Crusader Mode
June 29, 2001
Jerusalem Post

      As Israelis and Americans debate over the difference
between "100 percent effort" and "100 percent results," the
Palestinians are in a completely different world. The nine
months of assaulting Israel has lengthened their time
horizons, not just beyond this cease-fire, but beyond this
century.

          They are in "Crusader" mode - as in the notion that
the Crusaders lasted 100 years here, and Israel's fate will be
no different.

          According to an extensive poll taken this month by the
Jerusalem Media and Communications Center (a Palestinian group),
the only real debate among Palestinians over their "intifada"
is not whether it should continue, but whether the goal is to
evict every Israeli from Judea, Samaria and Gaza (45 percent) or
eradicate Israel completely (41 percent).

          Israelis and other observers have trouble
understanding what the Palestinians are getting out of their
fight. As time goes on, and Palestinian losses and suffering
mounts, the Palestinian goals become more grandiose and
less realistic. Yet the Palestinians cannot seem to help
themselves. As one Palestinian told this newspaper, "So
many people have died, so many children have been killed
or paralyzed, Gaza and Ramallah have been bombed, so
how can we stop? If we surrender now the Israelis will
devour us."

          Benefiting nothing, the Palestinians comfort
themselves with the words of a 19th century American poet:
"Endurance is the crowning quality, and patience is the
passion of great hearts."

          What the Palestinians do not seem to realize is that
their perseverance and suffering is not leading to their
goals, even in the long run. Time is working against the
Palestinians in many ways. One by one, their dreams are
receding further into the distance.

          * Peace: Though hardly obvious at the moment, the
Palestinians crave peace at least as much as Israelis, if
only because they need it more. On a day-to-day basis, they
are suffering much more than Israelis, and have frozen their
economic development at a much lower level. The first
casualty of the Palestinian decision to settle in for a long
conflict is peace itself.

          * Palestine: A year ago, Palestinian statehood was so
inevitable that even Ariel Sharon considered it a fait
accompli. In a single decade, Palestinian statehood had
leaped from being an almost unutterable anathema to
Israelis to being so accepted that even the right-wing would
no longer bother to oppose it.

          So far, the idea of Palestinian statehood has not lost
much of its inevitability, but if the current conflict goes on,
that will change. As it sinks into the Israeli mind that the
Palestinians are not really interested in a "two state
solution," more and more Israelis will argue that Israel
cannot afford to accept the establishment of a Palestinian
state. A closed question has been reopened.

          * The Camp David deal: The deal tabled by Bill Clinton
and Ehud Barak was to trade maximal Israeli capitulation on
territory (including within Jerusalem) for maximal
Palestinian capitulation on the "right of return." This deal,
particularly the proposed intricate division of Jerusalem,
was based on the idea that it would result in a real and
stable peace. It was built on a substantial level of trust that
the Palestinians were willing and able to end their conflict
with Israel.

          The longer the current fighting continues, the idea that
Israel can whittle the security margins of a peace deal down
to zero or less becomes increasingly implausible. Yasser
Arafat killed the Camp David deal, thinking he could do
better; the result will be that the Palestinians will never see
such an offer again.

          * Palestinian democracy: Many Palestinians dreamed
that their state would be the exception to the rule of Arab
despotism. No one expected such a democracy from Arafat,
who, true to form, has set up a combination of dictatorship
and kleptocracy. What is perhaps less appreciated is that
the longer the Palestinians take to begin to rectify this
situation - a process that cannot begin in the midst of
conflict - the harder it will be to do so.

          The irony of the current situation is that, just as
Israelis purged themselves of dreams of "Greater Israel," the
Palestinians have developed delusions of "Greater
Palestine." Israelis have played a part in encouraging this
Palestinian hallucination, by wearing self-doubt on their
sleeves, and by looking vulnerable to small numbers of
casualties.

          What the Palestinians do not seem to understand is
that underneath the veneer of Israeli vacillation lies the
scrappy determination that built this country and allowed it to
survive in a hostile environment. The Palestinian challenge
may not bring back the idea of "Greater Israel," but over time
it will bring back the formidability of the greater Israeli.

(c) 2001 The Jerusalem Post