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There are several reasons for this. First, the only surefire way to prevent the withdrawal is if the Likud rather than Kadima forms the next government, and that requires the Likud to win enough seats to be a viable candidate. It need not be the largest party; President Moshe Katsav consults all the factions before choosing someone to form the government, and if Binyamin Netanyahu had more overall support than Ehud Olmert, Katsav would probably choose him even if Kadima were slightly larger. But for this to happen, the parties must be fairly close in size – say 25 seats for Likud and 30 for Kadima. If Kadima has 35 seats to Likud’s 15, Katsav will almost have to choose Kadima, both in deference to the voters’ preference and because a 15-seat party is simply too small to form a viable coalition.
Second, even if Kadima forms the government, some of its likely coalition partners, such as Shas, might still be persuaded to oppose the pullout itself. That, however, is possible only if a strong opposition actively mobilizes votes and exerts pressure. If the opposition had only 30 votes against the pullout, Shas would certainly not quit the coalition. But it might if the opposition had 50 votes and its 11 seats were decisive.
A 25-seat Likud can obviously spearhead a stronger opposition than a 15-seat Likud. In this case, however, a 15-seat Likud would probably not be an opposition at all – because if the Likud does poorly in the elections, Netanyahu may well be ousted by Silvan Shalom.
As long as Netanyahu heads the Likud, it will remain in opposition: Aside from the personal enmity between Olmert and Netanyahu, they have no common policy ground. Not only has Netanyahu denounced Olmert’s pullout plan so strongly that he cannot back down without destroying his last shred of political credibility, but his economic policies are also antithetical to those Kadima will have to adopt to satisfy its likely senior coalition partner, Labor.
Shalom, in contrast, supported the disengagement, and has already indicated that he would back another pullout in exchange for a suitable cabinet post. Thus if Shalom ousts Netanyahu, part of the Likud (several committed pullout opponents would probably refuse) will be in the coalition within days.
Therefore, for the opposition to have any chance of blocking the withdrawal, the Likud must win enough seats to keep Netanyahu at its helm.
HERE, PURISTS will declare that they would rather vote for a party guaranteed to oppose the withdrawal – even if its efforts are doomed to fail – than cast a vote that offers a chance of blocking the pullout but also risks supporting it. Yet in fact, every “rightist” party is equally risky:
• United Torah Judaism. For a mere NIS 290 million, UTJ not only supported the disengagement; it single-handedly saved it by keeping Ariel Sharon’s government from collapsing over the 2005 budget. Anyone who thinks it would not sell the West Bank equally cheaply is hallucinating.
• Shas. Shas’s primary concern has always been economics, and it pposed the disengagement only after Sharon efused to meet its conomic price. Olmert, however, almost certainly wil meet it, ncause Shas’s economic policies are very similar to those of Labor – nd Olmert does not have a coalition without abor. Any economic olicy that satisfies Amir Peretz will not only ake Shas comfortable oining the government, but will almost force it o join: Otherwise, eretz will get the “credit” for these measures, nd Shas will lose voters.
Moreover, because Olmert is more likely to back Shas’s economic policies than Netanyahu, Shas’s economic arch enemy, the party may well tell Katsav that it prefers Olmert a priori.
• National Union-National Religious Party. Were the National Union running alone, this would be a “safe” anti-pullout vote. However, a vote for NU is also a vote for the NRP, which could split off and join a Kadima government after the elections. There are two reasons for thinking this possible. One is NRP chairman Zevulun Orlev’s addiction to the cabinet table, as demonstrated by his refusal to quit Sharon’s government over the disengagement. Additionally, Orlev has long argued that the NRP should shift its focus to poverty, and his economic views match those of Labor and Shas. Thus Kadima’s economic policies will give him an excuse for joining.
• Israel Beiteinu. Avigdor Lieberman’s party seems unlikely to join a Kadima government, albeit mainly because Labor and Meretz both refuse to sit with him. However, his Knesset slate contains at least two leftists – former Labor MK Sofa Landver and Yisrael Hasson, who reportedly signed Yossi Beilin’s Geneva Initiative – who might well support the pullout even from opposition.
• A small right-wing party, or not voting at all. This is indeed a “safe” vote – but for withdrawal, not against it. Every vote that the Right wastes, whether by not voting or by voting for a party that fails to enter the Knesset, gives Kadima a larger proportion of the votes that count, thereby making the withdrawal more likely.
In short, the Likud is no riskier than any other party, and offers a better chance of preventing the pullout.
Purists, of course, also have another argument: the Likud must be punished for the disengagement. That, however, is patently ridiculous: Since most pullout supporters have quit Likud for Kadima, “punishing the Likud” actually means punishing the very MKs who opposed the withdrawal!
Moreover, it would retroactively validate the disengagement. The Likud had 40 seats in the last Knesset. If, following the split with Kadima, it cannot win at least 20, then most Likud voters evidently did support the disengagement, and Sharon was justified in dismissing the plan’s defeat in a party referendum as being engineered by people who “don’t vote Likud anyway.”
Thus for anyone who seriously wants to prevent the next withdrawal, the Likud, for all its flaws, is the right choice – both morally and practically.
Consider, for instance, his pledge last week that a Kadima-led government “will not invest in construction or infrastructure development beyond the Green Line,” thereby freeing up “billions of shekels for infrastructure development in the Negev, Galilee and Jerusalem.”
If he truly intends to invest no money at all in the territories, that belies his repeated promises to strengthen the settlement blocs. But if, as his advisers later claimed, he only intends to halt investment outside the blocs, then where will those billions for the Negev and Galilee come from? Even today, there is almost no government-funded construction in the territories outside the blocs; a freeze that excluded the blocs would thus free up almost no money at all.
