Peace Process,’’ in Intelligence for Peace. The Function for Intelligence in Peacetime, ed. Hazi Carmel (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronot Books, 1998), 171–95 (Hebrew). 9. Emile F. Sahlieyh, ‘‘The West Bank and the Politics of Marginalization,’’ in The ArabIsraeli Conflict. Two Decades of Change, ed. Yehuda Lukacs and Abdallah M. Battah (Boulder: Westview Press, 1988), 44–66. 10. Johan Galtung, ‘‘The Middle East and the Theory of Conflict,’’ Journal of Peace Research 8 (1971): 174, 198; Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979). 11. Edward C. Corrigan, ‘‘Jewish Criticism of Post Zionism,’’ Middle East Policy Journal 35 (1990–91), http://www.mepc.org/journal/9012_corrigan.asp. 12. Hussein Agha, Shai Feldman, Ahmad Khalidi, and Zeev Schiff, Track-II Diplomacy: Lessons from the Middle East (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003), 25–26; Muhammad Rabie, US-PLO Dialogue. Secret Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1996), x. 13. Herbert C. Kelman, ‘‘Psychological Prerequisites for Mutual Acceptance,’’ International Security 3 (1978): 162–85, and ‘‘Creating the Conditions for Palestinian-Israeli Negotiations,’’ Journal of Conflict Resolution 26 (1982): 30–75. 14. Herbert C. Kelman, ‘‘Talk to Arafat,’’ Foreign Policy 49 (1982–83), 119–39; Understanding Arafat (Tel Aviv: International Center for Peace in the Middle East, 1983). 15. Ephraim Yuchtman-Yaar and Michael Inbar, ‘‘Social Distance in the Arab-Israeli Conflict. A Resource Dependency Analysis,’’ Comparative Political Studies 19 (1986): 283–316; The People’s Image of Conflict Resolution: A Comparative Survey of Israel and Palestinians (Tel Aviv: Institute for Social Research, Tel Aviv University, 1987); Michael Inbar and Ephraim Yuchtman-Yaar, ‘‘Some Cognitive Dimensions of the Arab Israeli Conflict,’’ Journal of Conflict Resolution 29 (1986): 699–725. 16. Jane Corbin, The Norway Channel. The Secret Talks That Led to the Middle East Peace Accord (New York: Atlantic Monthly, 1994), 8; Janet Wallach and John Wallach, Arafat, In

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the Eye of the Beholder (New York: Carroll Publishing, 1990), 380; Hanan Ashrawi, This Side of Peace (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 220. 17. Alan Hart, Arafat. Terrorist or Peace Maker (London: Sedgwick & Jackson, 1984); Helena Cobban, The Palestinian Liberation Organization. People, Power, and Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984). 18. David Makovsky, Making Peace with the PLO: The Rabin Government’s Road to the Oslo Accord (Boulder: Westview Press, 1996), 98; Amnon Barzilai, Ramon (Jerusalem: Shocken, 1996), 79, 152 (Hebrew). 19. Raviv Drucker, Harakiri. Ehud Barak, The Failure (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronot Books, 2002), 226–27 (Hebrew); Makovsky, Making Peace with the PLO, 98; Robi Nathanson, ‘‘The Economic Background to Oslo,’’ in Peace Time, Facts and Thoughts on the ‘‘Oslo Track,’’ ed. Mordechai Nessyahu, Meir Stiegliz, and Ziv Tamir (Tel Aviv: Self-Published, 1994), 25–27 (Hebrew); Rabie, US-PLO Dialogue, 19. 20. Hanan Shay (Shwarz), Coping with Strategic Surprise in a World of Uncertainty (Jerusalem: Leonard Davis Institute, 1995), 2; Ronen Bergman, Authority Given (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronot Books, 2002), 96–100 (Hebrew); Eliezer Goldberg, The Annual Report of the Comptroller General—1999 (Jerusalem: Comptroller General Office, 1999), 282–85 (Hebrew); Dani Naveh, Executive Secrets (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronot Books, 1999), 19 (Hebrew); Uri Saguy, Lights in the Fog (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronot Books, 1998), 234–36 (Hebrew); Shlomo Gazit, Between Warning and Surprise. On the Reasonability of the National Security Estimate (Tel Aviv: Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies, 2003), 47 (Hebrew); Uri Bar-Joseph, ‘‘StateIntelligence Relations in Israel: 1948–1997,’’ Journal of Conflict Studies 27 (1997), 133–56. 21. Amram Mitznah, ‘‘Civil-Military Relations during the First Intifada,’’ in Civil-Military Relations during Military Conflicts, ed. Ran Erez (Tel Aviv: Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies, 2006), 55–59. 22. Amnon Cohen, ‘‘Does a Jordanian Option Still Exist?’’ Jerusalem Quarterly 5 (Summer 1980): 111–20; Arye Shalev, Autonomy, Problems and Solutions (Tel Aviv: Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies, 1979); Aharon Yariv, ‘‘Toward the Year 2000: Israeli Options and What Is Behind Them,’’ Middle East Military Balance. 1987–1988 (Tel Aviv: Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies, 1988), 249–99; Eli Rekhess and Meir Litvak, The West Bank and the Gaza Strip in Middle East Contemporary Survey (Tel Aviv: Dayan Center, 1982–83). 23. Mubarak Awad, ‘‘Non-Violent Resistance: A Strategy for the Occupied Territories,’’ Journal of Palestine Studies 13 (1984): 22–36. 24. Shaul Mishal and Reuben Aharoni, Speaking Stones. Communique´s from the Intifada Underground (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1994), 21–22; Eli Rekhess, ‘‘The West Bank and Gaza Strip,’’ in Middle East Contemporary Survey (Tel Aviv: Dayan Center, 1986), 203–23; Gazit, Trapped Fools, 255; Mitznah, ‘‘Civil-Military.’’ 25. Gazit, Trapped Fools, 128–29. 26. Efraim Inbar, ‘‘Israel’s Small War. The Military Reaction to the Intifada,’’ Armed Forces and Society 18 (1991): 29–50. Martin Van Creveld, The Sword and the Olive: A Critical History of the Israeli Defense Force (New York: Public Affairs, 1998), 344. 27. Haim Misgav, Cross Fire, Conversations with Oren Shahor (Or Yehuda: Hed Arzi, 2000), 49 (Hebrew); Moshe Arens, Broken Covenant. American Foreign Policy and the Crisis between the U.S. and Israel (New York: Simon & Shuster, 1995), 14; Yoram Peri, The Israeli Military and Israel’s Palestinian Policy (Washington: U.S. Institute of Peace, 2002), 15; Karmi Gillon, Shin Bet between the Schisms (Tel Aviv: Miskal Yedioth Ahronot Books, 2000), 191 (Hebrew).

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28. Meir Litvak, Palestinian Leadership in the Territories (Tel Aviv: Dayan Center, 1991); Hillel Frisch, ‘‘Military Struggle,’’ in At the Core of the Conflict. The Intifada, ed. Gad Gilbar and Asher Susser (Tel Aviv: Dayan Center, 1992), 40, 67 (Hebrew). 29. The Palestinian National Movement in the Aftermath of the Intifada (Tel Aviv: Dayan Center, 1989); Daniel Pipes, ‘‘Arabs vs. Arabs over Palestine,’’ Commentary, July 1987; Khaled Hroub, Hamas. A Beginners Guide (London: Pluto Press, 2006), 15. 30. Cited in Graham Usher, Dispatches from Palestine: The Rise and Fall of the Oslo Peace Process (London: Pluto Press, 1999), 20; Emanuel Sivan, ‘‘Sunni Radicalism in the Middle East and the Iranian Revolution,’’ International Journal of Middle East Studies 21 (1989): 1–30; Joel Greenberg, ‘‘Hamas’s Militant Stand on Joining the PNC,’’ Jerusalem Post, April 13, 1989. 31. Greenberg, ‘‘Hamas’s Militant Stand on Joining the PNC’’; John Kifner, ‘‘Islamic Fundamentalist Group Splitting Palestinian Uprising,’’ New York Times, September 18, 1988; Glen Frankel, ‘‘Islamist Fundamentalism Rises in West Bank: Palestinians Frustrated with PLO’s Inability to Gain from Uprising,’’ Washington Post, September 18, 1988; Litvak, Palestinian Leadership, 18. 32. Greenberg, ‘‘Hamas’s Militant Stand on Joining the PNC.’’ 33. Robert Satloff, Islam in the Palestinian Uprising. Policy Focus (Washington: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1988); Ben Lynfield, ‘‘PLO Warns Hamas to Stay in Line,’’ Jerusalem Post, July 6, 1990; Kifner, ‘‘Islamic Fundamentalist Group’’; Yoel Ben Porat, ‘‘The Intifada as a Perpetual Surprise,’’ Matara 11, no. 24/8 (1989, Hebrew); Ben Porat, Intelligence Estimates That Fail (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronot Books, 1991), 165–66 (Hebrew); Bar-Joseph, ‘‘State-Intelligence’’; Danny Rubinstein, The People of Nowhere: The Palestinian Vision of Home (New York: Times Books, 1991). 34. Naor, Greater Israel, 16; Arens, Broken Covenant, 62, 74. 35. Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947–1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Ilan Pappe, Britain and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1947– 1951 (New York: Macmillan, 1987); Avi Shlaim, Collusion across the Jordan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986); Aliza Craimer, ‘‘Do the New Historians Practice What They Preach. Objectivity and Neutrality in the Israeli Historiography Debate about 1948,’’ Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Israel Studies, Banff, Canada, May 2006. Johan Galtung, ‘‘The ‘Peace Process’ Twenty Years Later. Failure Without Alternative,’’ in The Arab-Israeli Conflict. Two Decades of Change, ed. Yehuda Lukacs and Abdallah M. Battah (Boulder: Westview Press, 1988), 322. For an analysis of the post-Zionist critique of Israel, see Ofira Seliktar, ‘‘Tenured Radicals in Israel. From Post-Zionism to Political Activism,’’ Israel Affairs, October 2005. 36. Uri Davis, Israel. An Apartheid State (London: Zeid Books, 1986); Daniel McGowan, Interview, ‘‘In Memory of Dir Yassin,’’ Angie Tibbs 2007, www.deiryassin.org/dmcgowan .html. 37. Oz cited in Edward Alexander, ‘‘Israeli Intellectuals and Israeli Politics,’’ in Israel and Post Zionism. A Nation at Risk, ed. Shlomo Sharan (Brighton: Sussex University Press, 2003), 57; Joseph Agassi, Liberal Nationalism for Israel. Toward an Israeli National Identity (Jerusalem: Gefen, 1999), 227; Avishai Margalit, ‘‘The Kitsch of Israel,’’ New York Review of Books, November 24, 1988. 38. Arens, Broken Covenant, 14; Avi Kober, ‘‘From Blitzkrieg to Attrition. Israel’s Attrition Strategy and Staying Power,’’ Small Wars and Insurgencies 16 (2005): 216–40. 39. Yossi Beilin, Touching Peace (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronot Books, 1997), 33 (Hebrew). 40. Wallach and Wallach, Arafat, 380.

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41. Mohamed Rabie, ‘‘The U.S.-PLO Dialogue: The Swedish Connection,’’ Journal of Palestine Studies 21 (1992): 54–66; Rabie, US-PLO Dialogue, x; Robert O. Freedman, ‘‘A Talk with Arafat,’’ New York Review of Books, April 13, 1989. 42. Daniel S. Abraham, Peace Is Possible. Conversations with Arab and Israeli Leaders from 1988 to Present (New York: Newmarket Press, 2006), 34; Eytan Bentsur, Making Peace: A First-Hand Account of the Arab-Israeli Peace Process (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2001), 41. 43. Douglas G. Brinkley, The Unfinished Presidency: Jimmy Carter’s Quest for Global Peace (New York: Viking, 1998), 325, 330–31. 44. Shaul Mishal, The PLO under Arafat. Between Gun and the Olive Branch (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 151; Barry Rubin, The PLO’s New Policy. Evolution until Victory? (Washington: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1989), 4, 15, 17. 45. Yehoshafat Harkabi, Israel’s Fateful Decision (London: Taurus, 1988), 80–85. 46. Yossi Alpher, ‘‘Why Should Begin Invite Arafat to Jerusalem,’’ Foreign Affairs 60 (1982); Arye Shalev, ‘‘The Uprising in Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip,’’ in The Middle East Military Balance. 1987–1989, ed. Aharon Levran and Zeev Eytan (Tel Aviv: Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies, 1988), 23–47; Shalev, The Intifada: Causes and Effects (Tel Aviv: Papyrus, 1991); Sari Nusseibeh, Once Upon a Country. A Palestinian Life (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2007), 317. 47. Zeev Schiff, Security for Peace. Israeli Minimum Security Negotiations with the Palestinians (Washington: Washington Institute for Near East Studies, 1989), 9, 45. 48. Erwin Frenkel, The Press and Politics in Israel: The Jerusalem Post from 1932 to Present (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994), 101–63; Hanoch Marmary in Seventh Eye (Jerusalem: Israel Democracy Institute, no. 3, 74, 1996); Isi Leibler, ‘‘Shame on Haaretz,’’ Jerusalem Post, November 6, 2007; Calev Ben David, ‘‘Between the Lines. Shifting Business,’’ Jerusalem Post, February 14, 2008. 49. Ariel Merari, ‘‘The Readiness to Kill and Die: Suicide Terrorism in the Middle East,’’ in Origins of Terrorism. Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind, ed. Walter Reich (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 192–207; Schiff, Security for Peace, 70–76. 50. James A. Baker, The Politics of Diplomacy. Revolution, War and Peace. 1989–1992 (New York: Putnam & Sons, 1995), 130; Yossi Beilin, Touching Peace, from the Oslo Accord to the Final Agreement (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999), 36. 51. Wallach and Wallach, Arafat, postscript.

CHAPTER 2 1. For a survey of the IR literature, see Jack Snyder, ‘‘One World, Rival Theories,’’ Foreign Policy 145 (2004); Ofira Seliktar, ‘‘Realism Is Not Ignorance: A Critique of the MearsheimerWalt Thesis,’’ MERIA Journal Online 12 (March 2008). 2. Harold H. Saunders, Other Walls. The Arab-Israeli Process in a Global Perspective (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991); William B. Quandt, ‘‘After the Gulf Crisis: Challenges for American Policy,’’ Arab-American Affairs 35 (Winter 1990–91): 11–19. 3. Yossi Alpher, ed., War in the Gulf: Implications for Israel (Bolder: Westview Press, 1992); Ephraim Kam, ‘‘Changes in the Soviet Union: Implications for the Foreign Policy and Security of the Arab States,’’ in The Middle East Military Balance 1989–1990, ed. Joseph Alpher, Zeev Eytan, and Dov Tamari (Tel Aviv: Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies, 1991), 32–37; Reuven Pedatzur, ‘‘The Gulf War in the Eyes of the Israelis,’’ Maarachot (May–June 1993): 5–17.

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4. Wallach and Wallach, Arafat, 425; Mohamed Heikel, Secret Channels. The Inside Story of Arab-Israeli Peace Negotiations (New York: Harper/Collins, 1996), 430; David Halevy and Neil C. Livingston, Inside the PLO (New York: William Morrow, 1990), 162; David Kuttab, ‘‘In the Aftermath of the War,’’ Journal of Palestine Studies 20 (Summer 1991); Rachel Ehrenfeld, ‘‘Arafat, the World’s Blind Spot,’’ ACRI Policy Paper 17, 1997. 5. Tony Walker and Andrew Gower, Arafat. The Biography (London: Virgin Books, 2003), 318; Abraham, Peace Is Possible. 6. Kuttab, ‘‘Aftermath,’’ 120. 7. Edy Kaufman, Shurki B. Abed, and Robert L. Rothstein, eds., Democracy, Peace and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Boulder: Lynn Rienner, 1993), 5; Anthony Lewis, ‘‘Abroad at Home. Change in Israel,’’ New York Times, August 14, 1993; John Kifner, ‘‘Mideast Accord. Gaza. Dedicated Extremists Present Twin Threat to the Middle East,’’ New York Times, September 14, 1993. 8. Michael Keren, Professionals against Populism (Tel Aviv: Ramot, 1996), 92–93 (Hebrew). 9. Shimon Peres (with Arieh Naor), The New Middle East (New York: Henry Halt, 1993), 171; Shimon Peres, Battling for Peace. A Memoir (New York: Random House, 1995), 275–77, 308; Haim Misgav, Not the Same Sea, Talks with Shimon Peres (Tel Aviv: Sifriat Hapoalim, 2004), 40 (Hebrew). 10. Peres, New Middle East, 40–41, 178. 11. Beilin, Touching Peace (1997), 158; Yair P. Hirschfeld, Oslo: A Formula for Peace. From Negotiation to Implementation (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2000), 194 (Hebrew); Abraham, Peace Is Possible, 23; Amnon Lord, ‘‘Oslo, the Bomb and Other Home Remedies,’’ Azure Online (Summer 1998). 12. Michael Feige, ‘‘Peace Now and the Legitimation Crisis of ‘Civilian Militarism,’ ’’ Israel Studies 3 (1998): 85–111; Oren Yiftachel, ‘‘Ethnocracy or Democracy? Israeli Territorial Politics,’’ Middle East Report 27 (Summer 1998): 8–14; Yoram Peri, Brothers at War. Rabin’s Association and the Cultural War in Israel (Tel Aviv: Miskal, 2005), 79. 13. Daniel Ben-Simon, The New Israel. The Victory of the Margins. How Did Left Collapsed and the Right Ascended (Tel Aviv: Areyh Nir Publishers, 1997), 32 (Hebrew); Yossi Beilin, Israel at 40 Plus; A Political Profile of the Israeli Society in the 1990s (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronot Books, 1993), 198 (Hebrew). 14. Makovsky, Making Peace with the PLO, 101; Saguy, Lights in the Fog, 154, 190–91, 199; Misgav, Cross Fire, 75; Peri, The Israeli Military and Israel’s Palestinian Policy, 19; Itamar Rabinovitch, The Brink of Peace. Israel and Syria (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronot Books, 1998), 80 (Hebrew). 15. Jon Immanuel, ‘‘Hamas Tabs, Muslim Merchants Vote,’’ Jerusalem Post, May 29, 1992; Tsafrir told the story to an AP reporter, ‘‘The Mossad and Imad Mughnieyeh,’’ Jerusalem Post, February 19, 2008; Ronen Bergman, a leading investigative journalist, accused the Mossad of underestimating the danger of suicide bombings and a cover up, The Secret War with Iran (New York: Random House, 2008), 64–65; Michael Sheridan, ‘‘Crisis in the Gulf. Ray of Hope for the Middle East,’’ The Independent, March 19, 1998. 16. Bernard Lewis, ‘‘Islam and Liberal Democracy,’’ Atlantic Monthly, February 1993; Samuel P. Huntington, ‘‘The Clash of Civilizations,’’ Foreign Affairs 73 (1996): 22–49. 17. Martin Kramer, ‘‘The Prospect of Islamic Revival. Symposium,’’ The Middle East in the Aftermath of the Gulf War (Tel Aviv: Dayan Center, 1987); Yehudit Ronen, ‘‘Islamic Fundamentalism,’’ Sudan and Algeria 330 (1993): 51–52, 57 (Hebrew); Eli Rekhess, The Arab Minority in Israel. Dilemmas of Political Orientation and Social Change. Resurgent Islam, Conference (Tel Aviv: Dayan Center, 1991); Litvak, Palestinian Leadership, 17; Dror is cited

