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| August 15, 2002 |
Continued Occupation Has Impact on Israeli Society
Dan Rothem, Research Assistant, drothem@cdi.org
In an interview with Maariv, an Israeli daily, professor Zvi Yaavets said that "occupation of other people always affects the conqueror more than the conquered, and never ends happily. Napoleon already said that ‘you can fight with spears, but you cannot sit on them.’" Never in the history of the 35-year-old Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza have the effects of the spears been more profound than these days.
The occupation is draining Israeli society of financial and emotional reserves, as hopelessness takes over. Israeli domestic structure, as a modern, democratic state, is showing alarming signs of disintegration. A collapsing economy, a bloated government filled with unqualified individuals, and ethnic discrimination -- all are results of the Israeli-Arab conflict, and all threaten Israel’s economic and democratic institutions. According to the State Department’s Congressional Budget Justification for Foreign Operations, "the United States has a significant interest in a stable, democratic, and economically and militarily strong Israel at peace with its neighbors." While Israeli military might seems a given, its economic strength and democratic stability are in jeopardy. Israel receives around $2.7 billion per year in economic and military aid from the United States, as well as virtually unconditional backing in face of international pressure regarding the Palestinian issue. To judge by actions, however, the Bush administration fails to understand the urgency of solving the conflict and preserving Israel’s democratic character.
A comprehensive look at different aspects of Israel’s economy presents an obvious picture. The height of the peace process (mid- to late-1990s) brought economic growth and stability, while the outbreak of the current intifada, or uprising, in September 2000 marked the beginning of a decline. In the last quarter of 2001, Israel’s unemployment rate broke the double-digit barrier for the first time since the beginning of the peace process in the early 1990s. The unemployment rate for the first five months of 2002 was 10.6 percent, and realistic predictions are for unemployment to reach 11 percent by year’s end. Only a massive call-up of military reservists and increasing demand for private security workers prevented additional escalation in unemployment.
Some important statistics: Israel’s gross domestic product, which saw a 6.4 percent increase in the first 9 months of 2000, declined to minus 0.6 percent in 2001. Private consumption decreased from 6.6 percent in 2000 to 3.3 percent in 2001, and exports of goods sank from 23.9 percent in 2000 to minus 11 percent in 2001, partly because of the worldwide economic crisis. On an individual level, per capita product went from 3.6 percent growth through September 2000 to minus 2.9 percent in 2001.
Meanwhile, social services are collapsing. Approximately 1.6 million people need some sort of social services, or one out of every four. Each social worker handles an estimated 400 cases. Also, while the new proposed budget makes cuts across the entire width of the economy, it severely hurts social services and disadvantaged people.
Alarming political signs are also present. The Labor party’s entrance to the Likud-headed government left Israel with no significant political opposition, at least not until the next elections. Additionally, the past five years have seen an unprecedented transfer of high-ranking military officers to the political scene, without any meaningful "cooling-off period." Both the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, which served as IDF Chief of Staff from 1964 to 1968, and current Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a former major general with a rich military history, were veteran politicians. But several recently-retired officers have found their way to the Knesset (Israeli parliament), and the Israeli government, with an alarming swiftness that resembles South American republics more than a Western democracy. Amnon Lipkin-Shahak and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, both former IDF Chiefs of Staff, together with Matan Vilnai, Efraim Eitam, and Yitzhak Mordechai, all former generals and sub-generals, produced a de facto infiltration of the political system by ex-officers. Still confusing their civilian ties with their military berets, recently-retired officers find a paved way into the ever expanding government. Through them a traumatized Israeli society allows military minds – lacking any political experience -- to create a monopoly over security policy, which is the leading, if not only, issue of concern.
Ethnic tensions, an old phenomenon in Israeli society, also work their way to the lawmakers’ desks. "The government’s decision -- to support MK Haim Druckman’s bill proposal, designated to create an opening through which the settling institutions could allot lands only to Jews -- is an extraordinary combination of moral villainy and practical idiocy," wrote Ofer Shelah of Yediot Aharonot, Israel’s largest daily. While the cabinet eventually withdrew its support from the bill, Shelah points out that it touched fundamental Jewish Israeli phobias: demographic concerns, lands, Israeli Arabs and their loyalty. "In this sense," Shelah summarized, "the (current) Sharon-Fuad government is the publisher of what its predecessors preferred to do secretly. Discrimination against Arabs, apartheid-in-essence regarding land, employment and equality before the law, all these characterize Israeli life since its foundation."
