Israel

An analysis of Omar: a film by Hany Abu-Assad

December 11, 2015 by Bradley Lineker

By: Bradley Lineker

Author’s note: The film, Omar, was released on 30 May 2014. Analysis herein contains spoilers.

Omar - Palestinian film by Hany Abu-Assad 2013 - Cartel salta muro

Omar, as the latest film written and directed by Hany Abu-Assad, is a compelling political drama set in the West Bank that skilfully depicts the dangerous spider’s web of Israeli occupation around a young Palestinian dissident and his love, after he takes part in an act of rebellion with his two childhood friends.

The film begins with Omar (played by Adam Baktri) illegally climbing the 18-foot West Bank separation wall to visit his high-school sweetheart, Nadia (Leem Lubany). Soon after, Omar and his two friends, Anjam (Samer Bisharat), and Nadia’s brother, Tarek (Eyad Hourani), attack an Israeli checkpoint. Because of this, Omar is later captured and then coerced into working as a double agent by the Le Carré-esque Israeli Agent Rami (Waleed Zuaiter). Rami releases Omar from prison, who, amid intense stigmatization, attempts to find out who betrayed him and his friends. Events escalate until Omar is left almost totally under the thrall of Agent Rami, whose influence erodes the trust that existed between him and those around him, and Omar is gradually pushed towards killing his two friends to save himself and Nadia.

The film’s artistry is seen in its subtle portrayal of the ways in which the occupation frames and shapes the characters. Visually superb, it moves from darkened, tight-angled shots of the Israeli prison where Omar was held, to the tiny interconnected Palestinian neighbourhoods, into wider, sun-drenched backdrops of wasteland where Omar and his friends try to get time and space away from the occupation forces. Much of these shots are centered around the tight frames of the two main characters, Omar and Nadia, which, while supposedly intimate, further contributes to the unrelenting sense of latent danger – especially when the viewer is led to believe that Nadia may be the Israeli snitch.

In some ways, the occupation itself is the core focus of the film that, while dramatised through a tight group of characters, nevertheless underplays much of what happens on the screen. This is because the film offers a fascinating portrait of the subtle ways that the occupation frames and then insidiously reshapes existence: it is depicted as an infection that seeps into the natural and unspoken gaps between friends and family, and in these dark edges, steadily festers, making the individual suspect everyone of betrayal.

The wider Israeli occupation is itself only abstractly introduced at the start through Omar climbing the imposing 18-foot separation wall, and is only then explained as the narrative unfolds. Interestingly, it is Agent Rami, the film’s tangible manifestation of the Israeli occupation regime, who offers the most cogent explanation. He describes how one petty-resistance leader is assassinated, another comes to take his place, and thus his job is a cyclical quest to gain leverage on whomever comes into power – a process that serves as a metaphor for the wider occupation. Moreover, the highly-visible technology of the occupation forces – from their stun grenades, high-tech assault rifles, helicopters and prison systems – is contrasted with the three friends, whose attempts at resistance rely on an old bolt-action rifle and meetings in wasteland areas. This minimalist-critique arguably comes to a head at the end of the film, as Agent Rami attempts to compare his pistol to the svelte-body of a woman. The viewer can’t help but compare his hollow and half-hearted metaphor to the reality of the sacrifices Omar has made throughout the film for Nadia, his own love. This restrained, often abstract, way of discussing the conflict is highly effective, as it sidesteps much of the politics that weighs-down the Israel-Palestine issue, and allows the viewer to reach their own conclusions about what they see on the screen.

This subtle and sympathetic approach to the characters is also afforded to the society in which they live. The formal social code that governs onscreen Palestinian interaction is so well built up during the course of the film that, without it being a distraction, it artfully weaves into the overall narrative, enabling the viewer to understand and sympathise with the constraints on Omar towards the end. For instance, the scene where Omar is talking to Nadia in Anjam’s house, a house and family that the viewer knows Omar was set-up to give away, was truly haunting in view of portraying how the social structures have essentially trapped them in their respective roles, despite Omar figuring out how Anjam has betrayed him. Within such scenes is the implicit statement of how the influence of the occupation regime itself warps such social formalities, so that they become constraining – this is certainly true of Agent Rami’s intimation of Nadia’s infidelity.

Despite the film’s great strengths, its highly compact plot felt unnecessarily convoluted at times, which, coupled with its relatively sparse use of dialogue, could prove to be confusing in patches. For instance, much of the ending depended upon one critical piece of dialogue between Omar and Nadia, which, if missed, would have left the viewer unsure about Omar’s actions at the end. While the betrayal was artfully constructed to complement the insidiousness of the occupation, it could have been depicted in clearer terms. Moreover, there were some plot-holes, such as the ambush scene, where the trio of friends each take up an AK-47, despite being depicted earlier in the film painstakingly learning how to use a bolt-action rifle. But on the whole, these issues are largely irrelevant for appreciating the film’s style and purpose.

The dark beauty of the film lies in the way it entombs the main character in a smothering claustrophobia – from having to daily climb an 18 foot wall to see his love, or facing the ultimate choice of killing either Agent Rami or Anjam – which powerfully portrays the nature of occupation to the viewer. In sum, Omar is a visually beautiful film with an exceptional way of introducing very large and emotional themes, but in subtle and sympathetic ways.

