The New Centrist
points to a piece by John Bolton arguing for the return of the West Bank and Gaza to Jordan and Egypt. My primary problem with Bolton’s proposal is that the countries he’s suggesting take over the occupied territories are not democratic. I don’t believe that long-term security would be enhanced by this.
Al Qaeda’s roots lie in part in the prisons of Egypt.
Were Egypt to be persuaded to take over control of Gaza, there is no reason to suppose they would be in a position to eliminate Hamas, particularly as they have already been ineffective in preventing Hamas smuggling arms through Egyptian territory. It’s easy to imagine a scenario where Hamas launch attacks from an Egyptian-controlled Gaza, and Egypt is faced with violently suppressing Hamas and thereby igniting radical Islamist forces in Egypt proper, or doing nothing, which would lead to Israeli strikes on Egyptian-controlled territory with a similar result. The dangers of an undemocratic Egypt thereby becoming increasingly vulnerable to Islamist revolution seem pretty obvious to me.
(Update Jan 11th, a New York Times analysis on
why Egypt doesn’t want responsibility for Gaza.)
The contrast which strikes me this New Year is between Israel’s occupation and Iraq, in one case unresolved after over forty years, in the other a
complete handover of sovereignty to a democratic government within five years of invasion. Obviously there are massive differences, but perhaps making the comparison and looking at the differences in detail might be helpful.
Any description of Iraq as a success is pushing uphill against the popular perception of the war as a disaster, but comparing it to Israel’s occupation makes it seem a miraculous achievement, given a vastly larger territory, a much larger, more diverse, and more divided population, and a much more bloody and less cohesive insurgency.
The major difference between Israel in the occupied territories and the US in Iraq is that the US has no emotional attachment to Iraq, and no popular desire for a long-term presence, rather all the political pressure has been for withdrawal at the earliest opportunity. This has led to greater clarity on the need for the most economically effective strategic approach than in the Israeli case.
Under Sharon, Israeli strategic thinking evolved to the point of recognising that indefinite occupation was not sustainable, but the failed attempt to withdraw from Gaza has shown that just retreating behind a wall won’t work either. For Israel to achieve long term security it needs the successful establishment of stable democracies in the surrounding territory. (I see the failed withdrawal from Gaza as a rebuttal to those who argued for
premature withdrawal from Iraq, or for the old cut-price solution of an “
acceptable dictator” in Afghanistan.)
A strong policy of building democracy over the period of occupation could have disempowered the terrorist threat, and by now have led to an independent Palestinian state in the spirit of
Resolution 181. It might even have enabled Jews to live on the West Bank and in Gaza without the need for military protection. On the face of it this may sound foolish, but considering what has been achieved in Iraq in under five years one would think that so much more could have been achieved in the occupied territories in over forty years had the right policies been in place.
The failure to establish stable democratic institutions over such a long period of occupation is a massive strategic failure by Israel, a failure not lessened by the mirrored failure by the Palestinian population to establish a non-violent democratic resistance to the occupation, despite the available precedents. (The main
problem with
non-violence is that it is a massively difficult and dangerous, even fatal, course to take against murderous totalitarian states, but its effectiveness against oppressive policies by democracies had been demonstrated in both India and the US prior to the 1967 war, and it was therefore a proven option available to resist occupation by a democracy such as Israel.)
I still don’t see that the need for an in-depth policy of encouraging democracy has been fully understood by Israel’s leaders, for example in the approach taken during the last war in Lebanon. Leaving such efforts to the care of the US and the EU is short-sighted and not in Israel’s national interest. Such an aim needs to be integrated into all aspects of Israeli policy towards the occupied territories and towards established neighboring states. This needs to be more complex than the simplistic language of carrots and sticks. It requires a strategy of enlightened self-interst, of mutual benefit not just for the leaderships on all sides, but for the populations.
Update 25 January: Follow up post
here.