Or consider his pledge to finally build in E1, between Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim. Due to American opposition, Sharon never did this, and deputy premier Olmert, far from protesting, energetically supported this decision. Does Olmert now intend to break with both Sharon’s legacy and his own previous positions and defy the Bush administration? Or is he merely fantasizing that the US, for no discernible reason, will suddenly withdraw its opposition?
Then take his statement to last week’s AIPAC conference: that allowing Hamas to run in the Palestinian elections was a mistake. This decision was made by Olmert’s mentor, Sharon, and Olmert himself was part of the cabinet majority that approved it, despite a recommendation by Justice and Foreign Ministry experts that Israel insist on compliance with the Oslo Accords’ explicit ban on parties that employ “unlawful or non-democratic means.” Yet Olmert offered no apology; rather, he acted as if it had been someone else’s decision.
Then, finally, there is the centerpiece of his platform: a massive unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank in exchange for international recognition of Israel’s self-proclaimed borders. Quite aside from the irony of claiming Sharon’s mantle for this idea – a claim that, given Sharon’s repeated pledges to eschew further unilateral withdrawals, implicitly brands Olmert’s mentor and role model as a liar – it is hard to imagine a wilder fantasy than this.
IN GAZA, Israel withdrew fully to the international border and pulled out every last Israeli, soldiers and civilians alike. Yet not one single country has been willing to declare Israel’s “occupation” of Gaza ended; instead, the world still holds Israel responsible for Gaza’s well-being, demanding, for instance, that it allow Gazans to work in Israel and to import and export via Israeli ports. So how does Olmert imagine that a far less complete withdrawal in the West Bank would be rewarded not only with international acknowledgment that the “occupation” had ended, but with recognition of Israel’s unilaterally defined borders as well? After all, unlike in Gaza, he does not intend to withdraw to the Green Line; rather, he plans to retain major settlement blocs, including east Jerusalem.
Moreover, as senior Kadima official Avi Dichter correctly noted, the army’s continued presence east of the fence is essential to Israel’s security. But if, as Kadima therefore proposes, Israel withdraws its settlers but not its soldiers, does anyone seriously believe that the world would declare the “occupation” ended?
Indeed, the Gaza withdrawal demonstrates just how little international compensation Israel could expect for any West Bank pullout. In exchange for leaving Gaza, Israel received a letter from US President George W. Bush in which Bush, inter alia, wrote that “existing major Israeli population centers” in the territories make a full return to the 1949 armistice lines
“unrealistic.” Sharon and Olmert trumpeted this as a major achievement, declaring that it permitted Israel to “strengthen its hold” on West Bank settlement blocs.
A letter, however, is not a formal treaty; it does not even bind Bush, much less his successors. And indeed, far from allowing Israel to strengthen the blocs, Bush flatly forbade Israel to build in E1 – which, as Olmert himself acknowledged in weekend interviews, is essential to keep Ma’aleh Adumim from becoming an isolated enclave.
And that is the disengagement in a nutshell: Israel gave up concrete territorial assets in order “strengthen its hold” on other assets, only to discover that the international community never supported that bargain and refused to grant the desired quid pro quo. And there is no reason to believe that the world would behave differently in response to the far less complete pullout that Olmert is offering in the West Bank.
Perhaps the root of Olmert’s delusional policies can be found in his address last June to the Israel Policy Forum in New York, where he declared: “We are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies. We want to be able to live in an entirely different environment of relations with our enemies.”
Unfortunately, an entirely different relationship with one’s enemies is possible only if your enemies share that goal – which even Olmert admits that the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority does not. Until then, the only choices are fighting back or being destroyed, winning or losing, defeating one’s enemies or being defeated by them. That is precisely why all Israeli governments pre-Sharon, even those that favored “land for peace,” refused to concede land without receiving a peace treaty in exchange: They understood that until the Arabs were ready to make peace, there was no choice but to continue fighting – and that no Arab government would have any incentive to make peace if it could get the land for free.
But Olmert, unfortunately, appears to have meant exactly what he said. He truly is tired of fighting and winning – so tired that he would rather take refuge in fantasies, even if Israel ends up the loser thereby.
The Angolans, refugees from their country’s civil war, are being fed by UNHCR, the UN agency that handles all refugees worldwide except Palestinians. The food allowance is not exactly generous: According to a February 24 New York Times report, the average meal consists of 4.7 ounces of enriched cornmeal, two ounces of beans, half an ounce of vegetable oil and some salt. But three servings a day provide the 2,207 calories that the World Food Program considers the minimum for adequate nutrition.
Or rather, they did until January 1, when the food allowance was cut by 40 percent, to 1,400 calories a day. Since then, unsurprisingly, malnutrition has soared.
UNHCR instituted the cut because feeding 72,000 refugees 2,207 calories a day for one year costs $8.5 million – but as of January 1, the agency had yet to receive a penny in donations for 2006. Not knowing when more money might be forthcoming, it was trying to make leftover supplies from 2005 last as long as possible. In mid-February, the United States, Britain and Germany finally pledged a collective $2.3m., but it is not known when that money will arrive – or where the other $6.2m. will be found.
YET WEALTHY countries are clearly not short of disposable cash: Just three days after the Times report appeared, the European Union managed to scrounge up 120 million euros (about $143m.) in emergency aid for a more deserving cause: the Palestinian Authority. Of this, some $21m. – more than twice the annual food budget of the Zambian refugee camps – will go just toward paying February salaries for some of the PA’s approximately 135,000 employees.
