The second intifada - an Israeli strategy

Israel & Palestine Forum

The second intifada - an Israeli strategy

By Khalid Amayreh in the West Bank

Sunday 04 July 2004, 16:37 Makka Time, 13:37 GMT

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/rdonlyres/87D4881F-F9B4-4DA3-961A-2F058DED9663/42055/B4E34082710A4ACC902D5966379A1D42.jpg
Ariel Sharon sparked the uprising by entering al-Aqsa mosque

Israel's hawkish Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon last week lashed out at the Knesset's influential committee on defence and foreign affairs, accusing some members of disclosing "classified army secrets".

Ya'alon scolded the committee for revealing that the Israeli occupation army effectively provoked the Palestinians into escalating the violence during the first few months of the second intifada in order to give the army a pretext to hit hard on the Palestinian society and bully it into unconditional surrender.

Earlier, an acrimonious debate ensued between Israel's current military chief, Amos Gilaad, and the former chief, Amos Malka, who held conflicting assessments of Palestinian intentions on the eve of the outbreak of the uprising in September 2000.

Malka, in an interview with the Israeli paper Ha'aretz on 14 June, revealed that during the first few days of the intifada, Israeli occupation soldiers fired 1,300,000 bullets on Palestinian population centres and other targets.

This massive firepower, which had no operational justification given the Palestinians' inherently inferior firepower (they possessed only light firearms and in limited numbers), showed that the Israeli army was interested more in decimating and harming the Palestinians and less in ending the violence.

Incitement

According to Israeli sources, then-Chief of Staff and now Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz didn't plan to bring about the end of the conflict.

Instead, he thought he had finally seized the opportunity to "beat and vanquish" the Palestinians in order to "burn into their consciousness" and make them "internalise their weakness and inferiority vis-a-vis Israel's strength".

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/rdonlyres/87D4881F-F9B4-4DA3-961A-2F058DED9663/42056/379FFCA298BD4556895AFAC59F1CB377.jpg
Shaul Mofaz (L) is seen as trying to exhaust the Palestinians

Mofaz's ultimate aim, of which he later convinced Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, was to hector Palestinians into negotiations in a weakened and exhausted state whereby they would have no choice but to accept Israel's dictates and demands.

The new revelations, Palestinian officials argue, prove that the escalation of violence during the first few months of the intifada was, first and foremost, Israel's responsibility.

"This is what we have been saying all along that this is not about Israeli security but rather about Israel's terrorising the Palestinian people for the purpose of arrogating their land and rights. Israel is now admitting that," said Michael Tarazi, adviser to Palestinian Authority leader Yasir Arafat.

"The question is what the international community is going to do about it."

Human bombers

He told Aljazeera.net that Israel was responsible for the escalation of violence, including the appearance of the human bomber phenomenon.

"From the very inception, the Israeli army goal was to bully the Palestinians into submission and coerce them into signing any piece of paper Israel would throw on to them. It was as simple as that."

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/rdonlyres/87D4881F-F9B4-4DA3-961A-2F058DED9663/42057/DF4B8E2A8C0943F88D8126E4F7E4668A.jpg
Human bombings were seen as a last resort strategy

Tarazi, a US-trained lawyer, suggested that Israel's exaggerated violence against Palestinians effectively made the appearance of the bombing phenomenon inevitable.

This assessment is accepted by at least some Israeli commentators, who have pointed out that in the first three months of the intifada.

On 29 June, for example, Reuven Pedatzur wrote in Ha'aretz that the number of Israeli casualties was so low that the army proudly cited the disproportionately large number Palestinians killed and maimed by Israeli forces as evidence "of the military victory and correctness of the policy of massive use of force".

Little choice

Two years ago, former Hamas Gaza leader, Abd al-Aziz Rantisi, who was assassinated by Israel in April, justified human bombings against Israel saying they were the "weapons of the last resort".

"Israel is offering us two choices, either to die a meek lamb's death at the slaughter house or as martyr-bombers," he used to tell foreign reporters, defending the phenomenon which claimed the lives of hundreds of Israeli soldiers, settlers and civilians.

Israel eventually manipulated the graphic images of such bombings to vilify the Palestinian resistance movement, overlooking the much superior and deadlier Israeli violence meted out to the Palestinians.