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in Manfred Gerstenfeld, ‘‘Thinking Straight: A Gaze through the Haze,’’ Jerusalem Post, June 9, 1990. 18. Ofira Seliktar, The Politics of Intelligence and American Wars with Iraq (New York: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2008), 58–64; Bergman, Secret War, 196–97. 19. Reuben Paz, ‘‘The Islamist Factor in the Intifada,’’ in The Core of the Conflict. The Intifada, ed. Gad Gilbar and Asher Susser (Tel Aviv: Kibbutz Meuhad, 1992), 68–98 (Hebrew); Boaz Ganor, ‘‘The Islamic Resistance Movement in the Territories,’’ Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, February 2, 1992; Eli Rekhess, ‘‘Iran Cozies up to Hamas,’’ Jerusalem Post, December 23, 1992; Kenneth R. Timmerman, In Their Own Words. Interviews with Leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Muslim Brotherhood (Los Angeles: Simon Wiesenthal Center, 1994), 10–11. 20. Patrick Seale, Assad of Syria (Berkeley: University of California, 1995), 348. 21. Barry Rubin, The Truth about Syria (New York: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2007). 22. Wendy Kristianassen, ‘‘Challenges and Counterchallenges: Hamas’s Response to Oslo,’’ Journal of Palestine Studies 28 (1999): 19–36; Iyad Barghouti, ‘‘Interview. The Islamist Movement in the Occupied Territories,’’ Middle East Report 183 (1993): 9–12; Timor Kuran, ‘‘Now Out of Nowhere. The Element of Surprise in the East European Revolution,’’ World Politics 44 (1991): 7–48; Ofira Seliktar, Politics, Paradigms and Intelligence: Why So Few Have Predicted the Collapse of the Soviet Union (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2004), 30–31. 23. For instance, see Immanuel, ‘‘Hamas Tabs, Muslim Merchants Vote’’; Rekhess, ‘‘Iran Cozies up to Hamas’’; Ehud Yaari, ‘‘Arafat Accused,’’ Jerusalem Post, September 5, 1991. 24. Daniel Pipes, ‘‘Review,’’ Orbis 34 (1990): 299–300; Nissim Rejwan, ‘‘Arafat. In the Eyes of the Beholder,’’ Jerusalem Post, April 10, 1991; Andrew Gower and Tony Walker, Beyond the Myth. Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Revolution (London: W. H. Allen, 1991); Jerrold M. Post, ‘‘Terrorist Psycho-logic. Terrorist Behavior as a Product of Psychological Forces,’’ in Origins of Terrorism. Psychologies, Ideologies, States of Mind, ed. Walter Reich (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1990), 37. 25. Daniel Pipes, ‘‘Whatever Has Become of Arafat’s PLO,’’ Washington Times, June 6, 1993; Raine Marcus, ‘‘Most Terror Attacks Not by Hamas,’’ Jerusalem Post, December 17, 1992; Ariel Sharon, ‘‘Deliberate Deception,’’ Jerusalem Post, December 28, 1992; Danny Rubinstein, Arafat: A Portrait (Tel Aviv: Zmora-Bitan, 2001), 17 (Hebrew); Arens, Broken Covenant, 270–71. 26. Yossi Ben-Aharon, ‘‘Foundering Illusions: The Demise of the Oslo Process,’’ in The Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process: Oslo and the Lessons of Failure. Perspectives, Predicaments and Prospects, ed. Robert L. Rothstein, Moshe Maoz, and Khalil Shikaki (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2002), 59–77; Arens, Broken Covenant, 270–71; Yossi Beilin, Manual for a Wounded Dove (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronot Books, 2001), 267 (Hebrew); Dennis Ross, The Missing Peace. The Inside Story of the Fight for the Middle East (New York: Farrer, Straus and Giroux, 2005), 491; Ian S. Lustick, ‘‘The Political Legacy of De Facto Annexation: Rabin, the Territories and the Legitimacy Crisis in Israel,’’ in Israel at the Crossroad, ed. Efraim Karsh and Gregory Mahler (London: British Academic Press, 1994), 87–103. 27. Baker, Politics, 121; Ross, Missing Peace, 53–54, 64; Barzilai, Ramon, 161. 28. Arens, Broken Covenant, 28, 68, 125; Ross, Missing Peace, 61. 29. Ross, Missing Peace, 68; James A. Baker, Work Hard, Study and Keep Out of Politics (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2006), 303. 30. Bentsur, Making Peace, 13; Moshe Raviv, Israel at Fifty (Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense Publishing, 1998), 280 (Hebrew).

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31. Baker, Politics, 491; Ashrawi, This Side of Peace, 95, 126, 199. 32. Ross, Missing Peace, 82–83; Arens, Broken Covenant, 301; Peres, Battling for Peace, 227. 33. Hiro, Sharing the Holy Land, 224. 34. Alon Pinkas, ‘‘Poll: Ex-Generals Say Areas Not Existential,’’ Jerusalem Post, June 21, 1992. 35. Ross, Missing Peace, 84, 88–89; Efraim Karsh, ‘‘Yitzhak Rabin: War Hero on a Mission to Win Peace,’’ New York Times, June 28, 1992. 36. Timmerman, In Their Own Words, 10; Kristianassen, ‘‘Challenges and Counterchallenges,’’ 9–36; Shaul Mishal and Abraham Sela, The Hamas Wind—Violence and Coexistence (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronot Books, 1999), 169 (Hebrew). 37. Ashrawi, This Side of Peace, 223; Abraham, Peace Is Possible, 79; Makovsky, Making Peace with the PLO, 24, 100, 118; Ahron Bregman and Jihan El-Tahri, The Fifty Years’ War. Israel and the Arabs (New York: TV Books, 1999), 276–77. 38. Beilin, Touching Peace (1999), 62; Aharon Klieman, Constructive Ambiguity in the Middle East Peace Making (Tel Aviv: Tami Steinmetz Center, 1999), 65; Uri Savir, The Process. 1,100 Days That Changed the Middle East (New York: Random House, 1998), 4, 11. 39. Leslie Susser, ‘‘Politicians Line-Up to Talk to the PLO,’’ Jerusalem Post, February 11, 1993; Makovsky, Making Peace with the PLO, 18, 36; Agha, Feldman, Khalidi, and Schiff, Track-II Diplomacy, 62–63; Ethan Bronner, ‘‘New Year for West Bank,’’ Boston Globe, September 15, 1993. 40. Corbin, The Norway Channel, 18–19, 123; Hirschfeld, Oslo, 91; Beilin, Touching Peace (1999), 64. 41. Beilin, Touching Peace (1999), 101. 42. Bregman and El-Tahri, Fifty Years’ War, 289, 292–93. 43. Singer cited in Makovsky, Making Peace with the PLO, 53. 44. Bergman, Authority Given, 96–97; Dan Margalit, I Have Seen Them All (Tel Aviv: Zmora-Bitan, 1997), 76 (Hebrew); Michael Bar-Zohar, Phoenix. Shimon Peres—A Political Biography (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronot Books, 2006), 642 (Hebrew); Raviv Drucker and Ofer Shelah, Boomerang. The Failure of the Leadership in the Second Intifada (Tel Aviv: Keter Books, 2005), 61–62 (Hebrew); Yaakov Peri, Strike First (Tel Aviv: Keshet, 1999), 88 (Hebrew); Shimon Peres, ‘‘The Advantages and Disadvantages in the Eyes of a Policymaker,’’ in Intelligence and the Policy Maker, ed. Pinhas Yehezkieli (Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense Publishing, 2004), 97 (Hebrew); Misgav, Not the Same Sea, 202; Michael Ledeen, Perilous Statecraft (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), 115. 45. Makovsky, Making Peace with the PLO, 112–13; Kristianassen, ‘‘Challenges and Counterchallenges,’’ 9–36; Raviv, Israel at Fifty, 287; Ephraim Inbar, Rabin and Israel’s National Security (Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense Publishing, 2004), 185 (Hebrew). 46. Makovsky, Making Peace with the PLO, 100–101; Ephraim Halevy, Man in the Shadows. Inside the Middle East Crisis with a Man Who Led the Mossad (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2006), 49, 145; Inbar, Rabin, 184. 47. Arens, Broken Covenant, 23; Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), Through Secret Channels: The Road to Oslo (Reading, UK: Garnet Publishing, 1995), 195; Hirschfeld, Oslo, 86; Bar-Zohar, Phoenix, 882–83; Ben-Simon, New Israel, 215. 48. Arens, Broken Covenant, 24; Ross, Missing Peace, 93; Inbar, Rabin, 203; Yitzhak Ben Yisrael, ‘‘Intelligence as a Reality Interpreting Institution,’’ in Intelligence and the Policy Maker,

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ed. Pinhas Yehezkieli (Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense, 2004), 70 (Hebrew); Peter Ezra Weinberger, Co-opting the PLO: A Critical Reconstruction of the Oslo Accords, 1993–1995 (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006), viii. 49. Ross, Missing Peace, 92; Makovsky, Making Peace with the PLO, 39; Ephraim Sneh, Navigating Perilous Waters. An Israeli Strategy for Peace and Security (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronot Books, 2002), 21 (Hebrew); Ben-Simon, New Israel, 215–17; Misgav, Not the Same Sea, 70; Abbas, Secret Channels, 160. 50. Reuven Y. Hazan, The Labor Party and the Peace Process: Partisan Disintegration amid Political Cohesion (Jerusalem: Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations, 1998), 24; Beilin, Touching Peace (1999), 93; Sneh, Navigating, 21; Abbas, Secret Channels, 195. 51. Rabin cited by Makovsky, Making Peace with the PLO, 35, 112; Inbar, Rabin, 216; Nasser H. Aruri, Dishonest Broker. The U.S. Role in Israel and Palestine (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2003), 90; Dilip Hiro, Sharing the Promised Land. A Tale of the Israelis and Palestinians (New York: Olive Branch Press, 1999), 227; Beilin, Touching Peace (1999), 120; Hirschfeld, Oslo, 37; Itamar Rabinovitch, Waging Peace. Israel and the Arabs at the End of the Century (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1999), 67–68. 52. Ahmed Qurie (Abu Ala), From Oslo to Jerusalem. The Palestinian Story of Secret Negotiations (London: Tauris, 2006), 238–39, 263–64; Abbas, Secret Channels, 195ff. 53. Declaration of Principles, www.Mideastweb.org/meoslodop.htm. 54. Beilin, Touching Peace (1997), 306; Makovsky, Making Peace with the PLO, 76; Beilin, Touching Peace (1999), 124. 55. Ross, Missing Peace, 117. 56. Dan Izenberg, ‘‘Knesset Okays Accord with PLO 61-65,’’ Jerusalem Post, September 24, 1993. 57. Yechiel M. Leiter, A Peace to Resist (Jerusalem: Beth El Publisher, 1994), 9–10. 58. Saguy, Lights in the Fog, 186; Beilin, Touching Peace (1997), 136–37; Makovsky, Making Peace with the PLO, 78, 104–6. 59. Halevy, Man in the Shadows, 52; Yair Kotler, The Starling and the Raven. Ariel Sharon and Shimon Peres as They Are (Tel Aviv: Yaron Golan Publishers, 2002), 104 (Hebrew). 60. Ben-Aharon, ‘‘Foundering Illusions.’’ 61. Halevy, Man in the Shadows, 50; Peri, Strike First, 249. Gazit in a IDF Radio broadcast, September 9, 1993; Victor Schlatter, ‘‘Gazit’s Naivety,’’ Jerusalem Post, December 1, 1993. 62. Leiter, Peace to Resist, 20–21; Barry Rubin, The PLO between Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism: Background and Recent Developments (Jerusalem: Vidal Sassoon Center, Hebrew University, 1993). 63. The type of equipment required by the Palestinian police was subject of a considerable debate that posited the needs of efficacy and fear that Israeli-issued weapons could be used against Israeli targets. The latter consideration prevailed, a decision which apparently limited the ability of the Palestinian force to engage the IDF during several direct confirmations. 64. Benjamin Netanyahu, A Place among the Nations (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronot Books, 1995). 65. Cited in Lustick, ‘‘Political Legacy of De Facto Annexation,’’ 87–103; cited in Makovsky, Making Peace with the PLO, 101. 66. Ben-Simon, New Israel, 15, 191, 273; Christopher Barder, Oslo’s Gift of Peace (Shaarei Tikval, ACPR, 2001), 90; Efraim Karsh, ‘‘New Enemies,’’ London Sunday Times, September 12, 1993.

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CHAPTER 3 1. Shlomo Ben-Ami, A Front Without a Rearguard. A Voyage to the Boundaries of the Peace Process (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronot Books, 2004), 482. 2. Ofira Seliktar, ‘‘Identifying a Society’s Belief System,’’ in Political Psychology, ed. Margaret G. Hermann (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1986), 320–55. 3. Dona Artz, Refugees into Citizens: Palestinians and the End of the Arab-Israeli Conflict (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1996); Elia Zureik, Public Opinion and Palestinian Refugees (Ottawa, Canada; International Development Center, 1999); Zureik, Palestinian Refugees: An Annotated Bibliography Based on Arabic, French and Hebrew Sources, 1995–1999 (Ottawa, Canada: International Development Research Center, 2000; Middle East Report, 1996); Rex Brynen, ‘‘Imaging a Solution: Final Status Agreements and Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon,’’ Journal of Palestine Studies 26 (1997): 42–58; John Quigley, The Case for Palestine: An International Law Perspective (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005), 283. 4. Ahmed S. Khalidi, ‘‘The Palestinians: Current Dilemmas, Future Challenges,’’ Journal of Palestine Studies 24 (1994): 10. 5. Efraim Karsh, Arafat’s War. The Man and the Battle for Israeli Conquest (New York: Grove Press, 2003), 69; Maariv, September 7, 1995. 6. Abbas, Secret Channels, 220; Beilin, Manual for a Wounded Dove, 258; Ron Pundak and Shaul Arieli, The Territorial Aspect of the Israeli-Palestinian Status Negotiations (Tel Aviv: Peres Center, 2004), 16–17; Omar M. Dajani, ‘‘Securing Opportunities: Palestinian Negotiating Patterns in Peace Talks with Israel,’’ in How Israelis and Palestinians Negotiate: A Cross Cultural Analysis of the Oslo Peace Process, ed. Tamara Cofman Wittes (Washington: U.S. Institute of Peace, 2005), 56. 7. Mahmoud Darwish, ‘‘Interview,’’ Middle East Report 194/195 (1995): 18. 8. Edward W. Said, Peace and Its Discontents (New York: Vintage Books, 1996), xxx, 7; Andres Strinberg, ‘‘The Damascus Based Alliance of Palestinian Forces,’’ Journal of Palestine Studies 29 (2000): 60–76; Said, ‘‘Projecting Jerusalem,’’ Journal of Palestine Studies 25 (1995): 9; Khalidi, ‘‘Palestinians,’’ 14; Nusseibeh, Once Upon a Country, 342; Yoram Hazony, ‘‘New God for Palestine,’’ Azure Online 2 (1997). 9. Rubin, The PLO between Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism, 5: Kenneth Levin, The Oslo Syndrome. Delusion of People under Siege (Hanover, NH: Smith and Krauss, 2005), 344–50; Karsh, Arafat’s War, 50; Heikel, Secret Channels, 517–18; Bergman, Authority Given, 39–40; Hiro, Sharing the Promised Land, 234; Douglas J. Feith, ‘‘Land for No Peace,’’ Commentary, June 1994; Hillel Frisch, ‘‘The Evolution of Palestinian Nationalist Islamic Doctrine: Territorializing a Universal Religion,’’ Canadian Review of Nationalism 21 (1994); Frisch, ‘‘Nationalizing a Universal Text: The Quran in Arafat’s Rhetoric,’’ Middle East Studies 41 (2005): 321–36; Karsh, Arafat’s War, 97; Bergman, Authority Given, 48–49; Rubinstein, Arafat: A Portrait, 14. 10. Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 7. 11. Hisham Sharabi, Neopatriarchy. A Theory of Distorted Change in Arab Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 4; Michael Bratton and Nicola Van De Valle, ‘‘Neopatrimonial Regimes and Political Transitions in Africa,’’ World Politics 46 (1994): 453–89; Val Moghadan, ‘‘The Neopatrimonial State in the Middle East. Development, Authoritarianism and Crisis,’’ in The Gulf and the New World Order, ed. Haim Bresheet and Nira Yuval Davis (London: Zed Books, 1999), 199–210.

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12. Said K. Aburish, Arafat. From Defender to Dictator (London: Bloomsbury, 1998), 294; Rex Brynen, ‘‘The Neopatrimonial Dimension of Palestinian Politics,’’ Journal of Palestine Studies 25 (1995): 25. 13. Aburish, Arafat, 294; Daniel Polisar, ‘‘Yasser Arafat and the Myth of Legitimacy,’’ Azure Online 13 (2002); Edward W. Said, The End of the Peace Process. Oslo and After (New York: Pantheon Books, 2000), 54. 14. Aburish, Arafat, 302. 15. Glenn E. Robinson, ‘‘The Politics of the Legal Reform in Palestine,’’ Journal of Palestine Studies 27 (1997): 57. 16. Kenneth R. Timmerman, Preachers of Hate. Islam and the War on America (New York: Crown Forum, 2003), 171–81; Aburish, Arafat, 304; Cheryl A. Rubenberg, The Palestinians. The Search for a Just Peace (Boulder: Lynn Rienner, 2003), 249–50; Polisar, ‘‘Myth’’; Rubinstein, Arafat: A Portrait, 191. 17. Graham Usher, ‘‘The Politics of Internal Security: The PA’s New Intelligence Service,’’ Journal of Palestine Studies 25 (1996): 21–34; Usher, Dispatches from Palestine, 67–75; Rubenberg, Palestinians, 246–48; Aburish, Arafat, 280–81; Beverly Milton-Edwards, ‘‘Palestinian State Building: Police and Citizens as a Test of Democracy,’’ British Journal of Middle East Studies 25 (1998): 95–119. 18. Matt Begnon Reese, The Collaborator of Bethlehem (New York: Soho Press, 2007); Amos Harel and Avi Isacharoff, The Seventh War (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronot Books, 2004), 51–52. 19. Sara Roy, ‘‘The Seeds of Chaos, and of Night: The Gaza Strip after the Oslo Agreement,’’ Journal of Palestine Studies 23 (1994): 85–89; Polisar, ‘‘Myth’’; Usher, Palestine in Crisis (London: Pluto Press, 1995), 16; Bergman, Authority Given, 161; Milton-Edwards, ‘‘Palestinian,’’ 95–119. 20. Usher, ‘‘Politics of Security,’’ 31. 21. Aburish, Arafat, 278–79; Lisa Hajjar, ‘‘Human Rights in Israel/Palestine. The History and Politics of a Movement,’’ Journal of Palestine Studies 30 (2001): 21–38. 22. Aburish, Arafat, 312; Ashrawi, This Side of Peace, 288. 23. Anton La Guardia, War Without End. Israelis, Palestinians, and the Struggle for a Promised Land (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001), 303; Aburish, Arafat, 309; Polisar, ‘‘Myth.’’ 24. Aburish, Arafat, 309; Nadav Haetzni, ‘‘In Arafat’s Kingdom,’’ Commentary, October 1996. 25. Amal Jamal, ‘‘The Palestinian Media. An Obedient Servant or a Vanguard of Democracy,’’ Journal of Palestine Studies 29 (2000): 45–59. 26. Aburish, Arafat, 310–11. 27. Jamal, ‘‘Palestinian Media,’’ 45–59; Brynen, ‘‘Neopatrimonial,’’ 23–36. 28. Nusseibeh, Once Upon a Country, 403; Polisar, ‘‘Myth.’’ 29. Sara Roy, ‘‘Civil Society in the Gaza Strip: Obstacles to Social Reconstruction,’’ in Civil Society in the Middle East, ed. Augustus Richard Norton (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995), 2:221–58. 30. Hillel Frish, Countdown to Statehood: Palestinian State Building in the West Bank and Gaza (New York: SUNY Press, 1999), 125; Roy, ‘‘Seeds,’’ 85–90; Roy, ‘‘Civil Society,’’ 257–58; William Quandt, ‘‘The Urge for Democracy,’’ Foreign Affairs 73 (July–August 1994): 9; Barry Rubin, The Transformation of Palestinian Society: From Revolution to State Building (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999). 31. Stanley Fischer, ‘‘Interview. Economic Transition in the Occupied Territories,’’ Journal of Palestine Studies 23 (1994): 52–61; Stanley Reed, ‘‘Bread and Peace,’’ Business Week,

