The year we didn't end terrorism (or evacuate outposts)
By Amos Harel
Haaretz, January 22, 2004
This was the year in which the IDF learned to recognize the limits of its power. Dreams of a decisive victory in the conflict with the Palestinians, or at least of leaving some lasting impression on its rival, have been replaced by a sober understanding that the conflict will continue for a long time, and that all that Israel can do is to focus on finding ways to conduct it with a minimum of damage and casualties.
Lieutenant General Moshe Ya'alon had a great plan. For a brief moment, last June and July, it even seemed to be working. The successes of the IDF and the Shin Bet security services in fighting terrorism, the attacks on senior members of Hamas, the strong military pressure on the Palestinian Authority, American (and even European) support for Israel's accusations against PA Chairman Yasser Arafat, the swift and crushing victory of the United States over the Iraqi army - all these were supposed to, according to Ya'alon, bring about a real internal change in the PA.
The Israelis and the Palestinians would adopt the Bush administration's "road map," the PA would achieve a temporary cease-fire with the terrorist organizations, and Arafat would leave the stage, or at least would retreat to the wings, in order to make way for a successor, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). The new prime minister of the PA, whose objections to terrorism and violence are well known, would restrain the suicide attacks and perhaps at a later stage, with the help of his determined adviser Mohammed Dahlan, would even confront the organizations head on, just as Arafat did in the spring of 1996.
Ya'alon hoped that the plan would work out, although he was aware of the difficulties and took into account the possibility of failure. The hopes did in fact collapse with a bang, within less than two months, with the murderous attack on Bus No. 2 in Jerusalem, which was transporting ultra-Orthodox worshipers on their way back from the Western Wall. Israel blamed Hamas and of course Arafat, who continually placed obstacles in the way of his chosen prime minister.
But there was also a substantial Israeli contribution to the deterioration: Whereas in the Gaza Strip the agreement was strictly enforced, in the West Bank the campaign of arrests, which sometimes led to the killing of the wanted terrorists, continued. There was little easing of restrictions on movement and on economic activities, while the limited release of prisoners was seen as a deliberate insult to Abbas. As for the outposts, even in January 2004 there are still more headlines on this issue than there are about actual evacuations.
Ya'alon, says an officer who is close to him, pinned high hopes - too high - on the hudna (temporary cease-fire) and on Abbas. When these failed, and Arafat's crony Ahmed Qureia (Abu Ala) was appointed prime minister, there was growing frustration in the top IDF echelons. The bitterness reached dimensions that haven't been seen since the 1982 Lebanon War and the first intifada.
The IDF General Staff believed that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his ministers had missed one opportunity after another. At least twice, after Operation Defensive Shield in April 2002, and during the hudna last June, the IDF and the Shin Bet provided a "window of opportunity" to the politicians, when they lowered the level of terrorism to a minimum that was almost bearable. But in both cases, the opportunity was not exploited for a political process with the PA and the Americans, which could have provided a longer period of quiet.
Ya'alon expressed his frustration when he attacked the decision to continue with the prolonged encirclement of the West Bank cities despite the warnings by the army about a "humanitarian tragedy" there, and was publicly attacked by Sharon's associates and by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz. The chief of staff, in his criticism, exacerbated the public debate in Israel concerning the government's policy, but the IDF was also on the receiving end of some of the criticism. From the left of the political map, barbs were directed at the army, which is involved in the work of occupation in the territories.
The generals reacted on a whining note, that included criticism of society, which is not capable of formulating a consensus about its goals, talk about the IDF as a punching bag, and even a comparison of the IDF to a billiard ball which is knocked from side to side by forces stronger than it.
The image of the chief of staff suffered as well. The main reason for this was his rash declarations. The most famous of them, "We have won," was in fact taken out of context. After two weeks of hudna, Ya'alon spoke in the spirit of the American general who recommended to President Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam War: Let's just say we won - and get out. The full statement of the chief of staff recommended that both sides claim victory and go on from there.
But the weakening of his status was also a result of a series of appointments in the General Staff, some of them puzzling. A year and a half into his term, it is still not clear whether the General Staff belongs to Ya'alon or to Mofaz. The relations between the chief of staff and his predecessor in the job, who recommended him as his successor and later, in an accelerated move, became the minister responsible for him, have deteriorated into serious tension. All these things resulted in uncomplimentary (and inaccurate) comparisons with Dan ("There is no military solution") Shomron, chief of staff during the first intifada. During the past month, Ya'alon has been making a great effort to change his image, including making changes in his staff. But it may be too late.
But most important is what has happened to the IDF as a whole. Operational failures in the West Bank village of Ein Yabrud and in the Gaza Strip settlement of Netzarim (in both cases, IDF soldiers were ambushed by Palestinians) exposed the impossibility of providing constant protection in a sector with long lines of contact, which lack all logic. After the attack in Netzarim, a father forbade his daughter, a soldier, to serve in the isolated settlement, and the IDF gave in and posted the daughter somewhere else.
The letters of those who refuse to serve, the pilots and members of the Sayeret Matkal elite commando unit, were not really an authentic reflection of the difficulties of those who really bear the burden of fighting in the territories, but they made enough noise to make the discussion of details of negligible importance. In addition to all these came the shooting incident in which Israeli demonstrator Gil Na'amati was injured at the separation fence (and nobody was surprised that an organization of anarchists, of all people, complained to the IDF about disobeying laws). On the right side of the map, face-to-face battles are still expected (without weapons for the time being) with the residents of the outposts.
The army will be required to carry out these assignments with a reduced security budget at its disposal. The General Staff suffered a knockout during the first round of the battle over the budget. In hindsight, it is possible that the defeat - a result of Ya'alon's political amateurism and the deliberate abstention from intervention on the part of Mofaz - will actually work to the benefit of the army. The final result was so unreasonable that even the Finance Ministry is now willing to consider an addition to the budget.
But one change is nevertheless taking place: the separation fence that is being built. Despite the fact that its route has deviated greatly from the original intentions (here too, the army didn't insist on getting its own way when faced with the whims of the politicians), it determines a new reality, both in the economic link between Israeli and Palestinian society, and by placing an obstacle to terror that is difficult to cross. Sharon's disengagement policy, on the other hand, looks at this stage like a promise that is far from being realized: A month after Sharon's Herzliya speech, no serious staff work has begun in the IDF.
The lack of political activity is arousing a suspicion in the IDF that there will be a prolonged period of stagnation, whose price will be paid by the army. "All of us, graduates of the fighting in southern Lebanon," said the commander of one of the sectors in the territories this week, "have been branded by the trauma of the loss of legitimization by Israeli society. In the last years of the security zone [in Lebanon], we felt that we had beaten Hezbollah in the tactical battle on the ground, but lost in public opinion, which was pressing for withdrawal. I'm very concerned about the fact that this is what is also liable to happen to us in the fourth year of the conflict in the territories.