Why the Israeli “wall” is a flawed model for the U.S.-Mexican border

December 1, 2015 by Lauren Mellinger

By: Lauren Mellinger

Since announcing his candidacy for president of the United States, Republican candidate (and occasional front-runner for the GOP nomination) businessman Donald Trump has chosen to make reforming American immigration policy a primary focus of his campaign. Central to his plan is the construction of a wall spanning the U.S.-Mexican border. During the fourth Republican primary debate held on November 10, in response to a question from the moderator about his immigration plan, Trump emphatically stated: “[t]he wall will be successful. And if you think walls don’t work all you have to do is ask Israel.”

This was not the first time that Trump cited the separation barrier between Israel and the West Bank as evidence that his wall will succeed in curbing illegal immigration into the United States—at least insofar as immigration from Mexico and Central America are concerned. Indeed, the comparison between the two walls is a frequent refrain as part of Trump’s stump speech on the campaign trail. Given the centrality of Trump’s proposed Mexican border wall to his campaign, closer scrutiny is merited as to his overall understanding of the Israeli wall and his assertion that it has been a “success.”

From the outset, the comparison between the two walls is flawed. In the first place, the border wall that Trump plans to construct, if elected, and the so-called Israeli “wall” serve vastly different purposes: Trump’s wall is intended to deter illegal immigration, whereas in the Israeli case, as Trump perceives it, the purpose of the wall was to save lives by rendering it difficult, if not impossible, for terrorists to continue launching attacks against Israelis from the West Bank. It is worth noting that in the Israeli case the structure itself is technically not a wall, but a hybrid construction project consisting mainly of a chain-link fence bolstered by electronic sensors and tracking paths, interspersed with concrete barriers (comprising only about 10% of the route)[i] in strategically sensitive locations (largely heavily populated urban areas such as Jerusalem, and Qalqilya in the northern West Bank). Thus the term barrier is a more accurate description.[2]

To test the veracity of Trump’s assertion that the Israeli wall is a success and therefore worthy of modelling his proposed U.S.-Mexican border wall on, one must first evaluate the Israeli barrier in terms of its impact on Israeli security when construction began during the second intifada, followed by the long-term implications of the construction.

Has Israel’s separation barrier been a “success”?

In terms of the barrier’s success as an effective element of Israel’s counterterrorism policy, this claim has been somewhat overstated. Proponents of the barrier often defend its construction with a fairly straightforward argument—the wall was built, and soon after, acts of terrorism emanating from the West Bank against Israelis dramatically declined. There is certainly truth to this claim. For instance, according to statistics from Israel’s Foreign Ministry, by 2004—two years after construction began—there was a significant decline in the number of Israeli civilians killed in acts of terrorism.[3] The main impact of the barrier was its success in halting suicide bombings, which at the time were wreaking havoc on Israeli society. However, it was, and continues to be, less effective in preventing other forms of terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians—including sniper attacks, roadside bombs and stabbings.[4] Moreover, as time went on, terrorists studied the barrier and the corresponding security arrangements and adapted their methods. This much has been confirmed by the terrorists themselves. In a 2008 interview with the Qatari publication Al-Sharq, Ramadan Abdallah Shalah, the leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, admitted that the barrier did in fact hinder the PIJ and other terror organizations from carrying out attacks during the second intifada, claiming “We do not deny that it [the barrier] limits the ability of the resistance to arrive deep within [Israeli territory] to carry out suicide bombing attacks, but the resistance has not surrendered or become helpless, and is looking for other ways to cope with the requirements of every stage [of the intifada].”

While it is undeniable that the barrier was successful to a degree, in part even this success is attributed to a variety of other policies implemented by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israeli law enforcement in conjunction with the barrier, including widespread arrests and targeted killing operations.[5] In fact, according to Israel’s domestic security service, the Shin Bet, while terrorist attacks against Israelis emanating from the territories declined significantly by 2005, this result was largely due to factors other than the barrier, namely the truce in the territories, and the improved coordination between the IDF and the Shin Bet. The report noted that by 2005, the terrorists had adapted to the barrier and found ways to bypass it.

In a 2008 article questioning the utility of the separation barrier, former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Arens wrote, “[t]error is coming over and under the fence.” Indeed, Israel’s borders are largely surrounded by some form of physically constructed border—be it a wall or a fence, particularly along the Israeli-Gaza and Israeli-Lebanon borders. Yet, in both cases, despite the existence of a physical barrier and routine surveillance, Israel has endured ongoing terrorist attacks—including aerial assaults in the form of rockets, mortars, Katyushas and other missiles that over time have increased in range and sophistication. In recent years, Israel has also had to confront a new challenge at its borders—the subterranean threat, whereby terrorists including Hamas and Hizballah, two of Israel’s most formidable enemies, have opted to construct elaborate tunnels under the barriers into Israel. Tunnels underneath the Gaza border have already played a significant role in several IDF operations in Gaza—including 2006’s Operation Summer Rains, in response to Hamas’s use of these offensive tunnels to abduct an IDF soldier, and Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014—while the extent of the tunnel threat from Lebanon remains unclear (at least in terms of open-source information), albeit ominous. Thus, purely from the perspective of counterterrorism, the effectiveness of the separation barrier has proven somewhat limited.