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September 27, 1993; Henry Siegman, ed., U.S. Middle East Policy and Peace Process (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Report, 1994). 32. Markus Bouillin, The Peace Business. Money and Power in the Palestinian Conflict (New York: I. B. Taurus, 2004), 58, 92; Timmerman, Preachers, 168–69; Jennifer Olmsted, ‘‘Thwarting Palestinian Development,’’ Middle East Report 201 (1996): 11–13, 18; Bergman, Authority Given, 114–15; Savir, Process, 222–23; Robert Menotti, ‘‘Democratize but Stabilize,’’ Middle East Quarterly (Summer 2006). 33. La Guardia, War Without End, 309; Samir Huleileh, ‘‘Restructuring Palestinian-Israeli Relations,’’ Palestine-Israel Journal 6 (1999). 34. Adel Samara, ‘‘Globalization, the Palestinian Economy and the Peace Process,’’ Journal of Palestine Studies 29 (2000): 20–34; Usher, Palestine, 20–24; Aburish, Arafat, 279. 35. Bouillin, Peace Business, 68; Hirschfeld, Oslo, 157; Ohad Leslau, ‘‘The New Middle East from the Perspective of the Old Middle East,’’ MERIA 10 (September 2006): 43–44; Fuad Ajami, The Dream Palace of the Arabs (New York: Vintage Books, 1998), 256; Daniel Pipes, ‘‘Imperial Israel: Nile to Euphrates Calumny,’’ Middle East Quarterly 1 (1994): 29–40; Eytan Bentzur, Making Peace: A First Hand Account of the Arab-Israeli Peace Process (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2001), 153. 36. Quassama Kanan, ‘‘The Palestinian Authority. Friend or Foe of Private Investors?’’ Middle East Policy Journal Online 9 (2002); Ron Bergman and David Ratner, ‘‘The Man Who Swallowed Gaza,’’ Haaretz, April 4, 1997. 37. Bergman and Ratner, ‘‘Man Who Swallowed Gaza’’; Rubenberg, Palestinians, 259–60; Bergman, Authority Given, 125–26, 133, 153; Aburish, Arafat, 306–7. 38. Aburish, Arafat, 305–6; Rubinstein, Mystery, 181; Bouillin, Peace Business, 120–21, 143; Heikel, Secret Channels, 511, 522; Pinhas Inbari and Dan Diker, ‘‘The Murder of Musa Arafat and the Battle for the Spoils of Gaza,’’ Jerusalem Issue Brief, October 10, 2005. 39. Aburish, Arafat, 304–6; Bergman, Authority Given, 158; Bouillin, Peace Business, 119; Rubenberg, Palestinians, 259; Dan Connell, ‘‘Palestine on the Edge. Crisis in the National Movement,’’ Middle East Report 194/195 (1995): 6–9. 40. Qurie, From Oslo to Jerusalem, 283. 41. Savir, Process, 16; Ross, Missing Peace, 123–24; Rex Brynen, ‘‘International Aid to the West Bank and Gaza: A Primer,’’ Journal of Palestine Studies 25 (1996): 46–53; Walker and Gower, Arafat: The Biography, 389; Menachem Klein, ‘‘Quo Vadis? Palestinian Dilemmas of Ruling Authority Building since 1993,’’ Middle East Studies 33 (1997): 383–404; Makovsky, Making Peace with the PLO, 148; Timmerman, In Their Own Words, 39; David Hoffman, ‘‘Arafat Denounces Conditions Imposed on Foreign Aid,’’ Washington Post, July 3, 1994. 42. Barry Rubin and Judy Colp Rubin, Yasir Arafat, A Political Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 233; Bergman, Authority Given, 21, 116–17; Jim Lederman, ‘‘Economics of the Arab-Israeli Peace Process,’’ Orbis 39 (1995): 546–66; Timmerman, Preachers, 178; Bergman and Ratner, ‘‘Man Who Swallowed Gaza.’’ 43. Rubenberg, Palestinians, 259–60; Bergman, Authority Given, 125–26, 133, 153; Aburish, Arafat, 306–7. 44. Rubenberg, Palestinians, 256; Bergman, Authority Given, 127. 45. Bergman and Ratner, ‘‘Man Who Swallowed Gaza’’; Peter Hirschberg, ‘‘Playing Monopoly,’’ Jerusalem Report, February 22, 1996; Bergman, Authority Given, 127; Caroline B. Glick, ‘‘The Peace Profiteers,’’ Jerusalem Post, December 13, 2002; Gershon Baskin, What Went Wrong: Oslo—the PLO, Israel and Some Additional Facts (Jerusalem: Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information, 2001); Maariv, December 2, 2002; Maariv, December 11, 2002.

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46. Bergman and Ratner, ‘‘Man Who Swallowed Gaza’’; Bergman, Authority Given, 114– 15; Rubenberg, Palestinians, 256. 47. Rubin and Rubin, Yasir, 171; Walker and Gower, Arafat: The Biography, 390–91; Aburish, Arafat, 306; Rubenberg, Palestinians, 276. 48. Nusseibeh, Once Upon a Country, 406; Timmerman, Preachers, 177; Bergman, Authority Given, 131–41, 168; The Independent, August 27, 2008. 49. Ehud Yaari, ‘‘Can Arafat Govern?’’ Jerusalem Report, January 13, 1994; Yaari, ‘‘Slow Down on the Oslo Track,’’ Jerusalem Post, December 29, 1994; Joel Bainerman, ‘‘Aiding Arafat Is Not the Answer,’’ Wall Street Journal, November 26, 1993; Bainerman, ‘‘Economics Complicate the Middle East,’’ Wall Street Journal, August 10, 1994; Timmerman, In Their Own Words, 39; Mahdi Abdul Hadi, Domestic Constraints on Negotiations. A Palestinian Perspective (Jerusalem: Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Relations—PASSIA, 1995), 12; Eliyahu Kanovsky (Ramat Gan: BESA, 1994); Roy, ‘‘Seeds,’’ 85–90; Roy, ‘‘Civil Society,’’ 221–58; Nicholas Guaytt, The Absence of Peace. Understanding the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (London: Zed Books, 1998), 89; David Hirst, ‘‘Yasser Arafat’s Tool of Repression,’’ Guardian, July 6, 1996; Hirst, ‘‘Shameless in Gaza,’’ Guardian, April 27, 1997. 50. Aburish, Arafat, 279–80, 308, 316; Haetzni, ‘‘In Arafat’s Kingdom’’; Rubin, Transformation, 4; Rubin and Rubin, Yasir, 235; Klein, ‘‘Quo Vadis?’’ 383–404; Rabinovitch, Waging Peace, 70; Yezid Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for a State. The Palestinian National Movement 1949–1993 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 652, 681–82; Corbin, The Norway Channel, 25. 51. Walker and Gower, Arafat: The Biography, 391–92; Itamar Rabinovitch, Waging Peace. Israel and Arabs at the End of the Century (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1999), 70; Lederman, ‘‘Economics,’’ 552; Rubinstein, Mystery, 189; Shimon Peres, ‘‘Better Let Democracy Tire Us than Tyranny Energize Us,’’ in Israel, the Middle East and Islam. Weighing the Risks and Prospects, ed. Oded Eran and Amnon Cohen (Jerusalem: Truman Institute, 2003), 104. 52. Sayigh, Armed Struggle, 691; Connell, ‘‘Palestine,’’ 6–9; Roy, ‘‘Seeds,’’ 221–58; Roy, ‘‘Civil Society,’’ 257–58. 53. Jamil Rabah, Palestinian Public Opinion since the Peace Process (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Media & Communication Center, 1998), 31–45; Khalil Shikaki, ‘‘Pease Now or Hamas Later,’’ Foreign Affairs 77 (1998): 29–43; Ghassan Khatib, ‘‘The Inadequacy of an Interim Agreement,’’ Palestine-Israeli Journal Online 2 (1995). 54. Steven Erlanger, ‘‘A Life of Unrest,’’ New York Times, July 15, 2007. 55. Graham Usher, ‘‘Facing Defeat. The Intifada Two Years Later On,’’ Journal of Palestine Studies 22 (2003): 21–40; Bergman, Authority Given, 155; Harel and Isacharoff, The Seventh War, 52. 56. Aburish, Arafat, 317. 57. Rubin, The PLO between Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism, 5; Rubin, Transformation, 179–81; Jamal, ‘‘Palestinian Media,’’ 45–59; Aburish, Arafat, 282; Karsh, Arafat’s War, 89; Bergman, Authority Given, 48–49. 58. Reena Hijazi, ‘‘Unwarranted Controversy,’’ National Interest, December 16, 2005; Timmerman, Preachers, 154. 59. Said, Peace and Its Discontents, 51; Nusseibeh, Once Upon a Country, 426; Sara Roy, ‘‘Beyond Hamas. Islamic Activism in the Gaza Strip,’’ Harvard Middle Eastern and Islamic Review 2 (1995): 4. 60. Brigadier General S. K. Malik, The Quranic Concept of Power (Lahore: Wajidalis, 1979), 49–59, 60–144; Farhad Rajaee, Islamic Values and World View (Lanham, MD:

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University Press of America, 1983), 71; Barry Rubin, ‘‘On the Ground in Gaza,’’ Gloria Center, January 4, 2008. 61. Mahmoud Zahar, ‘‘Interview: Hamas: Waiting for Secular Nationalism to SelfDestruct,’’ Journal of Palestine Studies 24 (1995): 81–88; Menachem Klein, ‘‘Competing Brother: The Web of Hamas-PLO Relations,’’ Terrorism and Political Violence 8 (1996): 111–32; Timmerman, In Their Own Words, 7–8; Yehezkel Shabbat, Hamas and the Peace Process (Ramat Gan: BESA, 1996); Kristianassen, ‘‘Challenges and Counterchallenges,’’ 19–36; Rabah, Palestinian Public Opinion, 20. 62. Shabbat, Hamas, 82–86; Kristianassen, ‘‘Challenges and Counterchallenges,’’ 13–36; Klein, ‘‘Competing Brother,’’ 111–32; Haaretz, April 25, 1994; Roy, ‘‘Beyond Hamas,’’ 1–39. 63. Bergman, Secret War, 213. 64. Bergman, Authority Given, 41; Savir, Process, 265. 65. Con Coughlin, ‘‘Israel Captures Top Hamas Gunman,’’ Sunday Telegraph, May 19, 1996; Jeffery Goldberg, ‘‘From Peace Process to Policy Process,’’ New York Times, September 14, 1997. 66. Gerald Posner, Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11 (New York: Random House, 2003), 106–11; Adam Robinson, Bin Laden. Behind the Mask of a Terrorist (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2001), 188; Shabbat, Hamas, 177. 67. Ashrawi, This Side of Peace, 115; Jon Immanuel, ‘‘Palestinian Caught in Chopping Waters,’’ Jerusalem Post, September 16, 1994; Heikel, Secret Channels, 484; Hirschfeld, Oslo, 173; Savir, Process, 193. 68. Timmerman, In Their Own Words, 37; Aburish, Arafat, 287; George Tenet, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA (New York: Harper/Collins, 2007), 54; Savir, Process, 193; Rubin and Rubin, Yasir, 224. 69. Shaul Mishal and Avraham Sela, Hamas: A Behavioral Profile (Tel Aviv: Tami Steinmetz Center, 1997). 70. Raphael Israeli, Islamikaze. Manifestation of Islamist Martyrology (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 420; Emanuel Sivan, ‘‘Listening to Radical Islam,’’ Middle East Quarterly, March 1995; Timmerman, In Their Own Words, 13–17; Shabbat, Hamas, 119–22; Barry Rubin, Asaf Ramirowsky, and Jonathan Spyer, ‘‘UNRWA: Refuge of Rejectionism,’’ GLORIA, May 2008. 71. Andrew Kydd and Barbara F. Walter, ‘‘Sabotaging the Peace: The Politics of Extreme Violence,’’ International Organization 56 (2002): 253–96.

CHAPTER 4 1. Ron Pundak, ‘‘Interview,’’ in Peace Time, Facts and Thoughts on the ‘‘Oslo Track,’’ ed. Mordechai Nessyahu, Meir Stiegliz, and Ziv Tamir (Tel Aviv: Self-Published, 1994), 29–52 (Hebrew); Shlomo Ben-Ami, A Place for All (Tel Aviv: Kibbutz Hameuhad, 1999), 108; Beilin, Israel at 40 Plus, v; Beilin, Touching Peace (1999), 213; Uri Savir, Memorial to Aharon Yariv (Tel Aviv University, 1995); Shimon Peres cited in Zeev Begin, A Sad Story (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronot Books, 2003), 244 (Hebrew). 2. Usher, Dispatches from Palestine; Hiro, Sharing the Promised Land, 234; Peri, Strike First, 254; Gillon, Shin Bet, 196, 201, 226. 3. Dajani, ‘‘Securing Opportunities,’’ 61; Qurie, From Oslo to Jerusalem, 283; Savir, Process, 81; Dajani, ‘‘Securing Opportunities,’’ 58; Tenet, Center, 57; Ross, Missing Peace, 275; Hadi, Domestic Constraints on Negotiations, 12; Beilin, Touching Peace (1999), 167.

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4. Rubin and Rubin, Yasir, 229; Ben-Ami, A Front Without a Rearguard, 479; Ross, Missing Peace, 123–24; Savir, Process, 80. 5. Ashrawi, This Side of Peace, 283; Savir, Process, 133; Ross, Missing Peace, 131. 6. Agreement on the Gaza Strip and the Jericho Area, May 4, 1994, www.Jewish virtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/gazajer.html. 7. Hirschfeld, Oslo, 158; Walker and Gower, Arafat. The Biography, 378; Heikel, Secret Channels, 516–17; Ross, Missing Peace, 135–36, 236; Savir, Process, 130–31; Gilad Sher, Within Reach. The Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations, 1999–2001 (London: Rutledge, 2006), 165. 8. Savir, Process, 170; Bergman, Authority Given, 72–73; Beilin, Manual for a Wounded Dove, 249. 9. Said cited in Dajani, ‘‘Securing Opportunities,’’ 57–59; Savir, Process, 81; Ross, Missing Peace, 275. 10. Ross, Missing Peace, 122–23, 275; Bergman, Authority Given, 72–73; Dajani, ‘‘Securing Opportunities,’’ 57–58. 11. Haaretz, April 25, 1994; Ben-Aharon, ‘‘Foundering Illusions,’’ 59–77; Efraim Inbar, ‘‘Islamic Extremism and the Peace Process,’’ Terrorism and Political Violence 8 (1996): 199–215; Beilin, Touching Peace (1999), 60. 12. Haaretz, March 5, 1995; Ross, Missing Peace, 94. 13. Jerusalem Post, February 11, 1994; Bergman, Authority Given, 83–84; Yaacov Bar-Siman Tov, ed., The Transition from Conflict Resolution to Conflict Management (Jerusalem: Leonard Davis Institute, 2004), 30; Rubin and Rubin, Yasir, 176. 14. Ben-Aharon, ‘‘Foundering Illusions,’’ 64–65; Karsh, Arafat’s War, 106–21; Kotler, The Starling and the Raven, 106; Shmuel, ‘‘Intelligence Research during the Peace Process,’’ 145– 65; Bar-Siman Tov, Transition, 30; Drucker and Shelah, Boomerang, 76; Harel and Isacharoff, The Seventh War, 75 (Hebrew); Gillon, Shin Bet, 196; Yaacov Bar-Siman Tov et al., The Palestinian Violent Conflict 2002–2004. The Transition from Conflict Resolution to Conflict Management (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, 2005), 15. 15. Ran Edelist, Ehud Barak, Fighting the Demons (Tel Aviv: Kinnerth, 2003), 23, 45 (Hebrew). 16. Arnon Soffer and Karen Pollack, ‘‘Unilateral Separation of Israel from the Palestinian Authority by Means of Separation Fence: Advantages and Disadvantages,’’ n.d., supplied by Soffer; Savir, Process, 251; Ben-Ami, A Place for All, 120 (Hebrew); Yoram Meital, Peace in Tatters. Israel, Palestine and the Middle East (Boulder: Lynn Rienner, 2006), 177; Aharon Klieman, Compromising Palestine. A Guide to Final Status Negotiations (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 118; Naveh, Executive Secrets, 60; Beilin, Touching Peace (1997), 192; Shlomo Hasson, Disengagement—And What After? (Jerusalem: Floresheimer, Institute for Policy Studies, 2005), 7; Yeshayahu Folman, The Story of the Security Fence (Jerusalem: Carmel Publisher, 2004), 51–53, 88–91 (Hebrew); Yossi Alpher, ‘‘The Channel of Peace,’’ Foreign Policy 101 (1995): 130–46. 17. Makovsky, Making Peace with the PLO, 4; Dan Kaspit and Ilan Kfir, Netanyahu. The Road to Peace (New York: Caroll Publishing, 1998), 212; Levin, Oslo Syndrome, 362; Kober, ‘‘From Blitzkrieg to Attrition,’’ 216–40; Gillon, Shin Bet, 197; Gershon Baskin, ‘‘Why Oslo Really Failed,’’ Jerusalem Post, August 24, 2007; Hazan, Labor Party and the Peace Process, 22. 18. Hadi, Domestic Constraints on Negotiations, 7–35. 19. Beilin, Manual for a Wounded Dove, 248. 20. Ross, Missing Peace, 201–8; Gillon, Shin Bet, 209. 21. Beilin, Manual for a Wounded Dove, 213–14.

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22. Ross, Missing Peace, 236; Yedioth Ahronot, November 20, 1994; David Ben-Simon, New Israel, 265; Rabinovitch, Brink of Peace, 248 (Hebrew); Savir, Process, 117, 175–76; Heikel, Secret Channels, 478–80. 23. Beilin, Touching Peace (1997), 155, 183, 197; Yossi Alpher, ‘‘CBMs: The Israel– Palestinian Context,’’ in Confidence Building and Verification Prospects in the Middle East, ed. Shai Feldman (Boulder: Westview and Jaffe Center, 1994), 223–36; Alpher, ‘‘The Alpher Plan for Israeli-Palestinian Final Status in the Territories,’’ Palestine-Israel Journal 3 (1996): 47–54; Ben-Ami, A Place for All, 118. 24. The Beilin-Abu Mazen Document, www.bitterlemons.org/docs/beilinmazen.html. 25. Weinberger, Co-opting the PLO, x. 26. Efraim Karsh, ‘‘New Enemies,’’ London Times, September 12, 1993; Shulamit Hareven cited in Michael Keren, ‘‘Israeli Professionals and the Peace Process,’’ in Israel at the Crossroads. The Challenge of Peace, ed. Efraim Karsh and Gregory Mahler (London: British Academic Press, 1994), 149, 154; Keren, Professionals against Populism, 96 (Hebrew); Peri, Brothers at War, 286; Shabtai cited in Meyrav Wurmser, ‘‘Can Israel Survive Post-Zionism?’’ Middle East Quarterly 6 (March 1999), http://www.meforum.org/469/can-israel-survive-post-zionism; Arieh Stav, ‘‘Notes on the Dialectics of Israeli Anti-Semitism’’ (Shaarei Tikva; ACPR, 1998). 27. Stav, ‘‘Notes,’’ cited in Stav, ‘‘Israeli Anti-Semitism,’’ in Israel and the Post-Zionists, ed. Shlomo Sharan (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2003), 163, 173; Gazit cited in Meyrav Wurmser, ‘‘Can Israel Survive Post-Zionism,’’ Middle East Quarterly 6 (March 1999); Stav, Arab Anti-Semitism in Writings and Caricature (Shaarei Tikva: ACPR, 1997), 45–50, Hebrew; Misgav, Cross Fire, 53; cited in Tom Segev, The New Zionists (Jerusalem: Keter, 2001), 101. 28. Levin, Oslo Syndrome, 368–69; Yisrael Medad and Eli Pollack, Israeli Media: Reporting the News or Setting the Agenda? (Shaari Tikva: Ariel Center for Policy Research, 1998). 29. Manuel Hassassian, ‘‘From Armed Struggle to Negotiations,’’ Palestine-Israel Journal Online 1, no. 1 (1994); Hassassian, ‘‘Book Review,’’ Palestine-Israel Journal Online 1, no. 4 (1994); Gideon Fischelson, ‘‘The Peace Dividend: Regional Trade and Cooperation,’’ Palestine-Israel Journal Online 1, no. 1 (1994); Rana Bahu, Eric Meloul, and William Walsh, Banking Law Reforms in the Palestinian Territories (Jerusalem: Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information—IPCRI, December 1995). 30. Learning the Peace Process (Jerusalem: Van Leer Institute, 1996). 31. Information Guide, Tami Steinmetz Center, n.d., 7–12; Tamar Hermann, ‘‘Interview. Israeli Public Opinion and the Peace Process,’’ Palestine-Israel Journal Online 3 (1996). 32. ‘‘The Credos of Gush Emunim and Hamas,’’ Palestine-Israel Journal 1, no. 2 (1994); Amos Oz, All Our Hopes. Essays on the Israeli Condition (Jerusalem: Keter, 1998), 23 (Hebrew). 33. Norwell B. De Atkine and Daniel Pipes, ‘‘Middle East Studies: What Went Wrong,’’ DanielPipes.org, Winter 1995/96; Stav, ‘‘Notes’’; Maariv, November 17, 1995, reprinted in Begin, Sad Story, 212–13. 34. Daniel Bar-Tal and Dikla Antebi, ‘‘Belief about Negative Intentions of the World. A Story of the Israeli Siege Mentality,’’ Political Psychology 13 (1992): 633–45; Bar-Tal and Dan Jackobson, Security Beliefs among Israelis. A Psychological Analysis (Tel Aviv: Tami Steinmetz Center, 1996); Stav, Arab Anti-Semitism in Writing and Caricatures (Shaarei Tikva: ACPR, 1997; Hebrew); Stav, ‘‘Notes’’; Levin, Oslo Syndrome, 385–89. 35. Grossman cited in Levin, Oslo Syndrome, 386; Hanna Biran, ‘‘Fear of the Other,’’ Palestine-Israel Journal Online 1, no. 4 (1994); Shmuel Erlich, ‘‘On Discourse with the Enemy: A Psychoanalytical Perspective,’’ Palestine-Israel Journal Online 1, no. 4 (1994); Glenn E. Robinson, ‘‘A Portrait of Palestine’s President,’’ Foreign Affairs 82 (2003): 136–42.

