To return to the new Peace Now website click here.

Hard Questions, Tough Answer with Yossi Alpher - February 6, 2012

Alpher186x140.jpg

Alpher discusses why there is such a fuss being made over the 23 percent that Moshe Feiglin won in the Likud leadership primaries, what "confidence-building measures" in the West Bank the Quartet is asking Netanyahu to offer, whether Bashar Assad resembles his father in terms of the violence currently being perpetrated by him, and what the Israeli angle should be on Congress threatening to withhold foreign aid to Egypt unless Cairo stops cracking down on American and other foreign-sponsored democracy-advocacy groups in Egypt.

Q. PM Binyamin Netanyahu won the Likud leadership primaries handily, with 77 percent of the vote. So why is so much fuss being made over the 23 percent that Moshe Feiglin won?

A. Feiglin is a religious messianic settler who rejects the two-state solution and rejects the notion that Arabs under Israeli rule should under any circumstances enjoy full civil rights. He has for years led a movement within the Likud to promote these ideas. That he persuaded one-quarter of Likud voters (around 50 percent of party members voted in the primary) to support him, constitutes a significant internal-party protest against the prime minister and his policies. Some political observers opined that this lobby within Netanyahu's party could hamstring his efforts to project a less-than-extreme ideology and put together a balanced party list come national election time.

Significantly, Feiglin scored more than three-quarters of the Likud votes among settlers, and nearly 37 percent in Jerusalem (but less than 12 percent in Tel Aviv--an outcome that is typical of the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv ideological divide, even when it comes to Likud votes). He nearly doubled his votes--to 15,000--compared to the previous leadership primary, prior to the 2009 elections.

Conceivably, this is a tempest in a tea pot, and even Likud extremists will toe the Netanyahu line when it matters at the national level. A lot depends on what Netanyahu does at the regional and international level between now and election time. The "Feiglin factor" could affect that. As distinguished columnist Nahum Barnea put it in Friday's "Yediot Aharonot", "the Likud is changing from a traditional party to an orthodox party, from a national party with a hint of liberalism to the natural heir of the National Religious Party". One need only look at the prime minister's entourage of advisers when he attends meetings of a strategic nature to judge his own inclination to rely on national-religious advisers--who are easily recognizable by their knitted skullcaps.

Netanyahu insists that his initiative to hold Likud primaries has nothing to do with national elections and that the latter are not near and will not be held this year (they have to be held by the end of 2013). But the Likud primaries seem to have energized the entire political scene, with parties like Shas and Yisrael Beitenu launching legislation that definitely smells of electoral politics and that in any case could make it impossible for Netanyahu to pass a budget in late 2012, thereby mandating elections. Perhaps that is what he wants.

Q. Apropos demands on Netanyahu, the Quartet is trying to restart the Amman-based Israel-PLO pre-negotiations by asking him to offer a series of confidence-building measures "on the ground" in the West Bank. Alternatively, there is talk of devoting the year 2012 to such CBMs as a stabilizing measure even without negotiations. What steps are we talking about?

A. These steps, now being pushed by Quartet envoy Tony Blair and, on his recent visit to Israel, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, have been talked about for several years now. PM Netanyahu was even reported on several occasions to have indicated to the Quartet his agreement to implement some of them, only to renege.

The steps primarily contemplated involve security and economic measures. The security measures would begin with an Israeli commitment no longer to send forces into Palestinian Authority Area A cities in the West Bank to arrest suspects; all security there would be left to PA forces. A second step would expand Palestinian security authority to Area B, where currently the PA exercises only civilian jurisdiction. A further measure would transfer parts of Area C--under full Israeli control and comprising some 60 percent of the West Bank, including all settlements--to PA jurisdiction. At least one-third of area C could conceivably be transferred without affecting settlements.

Economic and human-rights-related CBMs that are contemplated involve removal of additional checkpoints and opening of additional roads to unfettered Palestinian traffic, thereby facilitating commerce (here Netanyahu can already claim a better record than his predecessors), and opening a road to Rawabi, the new city the PA is building north of Ramallah, by ceding a small area of Israel-controlled territory.

A third category of possible CBMs would involve East Jerusalem: permitting the reopening of PLO offices and facilities there that Israel committed to reopen under the roadmap.

Yet a fourth category is prisoners. PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has asked Netanyahu to release all Palestinians incarcerated prior to the signing of the Oslo agreements 19 years ago. Such a gesture to Abbas and his Fateh movement would go a long way toward balancing the public relations boost that Hamas got from the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange deal.

Finally, there is the constant demand made by the Quartet and the PLO for Netanyahu to cease all settlement construction, including in East Jerusalem. If there exists a sliver of a chance that he could accept one or more of the aforementioned CBM demands, there is no chance that Netanyahu will reinstitute even a partial settlement freeze--which, along with acceptance of the 1967 lines, remains Mahmoud Abbas' basic precondition for resuming direct peace talks. Abbas in any case is now slated to take over the PA premiership and prepare elections in which Hamas participates--another reason for him to postpone or rebuff negotiations.

