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Last update - 03:01 06/01/2005
People and Politics / A new security horizon
By
Akiva Eldar
Presumably, it was the first time that the waiters at the Carlton Hotel in
Nahariya had seen guests from Tel Aviv sharing a table with tourists from
Gaza. One of them evidently noticed General Ribhi Arafat (no relation to
Yasser Arafat), the head of the Palestinian security coordination service.
Or maybe someone spotted Brigadier General (res.) Shalom Harari or
Lieutenant Colonel (res.) Yohanan Tzoref of the Interdisciplinary Center
in Herzliya, two former advisers on Arab affairs to the military
government in the territories who occasionally appear on television as
analysts.
The following day, the Israeli Arabic-language newspaper, A-Sinara,
reported that in preparation for the disengagement from Gaza, Israel and
the Palestinian Authority had secretly renewed security coordination. The
report drew local reporters to the hotel, and nearly scared away the
Palestinians. The Israeli representatives on the security team of
IPCRI (the Israel/Palestine Center for
Research and Information) managed to convince them after much
effort that they had not leaked the information. Nevertheless, Lieutenant
Colonel (res.) Dr. Kobi Michael, co-director of IPCRI's strategic affairs
unit, recollects that the report of their presence at the meeting drove
the Palestinians, all of whom belonged to PA security services, to stake
out more extreme positions.
"Apparently they were afraid of the reception back home," said Michael,
who once headed the Israeli-Palestinian security coordination service and
the joint patrol mechanism, and coordinated the secret talks for the
drafting of a joint proposal "for the renewal of the security coordination
in stages, and the active involvement of a third party."
The talks took place intermittently from February 2004 until the end of
the year, at which point they ended with a concluding document that was
released after Arafat's death.
Although Yasser Arafat approved the participation of his underlings in the
sessions, and insisted on receiving a report on every meeting, at a time
when the Israel Defense Forces is going in and out of Gaza and Nablus,
revelations of group weekends spent at a Galilee hotel together with
Israeli security experts are not necessarily conducive to the health and
well-being of the Palestinian participants.
The discussions showed traces of the skepticism and tension that exist
between the Palestine Liberation Organization in Tunis, which fears any
loss of its power, and the local forces, which wish to correct the
distortions of Oslo. Kobi Michael believes that deep down, the
Palestinians were convinced that the members of the Israeli group, which
included Ron Shatzberg (a reserve battalion commander) and Udi Mizrahi (a
former military governor of Bethlehem), were official representatives of
the government.
The most irritating aspect
The report that the security document - based on a series of four sessions
in Nahariya, Tiberias and Haifa, and on brief discussions held in
Jerusalem - was presented to senior political, military and diplomatic
figures will no doubt confirm their suspicions.
Gershon Baskin and Khaled Duzdar, the co-directors of IPCRI, related that
they presented the document, as well as another proposal (for a border
regime in the Gaza Strip), to high-ranking officials in the Prime
Minister's Office, the National Security Council, Military Intelligence
and the army's Planning Directorate. U.S. and British diplomats, as well
as Egyptian security officials, also received a comprehensive summary from
the authors. Moreover, other working groups of the organization, which
have in the past year discussed economic issues, water problems and other
matters that are not "security proper," took part along with businessmen,
academics, representatives of government ministries and officers from the
coordinator of activities in the territories.
Dr. Michael relates with satisfaction that the document received the
blessings of Mohammed Dahlan and Jibril Rajoub and was adopted by Abu
Mazen's advisory staff. Michael says that they shared the feeling that "we
are totally missing one another," as well as the decision that was reached
last February, a few weeks after the Herzliya speech in which Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon revealed his disengagement plan, to open the secret
security channel.
"We reached the conclusion that although the disengagement plan
necessitates reference to many and varied issues such as border
arrangements, economic development, rehabilitation of physical and social
infrastructures, freedom of movement, and more, indeed the main parameter
and the most bothersome, is the security domain," he said. "Without
reducing the violence, with the hope of ending it entirely, and without an
improvement in the sense of security of both Israelis and Palestinians,
there is no hope and no hope for all the other issues [or] for creating
the conditions for leveraging the disengagement toward the renewal of a
political process."
The retired Israeli officers and the Palestinian officers in active
service, some of whom knew each other back in the (relatively) good days
before the second intifada, concurred that "the willingness of the parties
to join forces and efforts" is the "most vital condition for lowering the
level of violence and improving the security environment."
Nevertheless, while the Palestinian officers clung to fond memories of the
joint military patrols, Michael shared his own bitter conclusions drawn
from the incidents that broke out between the two components of the
patrols. After an argument, it was agreed that the deep crisis of
confidence, terror attacks and IDF raids deep into the Gaza Strip draw the
sides into "an intensification of the trend of spiraling violence and the
Catch 22 of action and reaction."