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36. Akhram Baker, ‘‘More Fraud than Friend,’’ bitterlemons.com, May 28, 2007; Sheila Carapico, ‘‘NGOs, INGOs, GO-NGOs: Making Sense of Non-Government Organization,’’ Middle East Report 214 (2001): 12–15; Ron Pundak, ‘‘The Peace Merchants Have Disappeared,’’ bitterlemons.org, May 28, 2007. 37. Hisham Awartani, Palestinian Economy (Tami Steinmetz Center, 1999); Wallach and Wallach, Arafat, 443. 38. Abdel Monen Said Aly in ‘‘Reflections on the Peace Process’’ Roundtable, Journal of Palestine Studies 26 (1996): 6; Ilan Pappe, ‘‘Moderation in Islam,’’ Palestine-Israel Journal Online 1, no. 2 (1994); Galia Golan, ‘‘Women in the Conflict,’’ Palestine-Israel Journal Online 2, no. 3 (1995). 39. Medad and Pollack, Israeli Media; Yoram Hazony, ‘‘The End of Zionism,’’ Weekly Standard, October 9, 1995; Hazony, ‘‘The End of Zionism,’’ Azure Online 1 (Summer 1996). 40. Begin in Maariv, April 23, 1995; Maariv, March 7, 1997. 41. Zeev Schiff, ‘‘Robbing the Country Blind,’’ Haaretz, August 12, 1998; Amira Hass, Drinking the Sea at Gaza: Days and Nights in a Land under Siege (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1996; Hebrew); Jeff Green, ‘‘Reading from Right to Left,’’ Jerusalem Post, January 30, 1997; Andrea Levin, ‘‘Haaretz Fuels Anti-Israeli Bias,’’ CAMERA, August 6, 2001; Nahum Barnea in Seventh Eye, November 2000; Jerome Slater, ‘‘Muting the Alarm over the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The New York Times vs. Haaretz,’’ International Security 32 (2007): 84–120. 42. Avi Bell, ‘‘NIF 2004 Fellow Shamai Leibowitz; Support for Divestment and Single State-Solution,’’ NGO Monitor, April 4, 2005, http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article.php? id=667; cited in Ben Kaspit, Hanan Kristal, and Ilan Kfir, Suicide. A Party Gives Up Its Rule (Tel Aviv: Avivim Publisher, 1996), 218–19; Shavit in Haaretz, December 26, 1997; Uzi Ben Ziman, ‘‘The Media Treatment of Netanyahu,’’ Seventh Eye, February 1997. 43. Efraim Karsh, Fabricating Israeli History. The New Historians (London: Frank Cass, 1997). ‘‘Falsifying the Record: A Fresh Look at Zionist Documentation of 1949,’’ Journal of Palestine Studies 24 (1995): 44–62; Amnon Rubinstein in Haaretz, March 8, 2007; Alon Dahan, A Manual for a Blind Dove (Tel Aviv: Yaron Golan, 2004), 71 (Hebrew). 44. Henrietta Dahan Kalev, ‘‘Post Zionism and the Israeli Palestinian Conflict,’’ IsraelAcademia-Monitor.com, n.d.; Gershon Shafir, ‘‘Israeli Decolonization and Critical Sociology,’’ Journal of Palestine Studies 25 (Spring 1996): 34; Yoav Peled, ‘‘From Zionism to Capitalism: The Political Economy of Israel’s Decolonization of the Occupied Territories,’’ Middle East Report 194/195 (1995): 13–17; Seliktar, ‘‘Tenured Radicals in Israel.’’ 45. Ben Ziman, ‘‘Media’’; Bergman, Authority Given, 96–97; Jerusalem Post, August 3, 1995; Yedioth Ahronot, August 16, 1996; Carmon cited in Ruthie Blum Leibowitz, ‘‘One on One with Yigal Carmon,’’ Jerusalem Post, November 15, 2006. 46. Yigal Carmon, ‘‘The Story behind the Handshake,’’ Commentary (1994); Carmon, Interview, Arutz 7, March 17, 1996; Blum Leibowitz, ‘‘One.’’ 47. Carter cited in Brinkley, Unfinished Presidency, 465–66. 48. Guy Bechor, ‘‘Don’t Drink Tea with Palestinian Intelligence,’’ Haaretz, March 26, 1996. 49. Eliyahu Kanovsky, ‘‘Middle East Economics and the Arab-Israeli Peace Agreement,’’ Israel Affairs 4 (1995): 22–39; Shabbat, Hamas, 3–17; Efraim Inbar, ‘‘Israel’s Continuous National Security Challenge,’’ Strategic Review 22 (1995); Inbar, ‘‘Islamic Extremism and the Peace Process,’’ 199–215; Inbar and Shmuel Sander, ‘‘The Risk of Palestinian Statehood,’’ Survival 39 (Summer 1997); Mark A. Heller, ‘‘Toward a Palestinian Statehood,’’ Survival 39 (Summer 1997): 5–12.

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50. Arnon Soffer, ‘‘The Oslo Accord—How to Halt It at the Present Stage and Why,’’ Nativ 5 (1996): 22–28; Ehrenfeld, ‘‘Arafat. The World’s Blind Spot’’; Arieh Stav, ‘‘The Dialectics of Self-Hatred in Israel,’’ in Israeli Strategy in the Era of Chaotic Change (Tel Aviv: Modan, 1997), 45–50. 51. Dahan, Manual, 108; Michael I. Karpin and Ina Friedman, Murder in the Name of God. The Plot to Kill Yitzhak Rabin (New York: Metropolitan Books, 1998); Naor, Greater Israel, 342–51; Clives Jones, ‘‘Ideo-Theology: Dissonance and Discussion in the State of Israel,’’ in From Rabin to Netanyahu. Israel’s Troubled Agenda, ed. Efraim Karsh (London: Frank Cass, 1997), 28–46. 52. Segev, New Zionists, 101 (Hebrew); Yisrael Medad and Eli Pollack, ‘‘Systematic Research and Surveillance of the Media and Exposition of Political Cultural Bias,’’ Israel Media Watch (1998). 53. Savir, Process, 304–5; Ben-Simon, New Israel, 13, 273; Segev, New Zionists, 77. 54. Avi Shlaim, ‘‘Israeli Politics in the Middle East Peace Making,’’ Journal of Palestine Studies 24 (1995): 22. 55. Ross, Missing Peace, 236–37; Savir, Process, 157; Beilin, Touching Peace (1999), 155; Kaspit, Kristal, and Kfir, Suicide, 48, 55, 166. 56. Agha, Feldman, Khalidi, and Schiff, Track-II Diplomacy, 83–84; Menachem Klein, The Geneva Initiative (Jerusalem: Carmel, 2006), 25 (Hebrew); Drucker, Harakiri, 216; Ben-Simon, New Israel, 121; Kanafani cited in Walker and Gower, Arafat: The Biography, 385. 57. Gillon, Shin Bet, 357; Ben-Simon, New Israel, 218, 237. 58. Ben Kaspit and Ilan Kfir, Barak: The Number One Soldier (Tel Aviv: Alfa Communication, 1998), 358, 360–61; Kaspit, Kristal, and Kfir, Suicide, 119; Savir, Process, 194. 59. Misgav, Not the Same Sea, 36; Savir, Process, 119, 194. 60. Tenet, Center, 54–56; Ross, Missing Peace, 214–15. 61. Savir, Process, 296–97; Bergman, Authority Given, 41, 63. 62. Bergman, Authority Given, 65–66; Harel and Isacharoff, The Seventh War, 47; Drucker and Shelah, Boomerang, 76; Or Honig, ‘‘The End of Israeli Military Restrain. Out with the New, in with the Old,’’ Middle East Quarterly 14 (2007). 63. Richard Clarke, Enemies. Inside America’s War on Terror (New York: Free Press, 2004), 76; Bergman, Secret War, 67; Kaspit, Kristal, and Kfir, Suicide, 170–80. 64. Rabinovitch, Brink of Peace, 283, 288–89. 65. Bergman, Authority Given, 73–75. 66. Eli Rekhess and Meir Hatina, ‘‘Iran, the Islamic Jihad and Hamas,’’ Justice 5 (May 1995); Anat Kurtz with Nahman Tal, Hamas. Radical Islam in a National Struggle (Tel Aviv: Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies, 1997), 44; Savir, Process, 302. 67. Dore Gold, ‘‘Where Is the Peace Process Going,’’ Commentary, August 1995; Steven Erlanger, ‘‘Clinton and Peres Find Mutual Admiration,’’ New York Times, May 1, 1996; Kaspit, Kristal, and Kfir, Suicide, 151.

CHAPTER 5 1. Netanyahu cited in Kaspit and Kfir, Netanyahu, 197. 2. Rabinovitch, Waging Peace, 10; Rajoub cited in Bergman, Authority Given, 104. 3. Naveh, Executive Secrets, 81; Nadav Haetzni, ‘‘Death Sentence on Israel,’’ Maariv, December 4, 1998; Edelist, Ehud Barak, 121 (Hebrew). 4. Klieman, Compromising Palestine, 141.

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5. Levin, Oslo Syndrome, 425. 6. Kaspit and Kfir, Barak, 259–61 (Hebrew); Ira Sharkansky, ‘‘The Politics of Ambiguity, Case of Jerusalem,’’ in From Rabin to Netanyahu. Israel’s Troubled Agenda, ed. Efraim Karsh (London: Frank Cass, 1997), 187–200; Naveh, Executive Secrets, 41; Hirschfeld, Oslo, 246; Karsh, Arafat’s War, 147–48. 7. Naveh, Executive Secrets, 35; Harel and Isacharoff, The Seventh War, 55–56. 8. Karsh, Arafat’s War, 150. 9. Serge Schmemann, ‘‘Plan for Apartment Houses in East Jerusalem Angers Arabs,’’ New York Times, July 28, 1997. 10. Naveh, Executive Secrets, 85–87, 203. 11. Ross, Missing Peace, 257, 260, 262; Naveh, Executive Secrets, 88. 12. The Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. www .Jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/interimtoc.html. 13. Ross, Missing Peace, 281. 14. Ibid., 281–82, 301. 15. Protocol Concerning the Redeployment in Hebron, January 17, 1997, www .usembassy-Israel.org.il/publish/peace/Hebron_redepl.htm. 16. Ibid. 17. Ross, Missing Peace, 322. 18. Naveh, Executive Secrets, 17, 64, 178–79, 196; Raviv, Israel at Fifty, 313; Kotler, The Starling and the Rave, 50; Yaacov Bar-Siman Tov, Peace Policy as Domestic and as Foreign Policy (Jerusalem: Leonard Davis Institute, 1998). 19. Madeline Albright, Madam Secretary. A Memoir (New York: Miramax Books, 2003), 292–93; Ross, Missing Peace, 329–33; Karsh, Arafat’s War, 152–53; Hiro, Sharing a Promised Land, 112–14. 20. Albright, Madam, 294. 21. Ross, Missing Peace, 381–82. 22. Ibid., 370; Naveh, Executive Secrets, 88; Bill Clinton, My Life (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), 747, 752–53. 23. Ross, Missing Peace, 403. 24. Ibid., 322. 25. Tenet, Center, 65–66. 26. Ross, Missing Peace, 415–59; Naveh, Executive Secrets, 113–22. 27. The Wye River Memorandum, www.Jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/ wyetoc.html (October 23, 1998). 28. Ibid. 29. Tenet, Center, 72; Ross, Missing Peace, 466. 30. Ross, Missing Peace, 477. 31. Cabinet Decision on Wye, November 11, 1998, www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/ Peace/wyecab.html. 32. Ross, Missing Peace, 484–85, 490. 33. Albright, Madam, 473–74; Ross, Missing Peace, 461–74. 34. Schiff, ‘‘Robbing the Country Blind’’; Bergman, Authority Given, 98; Stacey Lakind and Yigal Carmon, ‘‘The PA Economy-Free Market or Kleptocracy?’’ MEMRI, January 7, 1999. 35. Hillel Frisch, Countdown to Statehood. Palestinian State Formation in the West Bank and Gaza (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1998), 147–49; Rubin, Transformation, 2–3, 13; Shikaki, ‘‘Peace Now or Hamas Later,’’ 29–43; Rabah, Palestinian Public Opinion, 48.

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36. Savir, Process, 251; Halevy, Man in the Shadows, 42; Naveh, Executive Secrets, 167–68; Robert S. Robins and Jerrold Post, Political Paranoia. The Psychology of Hatred (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 54–55; Rubin, Transformation, 79. 37. Eli Rekhess and Meir Litvak, ‘‘Palestinian Affairs,’’ in Middle East Contemporary Survey (Tel Aviv: Dayan Center, 1997), 21:178–208; Rekhess and Litvak, ‘‘Palestinian Affairs,’’ in Middle East Contemporary Survey (Tel Aviv: Dayan Center, 1998), 22:482–507; Kurtz and Tal, Hamas; ‘‘Radical Islam Parties Flourish on West Bank and Gaza Campuses,’’ Chronicle of Higher Education, May 21, 1999. 38. Paz and Schweitzer 1999; Rekhess and Litvak, Palestinian Affairs (1997); Palestinian Affairs (1998); Melissa Boyle Mahle, Denial and Deception (New York: Nations Book, 2004), 246; Yossef Bodansky, Bin Laden. The Man Who Declared War on America (New York: Random House, 1999), 208; Eldad J. Pardo, ‘‘The Age of Wonder and the Age of the Plumber; Iran and Israel in Global Perspective,’’ in Israel, the Middle East and Islam: Weighing the Risks and Prospects, ed. Oded Eran and Amnon Cohen (Jerusalem: Truman Institute, 2003), 1–35; The 9/11 Report: The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report.pdf, 60–61, 468; Al Hayah, May 19, 1998. 39. Barry Rubin, ‘‘Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the Arab States,’’ MERIA Journal Online 1 (1997); Rubin, Transformation, 137. 40. Savir, Process, 85; Oz, All Our Hopes, 95; Alouf Hareven, ‘‘Intelligence in the Era of Peacemaking,’’ in Intelligence for Peace, ed. Hazi Carmel (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronot Books, 1998), 129–30. 41. Dan Schueftan, Disengagement. Israel and the Palestinian Entity (Haifa: Haifa University Press and Zmora Bitan, 1999), 29, 32, 35 (Hebrew). 42. Roni Krouzman, ‘‘21st Century Palestine: Toward a ‘Swiss Cheese’ State,’’ Middle East Report 213 (Winter 1999); Tamar Hermann, ‘‘Civil Society and NGOs Building Peace in Israel,’’ in Bridging the Divide. Peacebuilding in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, ed. Dey Kaufman, Walid Salem, and Juliette Verhoeven (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2006), 39–58; Seliktar, ‘‘Tenured Radicals in Israel’’; Akiva Eldar in Haaretz, June 2, 1998; Yoel Markus in Haaretz, June 2, 1998; Muli Peleg, If Words Could Kill. The Failure of the Public-Political Discourse in Israel (Tel Aviv: Akademon, 2003), 131 (Hebrew). 43. Mark A. Tessler and Jody Nachtwey, ‘‘Palestinian Political Attitudes: An Analysis of Survey Data from the West Bank and Gaza,’’ Israel Studies 4 (1999): 22–39; Manuel Hassassian, ‘‘Policy and Attitude Change in the Palestinian Liberation Organization, 1964–1994: A Democracy in the Making,’’ in The PLO and Israel: From Armed Conflict to Political Salvation 1964–1994, ed. Avraham Sela and Moshe Maoz (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997); Tamar Hermann and Ephraim Yuchtman-Yaar, eds., Integration or Separation: Examination of the Future Relations between Israel and the Palestinian State (Tel Aviv: Tami Steinmetz Center, 1999). 44. Gadi Wolfsfeld, Constructing News about Peace. The Role of the Media in Oslo Peace Process (Tel Aviv: Tami Steinmetz Center, 1997); Robin Twite, ed., The Role of Domestic Politics in Israeli Peace Making (Jerusalem: Leonard Davis, 1997). 45. Gershon Baskin and Zacharia al Qaq, Creating a Culture of Peace (Jerusalem: Israel/ Palestine Center for Peace Research, 1999); Simcha Bahiri, ‘‘Peace Economics Revisited,’’ Palestine-Israel Journal Online 6 (1999). 46. Herbert C. Kelman, ‘‘Some Determinants of the Oslo Breakthrough,’’ International Negotiations Journal Online 2, no. 2 (1997); Jacob Bercovitch, ‘‘Conflict Management and

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the Oslo Experience: Assessing the Success of Israeli-Palestinian Peacemaking,’’ International Negotiations Journal Online 2 (1997); William I. Zartman, Negotiations as a Mechanism for Resolution in the Arab-Israeli Conflict (Jerusalem: Leonard Davis Institute, 1999); Janice Gross Stein, The Widening Gyre of Negotiations: From Management to Resolution in the Arab-Israeli Conflict (Jerusalem: Leonard Davis Institute, 1999); Robert L. Rothstein, After the Peace: Resistance and Reconciliation (Boulder: Lynn Rienner, 1999); Yair Hirschfeld in Dany Shoham, ed., The Influence of Palestinian-Israeli Encounters on the Peace Process (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998). 47. Ian Lustick, ‘‘The Oslo Agreement as an Obstacle to Peace,’’ Journal of Palestine Studies 27 (1997): 61–66. 48. Steven Raskin, ‘‘Is There Hope for Middle East Peace?’’ U.S. Institute of Peace, October 1997. 49. Ehud Sprinzak, ‘‘Netanyahu’s Safety Belt,’’ Foreign Affairs 75 (1998): 18–28; Sprinzak, ‘‘The Great Superterrorist Scare,’’ Foreign Policy 112 (Fall 1998): 110–24; Sprinzak, Brother against Brother. Violence and Extremism in Israeli Politics (New York: Free Press, 1999); Levin, Oslo Syndrome, 395; Ben-Ami, A Place for All, 82. 50. Shabtai Shavit in Reconsidering National Security Doctrine, BESA Conference, BESA Bulletin, December 1998, www.biu.ac.il/soc/besa/bulletin/no7art1.htm; Zvi Lanir, The Cognitive Failure of Armies in Law Conflicts, Maarachot, August 1999. 51. Zeev Maoz, Defending the Holy Land. A Critical Analysis of Israel’s Security & Foreign Policy (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006), 262, 530; Yotam Feldman, ‘‘Dr. Naveh, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Walk through Walls,’’ Haaretz Magazine, October 28, 2007. 52. Ephraim Halevy, The Place of Intelligence Community in Creating Strategic Scenarios for Israel (Jerusalem: Leonard Davis Institute, 2003), 16. 53. Seliktar, Politics of Intelligence, 99–101; Halevy, Man in the Shadows, 181. 54. Amir Bar-Or, ‘‘Political-Military Relations in Israel, 1996–2003,’’ Israel Affairs 12 (2006): 377–94; Misgav, Cross Fire, 31, 33, 49; Kaspit and Kfir, Barak, 254–55; Haaretz, October 17, 1996. 55. Ross, Missing Peace, 264–65; Beilin, Manual for a Wounded Dove, 260; Bergman, Authority Given, 97. 56. Scott Ritter, Target Iran (New York: Nations Books, 2007), 22; Sneh, Navigating, 63; Anonymous, ‘‘The Islamic Republic of Iran—A Warning Report,’’ in Intelligence for Peace. The Function of Intelligence in Peacetime, ed. Hazi Carmel (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronot Books, 1998), 251–69; Avi Dichter, ‘‘Components of Domestic Security in the Age of Global Jihadism,’’ Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, March 12, 2007. 57. Amos Gilad, ‘‘Evaluation of the Developments in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,’’ in The View of the Generals, ed. Yaacov Bar-Siman Tov (Jerusalem: Leonard Davis Institute, 2003), 131H (Hebrew); Drucker and Shelah, Boomerang, 76; Maariv, January 4, 2002; Amir Oren, ‘‘Saddam Collected Information on Dozen of Political Targets in Israel,’’ Haaretz, March 23, 2008. 58. Aluf Benn and Shmuel Rosner, ‘‘An Overpowering Reality,’’ Haaretz, June 15, 2007; Gilad, ‘‘Evaluation’’; Gilad, ‘‘Is It Possible to End the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,’’ in Israel and the Palestinians. The Next Stage, ed. Efraim Inbar (Ramat Gan: BESA, 2004), 39–44; Naveh, Executive Secrets, 75–79; Ross, Missing Peace, 338, 341; Drucker and Shelah, Boomerang, 65. 59. Bergman, Authority Given, 36.