Israel’s separation barrier: the less-desirable option

Assessing the long-term effectiveness of the barrier is more complicated, and at first glance one would not suggest the barrier has been a rousing success for Israel. Indeed, while credit can be given to the barrier’s success in assisting the IDF and Israeli law enforcement with thwarting terrorist attacks, the barrier has caused a host of problems for Israel on a diplomatic level, and has contributed to delaying the prospect of a final-status accord.

In his latest book Crippled America Trump writes that: “The Israelis spent $2 million per kilometre to build a wall—which has been hugely successful in stopping terrorists from getting into the country . . . While obviously we don’t face the same level of terrorist threat as our closest Middle East ally, there is no question as to the value of a wall in the fight against terrorism.” This suggests that despite everything we now know about the consequences of Israel’s separation barrier, Trump believes that it should be held up as a model for the effectiveness of a border wall in protecting national security.[6] While Trump is correct in noting that the wall played a role in curbing terrorism aimed at Israel during the second intifada, his understanding of Israel’s security barrier is woefully misguided. Though construction was approved in 2001, the barrier itself was not simply a response to the violence.[7] Rather, the decision to construct the barrier is rooted in a concept that emerged among Israeli policymakers decades ago, that in order to preserve Israel as both a Jewish and a democratic state, so long as the prospect of reaching a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians remains unlikely, Israel may need to take unilateral steps to “separate” from the Palestinians.[8] Hence to a certain degree, the existence of the barrier itself is an “admission of failure.”[9] That “separation” or unilateral steps are suboptimal choices compared with actual resolution of the conflict was even recently noted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In remarks during his recent visit to the U.S., Netanyahu stated that “unilateralism works less well than a negotiated solution.” In the case of Israel’s security barrier, the ramifications of implementing this “suboptimal” step were evident from the start.

Almost as soon as construction began, so too did the public relations campaign against Israel. The barrier provided a new means for galvanizing critics of Israel in their campaign to delegitimize the state. For years the Israeli government has been confronted with accusations, including claims that Israel was in fact constructing an “apartheid wall” and worse, that Israel was “ghettoizing” the Palestinians (as understandably, invoking the Holocaust is always a particularly sensitive allegation against Israel). Critics also asserted that the real purpose of the barrier was not security-related as members of the government claimed, but rather to serve as a “land grab”—a claim bolstered by the fact that the barrier’s route has deviated from the Green Line.[10]

Construction of the barrier also added a new dimension to the ongoing territorial dispute with the Palestinians—the creation of a “seam zone”—a reference to areas trapped between the Green Line and sections where the barrier was built east of the Line. This has further complicated the efforts of Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, and serves as another element that has kept Israel mired in litigation over the past decade—both in Israeli courts and abroad. Moreover, international condemnation of the Israeli separation barrier is not limited to left-wing groups—both the International Court of Justice and the UN General Assembly strongly criticized the barrier on the grounds that Israel could not invoke Article 51 of the UN Charter to justify the construction, and in particular, for the human costs associated with its route.[11]

In addition to the terrible impact the the separation barrier has had on the daily lives of Palestinians living in the West Bank, perhaps the most harmful consequence of the barrier is that it has in fact succeeded in separating Israelis and Palestinians from one another. The ramifications of this are indeed dire, leading to an environment that over time has fostered a lack of empathy with the concerns and struggles of each side, and which arguably has reduced the sense of urgency, particularly among Israelis, to pressure the government to work towards a final-status agreement with their Palestinian interlocutors.

The construction of a fortified boundary between countries is certainly not a new concept: a recent study noted that since 1945, 51 such boundaries have been built, most with the intention of curbing immigration and the activities of clandestine criminal networks. [12] Construction on one such barrier along a 700-mile stretch of the U.S.-Mexican border was authorized by President George W. Bush in 2006. Yet this border wall has failed to adequately deter the cartels from utilizing tunnels and other means to traffic both illegal narcotics and humans across the border. Certainly in the case of immigration, as examples from Ceuta and Melilla, and the U.S.-Mexican border suggest, the availability of options to circumvent a border wall suggests that its usefulness in stemming the flow of illegal immigration may be limited, particularly when such immigration is often a result of dire economic need. In the case of Trump’s proposed immigration reform plan, many of the challenges that Israel and the Palestinians have grappled with since the construction of the separation barrier, in particular the significant humanitarian cost of the barrier to the Palestinians living in the West Bank, do not apply to the U.S.-Mexican border, where there is already a clearly delineated, internationally recognized border—all the more reason why his comparison of the two walls is deeply flawed. And, much like the Israeli case, the construction of a physical border on its own will not adequately address the problem of illegal immigration in the U.S., nor should it be the central element of immigration reform. In terms of ultimately resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and in dealing with the long-standing challenge of immigration reform in the U.S., what is necessary in both cases is a holistic approach that addresses the root causes of the conflicts paired with effective leadership to bring about the desired results. In the meantime, perhaps Trump’s immigration reform plan would be best served if he were to find a more suitable case upon which to base his proposed model for a U.S.-Mexican border wall.

Lauren Mellinger is a doctoral candidate in War Studies at King’s College London and a senior editor of Strife’s blog and journal. Her research specializes in Israeli counterterrorism and foreign policy, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. You can follow her on Twitter @Lauren_M04

Notes:

[1] Joshua L. Gleis and Benedetta Berti, Hezbollah and Hamas: A Comparative Study (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012), p. 179.

