Viewpoint - July 10, 2014

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The Deadly Politics of Revenge
Israel Reacts to the Kidnappings in the West Bank
by: Ali Jarbawi

RAMALLAH, West Bank - The murder of three settlers in the West Bank has given Israel the excuse it was waiting for to set a huge military operation in motion. Even before the bodies of the missing young men were discovered on Monday, an Israeli incursion into Palestinian territories was in full swing. There were break-ins at houses, offices and universities, hundreds of arrests and several killings across the West Bank. The action has now expanded to the demolition in Hebron of the homes of two suspects in the case, and extensive bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

This can't be explained as merely a reaction to the killing of the three Israelis, who were abducted on June 12. Exacting revenge on the entire Palestinian civilian population under occupation, whom Israel is obliged by international law to protect, is extremely disproportionate. The current operation seems to have arisen from a premeditated decision to tackle several political developments that Israel sees as threatening.

At the top of the list are Israel's grievances against the Palestinian Authority's president, Mahmoud Abbas, which predated the disappearance of the three settlers. Israeli politicians have long blamed Mr. Abbas for the collapse of the recent peace negotiations.

Interestingly, several members of the international community have placed that responsibility squarely on the Israeli government. This has led to tension between Israel and several of its historical allies, much of it focused on the subject of continued illegal Israeli settlement activity in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Second, Israel has not taken kindly to the Palestinian Authority's moves to join international organizations and sign international treaties. Despite Israel's international campaign to halt this, Western opposition seems to have receded. This first round of Palestinian efforts to join international organizations was not very significant, but the next round will matter if the West collectively shrugs while the Palestinians attempt to join the International Criminal Court. (This would give the I.C.C. jurisdiction in Palestinian territory and thus give victims of war crimes, or crimes against humanity, access to international justice.)

Third, Israel rejects the recent internal Palestinian political reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas and the formation of a Palestinian unity government. Israel was counting on a continuing schism to promote its own version of a solution to the Palestinian issue: a state in Gaza and other Palestinian cantons under de facto Israeli rule in the West Bank. For that plan to come to fruition, the political separation between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank would have to continue, and Hamas's spread into the West Bank as a political force - and its recognition as an interlocutor by the West - would have to be curtailed.

The reconciliation agreement has now opened up both of these possibilities to Hamas, and has, once more, unified the West Bank and the Gaza Strip politically. The acceptance by the international community, including the United States, of this unity government and its willingness to work with the Palestinians has hindered Israel's plans.

All of this worries Israel because it suggests that the unanimous and unquestioning support the country has grown accustomed to receiving from Western nations is decreasing. The success of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement in countries previously sympathetic to Israel is a testament to this shift at a grass-roots level. Israel was desperately seeking a pretext to turn the spotlight away from its weaknesses. In the disappearance and killing of the three settlers, it has found one - and this has led to the most expansive Israeli military operation in the West Bank since 2002.

The current operation has several goals. It serves to humanize settlers in general, after they had come to be viewed in a negative light globally. The international outcry over the disappearance and death of the three young men, and the sympathy for their anxious and grieving parents, has led to a portrayal of settlers as victims of terror rather than as illegal occupiers. Even if the Palestinian Authority bears no responsibility for the abduction, which Mr. Abbas condemned outright, it has hurt the Palestinian cause, at least in the short run, and elicited sympathy for the settlers.

There is no doubt that the Israeli government will continue to exploit the settlers' deaths to paint the Palestinian Authority as untrustworthy and punish it for its rapprochement with Hamas. Moreover, this strategy helps Israel block attempts to normalize Hamas's status at home and abroad. Israel was quick to blame Hamas for abduction and murder, allowing Israel to justify its campaign to break up Hamas's presence in the West Bank, with the aim of undermining Palestinian reconciliation and bringing down the national unity government. This also allows the siege and now bombing of Gaza to continue unabated.

Finally, Israel is seeking to undermine Mr. Abbas's already precarious position and to destabilize the Palestinian Authority's fragile legitimacy. The current show of military strength is intended to make Mr. Abbas pay the price for trying to join international organizations and treaties, and for reconciling with Hamas.

Mr. Abbas can either choose to resist the latest Israeli military moves, in the name of preserving national dignity, which would then become a justification for Israel to actively seek his replacement, or he could bite the poisoned Israeli bullet, accede to Israeli demands and lose face in front of his own people, weakening the status of the Palestinian Authority in general. So far, Mr. Abbas has chosen the second option, drawing vitriolic criticism from Palestinian circles. The discovery near Jerusalem of a young Palestinian man's body - the victim of an apparent abduction and revenge killing carried out by Jewish extremists - on Wednesday will only inflame the situation further.

The Israeli government may gain some ground from its offensive, but any such gains will only be short-term. In the long run, the occupation will remain, and so will the Palestinians and the fundamental question that haunts Israel: How can a lasting political settlement be achieved if Israel continues refusing both the two-state and the one-state solutions?

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Original Article: The Deadly Politics of Revenge

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