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60. Yigal Carmon, ‘‘Middle East Briefing,’’ MEMRI, February 13, 1997. 61. Akiva Eldar, ‘‘Popular Misconceptions,’’ Haaretz, June 11, 2004; Shimon Peres and Robert Littell, For the Future of Israel (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1998), 200; Drucker and Shelah, Boomerang, 91; Patrick Cockburn, ‘‘Israeli Military Chiefs Clash with Netanyahu over Arafat,’’ The Independent, September 27, 1997. 62. Ami Ayalon, ‘‘The War against Terror: Toward a New Model of Civil-Military Relations,’’ in Civilian-Military Relations in Israel, ed. Ram Erez (Tel Aviv: Jaffe Center, 2006), 61–67; Christopher Reuter, My Life as a Weapon (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 113; Eldar, ‘‘Popular.’’ 63. Yaakov Amidror, Reflections on the Military and Security. Articles, Letter and Lectures on the Fight with the Palestinians (Tel Aviv: Misrad Habitachon, 2002), 177 (Hebrew); Feldman, ‘‘Dr. Naveh’’; Haaretz 15, 2004; Drucker and Shelah, Boomerang, 202. 64. Harel and Isacharoff, The Seventh War, 56, 58; Naveh, Executive Secrets, 110. 65. Kobi Michael, Israeli-Palestinian Joint Patrols in Gaza, 1994–96. A Forgone Failure? (Jerusalem: Truman Institute, 2004); Bergman, Authority Given, 100. 66. Leslie Susser, ‘‘History Is Repeating Itself,’’ Jerusalem Post, June 22, 1998. 67. Gillon, Shin Bet, 199; Saguy, Lights in the Fog, 210. 68. Bergman, Authority Given, 34; Gilad, ‘‘Evaluation,’’ 42–43; Halevy, Man in the Shadows, 126. 69. Ross, Missing Peace, 286–87; Bergman, Authority Given, 48; Rubinstein, Arafat: A Portrait, 172–73; Savir, Process, 132. 70. Naveh, Executive Secrets, 16, 32–33; Rekhess and Litvak, Palestinian Affairs (1998); Rubinstein, Arafat: A Portrait, 199; Rubin and Rubin, Yasir, 159, 233; Sher, Within Reach, 16. 71. Jean-Francois Legrain, ‘‘The Succession of Yasser Arafat,’’ Journal of Palestine Studies 28 (1999): 5–20; Saguy, Lights in the Fog, 263, 290–91; Beilin, Touching Peace (1997), 158; Wallach and Wallach, Arafat, xi–xii. 72. Albright, Madam, 299; Ross, Missing Peace, 491, 494; Margalit, I Have Seen Them All, 78; Clyton E. Swisher, The Truth about Camp David. The Untold Story about the Collapse of the Middle East Peace Process (New York: Nations Books, 2004), 7–9.

CHAPTER 6 1. Douglas J. Feith, ‘‘Wye and the Road to War,’’ Commentary, January 1999; Edelist, Ehud Barak, 75, 146 (Hebrew); Raviv Drucker, Ehud Barak. The Failure (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronot Books, 2002), 189 (Hebrew). 2. Ross, Missing Peace, 495, 499; Clinton, My Life, 867. 3. Drucker, Ehud, 307, 360–62; Edelist, Ehud Barak, 244–45, 276; Sher, Within Reach, 215; Drucker, Ehud, 254. 4. Abraham, Peace Is Possible, 146. 5. Ben-Ami, A Front Without a Rearguard, 319–20 (Hebrew); Drucker, Front, 326; Edelist, Ehud Barak, 399–400; Drucker and Shelah, Boomerang, 271; Harel and Isacharoff, The Seventh War, 91. 6. Ross, Missing Peace, 504–8; Harel and Isacharoff, The Seventh War, 65–66; Ross, Missing Peace, 503. 7. Sharm el Sheikh Memorandum, http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/1990 _1999/1999/9/Sharm+el-Sheikh+Memorandum+on+Implementation+Timel.htm; Edelist, Ehud Barak, 153–54.

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8. Ross, Missing Peace, 500; Albright, Madam, 475–82; Clinton, My Life, 884; Edelist, Ehud Barak, 207. 9. Edelist, Ehud Barak, 244–55; Drucker, Harakiri, 95–96; Ross, Missing Peace, 566; Danny Yatom, ‘‘The Relation between Intelligence and Policy Makers. A Personal View,’’ in Leaders and Intelligence, ed. Pinhas Yehezkieli (Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense, 2004), 135 (Hebrew). 10. Ross, Missing Peace, 589. 11. Ross, Missing Peace, 593; Kotler, The Starling and the Raven, 57; Drucker, Harakiri, 68. 12. Ross, Missing Peace, 591. 13. Hajjar, ‘‘Human Rights in Israel/Palestine,’’ 33. 14. Rex Brynen, A Very Political Economy. Peacebuilding and Foreign Aid in the West Bank and Gaza (Washington: U.S. Institute of Peace, 2000); Timmerman, Preachers, 176; Jerusalem Post, February 28, 2003; Rubinstein, Arafat: A Portrait, 184–85. 15. Timmerman, Preachers, 176. 16. Rashid Khalidi, ‘‘The Centrality of Jerusalem to an End of Conflict Agreement,’’ Journal of Palestine Studies 30 (2001): 82–87; Dajani, ‘‘Securing Opportunities,’’ 52–53. 17. Drucker, Harakiri, 197; Edelist, Ehud Barak, 160; Hajjar, ‘‘Human Rights in Israel/ Palestine.’’ 18. Harel and Isacharoff, The Seventh War, 45; Edelist, Ehud Barak, 167; Shaul Shay, The Shahids. Islam and Suicide Attacks (Herzliya: The International Center for Counter-Terrorism, 2003), 145. 19. Ross, Missing Peace, 591, 594. 20. Drucker, Harakiri, 194; Ross, Missing Peace, 599–609. 21. Sher, Within Reach, 21; Drucker, Harakiri, 193–94; Swisher, Truth, 279. 22. Tenet, Center, 75; Drucker, Harakiri, 193–94; Ben-Ami, A Front Without a Rearguard, 49; Ross, Missing Peace, 611; Sher, Within Reach, 24. 23. Ben-Ami, A Front Without a Rearguard, 51, 75, 77. 24. Ross, Missing Peace, 601. 25. Drucker, Harakiri, 191–92; Ben-Ami, A Front Without a Rearguard, 50; Ross, Missing Peace, 617. 26. Yehonatan, ‘‘The Palestinian Perspective,’’ Maarachot 383 (2002): 16–25; Sari Nusseibeh, Once Upon a Country, 422–23; Ben-Aharon, ‘‘Foundering Illusions,’’ 59–77; Harel and Isacharoff, The Seventh War, 57. 27. Edelist, Ehud Barak, 308–9; Harel and Isacharoff, The Seventh War, 52, 58, 62; Nusseibeh, Once Upon a Country, 422–23. 28. Ben-Ami, A Front Without a Rearguard, 50, 88; Beilin, Manual for a Wounded Dove, 65, 112–15; Ross, Missing Peace, 625. 29. Amoz Oz, ‘‘Try a Little Tenderness,’’ Haaretz, March 17, 2000. 30. Harel and Isacharoff, The Seventh War, 64; Ross, Missing Peace, 627; Sher, Within Reach, 33, 36; Ben-Ami, A Front Without a Rearguard, 76; Shay, Shahids, 146. 31. Beilin, Manual for a Wounded Dove, 119; Edelist, Ehud Barak, 271. 32. Ross, Missing Peace, 627; Edelist, Ehud Barak, 322; Drucker, Harakiri, 372. 33. Drucker, Harakiri, 295; Edelist, Ehud Barak, 342, 379. 34. Harel and Isacharoff, The Seventh War, 72–73; Sher, Within Reach, 50; Shavit in Haaretz, September 6, 2002. 35. Akiva Eldar in Haaretz, June 11, 2004; Ben-Ami, A Front Without a Rearguard, 82; Sneh, Navigating, 25–27; Drucker, Harakiri, 304, 328; Drucker and Shelah, Boomerang,

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21–22; Beny Morris, ‘‘Camp David and After,’’ New York Review of Books, June 13, 2002; Edelist, Ehud Barak, 326. 36. Hussein Agha and Robert Malley, ‘‘Camp David: The Tragedy of Error,’’ New York Review of Books, August 9, 2001; Ross, Missing Peace, 631–35; Clinton, My Life, 91; Ben-Ami, A Front Without a Rearguard, 109; Beilin, Manual for a Wounded Dove, 122. 37. Schueftan, Disengagement, 62 (Hebrew). 38. Drucker, Harakiri, 229–32. 39. Daniel Pipes, ‘‘Where Is the Peace Process Going,’’ Commentary, February 2000; Shimon Shapira, Hezbollah between Iran and Lebanon (Tel Aviv: Dayan Center, 2000); Ahmed Tibi, The Rise and Unfolding of Islam in the Contemporary Maghreb—Viewed from the Perspective of the Peace Process (Tel Aviv: Dayan Center, 2000; Hebrew); Barry Rubin, ‘‘Understanding Syrian Policy,’’ MERIA 4 (June 2000); Klieman, Compromising Palestine, 89. 40. Daniel Bar-Tal and Neta Oren, Ethos as an Expression of Identity: Its Changes in Transition from Conflict to Peace in the Israeli Case (Jerusalem: Leonard Davis Institute), 2000; Gabriel Sheffer, In the Wake of the Peace Process. Changes in Ideology and Public Orientation (Tel Aviv: Tami Steinmetz Center, 2000), 32–33, 41–42, 48–49; Yaron Ezrachi, ‘‘New History for Israel,’’ Foreign Affairs 79 (2000): 159. 41. Herbert C. Kelman, ‘‘The Role of Scholar-Practitioner in International Conflict Resolution,’’ International Studies Perspectives 1, no. 1 (2000): 273–88; Herbert Kelman, ed., The Future of Israeli Palestinian Relationship (Cambridge, MA: Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, 2000), www.ciaonet.org/wps/keh01/; John V. Whitbeck, ‘‘The Road to Peace Starts in Jerusalem,’’ Middle East Policy Journal Online 7 (2000); Yossef Ginat, Is the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Solvable, ed. Tamar Hermann and Ephraim Yuchtman-Yaar (Tel Aviv: Tami Steinmetz Center, 2001); Peacemaking in Jerusalem. A Task Team Report (Jerusalem: Teddy Kollek Center for Jerusalem Studies, 2000). 42. Kelman, The Future of Israeli Palestinian Relationship.

CHAPTER 7 1. Ross, Missing Peace, 662, 688; Drucker, Harakiri; Ehud Barak, The Failure (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronot Books, 2002), 249 (Hebrew); Sher, Within Reach, 182; Harel and Isacharoff, The Seventh War, 68; Walker and Gower, Arafat. The Biography, 410. 2. Akram Hanieh, ‘‘The Camp David Papers,’’ Journal of Palestine Studies 30 (2001): 36–37, 73. 3. Sher, Within Reach, 130. 4. Ross, Missing Peace, 668–69; Albright, Madam, 484; Aaron David Miller, The Much Too Promised Land (New York: Bantam Books, 2008), 299. 5. Ross, Missing Peace, 654–55, 674, 680–90; Drucker, Harakiri, 194; Swisher, Truth, 295. 6. Ross, Missing Peace, 659–61, 674, 681–83, 694, 697, 699, 701. 7. Hanieh, ‘‘Camp,’’ 94. 8. Ross, Missing Peace, 694, 699; Sher, Within Reach, 94; Harel and Isacharoff, The Seventh War, 69. 9. Ross, Missing Peace, 655, 703; Drucker, Harakiri, 198–99. 10. Swisher, Truth, 281; Beilin, Manual for a Wounded Dove, 201. 11. Hanieh, ‘‘Camp,’’ 98; Swisher, Truth, 327–28; Aharon Klieman, ‘‘Israeli Negotiating Culture,’’ in How Israelis and Palestinians Negotiate: A Cross Cultural Analysis of the Oslo Peace Process, ed. Tamara Cofman Wittes (Washington: US Institute for Peace, 2005), 81–132; Shaath cited in Sontag in New York Times, July 26, 2001.

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12. Ross, Missing Peace, 208, 710; Clinton, My Life, 91, 943–55; Albright, Madam, 488; Albright, Mighty and the Almighty (New York: HarperCollins, 2006), 131–32; Miller, Much Too, 297. 13. Albright, Madam, 488; Beilin 2005, 255; Pundak and Arieli, Territorial Aspect, 24; Bergman, Authority Given, 105. 14. Agha and Malley, ‘‘Camp David.’’ 15. Harel and Isacharoff, The Seventh War, 68; Ross, Missing Peace, 711; Miller, Much Too, 297. 16. Ross, Missing Peace, 713–14; Ben-Ami, A Front Without a Rearguard, 236; Rubin and Rubin, Yasir, 200. 17. Drucker, Harakiri, 295; Israel Report, 2000; Edelist, Ehud Barak, 408 (Hebrew); Ben-Ami, A Front Without a Rearguard, 225; Swisher, Truth, 344. 18. Ross, Missing Peace, 714; CNN.com, August 28, 2000; Ben-Ami, A Front Without a Rearguard, 254, 256. 19. Ross, Missing Peace, 715, 718. 20. Ibid., 722–23, 707. 21. Ben-Ami, A Front Without a Rearguard, 269; Drucker, Harakiri, 299, 304. 22. Drucker, Harakiri, 229; Ben-Amir, Front, 481. 23. Abraham, Peace Is Possible, 132–49; Ben-Ami, A Front Without a Rearguard, 284; Ross, Missing Peace, 727. 24. Ross, Missing Peace, 728–29; Harel and Isacharoff, The Seventh War, 76; Drucker, Harakiri, 297; Edelist, Ehud Barak, 410. 25. Ben-Ami, A Front Without a Rearguard, 188; Abraham, Peace Is Possible, 150. 26. Anita Miller, Jordan Miller, and Sigalit Zetouni, Sharon. Israel’s Warrior-Politician (Chicago: Academy Publishers, 2002), 300; Rubin and Rubin, Yasir, 202; Drucker, Harakiri, 297. 27. Ross, Missing Peace, 731. 28. Bergman, Authority Given, 93. 29. Drucker, Harakiri, 330, 342; Harel and Isacharoff, The Seventh War, 86; Yossi Melman in Haaretz, November 16, 2000. 30. Bar-Siman Tov, Transition, 220; Reuven Pedatzur in Haaretz, June 30, 2004. 31. Drucker, Harakiri, 332, 336; Sher, Within Reach, 190. 32. Tenet, Center, 78; Ross, Missing Peace, 734–36; Ben-Amir, Front, 310–11; Edelist, Ehud Barak, 417; Abraham, Peace Is Possible, 164; Drucker, Harakiri, 315–16; Rubin and Rubin, Yasir, 206. 33. Tenet, Center, 80; Ross, Missing Peace, 741–43; Miller, Miller, and Zetouni, Sharon, 312–13. 34. Miller, Miller, and Zetouni, Sharon, 310; Harel and Isacharoff, The Seventh War, 35. 35. Bergman, Authority Given, 107, 227; Harel and Isacharoff, The Seventh War, 25, 74, 97, 100; Edelist, Ehud Barak, 441; Ross, Missing Peace, 745. 36. Rubin and Rubin, Yasir, 206; Ross, Missing Peace, 733; Beilin, Manual for a Wounded Dove, 259. 37. Rubin and Rubin, Yasir, 206; Ross, Missing Peace, 733; Beilin, Manual for a Wounded Dove, 259; Drucker, Harakiri, 335; Drucker and Shelah, Boomerang, 271–73; Ravid Barak, ‘‘Foreign Ministry Gains Access to Raw Military Intelligence,’’ Haaretz, November 5, 2007; Beilin cited in Miller, Miller, and Zetouni, Sharon, 329; Edelist, Ehud Barak, 430.

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38. Harel and Isacharoff, The Seventh War, 428–29; Ben-Ami, A Front Without a Rearguard, 358; Drucker, Harakiri, 363; Ben-Ami, A Front Without a Rearguard, 356. 39. Ross, Missing Peace, 737; Drucker and Shelah, Boomerang, 35; Ben-Ami, A Front Without a Rearguard, 353. 40. Cited in Ben-Aharon, ‘‘Foundering Illusions,’’ 59–77; Drucker and Shelah, Boomerang, 60. 41. Ross, Missing Peace, 742. 42. Ibid., 744. 43. Ibid., 747. 44. Clinton Parameters, www.fmep.org/documents/Clinton_parameters12-23-00.html; Ross, Missing Peace, 751–52. 45. Edelist, Ehud Barak, 445; Meital, Peace in Tatters, 87; Drucker, Harakiri, 376, 378; Sher, Within Reach, 203–4. 46. Albright, Madam, 496–99; Elsa Welsh, ‘‘The Prince,’’ New Yorker, March 24, 2003; Clinton, My Life, 936–37; Bergman, Authority Given, 47. 47. Ben-Ami, A Front Without a Rearguard, 365. 48. Ross, Missing Peace, 753–57; Albright, Madam, 496–97; Tenet, Center, 80; Sher, Within Reach, 221. 49. Drucker, Harakiri, 307; Sher, Within Reach, 210–11, 217. 50. Beilin, Manual for a Wounded Dove, 199; Edelist, Ehud Barak, 257. 51. Drucker, Harakiri, 399; Edelist, Ehud Barak, 459; Ben-Ami, A Front Without a Rearguard, 499. 52. Beilin, Manual for a Wounded Dove, 216–17. 53. Ibid., 218; Ben-Ami, A Front Without a Rearguard, 448–49; Sher, Within Reach, 230. 54. Statement by the Prime Minister of Israel, The Israeli Report, July/August 2001. 55. Sara Honig, ‘‘Another Tack: Just Not Bibi,’’ Jerusalem Post, July 19, 2007. 56. Menachem Klein, The Geneva Initiative, 2003. 57. Menachem Klein, A Possible Peace between Israel and Palestine: An Insider’s Account of the Geneva Initiative (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007).

