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Hard Questions, Tough Answers with Yossi Alpher - May 31, 2005

Q. What is the significance of Bush's reference to the 1949 armistice lines? Q. Does disengagement reflect a change in status for the Israeli police?

Q. In his remarks in the Rose Garden on May 26, President Bush, standing alongside Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, referred to the 1949 armistice lines as the basis for Israeli-Palestinian agreement on border alterations. What is the significance of this reference, given that most discussion of a final status territorial agreement refers to the 1967 lines?

A. The 1949 armistice lines were agreed in negotiations in Rhodes between Israel and Jordan, which then occupied (and in 1950 annexed) the West Bank. Generally speaking, they remained in effect until the Six-Day War of June 1967, when Israel occupied the West Bank. The primary difference between the two lines concerns demilitarized zones. In 1949, a number of demilitarized zones were established along the entire West Bank line separating Israel from Jordan. In the course of the ensuing two years, local commanders in the field from both sides got together and divided up the demilitarized areas--except at Latrun, which remained demilitarized until 1967--thereby creating what came to be known as the green line. A similar process took place between Israeli and Egyptian forces concerning the Gaza Strip: they divided up a demilitarized zone in the northern strip, and attached additional lands to the "narrow waist" of the strip, along its eastern border.

In his May 26 remarks at the Rose Garden, Bush stated that "changes to the 1949 armistice lines must be mutually agreed to". Was he suggesting to the parties that they reopen negotiations on the demilitarized zones divided up between Israel and Jordan? If so, this would appear to be a veritable Pandora's Box. The situation becomes even more complicated when we recall that this was not the first time Bush has referred to the 1949 lines. In his letter to Prime Minister Sharon of April 14, 2004, in which he indicated that final status borders would have to take into account Israeli population centers (i.e., settlements) in the West Bank, Bush also stated that:

As part of a final peace settlement, Israel must have secure and recognized borders, which should emerge from negotiations between the parties in accordance with UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338. In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion. It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities.

If Bush's new reference to the 1949 lines appears perplexing, his mention of them a year ago together with UNSCR 242 is even stranger. For 242 refers to "withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict", i.e., the 1967 war, not the 1948 war and not the territories divided up between 1949 and 1951.

This may indicate that the president's advisers have something else in mind. Conceivably, they were influenced by the course of Israel's abortive negotiations with Syria, where it became clear that the difference between the 1949 armistice lines and the 1967 lines was quite significant: Israel and Syria did not divide up the 1949 demilitarized zones peaceably; rather, they fought over them and forcibly conquered parts of them, as well as additional territories, during the years preceding 1967. Syria, for example, was supposed to observe a 1949 line keeping it 10 meters away from the northeastern shore of the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee), but it ended up occupying the entire northeastern section of the lake. For Israel it was vital to insist that the point of departure for negotiations with Damascus be the 1949 armistice line, not the 1967 reality.

Where this new wrinkle in Bush's rhetoric will lead us is not clear. If and when negotiations are renewed, it will certainly be on someone's agenda.

Q. The Israel Police are slated to play a significant role in disengagement, in close coordination with the IDF. Does this reflect a changing status for the police in the overall configuration of Israel's security forces?

A. It should, but unfortunately it doesn't. Any rational assessment of Israel's overall security needs, internal and external, in 2005 must lead to the conclusion that the Israel Police require radical expansion and development, even at the expense of the IDF.

In actual fact, the police force is shrinking in size vis-a-vis the population of Israel. In 1995 there were 3.6 police officers for every thousand Israelis; by 2005 this figure had been reduced to 2.6 per thousand, one of the lowest in the western world. Further, the Finance Ministry demands that the force, 27,000 strong (of which 7,000 are doing their compulsory military service in blue uniforms or in the Border Patrol, a joint IDF/Israel Police force), be reduced by 2,000 in the course of 2005-6. Already the police, including the prison service, receive only two percent of the national budget.

Israel Police Chief Moshe Karadi estimates that, far from reducing its numbers, the force needs at least 5,000 additional police officers to deal with the challenges ahead. Domestically, Israel is becoming an increasingly violent and crime ridden society. Along its borders, especially the border with Egypt and increasingly the Arava border with Jordan, smuggling is rife, and comprises everything from prostitutes to heavy weaponry destined for West Bank terrorists and even for Israeli crime gangs who hope to outgun the police. Entire sections of the Israeli population--most recently more than one million immigrants from the Former Soviet Union--are culturally disposed to view the police as a hostile entity.

Disengagement from the Gaza Strip poses a particularly difficult challenge for the police. Some 7,000 police will be needed to carry out the physical removal of settlers (who, being Israeli civilians, should from a legal standpoint be "handled" by police rather than soldiers); another 5,000 (!) will be guarding the Temple Mount in Jerusalem against attack by extremist settlers and their supporters. The police are preparing around 2,500 arrest and detainment places for violent settlers and their supporters, with "real time" courts attached to judge and sentence them. Very few police will be available to deal with everyday crime inside Israel this August, to say nothing of the road blockages and other provocations the settlers will attempt with little fear of police interference.

So impoverished is the police force that, confronted with mobsters with international reach in an increasingly globalized crime world, it cannot afford to maintain a witness protection program. Thus it was only able to arrest Zeev Rosenstein, allegedly the "capo di tuti capi" of Israel's crime world, on the basis of an extradition request from the US, the destination of ecstasy pills shopped by Rosenstein, because only the FBI could offer witnesses the necessary protection and relocation arrangements.

According to Karadi, there are a few rays of light that enable the police to muddle through difficult times with inadequate man- and woman-power. One is close cooperation with the IDF, which will second thousands of troops to police command during the Gaza withdrawal. Another is the volunteer spirit of some 60,000 Israelis with military experience, who man the Civil Guard and frequently constitute the "second person in the patrol car". Yet another is the police's success in establishing substations in Israeli Arab towns, manned by Israeli Arab police, in the aftermath of the disturbances of October 2000.

Clearly, however, these measures fall short of Israel's real policing needs. One solution now being discussed at the highest security level is to divert additional IDF recruits to compulsory service in the Israel Police. This, hopefully, reflects a growing recognition that the ongoing military security threats Israel faces require less and less manpower, while the domestic crime and internal security threats and disengagement tasks require more and more. Increasingly, Israel's national resilience appears to require a strong police force.