Peace or Timeout?

In a previous post, I discussed Ehud Ya'ari's recent article in the Jerusalem Report which suggested there might be a return to violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories in the near future. His contention was that either (1) Fatah may decide to postpone its parliamentary defeat at the hands of Hamas by launching a third intifada, or that (2) Hamas may decide to launch a new wave of violence because the political benefits they were promised as a result of their abiding by the tahadiya (lull in violence) have not materialized.

On the heels of this speculation, there comes a new report from Haaretz quoting a senior military official who proclaimed that the IDF was having a tough time dealing with the smuggling in the West Bank; he estimates that huge quantities of arms are being channeled in from Sinai.

The fact that the Palestinian militant groups have declared the current period of calm to be one of tahadiya (a lull in violence) and not a hudna (ceasefire) is the clearest indication of their intentions. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas tried to get an agreement on a hudna in his Cairo talks with the militant leaders, but all he came away with was an agreement to continue the tahadiya. The fact that the militants are continuing to smuggle massive quantities of weapons shows that they will constantly hold the violence card up their sleeves and will not hesitate to use it if they feel like Abbas is not abiding by their rules. This threat of renewed violence is extremely dangerous since the weapons being smuggled are not just assault rifles, but also arms that "tip the balance" - anti-tank rockets, anti-aircraft missiles, military-grade explosives and materials to manufacture Qassam rockets. Some are even speculating that in order to keep Fatah militants (Al-Aqsa brigades) quiet, senior Palestinian Authority officials are turning a blind eye to the smuggling. This could explain why Palestinian national security advisor Jibril Rajoub demanded that the Palestinians be allowed to have full control of the Sinai border routes with Gaza in exchange for Palestinian coordination over the Israeli disengagement.

As James Bennet's March NYT magazine article on Abbas points out, the Palestinians have elected Abbas because they are tired. Arafat thought that a renewed intifada would push Israel to make even greater concessions, but he was wrong. Sharon's tough approach which included "eliminating" many of the leaders of Hamas and imposing a new oppressive system of checkpoints throughout the West Bank truly defeated the intifada and made most ordinary Palestinians think twice about the benefits of using violence to further their cause. The tahadiya was necessary not because of hopes for a peaceful, Garden-of-Eden future with the Israelis, but because the Palestinians desperately needed a timeout in the fighting which was making their lives unbearable. But practically all the Palestinians interviewed in Bennet's article agreed that a third intifada is inevitable. They correctly recognize that Sharon will never take advantage of Abbas' political capital and grant far-ranging concessions to strengthen the sole Palestinian leader who has consistently preached the pitfalls of violent intifada because Sharon would prefer a disengagement where he can define the borders than a full Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders (a minimum Palestinian demand) in exchange for a a peace agreement. For his part, Sharon may wonder if Abbas even has the strength to dismantle militant organizations (a minimum Israeli demand). The lesson of Sadat, who was assassinated for making peace with Israel, constantly hangs over the head of Arab leaders, and if Arafat could not risk cracking down on Palestinian terrorists, how can the much weaker Abbas be expected to do so?