CHAPTER 8 1. Haaretz Weekend Magazine, July 10, 1998. 2. Danny Rubinstein, The Mystery of Arafat (South Royalton, VT: Steerforth Press, 1995); Jane Corbin, The Norway Channel. The Secret Talks that Lead to the Middle East Peace Accord (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1994), 123. 3. Baker, ‘‘More Fraud than Friend’’; Caleb Ben David, ‘‘Bogey Takes Aim at Etrog Journalism,’’ Jerusalem Post, November 29, 2007; Hanoch Marmary in Haaretz, May 7, 2002. 4. Stuart Shindler, A History of Modern Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 264. 5. Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism (New York: Norton, 2003). 6. Rubinstein, Arafat: A Portrait, 179. 7. Rubin and Rubin, Yasir, 138; Rubin, The Truth about Syria; Bernard Lewis, Modernization and Westernization in the Middle East (Tel Aviv: Dayan Center, 2001); Yehezkel Dror, ‘‘The Future of Israel,’’ Israel Studies 6 (2001): 90–106; David Bukay, ‘‘The Leftist Media and the al Aqsa Uprising,’’ in Israel and the Post Zionists: A Nation at Risk, ed. Shlomo Sharan (Brighton: Essex Academic Press, 2003), 87–111; Meir Hatina, Islam and Salvation in Palestine (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2001); Boaz Ganor in a symposium, International

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Intervention in Protracted Conflicts: The Israeli Palestinian Case, ed. Ephraim Yuchtman-Yaar and Tamar Hermann (Tel Aviv: Tami Steinmetz Center), 2001. 8. Aharon Klieman, ‘‘Israeli Negotiating Culture,’’ in How Israelis and Palestinians Negotiate. A Cross Cultural Analysis of the Oslo Peace Process, ed. Tamar Cofman Wittes (Washington: U.S. Institute of Peace, 2005), 119; Yossi Alpher, ‘‘Something Radically Different,’’ bitterlemons.org, May 28, 2007; Alpher, ‘‘What Oslo Didn’t Teach Us,’’ bitterlemons.org, September 15, 2008; Shlomo Gazit, ‘‘Don’t Rush to Judge,’’ Boston Globe, February 23, 2006; Ben-Ami, A Front Without a Rearguard, 488, 490; Amos Oz, But There Are Two Different Wars (Jerusalem: Keter, 2002), 16 (Hebrew); Benny Morris, ‘‘The Rejection,’’ National Republic, April 21 and 28, 2003. 9. Bergman, Authority Given, 101; Menachem Klein, The Geneva Initiative (Jerusalem: Carmel, 2006), 30; cited in Deborah Sontag, ‘‘Quest for Mideast Peace: How and Why It Failed,’’ New York Times, July 26, 2001; Agha and Malley, ‘‘Camp David’’; Daniel Bar-Tal, ‘‘The Influence of Events and Misinformation on the Israeli Jewish Public Opinion,’’ Palestine-Israeli Journal Online 11 (2004/5). 10. Robert L. Rothstein, Moshe Maoz, and Khalil Shikaki, eds., The Israeli-Palestinian Process, Oslo and the Lesson of Failure (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2002); Edy Kaufman, Walid Salem, and Juliette Verhoeven, eds., Bridging the Divide. Peacebuilidng in the IsraeliPalestinian Conflict (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2006); Ephraim Yuchtman-Yaar and Kobe Michael, The Anatomy of a Paradox: The Oslo Process as a Breakthrough Failure, Evans Program in Conflict Resolution, Tel Aviv University, 2005; Gershon Baskin, ‘‘Create Ministries of Peace in Every Country,’’ Jerusalem Post, September 24, 2007; Yossi Alpher, ‘‘Something Radically Different,’’ bitterlemons.org, May 28, 2007. 11. Zeev Sternhell in Haaretz, May 11, 2001. 12. Zeev Maoz, ‘‘Domestic Politics and Regional Stability. Theoretical Perspectives and the Middle Eastern Pattern,’’ in Building Regional Security in the Middle East. Domestic, Regional and International Influence, ed. Emily Landau and Tamar Malz (London: Frank Cass, 2004), 45. 13. Gerald M. Steinberg, Unripeness and Conflict Management: Re-examining the Oslo Process and Its Lessons (Ramat Gan: BESA, 2003); Klieman, ‘‘Israeli’’; Sher, Within Reach, 1; cited in Sontag in New York Times, 2001; Beilin, Manual for a Wounded Dove, 236, 245; Baruch Kimmerling, ‘‘Peace-Making/War Making Dialectic between Jewish Israelis and Palestinians,’’ in Israel, the Middle East and Islam: Weighing the Risks and Prospects, ed. Oded Eran and Amnon Cohen (Jerusalem Truman Institute, 2003), 24–25 (Hebrew). 14. Oz, But There Are Two Different Wars Here; Naomi Chazan, ‘‘Forward,’’ in Kaufman, Salem, and Verhoeven, Bridging, vii–viii. 15. Beilin, Manual for a Wounded Dove, 246, 247. 16. For the ongoing debate on the settlement statistics, see Uri Blau, ‘‘Secret Israeli Database Reveals Full Extent of Illegal Settlements,’’ Haaretz, January 30, 2009; Tova Lazaroff, ‘‘Settlement Growth Up 69% in 2008,’’ Jerusalem Post, January 27, 2009; Barry Rubin, ‘‘Judea and Samaria Syndrome,’’ bitterlemons.org, December 15, 2008. 17. Efraim Karsh in New York Sun, May 2, 2007. 18. Martin Kramer, ‘‘Polls That Hid Hamas,’’ Martin Kramer’s Sandbox, January 28, 2006; Steven R. Weisman, ‘‘Rice Admits U.S. Underestimated Hamas,’’ Haaretz, January 30, 2006; Khalil Shikaki, The Hamas Victory, the Future of PA and Israeli-Palestinian Relations (Tel Aviv: Dayan Center, March 6, 2006); Barry Rubin, ‘‘A Middle East Strategy for the West,’’ GLORIA, August 26, 2008; James Bennet, ‘‘The Radical Bean Counter,’’ New York Times, May 25, 2003.

222

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19. Pundak and Arieli, Territorial Aspect (Hebrew); Robert H. Mnookin, Ehud Eran, and Miter Screemati, ‘‘Barriers to Progress at the Negotiating Table: Internal Conflicts among Israelis and among Palestinians,’’ Nevada Law Journal 6 (2006): 299–366. 20. Shlomo Avineri, Is the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Solvable? ed. Tamar Hermann and Ephraim Yuchtman-Yaar (Tel Aviv: Tami Steinmetz Center, 2002), 7–11; Ben-Siman Tov et al., The Palestinian Violent Conflict 2002–2004, 45; Giora Eiland, Rethinking the Two State Solution (Washington: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2008); Gilad, ‘‘Evaluation’’; Edward Luttwak, ‘‘The Middle of Nowhere,’’ Prospect Magazine, May 2007. 21. Uri Avneri, ‘‘Israel’s Intelligence Scandal,’’ Antiwar.com, June 22, 2004; Bergman, Authority Given; Hirschfeld, Oslo, 47; Eldar in Haaretz, June 11, 2004. 22. Gilad, ‘‘Evaluation,’’ 39–48; Yaakov Amidror, ‘‘Israel’s Security: The Hard Lessons Learned,’’ Middle East Quarterly Online 11 (2004); Amidror, Reflections on the Military and Security, 142–51 (Hebrew); Kotler, The Starling and the Raven, 94; cited in Carline Glick, ‘‘Our World: Peres’s Big Day,’’ Jerusalem Post, June 11, 2007; cited in Bukay, ‘‘The Leftist Media and the al Aqsa Intifada,’’ 107. 23. Hirschfeld, Oslo, 154; Rubinstein, Arafat: A Portrait, 15; Rubinstein, Mystery, 60; Tenet, Center, 80. 24. Rubin and Rubin, Yasir, ix–x; Aburish, Arafat, 1; Rubinstein, ‘‘The Arafat Enigma,’’ Palestine-Israeli Journal Online 11 (2004/5); Sher, Within Reach, 58. 25. Shaul Kimchi, Shmuel Even, and Jerrold Post, Yasir Arafat, Psychological Profile and Strategic Analysis (Herzliya: International Institute for Counterterrorism, 2003); Rubin and Rubin, Yasir, 175, 217; Karsh, Arafat’s War, 23; Robert L. Rothstein, ‘‘A Fragile Peace: Could a Race to the Bottom Have Been Avoided?’’ in The Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process: Oslo and the Lesson of Failure, ed. Robert L. Rothstein, Moshe Maoz, and Khalil Shikaki (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2002), 12; Nusseibeh, Once Upon a Country, 430; Aburish, Arafat, 296; Ben-Ami, A Front Without a Rearguard, 41; Qurie, From Oslo to Jerusalem, 260; Sher, Within Reach, 58. 26. Maoz, Defending the Holy Land, 556–57. 27. Aharon Zeevi (Farkash), Israel and the Middle East. A Strategic Overview (Tel Aviv: Jaffe Center, 2005); Michael Horowitz, ‘‘The History of Suicide Terrorism,’’ Foreign Policy Research Institute, August 4, 2008. 28. Martin Van Creveld, Defending Israel. A Strategic Plan for Peace and Security (New York: Thomas Dunn Books, 2004), 65–80, 134. 29. Herbert Kelman, ‘‘Israeli-Palestinian Peace; Inching Toward and Looking Beyond Negotiations,’’ Middle East Policy Journal 14, no. 3 (2007): 29–40; Uri Savir, Peace First, A New Model to End the War (San Francisco: Berret-Kohler Publishers, 2008), 35; Shlomo Brom, ‘‘Is Israel Engaging Hamas?’’ Bitterlemons.com, September 22, 2008. 30. Johnny Hadi and AP, ‘‘PM Slammed for West Bank, Jerusalem Comments,’’ Jerusalem Post, September 29, 2003. 31. Efraim Karsh, ‘‘The Diplomatic Dance with Hamas,’’ Jerusalem Issue Brief, April 30, 2008; Jonathan Spyer, ‘‘Self-Radicalization,’’ Jerusalem Post, July 30, 2008; Zeevi, Israel. 32. Eiland, Rethinking.

Index

Abdullah (king of Jordan), 136, 141, 156, 157, 165–66 Abed Rabbo, Yasser, 136, 141, 142; Camp David II, 154 Abraham, S. Daniel, 13, 22, 29, 135, 162; praises Peres, 31 Abu Abbas, 25 Abu Ala (Ahmed Qurie), 42, 46, 54, 57, 65, 80, 81, 113, 142, 143, 162; Camp David II, 153–55; Taba talks, 173 Abu Bater, Ahmed, 75 Abu Dis, 141 Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas), 44, 45, 46, 81, 84, 109, 140, 143, 161; Camp David II, 153 Abu Middain, Freih, 57 Abu Muhammad group, 58–59 Abu Rabbo, Yasser, 113, 174 Achille Lauro, 25 Ad Hoc Liaison Committee (AHLC), 65 advocacy, intelligence as, 187–92 Afghanistan, 33 Agadir conference, 160 Agassi, Joseph, 21 Ahmia, Mustafa, 55 AIC, 21

al Agha, Zakaria, 38 al-Alami, Imad, 75 al-Alami, Maher, 60 Al Aqsa Brigades, 166–67, 174 Al Aqsa Intifada, 163–71, 180; conflict resolution and, 186; prelude to, 159–63; ripeness of [ripeness theory], 20–25 Alawites, 34 Al Ayyam, 60 al-Baba, Yusef, 65 al Baz, Osama, 160 Albright, Madeline, 106, 108, 111, 112, 116–17, 126, 130, 163, 190; Camp David II, 158; on Wye River Memorandum, 134, 136 al Dura, Mohammed, 163 Algeria, spread of Islamism in, 33 al Ghossein, Jaweed, 68 al Hag, 59 Al Hayat al Jadida, 60–61 al Hindi, Amin, 58 Al Istiklal, 60 al Jabali, Ghazi, 114 al-Khalidi, Ahmad, 88 al Khatib, Ghassan, 12, 30, 34, 70–71

224

INDEX

al Kidwa, Nasser, 140 Alliance of Palestinian Forces (APF), 34 al Masri, Munib, 25 Al Nahar, 60 Aloni, Shulamit, 14 alpha-error (false hypothesis), 2 Alpher, Yossi, 23–24, 41, 50, 88, 90, 181, 183 al Qosaibi, Ghazi, 29 Al Quds, 60, 73, 75, 89 Al Quds Center for Research, 170 al Rahim, Tayyib Abd, 68 al Shabiba (youth group), 144 Alternative Information Center (AIC), 12 al-Turabi, Hassan, 33, 73 Al Umma, 60 Al-Wahidi, Abu Yusuf, 58 Aman (Israel’s Military Intelligence), 10, 15, 126, 187; and Hasmonean Tunnel riots, 128; and Nakba violence, 144; and Palestinian Arab refugees, 156–57 Amana, 108 Aman Control Office, 125 Aman Research, 85, 144, 188 Amar, Nizar, 41 Amarin, Jihad, 85 American Academy for Arts and Sciences, 41 American Academy of the Social Sciences, 49 American Committee on Jerusalem (ACJ), 55, 140 American Defense Agency (ADA), 15 American Friends Service Committee, 16 American Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), 62 Amidror, Yaakov, 85, 127, 188 Amir, Yigal, 99 Ammar, Abu, 82 Amnesty International (AI), 60 analytical communal inventory, 3 The Anatomy of a Paradox: The Oslo Process as a Breakthrough Failure, 182 Andersson, Sten, 14, 22, 25, 88 Annan, Kofi, 140, 165–66 anomalies, 2 Anti-Apartheid Law, 21

anti-Semitism, 72, 99 apartheid, occupation as, 24, 25 ‘‘apartheid strategy,’’ 96 APF, 54 Arab League, 10, 11 Arab Thought Forum, 16 Arafat, Mousa, 144 Arafat, Yasser: ability to stop terrorism, 43, 45, 49, 85, 128; and Al Aqsa Intifada, 163–65; ambiguous relationship with Islamists, 73, 74–77; and antiterrorism, 102; appoints Mahmoud Abbas to PLO Executive Committee, 15; attempts to subvert Oslo process, 45, 56; attempts to subvert processes ordained by Oslo Accord, 56–59; attends Madrid conference, 38; biography, 25, 35, 91; Camp David II, 153–59; chairs PLO, 10; collapse of Oslo peace, 172–73; credibility of, 25, 29; criticism of, 35, 36, 47–48, 53; decides to meet with Track II activists, 22–23; demands for final status negotiations, 126; and distributive justice system, 64–70; expelled from Jordan, 11; and further redeployment, 113; and Gaza-Jericho talks, 80–82; and Har Homa wave of terror, 111, 125–26; on Hasmonean Tunnel opening, 107; and Hasmonean Tunnel riots, 124; and Hebron crisis, 81–82; and Hebron talks, 109, 110; intelligence on, 188–90; Kelman on, 13; legitimacy deficit/personal style of, 67– 72; Millennium Summit of the United Nations General Assembly, 160–61; and Nakba violence, 144, 145; as new Mandela, 5; in New Middle East paradigm, 179; on Oslo Accord, 55–56; and permanent status negotiations, 142, 145, 146; personal finances, 66, 117; personality traits, 128–30; Rabin on, 44; and refugee issue, 140; refuses to give up Islamist terrorists, 102–3; response to Al Aqsa Intifada, 168–71; as symbol of defiance, 157–59; and Syrian negotiations, 141 Arens, Moshe, 17; drafts peace plan,

INDEX

19–20; on elections in territories, 37; on Washington interference, 39 Ariel Center for Policy Research (ACPR), 98–99 Arieli, Shaul, 135, 158 Army of Islam, 58–59 a-Sarraj, Iyad, 59–60 ascriptive justice, 52 Asfour, Hassan, 88, 142; Camp David II, 154, 158 Ashkenazim, 90 Ashrawi, Hannan, 18, 21, 38, 41, 82, 157 a-Sourani, Raji, 59 Assad, Hafez, 28, 32, 34, 44, 136–37, 138 Assad Abed Al Rahman, 156 A-Sunduk A-Thani (Fund B), 66 asymmetrical warfare, 127 authority system legitimacy: defining, 52; elections, 56–57; human rights, 59–60; law and order, 58–59; legal system, 57– 58; media control, electronic, 61; media control, print, 60–61; of PLO-style neopatrimonial system, 56–62 Avineri, Shlomo, 186 Avinery, Uri, 12 Awad, Mubarak, 16 Awais, Nasser, 166 Awartani, Hisham, 64, 68, 94 Ayalon, Ami, 102, 107, 124, 127, 146, 188 Ayyash, Radwan Abu, 61 Ayyash, Yahya, 74, 101 Azulay, Andrei, 140 Baker, James A., 25, 37–38, 39 ballot and bullet politics, 35, 72–73 Bandar (Saudi ambassador), 169 Barak, Ehud, 36, 47, 85, 86, 113, 164–65; and Al Aqsa Intifada, 164–65; Camp David II, 153–59; collapse of Oslo peace, 172–73; criticism of policy of, 135–36; efforts to defer Wye, 133–34, 136; and New Middle East Paradigm, 148; obstacles to finalizing peace process, 134–35; and permanent status negotiations, 143, 146–47; and Rabin’s pocket, 136, 137, 138; and Sharm al Sheik Memorandum, 136; and Syrian

225

negotiations, 134, 136–38, 141–42; tries to deter Nakba violence, 143–44; win in Labor primaries of 1998, 133 Barghouti, Iyad, 35 Barghouti, Marwan, 18, 71, 140–41, 145, 157, 161, 166 Barnea, Nahum, 95 Bar-On, Ronnie, 111 Bar-Tal, Daniel, 93, 182 Baskin, Gershon, 91–92, 182 Bassiouni, Mohammed, 140 Bedein, David, 97 Begin, Benny, 92, 95 Begin, Menachem, 153; territorial issues, 10 Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA), 98 Beilin, Yossi, 157, 167; and Al Aqsa Intifada, 164; appointed Minister of Justice, 134; appointed political adviser of Peres, 14; on conflict resolution, 184, 186; founds Mashov faction of Labor party, 14; on Gaza-Jericho talks, 81, 82; Geneva Initiative (December 1, 2003), 174; on Hasmonean Tunnel, 107, 124; on Intifada, 21; loss in Labor primaries of 1998, 133; on Nakba violence, 145; on Oslo talks, 45; on Peres-Rabin relationship, 88; and permanent status negotiations, 147; on personality of Arafat, 130; praises Peres, 31; on prisoner releases, 87; Taba talks, 172–73; on territorial legitimacy, 54; on ultraorthodoxy, 32; vision of New Middle East, 30 Beilin-Abu Mazen agreement, 101, 141 Beilin-Abu Mazen final status agreement, 89 Beit Jala, 166 Ben-Aharon, Yossi, 36, 49 Ben Ali (president of Tunisia), 156, 157 Ben-Ami, Shlomo, 72, 81, 86, 88, 122; after Camp David II, 161–62; and Al Aqsa Intifada, 164–65; appointed Minister for Internal Security, 134; Camp David II, 154, 159; loss in Labor primaries of 1998, 133; on New Middle East paradigm, 181; and permanent

226

INDEX

status negotiations, 142, 146; Taba talks, 172–73 Ben Gurion, David, 84 Ben Shahar, Haim, 62 Ben Tsur, Eytan, 38 Ben Ziman, Uzi, 96 Berger, Samuel ‘‘Sandy,’’ 108 Bergman, Ronen, 67 beta-error (true hypothesis), 2 Biletzky, Anat, 95 bin Laden, Osama, 33, 119 Black Panthers, 58 brinkmanship diplomacy, 109 Brom, Shlomo, 192 Bronfman, Charles, 131 Brookings Institution, 9 B’Tselem, 45, 59, 60, 95 Bukay, David, 181 bureaucratic politics, 3 Bureau of Economic and Social Research, 14 Burg, Avraham, 184 Bush, George H. W.: and New Middle East, 37–39; suspends talks with PLO, 25 Bush, George W., 171 Cairo Agreement, 58 CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America), 95 Camp David (1997 summit), 5, 11 Camp David II, 153–59, 180, 182 Carmon, Yigal, 97, 117 Carter, Jimmy, 23, 97 car theft, 95 Carville, James, 131 Casablanca Regional Economic Conference, 63, 98 Center for the Protection of Democracy, 91 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 106, 114, 147; prediction failures by, 123–24 Centre party, 134 Chazan, Naomi, 48, 184 Chirac, Jacque, 165 Chomsky, Noam, 8 Christopher, Warren, 44, 47, 81, 110