That violence, or state terror as many around the world including Israel itself call it, effectively pushed the Palestinians to the edge.

Strategy of violence

This is the view of Elan Pappie, professor of political science at Haifa University.

He told Aljazeera.net that Israel's "harsh and criminal" response to the Palestinian uprising was "deliberate and calculated".

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/rdonlyres/87D4881F-F9B4-4DA3-961A-2F058DED9663/42058/0B2FF9BAB5C84891ABB3E0A33ECB69D3.jpg
The Palestinians did not take up Ehud Barak's Camp David offer

"Barak [former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] offered the Palestinians a take-it or leave-it deal at Camp David. The Palestinians didn't take it, and the Israeli response was: If you don't accept our offer, you are going to get crushed and severely punished. This explains the Israeli army brutality and ruthlessness since September 2000."

Pappie concurred with Tarazi that the Palestinians would have preferred a low-combustion intifada with as little violence and bloodshed as possible had it not been for Israel's harsh response.

"The Palestinians did try to conduct the Aqsa Intifada along the lines of the former intifada (1987-92). But the Israeli army left them no choice but to react to the much deadlier and superior Israeli violence."

Pappie believes that the Israeli army was more interested in "imposing the fait accompli" on the Palestinians than in restoring calm for the possible resumption of negotiations.

"The army view was like this: we are powerful, they are weak, therefore, we must be allowed to crush them and impose Israeli will on them, unfortunately, the government adopted this view."

Above politics

A spokesman for the Israeli army refused to answer questions on whether Israel has been deceiving the world by claiming that its repression of Palestinians is in response to Palestinian violence, not in fulfilment of a well thought out plan aimed at bringing Palestinian society to its knees.

However, Mohammed Barakeh, an Arab member of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, has no doubt that this is exactly what Israel has been doing.

He told Aljzeera.net that the Israeli military establishment viewed itself as above everybody else, including the parliament.

"The army doesn't want to be answerable to the parliament. Ya'alon wants to shut our mouths and prevent us from criticising the army."

Barakeh agreed that Israeli "military crimes" against the Palestinians was responsible for the continuation and escalation of violence inevitable.

"Israel sought to and almost succeeded in convincing the world that its violent onslaught against the Palestinian society was in reaction to Palestinian terror. This simplified and erroneous claim ignores the simple fact that Israel's violent and racist occupation of the Palestinian homeland is the root cause of all violence."

"You just can't remove the effect without removing the cause first. When the occupation ends, so will the violence and the resistance."

Al'Jazeera

Great Read

Yes, a great read. Too bad its pure fiction.

The first thing I noticed was that the article does not quote Mr. Ya'alon. Instead, it purports to paraphrase what he said. I've done some checking and I cannot find this story anywhere but Al-Jazeera. However, what I can find are repeated references in the Israeli and international press to an incident last week where Ya'alon blasted the Foreign Affairs/Defense Committee for
revealing military secrets pertaining to Israel's stance on the Iraq war. Ya'alon's remarks had nothing whatsoever to do with the Palestinians.

Many articles in Haaretz and other publications about the incident. Samples:

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/445299.html
http://www.unitedjerusalem.org/index2.asp?id=458351

The article goes on to the following subject:

"Earlier, an acrimonious debate ensued between Israel's current military chief, Amos Gilaad, and the former chief, Amos Malka, who held conflicting assessments of Palestinian intentions on the eve of the outbreak of the uprising in September 2000."

First of all, neither Gilaad nor Malka are or were Israel's "military chief." The military chief is the aforementioned Mr. Ya'alon. Malka was the head of Israel's military intelligence, and Gilaad was his subordinate. Doesn't Al Jazeera have fact checkers on its staff?

Yes, Malka does apparently believe that Israel has used too much force and is exacerbating the situation. I share his opinion. He does not, however, place responsibility for the start of the Intifada on Israel.

Incidentally, the dispute between Malka and Gilaad is discussed in another thread here started by AZ.

Then we get THIS:

"According to Israeli sources, then-Chief of Staff and now Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz didn't plan to bring about the end of the conflict."

According to "Israeli sources?" Who are these sources? Are they in the government? Do they know Mofaz?

Then we get to a series of statements about Israeli conduct, which if you look closely are not statements made by Israelis, but the opinions of an Arafat military advisor.

