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Sun. Jun 15, 2003

The Reality Principle

The Reality Principle – In “Tit for Tat on the Road Map,” I asked anyone to “Please, point out one shred of hope” in the latest Middle East Mess. It was meant as both a cynical challenge and an honest plea, and it has generated interesting comments.

Along the way I’ve read a theory (and Donald Sensing expounds on it as well) about the monopoly of violence, and current events have given it more and more weight. Paraphrased, “a government almost always has the monopoly on violence within the society it rules. However violent the people might get, the government can trump them. Riots bring riot police, and if that’s not enough, the National Guard with M16s. It’s as true here in the US as it was in Saddam’s Iraq.”

“But it is not true in Palestine. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the like have the monopoly on violence. And they exercise it regularly. There is no legitimate Palestinian government to seize that monopoly from them, there is only a defacto Prime Minister who vows he won’t crack down on the militants in that way.”

And that was brought to mind again today reading the latest from Thomas Friedman, “The Reality Principle”: “Self-destructive is, in fact, a useful term to describe Israelis and Palestinians today. ’Both sides,’ notes the Israeli political theorist Yaron Ezrahi, ’have crossed the line where self-defense has turned into self-destruction. When self-defense becomes self-destruction, only an external force can bring people back to their senses. And that force is President Bush. I think he is the only reality principle left that either side might listen to, and I hope he understands that.’”

I’d say the emphasis is on “might,” but I’m forced to agree, simply because I see no alternative “head knocker.”

“The fact is, the only time Israelis have enjoyed extended periods of peace in the last decade has been when Palestinian security services disciplined their own people, in the heyday of Oslo. Unfortunately, Yasir Arafat proved unwilling to do that consistently. The whole idea of the Bush peace process is to move Mr. Arafat aside and replace him with a Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, who is ready to rebuild the Palestinian security services, and, in the context of an interim peace settlement, corral Hamas. Hamas knows this. So its tactic is to goad Israel into attacks that will unravel the whole process.”

And since Abbas refuses to reign in Hamas, in effect, to claim control on the monopoly of violence, these tactics have been quite effective. If the goal of Hamas remains “no peace until there is no Israel,” someone is going to have to stop them. The question remains, who should accomplish that, and how?

Back to Friedman: “Israel’s supporters argue that if America can go after Osama bin Laden, Israel can go after Hamas. Of course Israel is entitled to pursue its mortal enemies, just as America does, but it cannot do it with reckless abandon, notes Mr. Ezrahi, for one reason: America will never have to live with Mr. bin Laden’s children. They are far away and always will be. Israel will have to live with the Palestinians, after the war. They are right next door and always will be.”

“The fact is, Ariel Sharon’s two years of using the Israeli Army alone to fight terrorism have not made Israelis more secure. He needs a Palestinian partner, and he has to operate and negotiate in a way that will nurture one. And the people who get that the best are Israelis. In a Yediot Ahronot poll released Friday, two-thirds of Israelis were critical of Mr. Sharon’s tactic of targeted assassinations of Hamas officials and said they wanted Mr. Abbas to be given a chance to establish his authority.”

Well, that’s an encouraging poll result. But poll results are one thing, and converting them to Israeli policy actions is another. Meanwhile, whoever is going to lead the nascent Palestinian government is going to have to embrace the concept that any government must have the monopoly on violence. Autocracy or Democracy, it must have the willingness to put down the violent elements that disrupt its society … if it wants to be a government for any length of time at all.

And in the case of the Hamas, et al, it is best if their current monopoly on violence is seized by the Palestinian Prime Minister. Not by the Israeli military, not by any outside force.

That’s why Friedman loses me with his closing: “Because if the two sides cannot emerge from this dead end, then you can forget about a two-state solution, which is what both Hamas’s followers and the extremist Jewish settlers want [...] That is the outcome we are heading toward, though, unless the only reality principle left, the United States of America, really intervenes with its influence, its wisdom and, if necessary, its troops.”

Influence and wisdom, sure. Financial arm twisting? Go for it. But US troops in Gaza and the West Bank? Frankly, I can hardly think of a worse prescription to throw into this volatile mix than charging US troops with taking out Palestinian militants, and enforcing peace on them.

There is no doubt, as long as those forces kill civilians, they will face continuing efforts to take them out. By someone. That “someone” is currently the Israelis, as without them, there is a vacuum.

Abbas does not so far appear to be the man to lead the Palestinians out of this mess. He has so far refused to do more than talk, fearing civil war with the militants. But he is the one who needs to visibly and forcibly take on Hamas, with the admittedly limited means he currently has. And those first efforts need to be reinforced and supported in whatever way he needs, to give him additional means to deal forcefully with the problem.

Absent that, Israel will do as they’ve done, for many decades. And at least there’s some ugly consistency in that, because the defining forces and issues remain the same. Throwing US troops into the situation would aggravate and complicate the situation further, not deflate it. In many ways, having the US seize the monopoly on violence from Hamas would be worse than the Israelis doing it.

Whoever seizes it, has to retain it. There’s only one party that’s right for that job: the future Palestinian government.

It would seem we haven’t yet found it.