Citizens for International Intervention (CII), 120 Civil Administration, 16 Civilian Administration, 11 Clark, Ramsey, 140 Clarke, Richard A., 103 clash of civilizations, 32, 119, 122 Clinton, Bill, 44, 102, 104; agrees to sponsor summit on permanent status negotiations, 148; Camp David II, 153– 59; on Hebron talks, 110; on Netanyahu, 108; response to Al Aqsa Intifada, 168–71; and Syrian negotiations, 136, 137–38; visits Gaza, 116; and Wye River Agreement, 114, 115, 116–17, 134, 136 Cobban, Helena, 14 cognitive map, 3 Cohen, Amnon, 10 Cohen, Stephen P., 13, 15, 67 collective memory, 9 commemoration industry, 21 Committee for the Defense of Palestinian Refugee Rights, 186 Committee to Protect Journalists, 60–61 Comprehensive Agreement on Permanent Status (CAPS), 136 confidence-building measures (CBM), 5, 8, 16, 46–47, 84, 86–87, 92, 120, 123 conflict management, 186–87 conflict psychology, 47 conflict resolution (CR), 183–87; increased funding after Oslo, 91; on Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 12–13; on Lebanon War, 11–12; lessons from Oslo experience, 192–94; and New Diplomacy, 41; Oslo peace discourse, 91–92; overview, 8–9; on positive reports on PA, 120; and post-Zionism, 96; on reality in territories, 23–25 Connell, Dan, 70 constructive opaqueness, 184 Consultative Group (CG), 65 Council for Peace and Security, 39 crisis behavior, 3 critical peace studies, 20–21, 120 ‘‘Crossing Borders: Reciprocal Explorations

INDEX

of the Narratives and Realities in Palestine and Israel,’’ 182 ‘‘A Cry for the Homeland’’ declaration, 139, 140 Cygielman, Victor, 91 Dagan, Meir, 127–29 Dahlan, Mohammed, 58, 65, 80, 103, 113, 116, 146, 160; after Camp David II, 162; Camp David II, 153–55; Taba talks, 173 Darwish, Mahmoud, 54, 134 Davar, 31 Davidi, Yitzhak, 66 Davis, Leonard, 120–21 Davis, Uri, 21 Dayan, Moshe, 10 Dayan, Uzi, 83, 148 Dayan Center, 118, 178–79 Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangement (DOP): procedural objections to, 48; provisions of, 46–47; violations of, 98 Degel Hatora, 31 Deif, Mohammed, 74, 103 Deir Yassin Remembered, 21 Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), 10 democratic peace theory, 27, 28, 80 Deutch, John, 102 DFLP, 40, 54 Dichter, Avi, 125, 144, 170 discursive community, 4 Disengagement Plan (2003), 175 distributive justice: defining, 52; economics, 62–68; legitimacy of neopatrimonial economy, 62–70 Djerejian, Edward P., 38 Dor Energy Company, 67 Dror, Yehezkel, 33, 181 Dudgmush, Muntaz, 58–59 Economic Cooperation Foundation (ECF), 30, 148–49 Economic Permanent Status (EPS), 121 economic underpinnings of peace, 5 economic union [vision of ], 5

227

egalitarian justice, 52 Egeland, Jan, 13 Egypt: and Camp David agreement, 11; negotiations by Peres, 37 Ehrenfeld, Rachel, 99 Eid, Bassam, 59, 60, 61 Eiland, Giora, 186–87, 193 Eitan, Raphael, 67; and Lebanon War, 11 Eldar, Akiva, 95, 137, 192 Eliashiv, Shalom, 146 Emerson, Steven, 122 Eran, Oded, 141 Erekat, Saeb, 18, 61, 81, 109, 113, 136, 141, 142, 154, 156, 160, 162–63 Eretz Yisrael Hashlema (Greater Israel), 10 ethnocracy, 31 etrog journalism, 180 European Center for Conflict Prevention, 182 Ezra, Gideon, 80 Ezrachi, Yaron, 150 FAFO (Institute for Applied Social Research), 13–14, 42 Fahmy, Nabil, 170 Falouji, Imad, 163 Fatah, 10, 19, 36, 54, 141, 191 Fatah Hawks, 58, 74 Feith, Douglas, 133 Feldman, Shai, 22 FIDA (Palestinian Democratic Union), 54, 142 Fischer, Stanley, 62 Fisher, Max, 37 Flapan, Simcha, 91 Foundation for International Security (FIS), 41 Foundation for Middle East Peace, 24 Framework Agreement on Permanent Status (FAPS), 136 Freedman, Jean, 135 Freedman, Robert O., 22 Frenkel, Erwin, 24 Friedrich Ebert Foundation, 29 functionalism, 27 further redeployment (FRD), 112–13, 114, 146

228

INDEX

Galtung, Johan, 8, 12, 20 Ganor, Boaz, 14, 34, 98, 118, 181 Gaza Employees Pension Fund, 66 Gaza Islamic Center, 11 Gaza-Jericho talks: competition among negotiators, 80–81; and Hebron crisis, 81–82; negotiations, 80–83; on prisoner release, 87; provisions of Agreement, 82; on safe passage, 87; on terrorism, 80; veto power, 80; violations of, 98; violations of Agreement, 85 Gaza massacre, 74 Gaza Personnel Council (GPC), 64 Gaza Strip, 53–54, 56, 193–94. See also Oslo II Gazit, Shlomo, 10, 150, 181; on intelligence, 187; on Oslo talks, 49, 50; participates in Harvard Seminar, 12; peace indicator list, 15; on PLO, 23; poll on territory-peace exchange, 39 Gemeinschaft, 52, 61 General Intelligence Service, 58 General Trade Union Federation (GTUF), 63 Geneva Initiative (December 1, 2003), 174–75 German-Israeli Foundation (GIF), 91 Gesellschaft, 52, 53, 61 Gesher party, 134 Ghosheh, Ibrahim, 40, 141 Gil, Avi, 45 Gilad, Amos, 125–26, 128, 129, 147, 164, 167, 188; on conflict resolution, 187 Gilady, Eival, 174 Gillon, Karmi, 17, 80, 85, 87, 101, 102 Ginossar, Yossi, 13, 67, 139, 156, 173, 189 Golan, Galia, 94, 95, 192 Golan Heights, 138 Goldstein, Baruch, 73, 81 Gore, Al, 110 Goren, Shmuel, 67; on goodwill measures to thwart unrest, 16 Greater Israel Movement, 10 Greenberg, Stanley, 131 Green Line, 10, 54, 86 Greenstein, Gidi, 88 Grey, Robert K., 14

Grossman, David, 21, 91, 93 Gulf War (1991), as ripeness moment, 37–38 Gush Emunim (Bloc of Faithful), 10, 21, 92, 108 Haaretz, 12, 24, 67, 90, 95, 137 Haas, Amira, 95 Haas, Ernest B., 27 Habash, Sakhr, 163 Hadi, Mahdi Abdul, 68, 87, 88 Halacha (religious law), 99 Halahmi, Eli, 67 Halevy, Efraim, 44, 48, 118, 123, 129, 135 Halevy, Yehontan Dahoah, 164 Hamas: Arafat relationship with, 73–74, 76, 84; collapse of Oslo peace, 174–76; creation of, 18; demands seats in PNC, 40; and peace process, 63, 92; pledges to wage Jihad, 33–34; Rabin expels activists to Lebanon, 41; rejection of Oslo talks, 54; rejects goals of Madrid conference, 40; relationship with PLO, 19, 40; retaliation for Har Homa, 111; rocket strikes by, 175–76, 193–94; suicide bombings by, 111, 112; terrorism by, 18–19, 20 Hanieh, Akram, 24, 154, 157, 159, 162 Haram/Mount Temple, 155–56, 161, 168–69 Hareven, Alouf, 119 Hareven, Shulamit, 90, 119 Har Homa wave of terror, 111, 125–26 Harkabi, Yehoshafat, 10, 23, 28, 99, 180, 187 Hart, Alan, 14, 25, 35, 91 Harvard Seminar, 12 Hashem Hussein Hashem Abu Nada, 64 Hashemi-Rafsanjani, Ali Akbar, 75 Hashemite Kingdom, 10–11, 16 Hasmonean Tunnel riots, 107, 124 Hassassian, Manuel, 120 Hasson, Yisrael, 160, 162 Hatina, Meir, 181 Hauser, Rita, 22, 25, 38 Hawa, George, 64–65 Hazony, Yoram, 94, 97

INDEX

Hebron, 81–82 Hebron Memorandum, 109–11 Heiberg, Marianne, 13 Heikal, Mohamed, 75 Helal, Gamal, 160 Heller, Mark, 24, 98 Hen, Amatzia, 189 Hermann, Tamar, 92, 95 Herzog, Haim, 22 Hezbollah: and ballot and bullet model, 72–73; on IDF withdrawal from Lebanon, 145; and Quranic theory of war, 72; rocket strikes by, 103, 175 Hezbollah International, 75 Higher Commission for Investment and Finance (HCIF), 121 Higher Fatah Committee (FHC), 71 Hirschfeld, Yair, 30, 31, 42, 45–46, 63, 75, 88, 189; and economic cooperation, 101 Hirsh, Moshe, 56 Hirst, David, 69 Histadrut (Israel’s labor union), 14 Holocaust, 20, 93 Holocaust denial, 71, 76 Holocaust Museum, 21 Holst, Jorgen, 47 Homat Magen (Defense Shield), 174 hot pursuit, 109, 110 Huleileh, Samir, 63 human rights NGOs, 59–60, 140 Human Rights Watch, 60 Huntington, Samuel, 32, 178 Hussein (king of Jordan), 112; brokers Notes for the Record, 110; expels Arafat from Jordan, 11 Hussein, Saddam, 25, 34 Hussein Agha, 158, 182 Hussein Al Sheik, 166 Husseini, Faisal, 16, 18, 21, 29, 38, 44, 88; on Hasmonean Tunnel, 107 Hussein Sheik Al Islam, 146 identity affirmation, 9 IDF. See Israel Defense Forces Inbar, Efraim, 98 Inbar, Michael, 13

229

Independent Media Review & Analysis (IMRA), 97 Indyk, Martin, 108, 137 Institute for Middle East Peace and Development, 13 intelligence, role of, 187–92 intelligence problems, early 1980s: methodological, 15–16; structural, 15 Interim Agreement (Oslo II): division of Hebron, 109; security clause, 102; security situation, 87 International Center for Peace in the Middle East, 13, 22 International Conference in Support of the Islamic Revolution of the People of Palestine, 33 International Development Research Center (IDRC), 53 International Monetary Fund, 67 International Research Group on Political Violence, 122 Intifada (first), 5, 55, 66; failure to anticipate, 16–17; failure to suppress, 17–18 Intifada (second). See Al Aqsa Intifada Iran: and spread of Islamism, 33; support of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, 103–4; support of Islamists, 141, 146; and terrorism, 118–19; threat assessment of, 125 Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), 33, 34, 40, 72, 125 Islamic Jihad, 60; and peace process, 63; rejection of Oslo talks, 54; rocket strikes by, 175–76, 193–94; terrorist attacks by, 73–74 Islamic martyr (shaheed), 19 Islamic Resistance Movement, 175 Islamic Salvation Party (Hizb al-Khalas al Watani), 74 Islamists: ambiguous relationship with Arafat, 73, 74–77; and ballot and bullet model, 72–73; and Quranic theory of war, 72; shift in power of, 75; terrorist attacks by, 73–74 Israel: cooperation with Palestinian Authority, 111–12; establishment of

230

INDEX

independent state, 9; further redeployment by, 112; intelligence community split, 127–28 Israel, the West Bank and Gaza: Toward a Solution, 23–24 Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA), 91 Israel Defense Forces (IDF), 119, 123; Al Aqsa Intifada, 164–65; code of restraint, 127; code of restraint reversed, 144; and Hasmonean Tunnel riots, 107, 127–28; and hot pursuit of terrorists, 46; strategy against Intifada, 17–18, 19; Taba talks, 172–73; withdrawal from Lebanon, 142, 145 Israeli Left, 120; and PLO, 23 Israeli-Palestinian conflict: origins of, 9–12; perspectives on solving, 12–15; ripeness indicators, 28–32 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and Gaza Strip. See Oslo II Israeli Right, 92; and PLO, 23 Israeli Siege Mentality Scale (ISMS), 93 Israel Media Resource, 97 Israel Media Watch, 91 Israel/Palestine Center for Peace Research and Information (IPCRI), 91–92 Ivri, David, 124 Izzadin al Qassam Brigades, 40, 73–74, 103, 119, 174 Jabal Abu Ghneim settlement, 111 Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies (JCSS), 23, 24, 28, 118 Jerusalem Media and Communication Center (JMCC), 30, 73 Jerusalem Post, 24, 35, 49 Jewish lobby, belief in, 154 Jihad, 72; Hamas pledges to wage, 33–34 JMCC polls, 34 Joint Civil Affairs and Cooperation Committee (CAC), 82 Joint Coordination Center (JCC), 110 Joint Liaison Committee (JLC), 65 Joint Mobile Units (JMUs), 110 Joint Regional Civil Affairs Subcommittees, 82

Joint Working Group on Israeli-Palestinian Relations, 91 Jordanian option, 16 Jordanian-Palestinian confederation, failure of, 22 Jordan Valley security belt, 54 Journal of Palestine Studies, 12 Journal of Peace Research, 8 Juul, Mona, 13–14, 42 Kadoorie, Yitzhak, 100 Kanafani, Marwan, 101 Kanovsky, Eliyahu, 98 Karsh, Efraim, 96, 185 Karta, Neturei, 56 Kasher, Asa, 94 Kaufman, Edy, 29 Kelman, Herbert, 8, 121, 150, 192; on Arafat, 13; efforts to solve Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 12–13; increased CR efforts, 91 Kendall, Wilmore, 123 Kent, Sherman, 123, 187 Keohane, Robert O., 27 Keren, Michael, 90 Keshev (Center for the Protection of Democracy), 91 Khader, Hussam, 64 Khalidi, Ahmed, 41 Khalidi, Rashid, 55, 140 Khalil, Samiha, 56, 61 Khalil Shikaki’s Center for Policy and Survey Research, 182 Khamenei, Ali, 40, 183 Khomeini, Ruhallah, 178, 191 Kimchi, David, 32 Kissinger, Henry, 1 Klein, Menachem, 182 Klieman, Aharon, 184 Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee (FADC), 17 Kollek Center for Jerusalem Studies, 150 Konrad Adenaur Foundation, 29, 91, 120–21 Korah Ha’hafrada (The Necessity of Separation; Schueftan), 119–20 korbanot shalom (victims of peace), 84

INDEX

Kramer, Martin, 33, 185; on New Middle East paradigm, 178 Kuhn, Thomas, 2 Kulturkampf, 99, 117 Kuttab, Daoud, 29, 59 Kuwait, invasion of, 25 Labor government: primaries of 1998, 133; on prisoner releases, 87; on settlements, 111; territorial issues, 9–10; victory over Peres, 39–40 Landau, David, 24 Lanir, Zvi, 123 Larson, Terje, 41, 42 Lauder, Ronald, 137 Lauder paper, 137 Lavie, Ephraim, 127, 164, 168, 188, 189 Lebanon, Hamas activists expelled to, 41 Lerner, Aaron, 97 lessons from Oslo experience, 192–94 Lev, Ozrad, 67 Levin, Kenneth, 90 Levy, David, 38, 108, 134, 143 Levy, Gideon, 95 Levy, Yitzhak, 134, 168 Lewis, Bernard, 32–33, 119, 122, 178, 181 Lewis-Huntington thesis, 32–33, 122 Likud government, 167; election wins, 104; and Intifada, 36; lessons from Oslo experience, 192–93; mistrust in, 111; settlement freeze repeal by, 106; territorial issues, 10 Lipkin-Shahak, Amnon, 32, 80, 83, 104, 109, 124, 162 Listhtot me’haim shel Gaza (Drinking the Sea at Gaza: Days and Nights in a Land under Siege; Hass), 95 Litvak, Meir, 118 Local Coordination Committee (LACC), 65 low-intensity conflict (LIC), 21, 123 Lustick, Ian, 93 Luttwak, Edward, 187 Maale Zeitim, 108 Madrid conference, 38–39, 40 Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), 175;

231

appointment as senior member of PLO Executive Committee, 15; on territorial issues, 54 Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, 183 Majlis, 33 Majone, Giandomenico, 3–4 Makadmeh, Ibrahim, 126 Makovsky, David, 48 Malik, S. K., 72, 77, 124 Malka, Amos, 126–27, 147, 164, 188, 188–89 Malley, Robert, 157, 158, 182 MALTAM—Operational Theory Research Institute (OTRI), 123 Mandel-Shaked, Haim, 135 Mansour, Camille, 12 Maoz, Moshe, 150 Maoz, Zeev, 124, 183, 191 Marcus, Itamar, 97 Margalit, Avishai, 21 Margalit, Dan, 130 Marmary, Hanoch, 24, 180 Marzuk, Mousa, 141 Mashaal, Khaled, 74, 75, 112, 141 Mashov faction of Labor party, 14 master theory, 2 Mate Lohama Be’terror (Headquarters for Fighting Terrorism—Counter-Terrorism Center), 102 Mazpen, 12 McGowan, Daniel, 21 Medad, Yisrael, 91 Meguid, Esmat Abdel, 37 membership/territory legitimacy: defining, 52; of Palestinian Authority (PA), 52–56 memorandum of understanding (MOU) on security, 112 Merari, Ariel, 24–25 Meretz party, 14, 39, 40, 134 Meridor, Dan, 142; Camp David II, 154, 156 Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), 97, 106, 117, 126 Middle East Report, 12 Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP), 12

232

INDEX

Middle East Studies Association (MESA), 12 Middle East Study Mission for Foundations, 92 military buildup, by U.S. in Gulf, 28 Millennium Summit of the United Nations General Assembly, 160–61 Miller, Aaron D., 158 Milson, Menachem, 11 Misgav, Haim, 17 Mishal, Shaul, 23, 118 Mitrany, David, 27 Mofaz, Shaul, 127, 135, 144, 164, 188 money laundering, 67 Monnet, Jean, 27 Montville, Joseph, 93, 184 Mordechai, Yitzhak, 106, 108, 114, 124 Morris, Benny, 20, 96, 182 Moskowitz, Irving, 107, 108, 111 Mossad, 15–16, 32, 112 Moussa, Amr, 160 Mubarak, Hosni, 82, 136, 148, 160, 165, 170–71 Mughnieyeh, Imad, 75, 103 Munich Olympics massacre, 10 Munir Abu Rizk, 60 Mussa Abu Marzuk, 40, 118 mutaradin, 58–59 Nahas, Zaki, 65 Nakba, 96, 144–51 Nakba Day, 143–44 Naor, Arieh, 19 National Guidance Committee, 11 National Islamic Front of Hassan al-Turabi, 33 nationalism, 20; particularistic, 30; secular, 73; ultranationalism, 21 National Policy Institute, 98 National Religious Party (NRP), 134, 146 National Threat Assessment (NTA), 125 National Unity government, Peres attempts to break up, 31–32 Nave, Yair, 147 Naveh, Danny, 106, 113, 127, 129 Naveh, Shimon, 123 Nawfal, Mamduh, 85

Nazal, Mohammad, 75 Nazis, 20 neo-Kantianism, 27 neo-Marxism, 8 neorealism, 7 Neriya, Jacques, 81, 88 Netanyahu, Benjamin, 194; and elections, 100, 104; and further redeployment, 112–13, 115; and Hasmonean Tunnel riots, 107, 124; and Hebron negotiations, 109, 110–11; midcourse correction of Oslo peace, 105; opinion polls on, 84; on Oslo Accord, 47–48, 50; and police force, 114–15; and settlers, 107, 108, 110; on Wye River Memorandum, 116 New Diplomacy, 41, 46, 47 New Middle East, 177–83; and G. H. W. Bush, 37–39 The New Middle East (Peres), 30–31 New Middle East paradigm, 4–5; critique of, 32–36; and economics, 62–63; focus on Israeli-Palestinian context, 28–29; orthodoxy and, 31–32; Peres vision of, 30–32 9/11 attack, 180, 191 nongovernmental organization (NGO): human rights, 59–60; proliferation after Lebanon War, 11–12; Science for Peace, 8 Norway, Track II diplomacy and, 13–14 Notes for the Record, 110 No Trumpet, Trumpets, No Drums (Nusseibeh), 24 Novik, Nimrod, 14, 30, 37, 88, 137 numinous-traditional validity, 52 Nusseibeh, Sari, 18, 21, 24, 55, 61, 68, 72, 145, 185; and Track II talks, 88 Nye, Joseph S., Jr., 27 Obama administration, 194 objectivity of intelligence, 187–92 old Middle East, 177–83 Olmert, Ehud, 107, 175, 193 Operation Cast Lead (December 27, 2008– January 18, 2009), 193–94 Operation Grapes of Wrath, 103