[2] Israel’s Security Fence, “Operational Concept,” Israel Ministry of Defense, http://www.securityfence.mod.gov.il/Pages/ENG/operational.htm; Jerry Markon, “Trump says building a U.S.-Mexico wall is ‘easy.’ But is it really?” The Washington Post, July 17, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-on-the-us-mexico-border-building-a-wall-is-easy/2015/07/16/9a619668-2b0c-11e5-bd33-395c05608059_story.html.

[3] See for example Nadav Morag, “Measuring Success in Coping with Terrorism: the Israeli Case,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, vol. 28, no. 4 (2005), p. 307-320.

[4] Daniel Byman, A High Price: The Triumphs & Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 329.

[5] Ibid, p. 333; Ami Pedahzur, The Israeli Secret Services & the Struggle Against Terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), p. 122-124.

[6] Donald J. Trump, Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again (New York: Threshold Editions, 2015).

[7] Hillel Frisch, (The) Fence of Offense? Testing the Effectiveness of “The Fence” in Judea and Samaria, Mideast Security and Policy Studies, No. 75 (The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies), October 2007, p. 11-16.

[8] See for example Dan Schueftan, Korah Ha’hafrada: Yisrael Ve Harashut Ha’Falestinit [Disengagement: Israel and the Palestinian Entity], (Israel: Zmora-Bitan and Haifa University Press, 1999); David Makovsky, A Defensible Fence: Fighting Terror and Enabling a Two-State Solution (Washington, D.C.: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2004), p. 3-10.

[9] David Makovsky, “How to Build a Fence,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 83, no.2, pp. 50-64 (2004), p. 50.

[10] Shlomo Brom, “The Security Fence: Solution or Stumbling Block?” Strategic Assessment, Vol. 6, Issue 4 (2004), p. 7-10.

[11] See for example “Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory: Advisory Opinion”. International Court of Justice. July 9, 2004.

[12] Ron E. Hassner and Jason Wittenberg, “Barriers to Entry: Who Builds Fortified Boundaries and Why?” International Security, Vol. 40, No. 1 (Summer 2015), pp. 157-190.

The ‘Third Intifada’ in historical perspective: the resurgence of the cross-generational Palestinian struggle?

November 3, 2015 by Strife Staff

By: Aurelie Buytaert

Palestinian boy wears a Hamas headband during an anti-Israel rally, in the central Gaza Strip, Oct. 23, 2015. (photo by REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa)

Word of a Third Intifada is spreading in Israel, the Palestinian territories and in medias around the world - relayed by some, denied by others. Politicians and activists have focused regional and global attention on the conflict through this term as it resonates in history, and easily started eclipsing other discourses on the evolution of the conflict. On October 20, Ban-Ki Moon traveled to Jerusalem and spoke of the urgent need of restoring ‘a political horizon’ for the future. For the UN Secretary General, only there resides the hope ‘to overcome today’s despair’. Is the use of the term Intifada useful in analysing the present situation and what is its discursive impact on the hopes for a political horizon? Deconstructing what the label ‘intifada’ has come to convey, this article will argue that comparing today’s surge with the last intifada can expose the continuity in the underlying causes of violence, but that the differences in the agency and leadership today are too important to refer to the violence as an Intifada. Weighing these observations, it will assess if the use of the word intifada today speaks of political hope or only prolongs Palestinian despair.

Intifada’s historical meaning

December 1987. The word Intifada, originating in the Arabic root ‘shake’, ‘shake something’, or yet ‘break free’, is first applied to the Palestinian struggle. Developing through this first uprising, Palestinian remembrance and the Second Intifada, the term’s resonance in Palestine and the world is comparable to few others. It positions itself between Low Intensity Warfare and Ghandi-like civil disobedience,[i] and emerged out of the evolution of the 1987 Intifada, from a largely unarmed rebellion, to an increasingly lethal and armed insurgency in the 2000s. One of the fundamental idea of the Intifada is that of a ‘window of opportunity’,[ii] enabled by young generations of Palestinians; a vehicle for the social reproduction of the principles of Palestinian nationhood, whose (re)occurrence bridges political gaps between generations by bringing young actors to the forefront of Palestinian politics[iii]. Its identification as political warfare through national remembrance endows the term with the power to make martyrs out of individuals and shape a political message out of personal indignation. The rise of suicide Intifada participants, especially in 2000, gave the word an even more powerful resonance in linking the personal to the political by reinforcing the religious dimension of ‘[transforming] potentially senseless death into a redemptive self-sacrifice for the nation’[iv].

Learning from the past: the cross-generational causes of violence

At first glance, one could view the current wave of violence as the start of an Intifada, as it is mirroring the events at the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in September 2000. Both surges in violence have been triggered by the perception that Israel had altered the status quo on the Temple Mount/Haram el-Sharif. In 2000 it was the heavily policed visit to the Temple Mount by the then right-wing opposition leader Ariel Sharon that unleashed a wave of Palestinian upheaval. Today, rumours that the Israeli government desires to alter the status quo arrangement by allowing Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount have inflamed tensions and spurred the current wave of violence, so much so that Israeli Prime Minister had to accept the American backed initiative of installing surveillance cameras to refute the incendiary claim and prove that his government is in fact committed to preserving the status quo arrangement.