Unlike the refugees, the PA’s cash crunch is its own fault. It has two immediate causes. First, the World Bank withheld a scheduled $60m. donation in December after PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, seeking to buy votes for his Fatah party prior to the PA’s January elections, defied the bank and raised PA employees’ salaries, thereby further bloating the authority’s already bloated public sector. According to the World Bank, the PA’s approximately $1 billion in independent annual revenues is now entirely consumed by salaries; for any governmental activity outside of salaries, it depends on foreign aid. The bank was unwilling to underwrite such financial mismanagement.
Second, following Hamas’s victory in the elections, Israel refused to transfer some $45m. in taxes that it collects on the PA’s behalf every month. That, however, was a direct response to Hamas policy: The organization refuses to recognize Israel’s existence and openly calls for its destruction. For Israel to transfer money to Hamas would thus be rather like the US transferring money to al-Qaida.
YET EVEN taking a longer view, the PA’s financial woes are still its own doing. Since its establishment in 1994, the PA has received unprecedented amounts of international aid. Before the intifada, its foreign aid per capita was second only to that of Bosnia; since the intifada began, it has been the highest in the world. In total, the PA has received close to $10b. since its inception. Yet almost none of that money was invested in trying to build the Palestinian economy – which continues to be a basket case.
In addition, since 2000, the PA’s economy has been further disrupted by Israeli security measures imposed in response to the intifada. Among other things, Israel has drastically reduced the number of Palestinians allowed to work in Israel, disrupted travel within the West Bank via military checkpoints and instituted draconian security checks on cargo entering Israel from the territories.
Yet these measures, once again, were a direct response to PA policy – specifically, its policy toward the terrorist war that has claimed more than 1,000 Israeli lives. Under Yasser Arafat, the PA actively fomented terrorism; under Abbas, it has not abetted terror, but neither has it actively tried to stop it. Not only have the PA’s 58,000-strong armed forces never been ordered to hunt down terrorists, but many members of these forces actively participated in terror attacks, while others deliberately turned a blind eye. Had the PA instead made a good-faith effort to fight terror, Israel would not have had to institute such draconian defensive measures.
All of the above begs an obvious question: Why would the EU rather shell out an extra $143m. – on top of the 500m. euros a year that it and its member states already give the Palestinians – to subsidize the PA’s self-destructive policies, than donate $8.5m. to provide Angolan refugees with an extra handful of corn? The answer, quite simply, is terrorism.
According to the accepted EU wisdom, averting Palestinian distress is a priority because Palestinian distress fuels Muslim rage worldwide. That theory seems dubious: If Palestinian distress were really so important to the Muslim world, it is hard to understand why, for instance, most of the PA’s foreign aid comes from the West rather than from wealthy Muslim oil states.
Nevertheless, it has attained the status of Holy Writ in Europe. And preventing Muslim rage is an EU priority because such rage, as the past five years have amply demonstrated, results in people being slaughtered from New York to London to Bali to Madrid.
Angolan refugees, in contrast, have yet to perpetrate a single suicide bombing. So really, who cares if they starve to death?
According to the documents, which were declassified last summer, president Nixon was outraged by the Olympics attack and initially proposed both a strong, practical response – cutting off economic support to “any nation that harbors or gives sanctuary to these international outlaws” – and various symbolic gestures, including flying to Israel to personally attend the athletes’ funerals.
However, his aides, and particularly then national security adviser Henry Kissinger, quickly talked him out of these ideas.
Kissinger proposed instead that the US “go to the UN and see whether we can get some international rules on harboring guerrillas and so forth.” As his deputy, Alexander Haig, noted in a memo, Kissinger acknowledged “that no resolution would be likely to pass,” in part because China would probably veto. Then secretary of state William Rogers also informed Nixon “that it would be impossible to get any kind of [UN] action.” Kissinger explained: “This was true, but it would serve as a deterrent to Israeli action.”
In other words, Kissinger wanted the US both to refrain from taking any meaningful action against anti-Israel terrorism itself, and to restrain Israel from taking such action by placating it with deliberately empty gestures. And he ultimately persuaded Nixon to adopt this course.
THIS, IT must be stressed, was the response not of an enemy, but of Israel’s best friend – as became clear during the Yom Kippur War a year later, when invading Arab armies nearly wiped Israel off the map. Desperate for arms, Israel pleaded with its so-called allies, and Nixon responded with an airlift that ultimately helped Israel to win the war. The Europeans, in contrast, would not even allow the arms-bearing American planes to land in their countries for refueling.
Indeed, Kissinger understood that even empty gestures over Munich would be too much for Europe. He therefore suggested that Nixon issue a statement saying that he had “consulted with other governments” on the UN idea, but warned: “Frankly, I wouldn’t consult because if you do it, they’ll say no.”
In short, Kissinger’s empty gesture represented the maximum that Jerusalem could expect from the international community. Thus Israel had to fall back on whatever counterterrorism measures it could implement on its own, without international assistance. And targeted killings are one of these.
OPPONENTS of this tactic, such as Spielberg, argue that assassinations cannot end terrorism and are therefore just petty revenge. That, however, is only half true.
Targeted killings are indeed unlikely to end terrorism, since new terrorists can usually be found to replace those who are killed. But by disrupting terrorist networks they can significantly reduce the number of successful attacks.
First, whenever a senior terrorist is killed, the network must find a replacement and reorganize itself accordingly. That takes time, during which its normal operations are suspended. Second, if senior terrorists know that Israel is hunting them, they are forced to devote more time and effort to protecting themselves, which reduces the amount of time and effort they are able to devote to organizing terror attacks.
And third, when senior terrorists are afraid to operate openly, the chain of command of necessity becomes longer and more convoluted, thereby providing more opportunities for Israeli intelligence to penetrate the network and learn about planned attacks.
