ISRAEL UPDATE -- FEBRUARY 13 2004
Whenever people come to visit Israel, I always say that they have chosen to come during “very interesting times.” After visiting Israel for two weeks with my family, I was struck by the truth of this adage. Although life seems to continue as normal, there are always continued new developments.
While we were in Israel, there was a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hizbullah, the fundamentalist Shi’ite Muslim terror organisation. The bodies of 3 IDF soldiers who were kidnapped from the northern border with Lebanon and killed by Hizbullah in October 2000, Benny Avraham, Adi Avitan, and Omar Souad, were returned to Israel. In addition, Elchanan Tannenbaum, an Israeli businessman who was held captive in Lebanon after being abducted by Hizbullah under still unclear circumstances, was released. Israel returned two prominent leaders of Hizbullah, hundreds of Palestinian, Lebanese, and other foreign prisoners, as well as dozens of bodies of terrorists killed and buried in Israel.
The 1,200 day period of uncertainty for the Avitan, Souad, and Avraham families is over. They have buried and can now mourn their children. As the circumstances surrounding Tannenbaum’s abduction are being examined in Israel, many questions have arisen surrounding this exchange. What about the other 5 Israeli MIAs? Zachary Baumel, Tzvi Feldman, and Yehuda Katz have been missing since 1982, navigator Ron Arad has been missing since 1986, and Guy Hever has not been seen since he disappeared on the Golan Heights in the summer of 1997. Should Israel have exchanged so many prisoners for only some of the MIAs? Or should the government have insisted on receiving information on all of them? Could Hizbullah have given information on men that they might not be holding? Should greater international pressure be placed on Iran and Syria to help find out the fate of the remaining MIAs?
As we were in the car heading out of Jerusalem on the morning of the expected exchange, we heard about the terrorist attack on the public bus in central Jerusalem. 11 innocent people were killed, and dozens more were injured, having to live with their emotional and physical scars. Once again, terror struck at the heart of Israel. The strength and resilience of Israelis was evident when we drove by the scene of the incident later in the day. The bus had been removed, the damage to the street repaired, a makeshift memorial with candles and pictures had already been set up, and life began to return to ‘normal.’
Leaving Jerusalem, we saw the almond trees with their beautiful pink blossoms alongside the highway, interspersed with the burned out shells from the armoured vehicles from the 1948 War of Independence. As the people of Israel were mourning the latest terror incident, and reflecting on the imminent prisoner exchange, Israeli schoolchildren were busy celebrating Tu B’Shvat, the New Year for trees.
Returning to Jerusalem that afternoon, we passed a section of the recently constructed separation fence. Although one can conjure up images of the Berlin Wall if one reads the foreign newspapers, in fact the fence is mostly an iron fence with barbed wire, surrounded by IDF patrol roads. Although it does not signify any permanent border, it is very similar to the fence along the Israeli-Lebanese border. It is designed to limit the influx of terrorists into the major Israeli population centres, and its supporters claim that it has already successfully reduced the number of terror attacks in certain areas. For more information, check out the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s special weblink, at http://securityfence.mfa.gov.il/mfm/web/main/missionhome.asp?MissionID=45187&
Palestinians are very unhappy about the fence, as they feel it is creating a permanent border and will cut off people from their livelihood, and make travel between Palestinian areas more difficult. They have taken their complaint to the International Court of Justice in the Hague, which is scheduled to discuss the fence at the end of the month. They hope that the ICJ or perhaps other international pressure will convince Israel to halt contruction or change the route of the fence.
Although many Israelis support the fence, there is still internal debate over its significance. Will it demark an eventual permanent border between Israel and Palestine? What will happen to the Jewish communities in the West Bank/Judaea and Samaria?
Another major development has been the changing attitude of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Deputy PM Ehud Olmert toward removal of Jewish settlements. In a speech on the Yahrzeit of the first Israeli PM David Ben Gurion, Olmert quoted a speech of Ben Gurion’s shortly after Israeli independence in which he said that, “Suppose we would have conquered all of western Israel. Then what? We would create a single state. But that state would want to be democratic. There would be general elections and we would be a minority. Faced with the choice of the whole land without a Jewish state or a Jewish state without the whole land, we chose a Jewish state.”
By chosing this particular quotation, Olmert was strongly suggesting that as a Palestinian majority in Israel and West Bank and Gaza was rapidly approaching, and there was no imminent agreement with the Palestinians, Israel would have to abandon large areas of territory in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Sharon has also begun to speak about unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank. In a speech at the prestigious Herzliya Conference in December, Sharon said that “In the framework of a future agreement, Israel will not remain in all the places where it is today. The relocation of settlements will be made, first and foremost, in order to draw the most efficient security line possible, thereby creating this disengagement between Israel and the Palestinians.”
The Prime Minister has also floated the idea of unilaterally withdrawing most of the Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip, causing quite a stir. Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz has argued that Israel should remove the civilian communities from Gaza, but should maintain an IDF presence there. Other critics believe that such a step, in the absence of any concessions from the Palestinian Authority, would appear to be a victory for the terrorists. In recent non-confidence votes in the Knesset, key coalition partners the National Religious Party (NRP) and the National Union (NU) parties stayed away from the plenum so that their ill feelings toward Sharon’s suggestion would not result in the collapse of the government.
Both Sharon and Olmert grew up believing in the ideology of Revisionist Zionism, which called for control of the entire Land of Israel. They now seem to have come to the realisation that this vision is no longer viable. Not everybody in their Likud party, or their coalition partners, however, agrees with them. Does this mean that the ideology of Eretz Yisrael Hashlema (The Greater Land of Israel) is no longer relevant to the majority of Israelis? Have most people come to the realisation that there will eventually be two states between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea?
As I said at the beginning, these are very interesting times in Israel. As much as the situation looks the same, things are beginning to change. The right wing of the Israeli political spectrum is slowly moving toward recognising the future creation of a Palestinian state beside Israel. What will it look like and how will it be created are very large questions, the answers to which are constantly being argued. Will Israel and the PA agree to implementing the plan suggested by American President George W. Bush’s Road Map last June? Will Israel continue to take unilateral actions, such as the construction of the security fence or withdrawal from Gaza? Will some new idea be floated? Let us hope that just as the almond blossoms herald the coming spring, new developments will continue to unfold that will herald in a brighter future in Israel.
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