[CASA] The Problem with Arrogance!

[Ihab Saloul]

*June 30, 2006*

*The problem with arrogance*

*By: Daoud Kuttab *

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict presents a unique case study in asymmetry
and arrogance of power.

The status of this conflict today positions one country, Israel, with
overwhelming military, political and financial power, as well as backing
from the world's most powerful country (the US) and community (EU), against
a people without an army, living under siege, with employees not paid for
months and economy in shatters. With such overwhelming power Israel has no
incentive to negotiate. It is very happy to dictate and the world community,
by and large, goes along with that.

The Israelis (people, government and army) can do what they want and extract
whatever they want from the people under their occupation. Well, not
everything. One tiny issue they cannot get the Palestinians to do is offer
them peace without obtaining their land back.

Even this apparently insignificant issue —  from the Israeli point of view
—  has been resolved. The newly elected Israeli government has basically
decided that it doesn't need the Palestinians to make peace with it. The
historic compromise (two states along the 67 border) Palestinians are
willing to accept seems way too steep for  Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert and
the majority of Israelis who voted for him. So instead, the Israelis have
decided to live with a low-intensity conflict, give up some insignificant
land (Gaza and parts of the West Bank, minus Jerusalem and the Jordan
Valley) and believe that everyone can live happily thereafter.

Well, again there is a little tiny problem with this seemingly open and shut
case. The other side, the Palestinians, are refusing to roll over and call
it quits. And in the middle of this internal debate (Israelis only negotiate
among themselves) a little glitch appears. Some renegade group actually
dares challenge the Israeli mighty machine, carry out a military operation
and capture an Israeli soldier. And although two other soldiers were killed
along with two Palestinians, the fact that Palestinians have captured a live
soldier has left Israel sleepless.

All of a sudden, this mighty country with its powerful army, penetrating
intelligence apparatus and a long list of friends actually wants something
from the Palestinians. Not that they are willing to negotiate for what they
want. The idea of a prisoner exchange (according to Israel he is a kidnapped
Israeli and not a prisoner of war, just like the 10,000 Palestinians are not
prisoners of war) does not have place here.

In response, the powerful Israeli army machine is put to work with little
direction and focus, and the only goal is wreak havoc and destruction. This
is the Israeli thinking. Mass tanks on the borders of Gaza. Destroy a few
bridges, take out the electric plant (we have plenty of international
friends so no need to worry about the fact that this is a collective
punishment and therefore a war crime). Use political muscle to get the
Americans and the Egyptians to press the Palestinians; threaten the lives of
the Palestinian government and the Palestinian president; even kidnap a
Palestinian minister (just like the Hizbollah sheikhs still held illegally
for over 20 years) and hope that the sum of all this pressure will yield the
result —  freeing the Israeli corporal.

If ever there was an opportunity for Israel to hold substantive talks with
Palestinians over something as simple as a ceasefire this would be it. The
arrogance of power and the notion that any such talks will weaken the
Israeli deterrence is simply a formula for more bloodshed and an unending
cycle of violence.

In the past Israel has always refused to talk to what it calls terrorists,
so as not to reward them. Presently, the Israelis have no right to use the
term "terror" to describe a purely military operation that targeted a
military location.

For years, the Israelis have been consistently rejecting all Palestinian
offers of a ceasefire. The arrogance of power often blinds the military and
even the politicians, not allowing them to understand that on the other side
of the border also exists a nation with its desire of a normal life, with
its hope that its prisoners are released, that the unjust siege is lifted
and its land is liberated.

Today we see that even the powerful have to come down to the level of the
weak if they are able to think any further than the immediate present. This
is why politicians elected by the people and not appointed army generals are
entrusted with making important life and death decisions.

While the asymmetry between Israel and Palestinians will continue to
frustrate any possible negotiated agreement, sometimes single acts like the
Karm Abu Salam military operation can drive home the basic notion that a
powerful nation not willing to understand the limits of its own power is
also fallible. Countries that are drunk with power are liable to trip on a
small stone.

** A Palestinian columnist, and the director of the Institute of Modern
Media at Al-Quds University. He can be reached at info at daoudkuttab.co*
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