That leaves the possibility of a unilateral gesture of CBMs by Netanyahu, even one that does not usher in renewed talks. Such a move could go a long way toward guaranteeing peace and quiet on the Palestinian front this year. Yet the "Feiglin factor" and additional hard-line pressures within the coalition mitigate against the prime minister making any concessions whatsoever to the Palestinians in the near future.

Q. Exactly 30 years ago, President Hafez al-Assad of Syria launched the massacre of tens of thousands of Muslim Brotherhood supporters in the Syrian city of Hama, thereby putting an end to an uprising against his regime. President Obama has compared the violence perpetrated by Assad's son, Bashar, to that of the father in 1982. Do you agree?

A. One of the many un-confirmable reports making the rounds about the Assad dynasty in Damascus has Bashar's mother, Hafez' widow, telling Bashar in no uncertain terms to act the way his father did in Hama if he wants to end the uprising and keep the family dynasty alive. Yet Bashar, while bearing responsibility for the deaths of many Syrians, does not appear to be inclined to massacre thousands at a single go. This may have something to do with his giggly personality and lack of both a military and a revolutionary background of his own. But there are additional weighty factors at work here.

For one, the Syrian revolution is part of a wave of Arab uprisings in which heavy-handed dictators have lost: in Egypt, Yemen and especially Libya. The latter country's recent history points to a second mitigating factor: the international community, including the Arab League, is seemingly not prepared to tolerate large-scale Arab massacres today the way it did just 30 years ago. Turkey, too, could well move from passive to active support for the Syrian opposition if it could portray itself as savior of Syrian Sunnis whose very lives were threatened en masse by a blasphemous regime.

Then, too, the Alawite regime in Syria is far more isolated regionally today than back then, with virtually the entire Arab world (with Iraq and Lebanon sitting on the fence) calling for its downfall. That Iran continues to back Assad does not endear him to his fellow Arabs. Indeed, after 30 years of an Iranian-Syrian "strategic alliance" and with the regime in Tehran perceived across the Arab world as a threat and a troublemaker, the Iran factor is a major element in Syria's isolation, even if Tehran does help prop up the regime.

Whether Iran, too, would turn against Syria if it massacred tens of thousands of opposition forces within the space of ten days or so, as in 1982, is not certain. But Russia, which on Saturday (along with China) vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling on Assad to resign--thereby alienating most of the Middle East, Africa and the West on this issue--almost certainly would feel obliged to drop its objections to international intervention. And Assad needs Moscow for both arms and a modicum of international legitimacy.

Then there is the nature of the Syrian opposition, then and now. Thirty years ago, Hafez Assad's forces could isolate and surround tens of thousands of Syrian Muslim Brotherhood activists and butcher them. Today, the opposition is far more diffuse and geographically and politically diverse. Most observers see this as a weakness of the anti-Assad forces; conceivably, it also reflects an instinctive avoidance of a 1982 Hama-type situation.

Beyond all these circumstantial and topical explanations for Bashar's relative reluctance to deploy massive violence, there is also the simple fact that the international community is far more attuned today to issues of human rights than three decades ago. In the Arab world specifically, the events of the past year have made a major contribution. When, last Friday and Saturday, several hundred civilians were killed indiscriminately in Homs by the Syrian army--apparently the largest total in a day since the revolution began (though deliberate exaggeration by opposition groups should be taken into account)--the regime felt obliged to condemn rogue elements rather than take credit and thereby enhance its deterrence.

Hafez Assad may be turning over in his grave.

Q. Congress is threatening to withhold some $2 billion in annual foreign aid to Egypt unless Cairo stops cracking down on American and other foreign-sponsored democracy-advocacy groups in Egypt, allows their activists to leave the country and generally demonstrates a greater commitment to democratizing. Is there an Israeli angle here?

A. There should be. The Netanyahu government has submitted legislation that would heavily tax foreign countries' donations to Israeli NGOs engaged in activities defined as "political". Those NGOs seeking an exception would have to testify before a Knesset committee. Already, all NGOs have to report on any and all financial support from foreign governments. Since the European Union, or Norway, or USAID will clearly not agree to deliver support funds that are taxed, the Netanyahu government's real goal is to stigmatize human rights and democracy organizations in Israel and drive them out of business. (Full disclosure: bitterlemons.net, which I co-edit, would probably be deemed "political" and subject to these discriminatory measures.)

That these strictures are blatantly directed against the Israeli peace and human rights camp is reflected in the fact that the government of Israel is not legislating to control donations by foreign individuals and non-state organizations to Israeli NGOs. American right-wingers and evangelicals like Sheldon Adelson and John Hagee and orthodox Jewish groups actively support financially the settlement movement and organizations like "Im Tirzu" that are bent on witch-hunting, without Knesset interference of any sort. Indeed, many components of Netanyahu's coalition have close ties to these groups and individuals.

The test of the sincerity and objectivity of Congress' approach to restrictions on NGOs in Egypt will be whether it reacts to an Israeli crackdown in a fashion in any way similar.