But as with the analysis of the underlying causes of the al-Aqsa Intifada[v], understanding the current wave of violence necessitates looking beyond the inflamed rhetoric surrounding Jerusalem’s holy sites, and understanding the deep-rooted issues that have compelled some Palestinians to turn to violence. In 2000 for instance, the most widely acknowledged cause of the uprising was the failure of the Camp David talks[vi], themselves crumbling due to the PLO Chairman Yasir Arafat’s unwillingness to accept Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s politically courageous offers of a territorial compromise. The failure of Camp David should not be considered in a political vacuum though; the Palestinian frustration, ingrained in national and religious sentiments of ownership of Sites in Jerusalem, in the enduring issue of the right of return, poor economic opportunities and in a lack of faith in the peace process, were underpinning high Palestinian politics and laying the grounds for mass uproar[vii]. This retrospective analysis should enlighten the analysis one can make of the grounds for shaking off today, as these Palestinian concerns and frustrations have, rather than been addressed, worsened: in 2013, polls showed that 47% of Palestinians thought a peace agreement would never be reached, 63% thought the right of return was a precondition for peace and unemployment in Gaza was deemed the Global worst in 2015.

The analogy between 2000 and 2015 leads to a two-fold conclusion. First, it highlights the importance of maintaining and monitoring the status quo over the Temple Mount/Haram el-Sharif, as tensions over this Site is a recurrent trigger of violence. But secondly, and most importantly, the analogy displays the intrinsic insufficiency, in preventing the resurgence of violence, of maintaining peace at Jerusalem’s Holy Sites in absence of a genuine peace process. Putting up surveillance cameras on Temple Mount and building additional walls to keep “terrorists” in check will by no means suffice to decrease the underlying causes of violence.

Learning from the past: the evolution of agency and leadership in the violence

Causes of violence in 2015 may reflect those of 2000 but for so much, the insurgency is neither carried out by the same actors, nor directed with the same political purposefulness and organization. During the Second Intifada, the violence spread from the al-Aqsa compound in Jerusalem to the West Bank and Gaza, with a relative degree of organization and the cooperation of the Palestinian Security Forces. Today, acts of violence are carried out by individuals throughout the occupied territories and newly so, in high proportion, from Arab-Israeli (Israeli of Palestinian descent) living in East Jerusalem. These actors, holding Israeli ID Card and falling outside the Palestinian Authority’s jurisdiction, have for the most part not experienced the al-Aqsa Intifada. The Palestinian Security Forces have neither participated in sparking the insurgency, nor have they joined it. Hence, while the Al-Aqsa Intifada started with a large, collective protest and soon held a clear, organized and national political message calling for change in Israeli policy, the lone knife-attackers that have occupied so much of the scene of this year’s violence have acted in isolation and without so much of a specific collective political message on Israeli policies –rather a desperate, suicidal statement of indignation.

But the most profound difference between the last Intifada and the present surge in violence might reside, not in the identity and mind-set of insurgents, but in the associated issue of the declining control of the Palestinian leadership –be they Fatah, Hamas or the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO). In 2000, the uprising was, as many argue, galvanized by Arafat and channeled by the PLO to obtain a better bargaining position in the negotiation process [viii]. Today, it is questionable as to which leader, between Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh or the PLO’s Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, if any, is able to exert control on the violence. An aggravating circumstance to the political rivalry in Palestine is indeed the fact that no elections have been held in almost a decade. Thus far, most of the perpetrators of violence have declared Abbas and the PLO ‘irrelevant’, and few have a distinct allegiance to Hamas. Some commentators point to personal and desperate acts of violence, not to a political and organized Intifada. This historically new kind of Palestinian insurgency, experienced neither in 1987 nor 2000, will likely be of a more volatile nature, becoming a non-negotiable, and even less controllable surge of violence, which would provoke an even more brutal Israeli response.

The use of the word “Intifada” today

The use of the word “intifada” to describe the current situation reflects for the mot part two attitudes: wishful thinking on the part of some elements of the Palestinian society and sympathizers to the Palestinian cause - as the term cloaks the lack of leadership and profound change of the agency’s mind-set - or sensationalism on part of commentators willing to utilize it as a buzz word. Both may aim to convey hope rather than portray despair, but mislead the debate in the mystification of the past rather than using the latter to enlighten the analysis of the realities of 2015.

Looking back on the past exposes that the complexity of the causes of Palestinian indignation renders it either hypocritical or delusional to attempt to solve them if not holistically – that is, by addressing Palestinian concerns much beyond the Holy Sites’ status quo. In this, the Intifada analogy is useful. But if history is to be put to good use, one must admit that today’s acts of violence are not part of a single pattern of uprising, crossing Palestinian generations and communities. The present lack of responsible leadership and the changes in agency of these violence makes of today’s “martyrs” and protesters, rather than brothers in arms in a cross-generational and purposeful Intifada, powerless voices, accessories to the political impasse. As hope for a peace process is already mired in right-wing Israeli politics and in the Palestinian leadership’s shortcomings, observers and parties to the conflict should refrain from loading the present violence with misused historical constructs. Far from creating a ‘window of opportunity’, this only leads the debate towards more inflammatory rhetoric and further away from the much needed hope to create a new political horizon.