Then we get to statements made by Al-Jazeera's "Israeli source," Elan Pappe, a radical anti-zionist author who has no connection to the Israeli government and no clue about private discussions among Israeli officials. He's offering an opinion, not fact. I am guessing that Pappe is the "Israeli source" misleadingly referred to earlier, as if to suggest that someone close to Mofaz had said this about Mofaz.

Finally, the article gets to describing the views of an Arab member of the Knesset, whose views have been known for some time and are often publically made.

The whole article is a mishmash of partial statements made by Israelis mixed with the opinions (or fabrications) of an Al Jazeera reporter.

A great read though, as you say.

- woolfe

Hmmm, good job, I will email Al'Jazeera and ask them about it.

Ok Woolfe, i sent my feedback, lets wish for a response.

Al'Jazeera Responded -

I relied mainly on Israeli sources, including Ha'aretz. I read the paper on
a daily basis. Ya'alon also blasted the committee for revealing that the
army fired 1300,000 bulets in the first few days of the Intifada.

For example, see the article I cited on 14 June.

Would help if he told us which other Israeli sources he used.

I'm surprised you got a response. Good job.

Yes it was clear that he relied on Israeli sources, including Ha-aretz. AFAIK, Al Jazeera doesn't have an office in Israel (I could be wrong on this, you might check). When it comments on Israeli political matters, it has to use the Israeli press. The problem here, as you can see, is that the Ha'aretz articles relied upon say nothing close to what this article says.

What the author of this article did was to take bits and pieces of information from articles in the Israeli press and splice things together into a melange of distortions and inaccuracies. I have now traced where he got everything from.

First of all, in Al-Jazeera's e-mail to you, they stated another inaccuracy. The 1,300,000 bullet issue did not come from Ya'alon or his blasting of the Foreign Affairs/Defense committee. It came from a statement made by Malka, the military intelligence chief, several weeks ago. The article mentions that, so I am surprised that Al Jazeera is telling you that it had something to do with the Ya'alon issue. In any event, Ya'alon's comments had to do with Iraq, not the Palestinians, and I have seen nothing in the Israeli press to the contrary.

More importantly, I found out who the "Israeli sources" that are offering the opinion that defense minister Mofaz wants to beat the Arabs into submission. I said that I suspected the "sources" were pro-Palestinian Israelis who had no connection to the government. I was correct. The source is an editorial by Reuven Pedatzur who is a radical leftist freelance writer, not a staff writer for Ha-aretz, and certainly not a government official. Al Jazeera here is citing Pedatzur's *opinion* of Mofaz, which opinion is not based upon quotation. It's just how Pedatzur views Mofaz. Why not mention that Pedatzur is the source? The author here is not protecting a confidential source. Pedatzur's articles are all over the Web. Because it's better to leave the source mysterious so that reader thinks it's a government source, rather than that of a staunchly pro-Palestinian editorialist.

I have no problem with Al Jazeera mentioning that there are pro-Palestinian Israelis and quoting them. I do have a problem confusing facts with editorial opinions, and with implying that something is based upon the admissions of Israeli officials when in fact it isn't. This kind of thing, BTW, is why I have a problem with Al Jazeera.

- woolfe

Oh ok, good job, Woolfe.

Woolfe, on another forum I saw this article and I posted your response, I got this counter to it:

Arab propaganda, really?

This is the source article:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/444992.html

Shaul Mofaz BTW was the Military Cheif of staff at the outbreak of the second Intafada.

The key to the mystery that is at the core of the important argument between former Military Intelligence commanders may be found in an anecdote told by former MI head Amos Malka to Akiva Eldar (Haaretz, June 11).

Do you get it yet? Al Jazeera didn't fabricate' the exchange; it was reported in Ha'aretz on June 11. This is what Amos Malka said:

It turns out that during the first few days of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, soldiers in the territories fired 1,300,000 bullets. This astounding statistic embodies the entire story. This massive firepower is the operational translation of the argument between Malka and Amos Gilad.

