#3
Moscow Times
April 11, 2002
Mayhem Minces Moderates
By Pavel Felgenhauer

Israeli military operations in occupied Palestinian territories are closed to public scrutiny as tightly as Russian zachistki in occupied Chechnya. In Chechnya, the Russian military (as its Israeli counterpart) has allowed in only "loyal" journalists who do not object to being censored, and kept out all the rest.

The Israeli military has gone a step further: It shoots and kills journalists whose reporting it does not like. In the 20 months since the beginning of the present intifada, more than 20 journalists are reported to have been killed or wounded -- mostly by Israeli guns.

It's a sure thing that many thugs worldwide (particularly those in Chechnya) will follow the Israeli lead, and shooting unwanted journalists could well become a favorite method to restrain the press. It's also clear that Israeli soldiers attack foreign journalists not because they are undisciplined; just as the Russians in Chechnya, Israelis have good reason to want to hide their actions.

Israel says its invasion of the West Bank, now well into its second week, was meant to uproot "terrorist infrastructure." The Israeli pogrom in the West Bank has already killed hundreds of Palestinian fighters, policemen and civilians, but has it actually ended terror?

The pretext for the pogrom in Palestine was an Arab suicide bomb attack that ripped through a hotel dining room in Netanya on March 27 during a Passover Seder, killing 27 people. Hamas, a radical Islamic fundamentalist group, claimed responsibility for the Netanya bombing.

The main stronghold of Hamas (and its birthplace) is the Gaza Strip, but for almost two weeks Israel's Operation Defensive Shield deliberately avoided Gaza. The Israeli military is ripping apart the West Bank, harassing and isolating Yasser Arafat, the first Palestinian leader who recognized Israel's right to exist and signed a peace treaty with the Jewish state. Meanwhile, Hamas leaders are living in peace in Gaza, free to talk to journalists, and even gloating at what Israel is doing to the more moderate Palestinian Arab leaders.

Last week, Israeli troops raided the house of Yasser Abed Rabbo, the Palestinian culture and information minister and a close aide to Arafat. Abed Rabbo was briefly detained while soldiers searched his house.

Abed Rabbo is also the co-chairman of the joint Israeli-Palestinian peace coalition that was formed in January to try to stop the cycle of violence in the Middle East. In February, I spent several hours talking to Abed Rabbo, to former Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin and other Palestinians and Israelis from the peace coalition who came to Moscow seeking help in stopping the bloodshed.

I was surprised to meet leading Palestinians and Israelis who obviously did not hate each other and undoubtedly wanted to make peace. But such people are in a minority. The radical nationalists and religious fanatics who are the political base of the regime of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon accuse Jews from the peace coalition of collaboration with the enemy. On the Arab side, Hamas leaders say the same about moderate Palestinians.

A member of Beilin's team told me that their delegation actually begged European Union ministers to do something to stop Sharon, to impose at least symbolic sanctions on Israel to press it to make peace. The answer was: Europe is too weak and disunited to do anything.

The main target of Israel's Operation Defensive Shield is clearly not terrorism, but the Oslo peace accords of 1993 that formed the Palestinian Authority. The other main target is moderates on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide. In destroying the peace framework, the Sharon regime and Hamas are acting as allies, and it is clear that they have won: The peace process in the Middle East is dead.

The United States and the EU may still press Sharon to pull back some of his tanks, and peace negotiations may resume. However, they will not last long: Hamas will surely again explode a bomb, the tanks will go back in and the pogrom will resume.

Now even the most moderate Arabs believe that Sharon and all of his ministers, including Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, are war criminals. The Arabs also believe that the strategic intention of Sharon and his backers is to destroy completely the infrastructure of Arab Palestine, to change the demographic balance and finally to annex the West Bank. Such assumptions seem to be largely correct. While anyone from the present Israeli regime is still in power, peace in the Middle East is unattainable.

Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent defense analyst.

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