Point / Counterpoint: An irrational neighbor

CounterPoint to:

Palestinians' self-inflicted wounds

"Israeli oppression has helped fracture Palestinian society and turn some of its groups into desperados who fight one another to maintain a modicum of control over their increasingly restricted and empty lives."

Rami Khouri
The Globe and Mail (Toronto, Canada)
Wednesday, August 6, 2008

"These are grim days for the Palestinians," writes Lebanese political analyst Rami Khouri, "but not unusual ones for the Arab world as a whole. The sight of clan-based political groups in Gaza killing each other is sadly familiar in many parts of the region."

Khouri reminds us that this is not the first time Palestinians have quarrelled with or fought each other. They did so in the 1940s, and in the 1980s in Lebanon's refugee camps.

The opinion piece, which appeared in the Canadian Globe and Mail, has an Israeli angle (of course). Khouri believes that Israel is a cause (if not the cause) of the current wave of fighting between the Fatah and Hamas factions. He also implies that the internal Palestinian fighting is in Israel's interest, because it makes it more difficult for the Palestinians "to wage a principled and credible struggle against Israeli expansionism."

Khouri then proceeds to assign some of the blame to the international community, whose "virtual indifference to the consequences of Israel's harsh policies makes the entire regional context more conducive to such irrational and self-destructive Arab behaviour."

This highly convenient allocation of blame to Israel is rivalled only by the inflated expectations from the international community. The author, it seems, expects the international community to intervene in order to prevent the Palestinians from exhibiting their "irrational and self-destructive Arab behaviour."

Khouri believes that the consequences of the fighting are "unlikely to increase the chance of forcing Israel to negotiate an honourable and fair peace."

This is not entirely an unreasonable expectation. There are obviously tremendous risks in negotiating peace with an irrational self-destructive partner, - which is precisely the concern of many Israelis in handing over more territory to the Palestinians.

This brings to mind the oft-told fable of the scorpion who asks the frog to carry him across the river. "But you will sting me." says the frog. "Why would I?" replied the scorpion, "If I do then we will both drown." So the frog ferries the scorpion across, and midstream the scorpion stings him. With his dying breath the frog asks "Why?" And the drowning scorpion replies, "Because this is the Middle East."

Though this is indeed the Middle East, it is not in Israel's interest to have to deal with a split Palestinian society, much less when factions are in violent conflict, as they are now. In fact, any questions that the Palestinians may have about the mandate of the Israeli negotiating team (due to Ehud Olmert's pending departure) are dwarfed by the questions that the Israelis now have about the mandate of the Palestinian team.

Khouri continues: "It will be no surprise to see some friends of Palestine quietly walk away, mumbling that if the Palestinians wish to kill each other and destroy their own society, they are free to do so. The world will easily forget about them."

Throughout the past decade (and even longer) the Saudis, Jordanians, and Egyptians have been working hard to prevent the Palestinians from killing each other and destroying their own society. If anyone within Israel or without, is labouring under the illusion that it is in Israel's interest for this infighting to continue, they need to explain why they believe such violence can be contained solely within the Palestinian territories, and why they think that moderation will ultimately prevail rather than the extremism of Hamas. Israel certainly does not want to return to being the Palestinian's policeman, and the Palestinians want that even less. 

Khouri recognizes that by and large the Palestinians are responsible for much of their own predicament.  He notes that for over a century, the Palestinians  "have lost at every decisive moment, [and] the poor quality of Palestinian leadership has always been one reason."

How true. From Haj Amin Al-Husseini, through Ahmad Shukeiri, right up to Yasser Arafat, the Palestinians have had a poor quality of leadership. They have repeatedly missed opportunities to establish their own state, from the rejection of the United Nations partition plan in 1947 to the rejection of President Clinton's far-reaching proposals at the 2000 Camp David peace negotiations.  As Amin al-Mahdy wrote in Al-Hayat in 2002, "Arafat admitted his mistake in refusing Clinton's proposals [at Camp David]. But what he should have explained was why he refused, why it was wrong, and why it took him two years to realize it."

As Khouri glides towards an optimistic conclusion ("the Palestinians will eventually find better leadership to help them regain their cohesion and credibility") he hurls several more jabs at Israel - not to be lost on his Canadian audience - about Israel's "colonialism" and "predatory territorial aims." What is surprising is that if not for the persistent jabs at Israel, which may well be part of the required rhetoric of any Lebanon-based Arab journalist, much of Rami Khouri's analysis would not be appreciably different from our observations, here in Israel.