That such disruptions can indeed reduce the volume of successful attacks is amply demonstrated by the statistics of the last five years. Since April 2002, when Israel started actively fighting Palestinian terror, the number of Israelis killed in Palestinian attacks has dropped by almost 50 percent every year. This decline is obviously not due solely to targeted killings, since Israel also employs other tactics. However, assassinations are an important part of Israel’s arsenal.
TODAY, AS then, Israel would gladly exchange such killings for Nixon’s original idea – cutting off economic aid to “any nation that harbors or gives sanctuary to these international outlaws” – because that is the most effective anti-terrorist tactic of all. Given money, arms and sanctuary from an independent state or quasi-state (the Palestinian Authority has effectively filled this role ever since its establishment), terrorist organizations can sustain themselves almost indefinitely. But without such support, they can be eradicated relatively easily; this is precisely what happened to European groups such as the Baader-Meinhof gang.
Pressuring other countries to end their support for anti-Israel terrorism, however, is not something Israel can do on its own; it would require a concerted effort by the international community. And such an effort is no more feasible today than it was after Munich, 34 years ago.
The UN still cannot even agree on a definition of terrorism. The European Union actually increased financial support for the PA after the intifada began, even when Yasser Arafat was directly implicated (in the Karine-A affair) in smuggling arms whose sole possible use was in attacks against Israel; it has similarly refused to cut economic ties with Iran despite that nation’s well-documented financial support for anti-Israel terror and its president’s open threats to “wipe Israel off the map.”
And liberal Protestant churches have not only continued supporting the PA; they are divesting from Israel, to boot. Thus Israel is still forced to make do with less effective measures that can be implemented without outside assistance.
But when a single successful suicide bombing can kill dozens of people, even reducing the number of successful attacks can save hundreds of lives every year. That is why Israel has been assassinating terrorists for over 30 years – and why it will continue to do so for as long as the international community refuses to cooperate in more effective counterterrorism measures.
One of the committee’s most important recommendations – all of which relate exclusively to people not entitled to immigrate under the Law of Return – is to authorize the government to ban immigration completely from any place from which combat is actively being waged against Israel. Virtually no other country allows enemy nationals to immigrate freely during times of active warfare. Yet Israel did precisely that during the first three years of the intifada, accepting thousands of Palestinians who applied for family unification with Israelis, because existing law provided no means of refusing them. Only in 2003, after some of these Palestinian immigrants had exploited their new status to commit deadly terror attacks, did the government pass temporary legislation barring all Palestinian immigrants below a certain age, which was meant to give it time to enact a permanent reform of the immigration laws.
The proposal would also allow the government to set annual quotas for immigration from enemy states or territories not engaged in active warfare against Israel. That, too, is sensible. Currently, its practical implications are minimal, since most qualifying states, such as Syria and Iran, provide few immigrants in any case. But various contingencies could make it significant. For instance, the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, which refuses to recognize Israel, would presumably fall into this category even if Palestinian terror were to drop sharply.
Additionally, the committee recommends various restrictions on immigration through marriage even from non-enemy states. It proposes that such immigrants be at least 23 years old (to reduce fictitious marriages for immigration purposes) and swear loyalty to Israel immediately upon entering the country. Currently, such immigrants swear loyalty only upon receiving citizenship, which is usually years later. It also proposes certain financial requirements – for instance, that the Israeli spouse earn at least 120 percent of the minimum wage – to ensure that the immigrant does not become a welfare burden.
FINALLY, IT recommends an annual quota for immigrants through marriage – either in addition to or instead of the above proposals. This is clearly crucial. Israel, as the homeland of the Jewish people, has never restricted Jewish immigration, and never should. But non-Jewish immigration is not part of Israel’s raison d’etre, so there is no reason not to follow the practices of other countries – most of which do impose immigration quotas, in order to avoid straining their absorption capacity.
The other proposed restrictions would also bring Israel into line with the European trend. Denmark, for instance, enacted legislation in 2002 under which immigrants through marriage must be at least 24 years old and pass a Danish language and citizenship test, the Danish spouse must meet various income and housing requirements, and both partners must demonstrate that their attachment to Denmark outweighs their attachment to any other country.
The French government unveiled draft legislation two weeks ago under which a new immigrant would have to pledge to learn French, respect the country’s values and actively seek work, and would not be allowed to bring over relatives unless he could support them without welfare assistance.
THE COMMITTEE also addresses the issue of foreign workers, and correctly recommends eliminating one of the most disgraceful blots on Israel’s legal code: the law that binds foreign workers to a particular employer. This law has created a form of modern-day slavery, in which workers often endure severe abuse – from virtual imprisonment to being cheated of their wages – because leaving would make them “illegal” and therefore subject to deportation. The committee therefore proposes that foreign workers be allowed to switch jobs freely for the duration of their permit.
Not all its proposals are equally sensible. For instance, Israel currently grants residency rights to foreign workers with children who were born here and are aged 10 or older, since such children know no other home and would find it difficult to relocate; the committee proposes lowering this age to seven. But since children in the early elementary grades usually adapt to new languages and cultures relatively easily, it is hard to accept the committee’s claim that forcing them to relocate is equally “cruel.”
Moreover, the government might do well to consider some immigration restrictions not included in the committee’s recommendations. A Danish-style “attachment” requirement, for instance, would be particularly appropriate for Israel’s situation, since one of Israel’s most serious immigration problems is an influx of Palestinian immigrants whose loyalties have remained Palestinian rather than Israeli.
Overall, however, the committee’s proposals introduce a welcome breath of sanity into Israel’s immigration chaos.