In the conflict with the Palestinians, at the end of September 2000, senior IDF commanders adopted Gilad's assessment, which was based on his own perspective, and according to which Yasser Arafat's foray into negotiations was a scheme aimed at leading to Israel's destruction, and that he in no way plans to reach an agreement. This explains what took place once the intifada broke out, and the unrestrained shooting that ensued




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"According to Israeli sources, then-Chief of Staff and now Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz didn't plan to bring about the end of the conflict."
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This is directly derived from:

Then-chief of staff Shaul Mofaz, with the support of his senior aides, did not plan to bring about the end of the conflict at its very onset. Having adopted Gilad's approach, he had an opportunity to finally "beat" the Palestinians, to "vanquish" them and lead them to negotiations in a weakened and exhausted state. This is the origin of the "burned into their consciousness" thesis, which became a cornerstone of the Israel Defense Forces' policy in the territories. We'll hit the Palestinians until the recognition of their weakness vis-a-vis Israel's might is burned into their consciousness. This is the only way they will understand that they are best off coming to terms with their inferiority and accepting Israel's demands.



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According to "Israeli sources?" Who are these sources? Are they in the government? Do they know Mofaz?
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I would say that they are on nickname terms. They might also attend the bar mitzvahs of their respective children and could conceivably be having affairs with each others wives. They also happen to be Israeli.

This gave rise to the objective defined by Mofaz, his successor Moshe Ya'alon, and their colleagues in the general staff: achieving military victory in what was at first described as a war with the Palestinians. This explains why the IDF began to use such massive firepower when the uprising broke out in the territories. This also explains why over a million bullets were fired in the first few days, even though there was no operational or professional justification. The intent was to score a winning blow against the Palestinians, and especially against their consciousness. This was not a war on terror, but on the Palestinian people. IDF commanders projected their viewpoint regarding Arafat's intentions onto the entire Palestinian society.

When the intifada began, chief of staff Mofaz bragged that the IDF, which had predicted the outbreak of violence in the territories, declared the year 2000 as "the year of preparedness," and when the violence did indeed break out, that the army was ready for it. But this was not a preparedness for alleviating the violence, but rather for escalating the conflict. Soldiers were given a free hand to shoot without limit. In the first three months of the intifada, the number of Israeli casualties was low, at which time the IDF proudly cited the large number of Palestinian casualties as evidence of the military victory and the correctness of the policy of massive use of force.



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Yes, Malka does apparently believe that Israel has used too much force and is exacerbating the situation. I share his opinion. He does not, however, place responsibility for the start of the Intifada on Israel.
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Ehem!

Maj. Gen. Malka states that the policy of use of military force caused a flare-up of the fire. In other words, the IDF contributed to the escalation. The Palestinians did not expect such a harsh response by Israel. They hoped that the "model" of the 1996 Western Wall tunnel riots would repeat itself. In other words, a brief outbreak of violence, followed by negotiations, in which they would win another few concessions by Israel. Yet it seems that the IDF actions thwarted the possibility of the violence ending quickly, since the events spun out of the Palestinian leadership's control.

So when did the intafada become an intafada? Before or after the Israeli response to the first riot?

I would appreciate it if you would refrain from reminding us that you support the Palestinians. Such a declaration would be redundant if it were true.

JohD

PS

I believe Israel Shamir has a point. The reliance on the God of war has meant Israel wins the war, but loses the maiden.


What do you think??

AZ, thanks, i think i know whats the other forum, i remember seeing your name Logic85 and your retarded Sig.

AZ send me your reply again, sorry, your reply didnt get through because my Inbox was full.

AZ:

You need to read my posts more closely. First of all, I never said there wasn't an argument between Gilaad and Malka. You posted about this before and I replied to it. I also referenced it in my post above, quite clearly.

Please go read the the original article and read my reply. The article is part fabrication, part fact, and its jumbled into a misleading mess.

First, the Al-Jazeera articles falsely states that Ya'alon blasted the Foreign/Affairs intelligence committee for revealing military secrets about the Palestinians. He did not. As I've proven by citing the very articles that Al Jazeera relied upon, Ya'alon was talking about Iraq, not the Palestinians.

Second, the "Israeli source" is exactly who I said it was: Reuven Pedatzur, a freelance editorial journalist. All you've done is link to the Pedatzur article I mentioned. Sorry, but it's mostly editorial opinion; it's factual basis a few bare shreds of quotes from Israeli officials.

I am a bit confused how you think this refutes what I said, since I already mentioned the Pedatzur article.

- woolfe