The American political leadership lacks an understanding of the domestic turmoil in Israel. Washington accepts Israel’s unilateral military actions since it perceives them as fundamental to Israeli security, and chooses to ignore the ethic and strategic stagnation to which Israeli domestic policy condemns the region.
Understandably, Israeli citizens want actions, but without U.S.-Israeli guidance and cooperation, the only actions that the region will see are military ones. For years, Israel has enjoyed a strong democratic tradition in a region where such a phenomenon is rare, to say the least. Its people have mobilized to support military efforts because they saw them as necessary, but Sharon’s 1982 Lebanon campaign and the price paid for control over Palestinians led many to see the current conflicts as wars of choice. For the time being, a politically-aware public, the fierce media, and the democratic process itself are the last defenders of Israeli democracy. But this character rapidly disintegrates, as the economic, strategic, and moral consequences of the occupation become unbearable.
A Primer on Civil Liberties and the War on Terrorism
Monica Anatalio, Research Assistant, manatalio@cdi.org
The repercussions of Sept. 11 have led many governments around the world to propose and even implement new "anti-terrorism" legislation to deal with the threat. The United Kingdom passed the Anti Terrorism, Crime and Security Act of 2001 last December. Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and other Southeast Asian nations enacted the ASEAN Declaration on Joint Action to CounterTerrorism, and held a terrorism conference this past May in Kuala Lumpur. At home, the United States began the secret detentions of immigrants and "material witnesses" following the attacks. The Justice Department detained almost 1,200 people and most have been deported or released.
The scenario becomes more complicated when those under investigation are U.S. citizens designated as "enemy combatants," who do not benefit from constitutional protections. The tension between national security and civil liberties has escalated with the recent events surrounding the case of Yasser Esam Hamdi. Last November, while fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan, Hamdi was captured by the Northern Alliance and sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. When investigators discovered that he was born in Louisiana, he was transferred to Norfolk, Va., where he is currently being held without having been charged for a specific crime or granted permission to see a lawyer. The government labeled Hamdi an "enemy combatant" and thus neither protected by habeas corpus nor entitled to counsel.
U.S. District Judge Robert G. Doumar has twice ordered that the government allow Hamdi to see a lawyer, and both times the government obtained stays of that order. On July 25, the prosecutors submitted a two-page declaration by Michael Mobbs, a Defense Department special advisor on enemy combatants, justifying Hamdi’s "enemy combatant" status. Doumar then told prosecutors to provide him with further justification, i.e. Hamdi’s statements, notes from interviews etc. Government lawyers did not provide the additional information in time to meet an Aug. 6 deadline. The Justice Department replied instead that the courts had no jurisdiction in the matter. The government argued that the executive branch has the sole authority to designate an "enemy combatant" in a time of war, and that the separation of powers clause in the Constitution does not allow judicial review to overturn decisions made by the commander in chief.
The significance of the Hamdi case is in the suspension of an American citizen’s constitutional rights. In undertaking the war on terrorism, the government must try to protect citizens from further attacks while maintaining the civil liberties guaranteed by the American democratic Constitution. The complication arises because these same liberties, the freedom of opportunities and openness of information, that al Qaeda used as weapons to attack the United States. Further, the effectiveness of post-Sept. 11 safety measures are difficult to assess, given that one cannot know with certainty whether the terrorist danger is imminent and predictable.
Opposition to the administration’s counterterrorism legislation has taken many forms. The government disclosed in June that at least 147 people were still being held on charges related to immigration infractions. On Aug. 2, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler ruled that the United States must reveal the names of people detained in the investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks. Nineteen diverse groups have sued the Department of Justice under the Freedom of Information Act including the Center for National Security Studies, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the American Civil Liberties Union. The Justice Department reacted by filing a motion for an expedited stay pending appeal of Kessler’s Aug. 2 order. The government cautioned that the stay be issued in order to protect the public. Government officials fear that those who planned the Sept. 11 attacks will be able to map the extent and direction of the government investigation.
Another example of the public’s wariness toward the administration’s counterterrorism actions is the Justice Department’s overhaul of the Terrorist Information and Prevention System (TIPS) program. TIPS was billed as a way for various workers to alert authorities about suspicious behavior they encountered. The program was severely criticized as Orwellian by civil liberties groups and members of Congress. In July, the House passed a bill, introduced by House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, creating the Department of Homeland Security. This bill specifically prohibited the TIPS program. On Aug. 9, officials announced that TIPS would not be put in effect until Congress returns in September, allowing time for consultation with lawmakers.