Unfortunately, these recommendations will almost certainly be decried as “human rights violations” by leftist legislators, human rights organizations and, very possibly, the Supreme Court. Indeed, Supreme Court President Aharon Barak made his likely position clear just last week in a hearing on the temporary law restricting Palestinian immigration: He suggested that instead of barring Palestinian immigrants, Israel allow them all in, but issue them differently colored identity cards.
But the committee’s distinguished composition provides the government with a trump card: It consists almost entirely of well-known leftist academics, headed by law professor and former Meretz MK Amnon Rubinstein. Rubinstein, as both a lifelong crusader for human rights and one of Israel’s leading constitutional scholars, is surely no less competent than Barak to determine whether such restrictions comply with the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty. If even his prestige is insufficient to stiffen legislators’ spines, nothing ever will be.
The Rubinstein Committee’s proposals thus provide a golden opportunity for Israel to enact crucial reforms of its immigration policy. Whatever government is elected on March 28 must seize this opportunity and make legislating such reforms a top priority.
The biggest blow to these teenagers’ belief in democracy was the disengagement from Gaza – and rightly so. In a democracy, victory is supposed to be achieved by winning an election. Yet settlers twice won democratic votes against the disengagement, only to see their victory nullified by the government and Knesset.
In 2003, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon won reelection by a landslide by running against Labor’s platform of unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. But a year later, he adopted the very proposal he had run against – without seeking a new public mandate via either new elections or a national referendum. He did agree to a referendum among members of his own party, and pledged to abide by the results. But when disengagement opponents, thanks to door-to-door canvassing in the best democratic tradition, won another landslide victory, Sharon and other Likud MKs simply ignored the results and went ahead with the pullout.
Having been given such clear proof that in Israel winning votes is useless, is it surprising that these teens now consider elections a waste of time and energy?
Their lack of faith in the courts is equally unsurprising. How could they fail to scorn the double standard of a Supreme Court that piously declared that it has “no right” to overrule the government’s security judgment on the disengagement, even though it harmed Gaza settlers, yet repeatedly overrules the government’s security judgment on the route of the fence in order to prevent lesser injury to Palestinians? Or that authorizes draconian remands until the end of proceedings for teenagers accused of blocking roads during the disengagement, yet cancels all charges against MK Azmi Bishara on the spurious grounds that praising Hizbullah’s “guerrilla war” against Israel does not amount to praising “armed struggle”?
Then consider the media, which is vital to any attempt to influence public opinion. Is it surprising that these teens consider the media hopelessly biased when leading journalists openly declare that the prime minister must be protected “like an etrog” from allegations of corruption as long as he is dismantling settlements? Or when the same media that vociferously demanded an investigation of police violence during the Arab riots of October 2000 vociferously oppose an investigation of police violence at Amona, even though the violence at Amona, while less severe, was arguably far less justified? (Amona was a localized riot, involving some 3,000 people in a single place on a single day. The October 2000 riots involved tens of thousands of people in dozens of towns over several days, coordinated with a simultaneous uprising in the territories. In other words, Amona was a riot; October 2000 was an insurrection.)
THE POLICE, in contrast, are at least impartial: They use violence against everyone. That, however, is hardly a recommendation. Indeed, how could anyone have faith in a force where a senior commander can be caught on camera ordering subordinates to beat completely peaceful demonstrators, as Negev District Commander Niso Shaham was at last summer’s anti-disengagement rally in Kfar Maimon, yet suffer no penalty except a reprimand?
Then, finally, there is the second part of the equation – that violence does pay. Here, too, the disengagement provided the ultimate proof. Before the intifada began, the idea of unilaterally evacuating settlements without receiving anything in exchange was anathema to the entire Israeli political spectrum. Yet six years of terrorism have made unilateral evacuation so popular that Kadima is sweeping the polls on a pledge to unilaterally evacuate most of the West Bank. Certainly, nothing else has changed in the last six years to account for this turnabout, nor has either Sharon or Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ever articulated any persuasive alternative explanation.
Israel’s Arab community provides further proof. Even now, six years after October 2000, police treat many Arab towns as “no-go” areas due to fear of renewed riots. And while the government (justifiably) demolished Amona’s illegal houses, it would never consider demolishing the 30,444 illegal buildings (as of 2004) in Israeli Arab communities, for fear of sparking riots.
Thus when violence has paid off so handsomely for Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, is it surprising that settler teens hope it will work for them as well?
Obviously, most of these problems have better solutions than throwing rocks. Direct election of MKs would make Knesset members more accountable to their voters, which in turn would make elections a better means of influencing national policy. A different judicial appointment process would enable a spectrum of opinion on the Supreme Court, as opposed to the monolithic ideology inevitably created by the current system, in which justices effectively choose their own successors. And rightists could start their own media outlets to compete with the leftist chorus. (In some cases, primarily radio, this would require legislation, but such legislation could easily be passed if rightist parties made this a priority.)
Unfortunately, these are all long-term projects, and therefore less appealing to teenagers hungry for quick results. Nevertheless, if settler teens saw that their own community was making a serious drive to correct these systemic flaws, and that other people of goodwill were joining the effort, they might be convinced that it is worth a try.
But telling them that they should simply continue to put their faith in the existing system despite its obvious dysfunctions is fatuous. The problems they point out are real, and ignoring them will not make them disappear. If a Pollyannish belief that these problems will somehow solve themselves is the best that we, the “responsible adults,” have to offer, the violence will only continue to spread – and we will all share the blame.
The writer, a veteran observer of the Israeli scene, is a weekly contributor.
The ruling stemmed from Bishara’s request that the court cancel his 2001 indictment for supporting a terrorist organization, which was based on two speeches in which he extolled Hizbullah. Bishara argued that his remarks were protected by his substantive parliamentary immunity, which grants an MK absolute protection from prosecution for anything said or done “in the course of fulfilling his duties, or for the sake of fulfilling his duties, as a Knesset member.”