[i] Ron Schleifer, Psychological Warfare in the Intifada (UK: Sussex Academic Press, 2006) p.48

[ii] John Collins, Occupied by Memory (New York: NYU Press, 2004) p. I

[iii] Ron Schleifer, Psychological Warfare in the Intifada (UK: Sussex Academic Press, 2006) p.17

[iv] Laleh Khalili, Heroes and Martyrs of Palestine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 140

[v] Aaron Bregman, Israel’s wars: a history since 1947 (London: Routeledge, 2002), p.207

[vi] Noam Chomsky, Middle East Illusions (U.S: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2003

[vii] Jacob Shamir, Khalil Shikaki, Palestinian and Israeli Public Opinion: The Public Imperative in the Second Intifada (USA: Indiana University Press, 2010) p. 61-62

[viii] Benny Morris, Righteous Victims (New York: Vintage Books, 2001) p. 662

Aurelie Buytaert, a Belgian national and Geneva native, is completing her final year of undergraduate studies at King’s War Studies Department, reading International Relations and specializing in the EU ‘s external action. She is European editor at the KCL Politics Society’s Dialogue and has worked with international and national refugee NGOs in both Switzerland and the UK.

The embattled and weary Two-State Solution is still the only game in town

November 2, 2015 by Strife Staff

By: Charles P. Kirchofer

The West Bank barrier near Bethlehem. Photo by Marc Venezia, creative commons license, 2007

With the Oslo Accords all but dead and support for a two-state solution declining among both Israelis and Palestinians, it is tempting to abandon the idea altogether. There is no conceivable alternative, however. The longer two states are not a reality in Israel/Palestine, the worse things will become—especially for Israel.

In a book whose very title accepted that it would be controversial, the Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld argues: ‘History shows that walls, provided people are prepared to do what is necessary to defend them and prevent other people from crossing them, by using lethal force if necessary, work.’ This is controversial because, as the photo above suggests, people tend to associate walls with oppression and, above all, Cold War Berlin. Yet the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, as promulgated by the Oslo Accords signed between Israel and the PLO in the 1990s, implies separation. Given the tensions between Israelis and Palestinians, such a separation would almost certainly involve additional wall and fence building, unless more creative, but unlikely, solutions are found. Wall or not, the Oslo Accords were a reaction to the recognition that the status quo in Israel/Palestine had become untenable. Recent violence shows that the status quo is once again, or more accurately still, untenable. It also shows that the two-state solution is still the only game in town.

The arguments against the two-state solution sometimes come from ideology, but more often from shear exasperation. There was great hope for two states in the 1990s. But as the former head of Israel’s internal security service puts it: ‘There was no good faith. […] We wanted security and we got more terrorism. They wanted a state and got more settlements.’ Gaza is now controlled by a group that Israel, the United States, and most European governments consider to be a terrorist group and that launches rockets on Israeli communities. With this in mind, many Israelis have concluded that ‘land for peace’ does not work. After all, the West Bank is much closer to the bulk of Israel’s population. If a group like Hamas took over there and decided to attack Israelis, their ability to do so would be much greater than it is from Gaza.

Palestinians, meanwhile, hear platitudes about two states but see little change since the 1990s, except for Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza. Furthermore, As Kobi Michael, former Deputy Director and head of the Palestinian desk at Israel’s Ministry for Strategic Affairs points out, many Palestinians have concluded that that withdrawal came about as a result of the violence of the Second Intifada.[1] Some therefore question the wisdom of ‘peace for land’, as little seems to have come from it. Finally, on a purely technical basis, the spread of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the growth in the number of settlers there has made agreeing on borders devilishly difficult.

All of these arguments are true, and yet they are essentially irrelevant without an alternative. The only other possibility would be a one-state solution. This would lead Israel to become either a state with a minority Jewish population, the very situation Israel was founded to avoid, or an apartheid state, with Palestinians as second-class citizens. As difficult as a two-state solution seems, both of those alternatives are worse for Israelis (though arguably not for Palestinians). A binational state with fewer rights for Palestinians would also be unacceptable to Israel’s European and US allies because they could not be seen presiding over a slide to an overtly racist form of government. As US Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman warned in April: If Israel ‘is seen to be stepping back from its commitment to a two-state solution that will make our job in the international arena much tougher… it will be harder for us to prevent internationalizing the conflict’. Israel’s very survival and legitimacy are therefore predicated on an eventual two-state solution.

All is not lost. Israelis and Palestinians have come close to agreement before, including on what is perhaps the most contentious issue: Jerusalem. They came closest in 2000, when US President Clinton presented them with the so-called ‘Clinton Parameters’, which called for the partition of Jerusalem, including its holy sites, between Israelis and Palestinians. Most Israelis do not live in settlements and most (still) support a two-state solution in principle, as is the case with Palestinians. Palestinians’ faith in ‘peace for land’ would increase if they saw progress on gaining sovereignty over more of it. Israelis’ faith in ‘land for peace’ would increase if they saw less violence. Unfortunately, violence is currently riding high, with 11 Israelis and 62 Palestinians killed since September, and shows no sign of abating. Israelis will rightly be concerned that picking up negotiations again now will reward violence.