The United States is not alone in facing public concern about counterterrorist measures. The United Kingdom suffered a double blow to its Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act of 2001 with the acquittal of Sulayman Balal Zainulabidin on Aug. 9. Zainulabidin, who has no known ties to al Qaeda, was the first Muslim to be tried in Britain under the broad terrorism laws enacted in the aftermath of Sept. 11. He was arrested last October for running a website that offered “terrorists” an online U.S.-based training course called "The Ultimate Jihad Challenge." Civil liberties groups and critics have claimed that the integrity of the criminal justice system is at stake when it disproportionately targets minorities. Just two weeks earlier, a British panel of judges had ruled in favor of nine foreign terror suspects who were being detained. The detention without trial was deemed unlawful.
The ultimate question is how a democratic country can protect its citizens without sacrificing the free status of those citizens to cautionary measures that do not necessarily promote the war’s aims. Further, the threat of terrorism is not going to subside quickly, and thus necessary restrictions on civil liberties will have to be long term as well. The fear is that the proposed counterterrorism laws -- and broad powers being sought as part of the war on terrorism -- are open to misuse and threaten fundamental civil liberties.
N. Korea Threatens to Break Nuke Deal -- North Korea has threatened to pull out the 1994 agreement under which it pledged to abandon its nuclear weapons program. In return for the pledge, the United States agreed to construct two light water nuclear power reactors. While the first reactor was supposed to be completed by 2003, funding and political problems have delayed the program by several years. North Korea says that it will pull out of the agreement unless the United States compensates the country for the "grave difficulties in the economy" resulting from the power shortage caused by the delay.
Missing Computers Recovered -- Two laptop computers stolen on Aug. 1 from the Florida headquarters of the U.S. Central Command, which is running the military operation against Taliban and al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan, have been recovered. No sensitive information was taken from the computers according to CENCOM commander Gen. Tommy Franks. Initial reports indicated that at least one of the laptops held classified material.
NATO Disbands Rapid Reaction Force -- NATO’s Defense Planning Committee announced this week its plans to disband the Allied Command Europe Mobile Force Land (AMF). Created in 1960, AMF is a brigade-sized multilateral force designed to deploy quickly to any threatened region under the Command’s authority. It’s most significant action was participation in Operation "Allied Harbor," the 1999 relief mission to assist Albanian refugees. According to a NATO press release, plans to disband the force are the result of the alliance’s adoption of a more mobile force structure. A dissolution ceremony will take place on Oct. 30 at AMF headquarters in Heidelberg.
Consolidation of B-1 Fleet Begins -- U.S. Air Force plans to consolidate its fleet of B-1 bombers are now underway. Seven aircraft from Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho have been transferred to Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota. In addition to consolidating the fleet at fewer bases, the Air Force plans to retire 30 of its 92 B-1 bombers, which the service estimates will save $150 million annually. The Air Force first proposed the plan early last year, but delayed its implementation in the face of stiff congressional opposition. The Pentagon plans to use the savings to upgrade the remainder of the fleet.
Quotation of the Week -- "Everyone who reads the papers today knows that one of the issues that the world is really thinking about and talking about and wondering about is this issue of preemption, the issue of preventive action. I would use the phrase anticipatory self defense," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, meeting with journalists, August 5, 2002.
This Week on SUPERPOWER: Global Affairs TV -- "The Global Women's Treaty"
NOTE: Superpower is taking a break the next two weeks, and will be re-airing shows from previous weeks. We will be back with a new episode on Wednesday, August 14th.
SUPERPOWER, together with foreign experts from around the world, examines the timely issues that affect the United States. Superpower explains the foreign take on world events and their relationship to the world's only superpower.
This week, Superpower examines the global women's treaty, CEDAW (Committee to End all forms of Discrimination Against Women) and potential U.S. ratification of the treaty. What would ratification of this treaty mean for U.S. foreign and domestic policy?
This week's episode will feature a discussion of CEDAW -- The Convention to End All forms of Discrimination Against Women. Joining Superpower as guests this week will be Pia de Solenni, Policy Analyst from the Family Research Council; Leila R. Milani, Co-chair for a Coalition of Women's groups seeking the Ratification of CEDAW; and Jamesina King, Visiting Law Fellow from Sierra Leone from the Women's Law & Public Policy Fellowship Program.
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