Justices Aharon Barak, Eliezer Rivlin and Esther Hayut all agreed that this immunity is not unlimited; inter alia, it does not cover “support for armed struggle” against Israel. But Barak, backed by Rivlin (Hayut dissented), ruled that Bishara did not specifically laud “armed struggle”; he merely lauded a terrorist organization – a lesser offense that may be covered by substantive immunity.
In principle, this distinction is reasonable: One could, for instance, praise Hamas’s welfare activities without condoning its suicide bombings. But no ordinary reading of Bishara’s speeches could possibly support Barak’s conclusion in this case.
IN THE first speech, given in Umm el-Fahm, Bishara described Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 as follows: “Hizbullah won, and for the first time since 1967 we have tasted the taste of victory?¦ Lebanon, the weakest of the Arab states, has presented a small model from which, if we examine it in depth, we can draw the conclusions necessary for success and victory?¦ Hizbullah ensured that its guerrilla war would be well publicized, and each of its achievements greatly influenced the morale of the Israeli people, whose patience was slowly exhausted by the losses it absorbed from Hizbullah.”
In this speech, Bishara explicitly praised Hizbullah’s “guerrilla war” and the “losses” – i.e. casualties – it caused Israel; how that differs from praising “armed struggle” escapes me.
But even absent this explicit statement, is any adult Israeli so ignorant of how Hizbullah achieved its “victory” as to misunderstand the “model” that Bishara urged his listeners to follow? Given that Hizbullah never used any tactic except armed struggle, does Barak really think that Bishara was calling for peaceful negotiations?
THE SAME holds for the second speech, given in Syria, in which Bishara argued that since neither total war nor submission to Israeli dictates was acceptable, it was necessary to “expand the space” between these alternatives – the space “that the victory of the Lebanese resistance successfully exploited.”
Then, after warning that Israel was trying “to narrow this space,” he concluded: “It will be impossible to continue with this third option, the option of ‘resistance,’ except by re-enlarging this space, so that people will be able to carry out struggle and resistance.”
Once again, the reference to “the Lebanese resistance,” which consisted solely of armed struggle, as the paradigmatic example of this “third option” makes it hard to interpret this as anything but a call for facilitating armed struggle against Israel. Does Barak truly think that Bishara might instead have been advocating civil disobedience?
Why Barak was “unconvinced” of Bishara’s support for armed struggle remains a mystery, since he cited nothing in Bishara’s words as having led him to this conclusion. Indeed, the only semi-explanation he offered for being “unconvinced” was that Bishara “has not been questioned about this in the trial courts.” That is circular reasoning par excellence: We cannot prove that he supports armed struggle because he was never questioned in court, but he cannot be questioned in court because his immunity protects him unless we prove that he supports armed struggle.
HAVING NEVERTHELESS somehow concluded that Bishara did not support armed struggle, Barak proceeded to the next issue: whether, given this, his speeches enjoyed immunity. Although support for armed struggle never has immunity, mere support for a terrorist organization may or may not, depending on circumstances.
Here, too, Barak jumped through hoops to protect Bishara. For instance, he argued, Bishara’s comments about Hizbullah were not “central parts” of either speech, and therefore deserved immunity. That may or may not be true of the Syria speech, but it is highly unconvincing regarding the Umm el-Fahm speech. Although the speech was given at a conference whose official subject was the 33rd anniversary of the Six Day War, in the invitations Bishara specified that the June 2000 conference would take place “in the atmosphere of the victory of the Lebanese resistance.” And since invitations generally reflect an event’s primary focus, the inclusion of Hizbullah’s “resistance” on the invitation makes it hard to argue that Bishara deemed this a minor issue.
Even more outrageous was Barak’s argument that Bishara’s remarks deserved immunity because political speeches are among an MK’s core duties. Speaking to constituents, as Bishara did in Umm el-Fahm, is indeed an MK’s duty. But it is hard to see how urging said constituents to learn from Hizbullah’s “model” – which consists exclusively of armed attacks against the very state to which all MKs pledge their allegiance – really accords with anyone’s “duties as an MK.”
And the argument is even more far-fetched regarding the Syria speech. Under what conceivable definition of an MK’s duties could they include traveling (illegally) to an enemy state, sharing a dais with wanted terrorists such as Ahmed Jibril and Hassan Nasrallah, praising said enemy state for having “constantly expanded” the “space” within which Hizbullah-style “resistance” flourishes, and urging it to continue its efforts in that direction?
In their ruling, Barak and Rivlin clearly eviscerated the law, which was written precisely to deny such statements immunity from prosecution. But by deeming advocacy of violence a legitimate parliamentary “duty,” they have also made it much harder to explain to ordinary citizens why practicing violence is nevertheless unacceptable.
The writer, a veteran observer of the Israeli scene, is a weekly contributor.
Last week, for instance, State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss published a report on the fortification of communities near Gaza – or, more accurately, the lack thereof. The government decided to fortify these towns shortly after it approved the disengagement, as it knew that the pullout would increase the risk of rocket and mortar fire from Gaza. Yet in the 20 months since then, not only has the work not been completed; in most communities, it has not even begun.
This failure would be disturbing enough were it due merely to incompetence, since the danger is real: Ever since the pullout, rockets have been fired into Israel from Gaza almost daily; the lack of casualties to date is pure luck. But alongside massive incompetence, Lindenstrauss found, there was also a deliberate decision to delay the work lest it undermine public support for disengagement.