The time to move would ideally have been during a period of relative calm. Israel is now building a wall to separate two sections of Jerusalem from each other, one Jewish, one Arab. If van Creveld is right and such measures eventually bring down tensions, such a calm could return. Both parties would be wise to seize upon the opportunity to settle the issue once and for all. As hard as it would be all involved, the alternatives are either horrid or the products of wishful thinking. ‘Two states for two peoples’ is the only way.

Charles Kirchofer is finishing up his PhD on Israel’s deterrence policies towards Hamas at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. He can be found on Twitter @CPKirchofer and his blog: www.charles-kirchofer.com

A third Lebanon War?

September 22, 2015 by Strife Staff

By Matthew Williams:

The volatile relationship between Israel and Hizbullah has worsened since early 2015 and has threatened to deteriorate into open war. A Third Lebanon War would have significant repercussions not only for Israel, but for the entire region. Lebanon faces a major crisis: it now contains over 1-1.5 million Syrian and Palestinian refugees; and its neighbour Syria is in the midst of a civil war that has left an estimated 240,000 dead,

Tension is growing between Israel and Hizbullah. This was underlined by the violence between the two parties in January-February 2015, which left two Israeli soldiers dead and threatened to escalate into open war. This tension could be the catalyst for the breakdown of the Lebanese government’s capability to control the civil war already spilling over into Lebanon. This is illustrated by the refugee crisis, the presence of extremist cells like ISIS in Lebanon, and the operations of Hizbullah and the Lebanese government forces against such groups.

While a third war has failed to materialise thus far, a future crisis may await in the Levant; indeed, Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Avigdor Liberman has declared that a third war is ‘inevitable’. From Netanyahu’s perspective, the Arab Spring provoked insecurity across the region and Israel had to respond. The insecurity was brought about by the original phase of protests and upheavals that constituted the Arab Spring, the subsequent deterioration of many of these protests into protracted violent conflicts (as exemplified by Syria), and the rise of Iranian influence and involvement in such civil wars across the region. From the outset Netenyahu’s response has been to consolidate Israel’s control over the West Bank by expanding settlements, increasing military spending, strongly condemning Iranian involvement in these various conflicts, and reinforcing ‘the bunker mentality of Israel’s right-wing government’[1] in what has become an unpredictable regional environment.

However, the Knesset has endured a difficult year in 2015, calling into question the sustainability of this strategy. The Iranian nuclear deal has left Israel’s coalition government exposed to heavy criticism, with both parties from the left and the right describing the deal as a major foreign policy disaster. Politicians across the political spectrum fear that Netanyahu’s coarse diplomatic approach to the matter has not only produced a foreign policy disaster for Israel, but also damaged relations with the Obama administration through heavy-handed criticism.

The potential removal of sanctions on Iran, a key sponsor of Hizbullah, will be a significant cause for concern amongst the Israeli security services, as the lifting of embargoes on conventional arms will be perceived as an opportunity to strengthen Hizbullah both financially and militarily. Sources close to the organisation have argued that ‘additional Iranian support would not come in the form of weaponry, but rather in the form of institutional resources — schools, hospitals and roads — increasing local support, while propping up Shiite militias and regime forces in neighbouring Syria.’[2]

However, the implications of the Iranian nuclear deal, while important in changing the future dynamics of the Hizbullah-Israeli conflict, serves to distract attention from the way that Hizbullah has established a degree of parity with the Israeli military that was absent in the 2006 Lebanon war.

According to Jeffrey White, Hizbullah has unilaterally expanded its missile capabilities alongside significant innovations in its defensive layout in southern Lebanon, while their military support for Bashar al-Assad has meant that the group has gained considerable potential in offensive strategy.[3] Israeli intelligence has estimated that Hizbullah ‘would likely…sustain fire of around a thousand rockets and missiles per day, dwarfing the approximate daily rate of 118 achieved in 2006.’[4] Such an increase in military power means that in the event of an attack major damage would be dealt to Israeli civil and military infrastructure, as well as the killing of scores of Israeli civilians.

Covert Iranian support for Hizbullah, while prevalent, has been over-emphasized by Western media. According to Uzi Rubin, it was ‘Syrian rockets (that) played the major role in the Second Lebanon war (2006), while Iranian rockets were practically absent from it’ and ‘few if any Iranian rockets hit Israel throughout the entire (2006) campaign.’[5] Whether or not Iran covertly supports Hizbullah or not in the next war will not determine the group’s capacity to do formidable damage to Israel.

An ill-timed military campaign designed to weaken Hizbullah, while considered legitimate to the hawkish Israeli government, will provide more problems than solutions for Israeli security, as well as increasing problems for its European allies, and further destabilizing the wider region. The conflict would exacerbate the humanitarian crisis in the Middle East and Europe and present Western leaders with yet another war in the Middle East to navigate.

The Lebanese government and Hizbullah are already struggling to provide for a huge number of refugees, which has produced a major socio-economic and humanitarian crisis in Lebanon. This is not an entirely new phenomenon. The Palestinians and its refugee population have, historically, had a difficult relationship with the Lebanese population. But the Syrian refugees provide a new and unpredictable dynamic to this relationship between local and refugee populations.