INDEX

Orient House, 106 original sin theory, 12, 20, 21 orthodoxy, Jewish, 31; ultraorthodoxy, 31–32 Oslo Accord. See also Gaza-Jericho talks Oslo II, 83–89; Arafat and, 84; Beilin-Abu Mazen final status agreement, 89; concessions by Israel, 87; and confidence-building, 84, 86–87; Palestinian lack of preparation for, 83–84; prisoner transfer, 88; security issues, 85– 88; Track II talks, 88–89; veto provision, 87; violations of, 98 Oslo peace discourse, 89–100; as Arafat’s Trojan horse, 188; collapse of Oslo peace, 171–73; confidence-building measures, 92, 123; criticisms of, 97–99; CR/peace research on, 91–94; cultural cleavages, 90; deliberate academic media cover-up, 90–91; intelligence roles, 123– 24; Islamic fundamentalism, 94; Islamic terrorism, 92; Jewish fundamentalism, 90, 92; lessons from, 192–94; media-academy conflict of interest, 95– 97; positive assessment of Palestinian Authority, 91–95, 120; settler issues, 92, 99; state-building problems, 95; trying to resurrect, 174–76; on use of force, 123 The Oslo Syndrome (Levin), 90–91 Oslo talks: ambiguity/vagueness in, 42–43, 47; DOP, criticisms of substance of, 49– 50; DOP, procedural objections to, 48; DOP, provisions of, 46–47; on economic cooperation, 42; IDF constraint on use of force, 123; and Labor party, 47–48; lack of intelligence input, 43; lack of professionalism, 48; memorandum to drop, 45; and Netanyahu, 47–48; outline for possible agreement, 42–43; and Peres, 43, 44, 47; PLO blocks Washington channel, 44–45; PLO rejection of, 54; and Rabin, 43–46, 49; security/intelligence issues, 122–31; security issue focus, 46; triumph of New Diplomacy in, 47 outliers, 2

233

Owens, Wayne, 22, 67 Oz, Amos, 21, 31, 119, 145, 181, 184 PA. See Palestinian Authority (PA) PADESCO, 67 Palestine: partitioning of, 9; proto-state, implications of failure of, 70–72 Palestine Consulting Group (PCG), 92 Palestine-Israeli Journal, 91, 92, 94, 121 Palestine Leadership Committee, 84 Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO): efforts to improve image of, 13–14; legitimacy of, 49; relationship with Hamas, 19 Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs (PASSIA), 68 Palestinian Authority (PA): authority system legitimacy, 56–62; and civil rights, 139; cooperation with Israel, 111–12; distributed justice legitimacy, 62–70; and economic corruption, 139– 40; failure of state-building, 98, 117–22; and Hasmonean Tunnel riots, 107; and Jerusalem, 140; legitimacy problems, 139–41; and New Middle East paradigm, 179; and refugee issue, 140; relationship with Hamas, 98; release of Makadmeh by, 126; as ruled by decree, 57; undermining of rule of law, 57–58 ‘‘Palestinian Authority and PLO Non-Compliance—A Record of Bad Faith,’’ 168 Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation (PBC), 61, 71–72 Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR), 30 Palestinian Center for the Study of Nonviolence in Jerusalem, 16 Palestinian Charter, 141 Palestinian Commercial Services Cooperation (PCSC), 64 Palestinian Communication Corporation (Paltel), 64 Palestinian Development and Investment Corporation (PADICO), 64 Palestinian Diaspora, 53, 92 Palestinian Economic Council for

234

INDEX

Development and Reconstruction (PEDCAR), 65 Palestinian Human Rights Information Center, 59 Palestinian Independent Commission for Civil Rights (PICCR), 59 Palestinian Intifada. See Al Aqsa Intifada Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 18 Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), 56–57 Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO): ascension of, 10–11; Bush suspends talks with, 25; finances of, 28–29; headquarters in Lebanon, 12; relationship with Hamas, 19, 40; terrorist attacks by, 36 Palestinian Mandate, 12 Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), 97, 106 Palestinian National Charter, 46 Palestinian National Council (PNC), 19 Palestinian National Covenant, 19 Palestinian National Front (PNF), 11 Palestinian Preventive Services, 80 Palestinian Refugees Research Network (PRIM), 53 Paltel, 140 Pappe, Ilan, 20 paradigms, 2–5 Paris Agreement, 80 Paris Protocol on Economic Relations, 62, 66, 76 particularistic nationalism, 30 Paz, Reuven, 34, 118 Peace and Conflict, 8 Peace Index, 92 peace industry, 93–94 Peace Now, 11, 95 Peace Now Settlement Watch Team, 106 peace research, increased funding after Oslo, 91 peace studies, 7–8; radical, 12 Peace Technology Fund, 139–40 Peace Watch, 97, 106 Peled, Benny, 90 People’s Party, 54 ‘‘The People’s Plan’’ proposal, 174 Peres, Shimon, 162; and antiterrorism,

102; belief in New Middle East, 100– 101; Comprehensive Peace Plan of, 100– 101; on concept of Greater Israel, 14; on goodwill measures to thwart unrest, 16; on intelligence, 43, 187; at Ministry of Regional Development, 134, 135; negotiations with Egypt, 37; New Middle East paradigm, 178; and Operation Grapes of Wrath, 103; and permanent status negotiations, 148; relationship with Arafat, 127; relationship with Rabin, 44, 45, 88; and security, 101–2; and Syria, 100–101; Taba talks, 172; vision of New Middle East, 30–32 Peres Center for Peace, 62, 67, 139–40 Peri, Yaakov, 43, 80, 187 Peri, Yoram, 90, 95 permanent status negotiations: Barack suggests summit to settle issues, 146–49; Israeli team, 143; Palestinian team, 142– 43; secrecy of, 142; territorial issues, 141, 142, 146; undermining of, 144–46 personality cult, 71 Pettman, Ralph, 3 PFLP, 40, 54, 58 PICAR, 150 Pipes, Daniel, 18, 122, 149 Polisar, Daniel, 97 Pollack, Eli, 91 Pollard, Jonathan, 114 poll on territory-peace exchange, 39 Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), 10 Post, Jerrold, 35, 190 post-Zionists, 20, 31, 96, 100 Powell, Collin, 171 prediction: errors in, 2; failure in, 1, 2 predictive failure of Oslo peace: on foreign policy level, conflict resolution vs. conflict management, 183–87; on intelligence level, advocacy vs. objectivity, 187–92; on paradigmatic level, New Middle East vs. old Middle East, 177–83 preference falsification, 35 Pressler, Yigal, 86

INDEX

Preventive Security Force (PSS), 58 Private Enterprise Institute, 92 Program on International Conflict Analysis (PICAR), 91 Protocols of the Elders of Zion, 18 PSR polls, 34 PSS, 113; terrorist arrests by, 102 public opinion, influence of, 127 Pugwash Conference, 7 Pundak, Ron, 30, 54, 88, 93–94 Pundak, Uri, 14, 42, 158 Qana incident, 103–4 Quandt, William: on Arab democratization, 28; on dialogue with PLO, 22; on police state, 61 Quandt-Rabie document, 22 Queen Noor Foundation, 92 Quranic doctrine of warfare, 72, 76–77 Rabie, Mohamed, 22 Rabin, Leah, 159 Rabin, Yitzhak: and Arafat, 44; assassination of, 99–100, 180; on border closings, 63; expels Hamas activists to Lebanon, 41; and Gaza-Jericho agreement, 80, 81, 82; on goodwill measures to thwart unrest, 16; on intelligence, 187; on prisoner transfers, 88; relationship with Peres, 44, 45, 88; security under, 39; on separation fence, 86; strategy against Intifada, 17–18, 19; on terrorism, 84, 85–86; on ultraorthodoxy, 50; victory over Peres, 39–40 Rabinovitch, Itamar, 103, 105 Rabin’s pocket, 44, 136, 137, 138 Rachlevsky, Saffi, 100 radical peace studies, 12 Rajoub, Jibril, 58, 60, 74, 80, 98, 105, 113, 146, 162, 166 Ram, Uri, 96 Ramon, Haim, 44 Rapoport, Anatol, 8 Rashid, Mohammed, 64, 66–67, 94, 142; Camp David II, 153–55 Raskin, Steven, 121–22 Rath, Ari, 24

235

rational choice theory, 3; on preference falsification, 35 rational–legal validity, 52, 56 Raviv, Moshe, 38 realism, 7 Red Eagles, 58 Reese, Matt Begnon, 58 refugees, Palestinian Arab: Camp David II, 156–57; settlement after reestablishment of state of Israel, 9 Rekhess, Elie, 118 Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF), 61 residuals, 2 Revolutionary Guards. See Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Rice, Condoleezza, 186 Rich, Mark, 140 right of return, 53–54, 101, 140 ripeness theory, 9; and Arafat, 29; on reality in territories, 24–25 Risner, Daniel, 144 Robinson, Mary, 173 Roed-Larsen, Terje, 182 Ross, Dennis, 37, 39; after Camp David II, 160–61; Al Aqsa Intifada, 168; on antiterrorism, 102; on Arafat and New Middle East, 100; on Arafat’s neopatrimonialism, 66; on Barak, 133; on conflict resolution, 184, 185–86; on failure of Oslo talks, 171; on Gaza-Jericho agreement, 80; on Hasmonean Tunnel riots, 124; on Hebron talks, 109, 110, 111; on Lauder paper, 47, 137; on Netanyahu, 113; on Oslo Accord, 47; on Oslo II, 87; on peace process, 108; and permanent status negotiations, 143–44, 147; on personality of Arafat, 129; on release of Makadmeh by PA, 126; on Syrian negotiations, 137, 138; on Wye River Memorandum, 115, 116, 117, 136 Rothschild, Danny, 32, 41, 83 Roy, Sarah, 59, 68, 70, 72 Rubenberg, Cheryl, 58 Rubin, Barry, 23, 34, 49, 55, 61–62; on balance of powers, 117; on ballot and bullet model, 73; on conflict resolution,

236

INDEX

185–86; on intelligence, 190; on New Middle East paradigm, 178, 181; on Palestinian Authority, 98; on peace as threat to authoritarians, 149 Rubin, Judith Colp, 190 Rubinstein, Amnon, 96 Rubinstein, Danny, 179, 190 Rubinstein, Eli, 143; Camp David II, 154, 156 Rubinstein, Elyakim, 41, 48 Russian immigrants, 38–39 Sadat, Anwar, 153–59 safe passage, 87 Saguy, Uri, 32, 48, 85, 128, 130, 187 Said, Edward, 35; on Arafat, 72; on Israel’s claim to Jerusalem, 55; on ‘‘original sin’’ theory, 12; on Oslo Accord, 54; on Oslo II, 83 Salam, Amin Abdel, 57 Salameh, Hassan, 74 Saleh, Ramadan, 119, 146 Samara, Adel, 63 Samet, Gideon, 95 Sarid, Yossi, 14, 25, 44, 135, 143 Sartawi, Isaam, 14 Satloff, Robert, 19, 115 Savir, Uri, 42, 66, 74, 75, 192; on effects of car theft, 86; on Gaza-Jericho talks, 80, 82; on insensitivity to Israeli public opinion, 118; on Iran, 103–4; on Palestinian elections, 83; on Peres-Arafat relationship, 102; on personality of Arafat, 129; on terrorism, 101; and Track II talks, 88 Sawalha, Mohammad Qassam, 75 Sayigh, Yezid, 12, 69 Scheffer, Gabriel, 149–50 Schiff, Zeev, 12, 24, 95, 150 Schocken, Amos, 24 Schoen, Douglas, 104 Schueftan, Dan, 97, 119–20 Schweitzer, Yoram, 118 Science for Peace, 8 Scowcroft, Brent, 37, 39 Seale, Patrick, 34 secular nationalism, 73

security/intelligence community split, 127–28 Seeds of Peace, 91 Segala, Jacques, 135 Segev, Tom, 100 Sela, Amnon, 118 separation fence, 102 Sephardim, 90 Sephardi orthodox, 31 settler’s movement, violence triggered by, 16–17 Shaath, Nabil, 14, 45, 81, 88, 157 Shabbat, Yehezkel, 98 Shabtai, Aharon, 90 Shach, Eliezer, 31–32 Shafir, Gershon, 96 Shahal, Moshe, 86 shaheed (Islamic martyr), 19, 76 Shaheen, Abdul Aziz (Abu Ali), 64 Shalev, Aryeh, 23, 24 Shamir, Yitzhak: efforts to defeat, 38–39; on elections in territories, 37; on Netanyahu, 111; on New Middle East, 38; on territorial issues, 15 Shapira, Shimon, 149 Shara, Farouk, 137 Sharansky, Natan, 134 sharia law, 18 Shariati, Ali, 76 Sharikat al Bahr (Sea Corporation), 64, 68 Sharm al Sheik Memorandum, 136–39, 166; implementation of, 141–44 Sharon, Ariel, 159, 162–63, 173; and Al Aqsa Intifada, 164; collapse of Oslo peace, 174–76; and Lebanon War, 11 Shas party, 31, 40, 100, 111, 134, 143 Shavit, Ari, 6 Shavit, Shabtai, 85 Sheik Nayef, 74–75 Sher, Gideon, 82 Sher, Gilad, 88, 130, 146, 154, 160, 162, 184, 190; Taba talks, 172 Sheves, Shimon, 45 Shiites, 18–19, 32, 33 Shikaki, Fathi, 18, 29–30 Shikaki, Khalil, 34–35 Shikaki, pollster, 75

INDEX

Shikaki polls, 149, 185–86 Shikaki’s Center for Policy and Survey Research, 182 Shin Bet (General Security Service), 11, 15, 170, 187; on Arafat and Accords, 128; and Oslo II talks, 48, 85; and Oslo talks, 48; research unit of, 19 Shlaim, Avi, 20, 100 Shoham, Uri, 106 Shulsky, Abram N., 124 Shultz, George, 16, 22 Sid Abu Mesameh, 75 Singer, Yoel, 42, 43, 46, 48 Six Day War (Yom Kippur War), 9–10, 47 Sneh, Ephraim, 45, 125, 148 Soffer, Arnon, 86, 98–99, 120, 179 Solomon Stables, 107 Soviet Union, collapse of, 28 Special Security Force (SSF), 58 Sprinzak, Ehud, 122 stage-by-stage approach, 5 state-building, 51–52 Stav, Arieh, 90 Steinberg, Gerald, 184 Steinberg, Matti, 127, 144, 188, 189 Sternhell, Zeev, 183 Still Small Voices (Wallach & Wallach), 25 ‘‘stinking business,’’ 31–32, 50 Stoltenberg, Thorvald, 14 Students of Yahya Ayyash, 74 Sudan, spread of Islamism in, 33 Sudanese-Iranian initiative, 33 suicide bombings, 24–25, 32, 33–34, 76– 77, 101, 111, 112 Suleiman, Omar, 160, 165 Summers, Lawrence, 148 Sunnis, 18–19, 32, 33 Syria, 44, 100–101 Syria first concept, 32, 34 Taba talks, 171–73; failure of, 1 Taha, Mohammed, 18 Tal, Nahman, 118 Tamari, Salim, 53 Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace, 182 Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research, 91, 92, 94, 120, 149

237

Tanzim, 18, 71, 74, 140–41, 144, 166, 191 Teddy Kollek Center for Jerusalem Studies, 150 Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH), 82 Tenet, George, 76, 81, 102, 114, 141, 156, 161, 165, 167, 190; on failure of Oslo talks, 171 Terje Larson, Rod, 13–14, 41 territory-peace exchange, 39, 43 terrorism: economics as cause for, 31; Gaza-Jericho agreement on, 80; by Hamas, 39, 40–41; rocket strikes by Hezbollah, 103, 175; rocket strikes by Islamic Jihad, 175–76, 193–94 terrorist summit, 75 textbooks, rewriting of, 72, 76, 94 Theory and Criticism, 20 thinking professions, 4 three no’s, 10 Tibi, Ahmed, 44, 45 Timmerman, Kenneth, 68 Tirawi, Toufik, 58, 166 Toledano, Nissim, 40–41 topdog-underdog theory of conflict, 8, 12 Track II diplomacy, 8, 13–14, 22–23, 184 tribalism, 90 tribalism, sins of, 21, 31 Tsafrir, Eliezer, 32 Tsemel, Leah, 12 ultranationalism, 21 ultraorthodoxy, 31–32, 50, 90 United National Leadership of the Uprising, 18 United Nations acceptance of PLO as legitimate representative of Palestinians, 11 United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), 76 United Nations Special Coordinator in the Occupied Territories (UNSCO), 139 UN Resolution 194, 53, 169 UN Resolution 242, 40, 54 UN Resolution 243, 170 UN Resolution 338, 170

238

INDEX

UN Special Coordinator Office (UNSCO), 65 U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP): acceptance of ripeness theory, 9; creation of, 7; increased CR efforts, 91; support of Oslo, 121–22; support of post-Zionist research, 96 utilitarian justice, 52 Vaadat Rashi Sherutim (Varash), 15 Vance, Cyrus, 13 Van Creveld, Martin, 17, 191 van der Stoel, Max, 14 Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, 20, 92, 96 Village Leagues, 11 Wallach, Janet, 25, 35 Wallach, John, 25, 35, 91 waqf (inalienable religious endowment), 18, 54, 107, 140 Warshawsky, Michael (Micado), 12, 21 Waxman, Naschon, 74 weapons of mass destruction (WMD), 28, 30 Weber, Max, 52, 56 Weitzman, Ezer, 107 West Bank, 53. See also Oslo II The West Bank and Gaza: Israel’s Options for Peace, 24 Western Wall, 163, 169 Whitbeck, John, 41, 150 Wilson, Woodrow, 27 Woolsey, R. James, 103

Work Group on Refugees (WGR), 53 World Bank, 59, 65 Wye River Memorandum, 114–17 Yaalon, Moshe ‘‘Bogy,’’ 85, 103, 125–26, 128, 164, 180, 190 Ya’ari, Ehud, 35, 68 Yahav, David, 85 Yariv, Aharon, 23, 41, 187 Yasser Abu Rabbo, 71 Yassin, Ahmed, 18, 19, 41, 73, 74 Yatom, Dani, 124, 135, 138, 143, 162, 163, 164 Yavin, Chaim, 178 Yazouri, Ibrahim, 18, 19 Yehoshua, A. B., 21 Yellow Wind (Grossman), 21 Yemen Theory, 71 Yiftachel, Oren, 31, 96 Yisrael BeAliya, 134, 146, 148 Yitzhik, Dalia, 146 Yuchtman-Yaar, Ephraim, 13, 96, 120, 150, 182 Yusuf, Naser, 75 Zahar, Mahmoud, 18, 73, 75 Zanoun, Salim, 74 Zartman, William, 121 Zeevi, Aharon, 191 Ziad Abu Ziadd, 12, 91 Zimmerman, Moshe, 94 Zionist Left, on sin of tribalism, 21

About the Author OFIRA SELIKTAR is Professor of Political Science at Gratz College and Adjunct Professor at Temple University in Philadelphia. She was previously a scholar in residence at the Middle East Research Institute at the University of Pennsylvania. She specializes in the study of intelligence and foreign policy and is the author of seven books and scores of chapters and articles. Among her more recent books are The Politics of Intelligence and American Wars with Iraq (2008); Politics, Paradigms, and Intelligence Failures: Why So Few Predicted the Collapse of the Soviet Union (2004); and Failing the Crystal Ball Test: The Carter Administration and the Fundamentalist Revolution in Iran (2000). She is currently completing a new book, The Politics of Intelligence and American Encounters with the Islamic Republic of Iran, 1979–2009.