In June 2004, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz briefed senior IDF officers on the disengagement, including the plan to fortify Negev communities. However, Lindenstrauss wrote, he also “warned at that meeting against actions or words (regarding the fortifications and in general) that might create the feeling that the security situation would worsen following the disengagement. In practice, this [fortification] plan was not implemented.”
That outcome, of course, is no surprise: As Haaretz military correspondent Amos Harel aptly put it, “when the defense minister tells his generals that working too vigorously to fortify Negev communities will weaken public support for the disengagement, one can confidently predict that the officers will not hasten to send in the bulldozers.”
But it is hard to imagine a grosser betrayal of the public’s trust: Rather than risk undermining support for its policies, the government deliberately left thousands of Israelis vulnerable to rocket fire.
LINDENSTRAUSS’S report was followed two days later by another disturbing revelation: Mofaz deceived the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee about the Rafah agreement, which determined post-pullout border crossing arrangements on the Gaza-Egyptian and Gaza-Israeli borders. Nor was this charge mere sour grapes by disengagement opponents: It was backed by every single committee member, including ardent disengagement supporters such as Ran Cohen (Meretz), Yossi Sarid (Meretz) and Matan Vilna’i (Labor).
According to committee members, Mofaz reported that the government had already signed the agreement when in fact it had not. That is a nontrivial lie, because altering an unsigned agreement is much easier than amending a signed one – and had the MKs known it was unsigned, many would in fact have demanded changes. Thus by lying, Mofaz effectively prevented the committee from exercising its duty of parliamentary oversight.
Mofaz also deprived the MKs of other information essential to their duty: He refused to show them the security appendix – the agreement’s heart and soul – on the grounds that it was too sensitive. That alone would not be unprecedented: Many matters are deemed too sensitive for the full committee. But a special top-secret subcommittee exists precisely to ensure parliamentary oversight even of sensitive matters – and there is no precedent for his refusal to share the document even with this subcommittee.
Still another disturbing revelation was a report issued two weeks ago by the nonprofit organization Keshev, which found that prior to the disengagement, the media consistently exaggerated the threat posed by pullout opponents, often via screaming headlines that were belied by the articles themselves. Nor was this the conclusion of settler sympathizers: Keshev conducted its study together with the Palestinian organization Miftah, with funding from the European Union. Two less pro-settler organizations would be hard to find.
Usually, media bias is not the government’s fault. Yet in this case, as anyone who followed the pre-pullout coverage knows, most of those screaming headlines were provided by government officials, who repeatedly – and falsely – charged that settlers planned widespread violent resistance. In other words, the government mustered support for the pullout by deliberately demonizing opponents to such an extent that even Europeans and Palestinians found clear evidence of bias. And that ought to disturb anyone who believes that governments should not be fomenting hatred toward their own citizens.
THEN, FINALLY, there was last week’s Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections. Granted, this was primarily a vote against Fatah’s corruption, since the parties differ little in their attitude toward terror: Not only was Fatah responsible for many of the past five years’ terror attacks, but most of its slate consisted of convicted terrorists, terror suspects and terror advocates.
Nevertheless, Fatah at least pays lip service to opposing terror and recognizing Israel’s right to exist, while Hamas dispenses with that formality. And Palestinian voters, as The New York Times reported last week based on numerous street interviews, were quite aware of that difference; they simply considered it unimportant.
And that, in turn, is clearly related to the fact that 82 percent of Palestinians, according to the latest poll, believe that the “armed struggle” got Israel out of Gaza. By rewarding five years of unremitting terror with an unconditional evacuation of settlements for which it received nothing in exchange – something it never did in any negotiated agreement – Israel conclusively proved that terror, rather than peaceful coexistence, is the best way for Palestinians to gain territory. And in that case, why should they hesitate to back a party that does not even pay lip service to recognizing Israel?
Each of the above developments is disturbing on its own; together, they offer a damning indictment of the Kadima-led government. One can only wonder how many more such revelations it will take for the party’s Teflon coating to finally crack.
IN MOST Western countries, as former Bank of Israel governor David Klein noted in a recent article, the national debt is about 60 percent of gross domestic product, requiring annual interest payments of some 2% of GDP. But in Israel, whose debt is a whopping 100% of GDP – about NIS 550b. – annual interest payments consume about 6% of GDP. In other words, reducing our debt by 40&, to standard Western levels, would reduce our interest payments by about 67%. Applying that to the 2005 figures, that would mean annual interest payments of about NIS 12b. instead of NIS 36b. Thus reducing Israel’s debt to accepted Western levels would free up some NIS 24b, a year in interest payments – the equivalent of the total health or welfare budget. And this extra money would be available not just once, but every single year – enabling massive long-term investments in education, job retraining and other programs that could really reduce poverty, as opposed to merely providing temporary relief.
CLEARLY, PARING down debt involves short-term sacrifice: Some money would have to be taken from other projects and used for debt repayment instead. Equally clearly, the sums involved are too large to permit rapid reductions: A NIS 220b. debt reduction plan would have to be spread out over many years. Yet over the long run, interest savings of NIS 24b. a year mean that the plan would effectively pay for itself within 10 years of completion. And even in the short term, since every shekel of debt reduction lowers interest payments, less than a shekel must be taken from other programs in order to finance it. The ideal time to reduce debt is when the economy is growing rapidly, since rapid growth means higher tax revenues, and with more income at its disposal, the government can pare down debt without cutting as deeply into existing spending. And Israel is currently enjoying very rapid growth: GDP grew by an estimated 5.2% last year, and the Finance Ministry has forecast 3.9% growth this year. Yet instead of taking advantage of this to reduce debt, the government plans to increase our debt still further in 2006: The proposed 2006 budget calls for a deficit of some NIS 17.2b., meaning the national debt would be increased by that amount. As a result, annual debt servicing costs will also rise. In fact, Israel’s fiscal policy for many years now has been one of perpetual deficits: Regardless of whether the economy is booming or shrinking, the budget calls for a deficit of about 3% of GDP every year. And therefore, every year, the national debt increases. Granted, there are years like 2005, when the economy grew faster than the debt, meaning that even though total debt increased, it declined as a percentage of GDP. But there are also many years when the debt grows faster than the economy – which is why the national debt has been stuck at around 100% of GDP for years.