If Lebanese civil and military infrastructure and its civilians are treated in an indiscriminate manner by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) in the pursuit of Hizbullah, it will create a new humanitarian crisis by displacing thousands of Lebanese civilians while undermining governmental capacity to provide for its Palestinian and Syrian refugee populations. In the second Lebanon War (2006) the IDF severely damaged Lebanese civil infrastructure and displaced 900,000 Lebanese civilians, as well as killing over one thousand.[6]

A war now would have far greater impact, making these statistics pale by comparison. Not only is the regional context significantly less stable than it was in 2006, but there is also a more belligerent government in power in Isreal. Netanyahu’s coalition is drifting towards an open embrace of ethno-religious nationalism. It continues to introduce increasingly discriminatory policies against Israeli Arabs and Palestinians, and perseveres in its use of draconian military tactics, many of which have invited international condemnation.

In the second Lebanon War, according to Human Rights Watch, ‘94 attacks show that Israel often, even though not deliberately attacking civilians, did not distinguish between military objectives and civilians or civilian objects.’ The heavy casualties and critical damage resulting from these attacks illustrated ‘the failure of the IDF to take adequate safeguards to prevent civilian casualties’ in the fight against Hamas during the 2014 Gaza War, the IDF obliterated entire areas of the Gaza Strip, much of which remains in ruins, leaving thousands of Palestinians homeless and dependent on a trickle of humanitarian aid. This seems to demonstrate that the IDF has barely changed its military conduct.

Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian refugees will be caught in the cross-fire and thousands will be forced to flee. These refugees would struggle to enter Israel - Netanyahu has reaffirmed the Knesset’s policy of zero tolerance on providing asylum for refugees, who he contends will destabilise the geographic and demographic integrity of Israel. The alternative for these refugees fleeing a third Israeli-Lebanon war is Assad or ISIS, an unrealistic alternative that may force thousands to flood to Turkey, Jordan or to Europe. This will exacerbate the ongoing migrant/refugee crisis there and further destabilise a the fragile Balkan countries.

A third Lebanon War would additionally increase Israeli isolation while providing an opportunity for ultra-violent extremist splinter groups affiliated with Islamic State and radical jihadist cells to strengthen their position in a disordered eastern Lebanon. Eastern Lebanon remains fiercely contested by Lebanese Armed Forces and Hizbullah fighting against insurgents associated with ISIS who have been pushed into Lebanon by the Syrian military.

These are plausible scenarios as Israel’s stature in the international community continues to slide, as typified by the wide-spread international condemnation of the brutal Gaza War, Netanyahu’s souring relationship with Barack Obama, and the anti-Arab rhetoric he used against Israeli Arabs to swing the March elections in Likud’s favour.

Is the war inevitable? As Ari Shavit notes, a balance in military deterrents could prevent an escalation. However the precarious January crisis proved that small incidents can escalate into open hostility (the second Lebanon war was an even graver example). Amidst the unpredictability of the radically changing Middle East and the unprecedented changes occurring in Israeli society and politics, conventional military deterrents may not be enough in the long-term.

The remaining solution is for Israel to reform its diplomatic approach in the region and with the international community, and for Western policymakers to make serious efforts to reach out to the new (and legitimate) and conventional regimes in the Middle East. This could prove decisive in preventing an escalation in hostilities and mediating a swift ceasefire between the two parties should conflict break out, meaning that impact of the war upon Lebanon and Israel would be limited.

The Arab-Israeli conflict dynamic remains a dangerous blind-spot in the current Middle Eastern crisis that cannot be neglected. For Israel, a protracted war with Hizbullah would not only be a costly military confrontation, it would also further damage Israel’s standing amongst its western allies. These allies suspect that Netanyahu’s unilateral attempts to secure national security will trigger a destabilising conflict between Israel, Lebanon and Hizbullah, thereby undermining one of the West’s wider strategic objectives in the Middle East: the containment of the regional violence and instability.

Future military and diplomatic hostilities between Israel and Hizbullah are inevitable. What is crucial is how Israeli politicians, Western policymakers, and Hizbullah’s leadership contain this rivalry to limited and intermittent confrontations. This will decide whether or not the conflict will ignite a regional inferno.

Matthew Williams recently completed his MA in Conflict, Security and Development in the Department of War Studies and King’s College London. You can follow him on Twitter @Matthew431 or view his personal website www.archivesofconflict.wordpress.com/

[1] Muriel, Ausseberg, “The Arab Spring and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A Vicious Cycle of Mutually Reinforcing Negative Repercussions,” in An Arab Springboard for EU Foreign Policy eds. Sven Biscop, Rosa Balfour and Michael Emerson (The Royal Institute for International Relations): 86.

[2] Alessandra, Masi, “Will A Nuclear Deal With Iran Strengthen American Enemies Across The Region?,” The International Business Times, July 14th, 2015, accessed September 18th, 2015, http://www.ibtimes.com/will-nuclear-deal-iran-strengthen-american-enemies-across-region-2008602.

[3] “A War Like No Other: Israel vs. Hezbollah in 2015,” last modified 29 January 2015, accessed September 14, 2015, http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/a-war-like-no-other-israel-vs.-hezbollah-in-2015.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Uzi, Rubin, “The Rocket Campaign against Israel during the 2006 Lebanon War,” The Begin-Sada Center for Strategic Studies, 71 (2007): 6-7.

[6] “Israel accused over Lebanon war,” last modified September 6, 2007, accessed September 14, 2015, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6981557.stm.

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