The report continued: "The confidence crisis and the bad blood between
Israelis and Palestinians distort any possibility of the parties to
cooperate in any way without external assistance and without real
international guarantees through which there might be sufficient
incentives to adopt what is needed to advance the process."
Joint Operations Room
From that point, each side presented its position and its detailed
proposal. The IPCRI representatives mapped out the consensual areas,
bridged the gaps, and eventually formulated a document that is largely
based on elements that seemed reasonable to both the Israelis and
Palestinians. Kobi Michael comments that, as usual, the main difficulty
had to do with the desire of the Palestinians to first determine the
principles (full withdrawal, control of borders, etc.), while the Israelis
prefer to push off the pitfalls to the permanent settlement stage and to
agree on the details. Among the items that were eventually discussed was
the future of the settlements slated for evacuation.
At the same time as the settlers were threatening civil disobedience
against the government of Israel and the IDF during the withdrawal,
Palestinian security officials and retired Israeli officers were
discussing the fate of their homes. The guests from Gaza made it clear
that they harbored no desire for the Israeli villas. In light of concerns
regarding street battles between rival groups that would attempt to gain
control of the abandoned property, coupled with the desire to build
multistory buildings to house refugees, they asked that Sharon see fit to
leave them the infrastructure and send in his bulldozers to level the
ground.
The model is based on a consortium of three main partners: The U.S.,
Britain and Egypt, "the three main actors - well known for their
experience in the area of military and intelligence relevancy for this
mission - they are thought of as having regional and international
influence" and each of them enjoys the trust of at least one of the
parties to the conflict.
"The source of authority for the activities of the Security Consortium
will be the Coordination Board, whose make-up will be determined by
agreement of the parties," states the report. "This body will be the
authorized factor in guiding the work of the Joint Operations Room (JOR).
The JOR will receive periodic and special reports and will be the source
of authority in cases of disputes between the parties regarding the
interpretation of sections of the agreement or regarding the assessment
criteria for successful and correct implementation of the tasks that each
side will be obligated to implement. It is possible to consider the modus
operandi of the MFO in Sinai as a model that was endorsed by the UN
Security Council."
Baskin and Duzdar explain that the proposed model is intended to minimize
the danger of a rearming of the landmines of the Oslo accord, which let
each of the sides deal with incidents that occurred as they saw fit,
without mechanisms for investigation of complaints, reducing tensions,
impeding reactions or drawing conclusions. They assert that their model is
resistant to the special interests of Israeli politicians, who tend to
enlist every security incident, in the best case, for purposes of
propaganda and debate, and in the worst case, as an excuse for another
liquidation operation.
Conversely, the proposed mechanism requires the Palestinians to provide
reliable information on plans to carry out acts of terrorism and to offer
real answers in cases where the alert is not received in time.
The model is built upon "Redeployment of Palestinian forces parallelly in
the north of the Gaza Strip and in the south, and then, in the second
phase, in the Khan Yunis - Gaza center area, in preparation for the
Israeli disengagement."
The document elaborates: "Renewal of security coordination in the north
and south necessitates measured and controlled steps, while
institutionalizing a set of criteria for assessing the success of a
monitoring mechanism, control and reporting to the accepted source of
authority for both parties. Attempts to renew wider-ranging security
coordination may turn out to be an overly ambitious step whose resounding
failure may remove from the foreseeable agenda any future similar
possibility."
The document suggests encouraging the Palestinian willingness to "act in
the security domain, through the expansion of international involvement in
the rehabilitation of the infrastructures and the economy in the Gaza
Strip and through the reopening of the Gaza International Airport."
International terminal administration
Operation of the airport and the other ports of entry was the subject of
discussion in another IPCRI working group, which also drafted a final
document. The two parties to the document concur that given the crisis of
trust between the sides, "the active involvement of a third party" is
required. "The third party will be any international party whose
composition and authorities and roles are agreed to by the sides."
The main roles of this international task force would be aiding in the
establishment of the industrial zones and development of the border
crossings, along with assistance in the ongoing operation and "mentoring
and training of the Palestinian side toward assuming responsibility for
operation of these zones;" "monitoring and supervision of the Palestinian
security screening procedures, according to the security protocol that
will be agreed between the sides;" "assistance and facilitating in
developing the coordination mechanisms between the Israeli and Palestinian
sides while restoring trust between the sides."
To that end, an international terminal administration would be created,
"to coordinate and operate at the various terminals." The administration
would include Israeli and Palestinian liaison officers.
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