ONE DOES not have to be an economic genius to realize that an endlessly increasing national debt, with its concomitant increase in annual debt servicing costs, means that over the long run, the country will have less money available for other needs. In other words, reckless borrowing today deprives our children and grandchildren tomorrow, since it is they who will have to finance the ever-increasing debt payments by cutting back on other spending. If, on the other hand, we take advantage of the current economic growth to start reducing debt, the concomitant reduction in annual interest payments would free up sizable sums every year that could be used to increase spending on other programs. Poverty is a long-term problem; it cannot be eliminated overnight. And therefore, any successful anti-poverty program will require investments stretching out over many years. But financing such a long-term program requires a long-term source of income. And the only realistic source of such income is the annual savings that would be produced by a serious program of debt reduction.
If the word “extort” seems harsh, consider the pretexts for some of these recent strikes:
• National Insurance Institute employees launched sanctions in early January to protect a bizarre perk: the right to either come to work 20 minutes late, leave 20 minutes early or be paid extra should they deign to work a full day. The Finance Ministry recently gave this arrangement some long-overdue scrutiny and concluded that it was illegal. NII workers retaliated by denying service to the public.
On January 5, for instance, they crashed the institute’s computers to make service impossible. Last week, they shut the institute’s doors until further notice. Then they threatened to withhold monthly allotments to some of society’s neediest members, many of whom have no other source of income. Keep that in mind next time the Histadrut, which backed the sanctions, poses as champion of the poor: It would rather deprive the truly needy of their sole source of income than make union members work a full day.
But the strike ended on Monday, after Finance Minister and Acting Premier Ehud Olmert approved an elegant political solution: The illegal arrangement will continue until after the elections; then, negotiations will begin.
• Employees of the state-owned Oil Refineries launched a wildcat strike last Thursday at the company’s Ashdod refinery, and the Histadrut threatened to have the Haifa refinery join in unless the government sweetens its offer. And what was this offensive offer? In order to compensate workers for its plan to privatize the company by selling each refinery separately, the government offered a one-time payment of a mere NIS 150,000 to NIS 300,000 per worker.
Private-sector workers, of course, do not receive a penny in compensation when their company changes hands. Moreover, the proposed sums are hardly trivial: For a minimum-wage worker, even the lower figure would represent almost four years (!) worth of pay; for the far more highly paid refinery workers, it is still the equivalent of about a year’s salary. But to the public sector’s pampered unions, such an offer justifies striking for a better deal.
• ISRAEL DISCOUNT Bank employees have been engaging in sanctions for over two weeks in which they randomly close several branches to the public each day. These sanctions have several pretexts. First, workers want a bonus for 2004; second, they want a raise for the years 2004-2006; and third, they are unhappy with the formula for calculating another bonus, worth some NIS 40,000 to NIS 50,000 per employee, that they were previously promised as compensation for the bank’s privatization.
Needless to say, Discount employees are hardly starving: On average, according to Central Bureau of Statistics data, bank workers make close to double the average wage and almost four times the minimum wage. But this is an especially good time for them to demand even more, because while the government signed an agreement last year to sell the bank to investor Matthew Bronfman, the sale has not yet been finalized, and workers are threatening to disrupt the closure if their demands are not met. That, of course, would be the last thing Olmert needs before an election: for a successful privatization concluded by his predecessor at the treasury, Binyamin Netanyahu, to fall apart on his watch.
The Histadrut also authorized several new public-sector work disputes last week; these employees will be legally entitled to strike as of next week. And more are sure to follow as Election Day draws near.
The problem with such strikes is not only that they disrupt services to the public, though that is bad enough. They also constitute a serious drain on the government’s budget, since settling them always involves hefty government payouts.
Consider what it cost to settle just two of last fall’s strikes, both called over impending privatizations. One, at Discount (the same bank that is now striking again) cost NIS 250 million; the other, at Bank Leumi, cost NIS 350m. Had that NIS 600m. not been promised to a few already well-paid bank workers, it would be available for more pressing needs. Such a sum, for instance, would suffice to restore more than half the cuts in NII allowances (excluding child allowances) enacted under the emergency economic program of 2003 – those same cuts that the Histadrut so hypocritically rails against for hurting the poor.
Every year, the government spends literally billions of shekels on unjustified perks for public-sector workers that are extorted via punitive strikes. Were those billions instead devoted to the general welfare – education, health care, anti-poverty programs – they would go a long way toward closing the “social gaps” that the Histadrut and its allies so love to decry.
Thus if whatever new government is elected in March is serious about fighting poverty, it must plug this constant drain on the government’s purse. But the rot is so deep that only the most drastic of measures is likely to help – namely, legislation making strikes by public-sector employees illegal, as is the case in the United States, Canada and Japan. There, public-sector labor disputes are sent to binding arbitration instead.
The unions would certainly strike in protest. But since public-sector workers, unlike their private-sector counterparts, enjoy almost total job security, a ban on striking is hardly an unfair price to pay. And once the legislation passes, the government would have a powerful weapon should the strikes not cease: Some of the country’s 250,000 unemployed would undoubtedly be happy to replace the strikers.