06 January '14..
Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA: Though written a decade ago, this article could have been penned this morning.
Israel's Security: The Hard-Learned Lessons
by Yaakov Amidror
Middle East Quarterly
Winter 2004
www.meforum.org/article/575
...Israel must realize that it would be a grave risk if it were to cede total territorial control to the Palestinians in any future agreement. Israel suffered heavy casualties when the PA was only on the road to sovereignty; the price might be even higher were a fully sovereign Palestinian state to decide to go to war. In those circumstances, reoccupying Palestinian population centers, as Israel did in April 2002, would be more difficult, complicated, and costly. Indeed, given the IDF's structural limitations and the exponential growth of Palestinian capabilities from the intifada to the present war, it may not even be possible for Israeli forces to retake Palestinian cities in a future war.
To protect against another security fiasco, Israel needs to insist on two new principles in defining security arrangements within the context of a future peace agreement:
If the Palestinians do not actively, persistently, and explicitly fight terror, the agreement should allow Israel to take its own counterterrorism measures in the territory under Palestinian sovereignty.
If terrorism is conducted against Israel from Palestinian territories, then the agreement should permit IDF operations in the territory under Palestinian sovereignty.
Israel must insist on retaining the right to operate throughout the territory in perpetuity, not only for a limited number of years, not only in emergency situations, and not only upon the approval of third parties.
Border Control
A second Israeli security requirement in future negotiations concerns border control. The importance of this issue is clear from a comparison of Israel's experience in Lebanon and in the Palestinian areas.
In Lebanon, Hizbullah received a steady stream of weapons, and its ability to fight increased after every round of conflict with the IDF because of resupply from Iran and Syria. Israel's situation vis-à-vis the Palestinians could be even worse. The latter have already displayed an impressive ability to circumvent security arrangements through smuggling, such as the fifty tons of seaborne weapons destined for the PA that were intercepted by the IDF in January 2002. Add to this the fact that the geography and topography of the West Bank permit the Palestinians to pose a strategic threat to Israel's main population centers, something Hizbullah was never able to do. If Israel acceded to security arrangements that gave Palestinians control over their borders with Egypt and Jordan, it is safe to assume that weapons would flow freely into the West Bank and Gaza, with potentially catastrophic implications.
In any future negotiations, Israel must give a high priority to preventing the Palestinian acquisition of enhanced weaponry. Only Israeli border control can effectively prevent Palestinian efforts to smuggle weapons and munitions from neighboring countries. Israel, therefore, must ensure that the Palestinian state does not have contiguous, unfettered contact with its Arab neighbors, Egypt and Jordan.
The same logic underlies Israel's need to control international passageways such as airports and seaports. Israel must retain the ability to check all imports into the Palestinian areas, whether personal or commercial goods. An invisible presence, with international forces or Palestinian customs agents doing the actual work—as envisioned in previous Oslo agreements and in the recent Geneva accord—will not suffice. Unless Israel can construct a security envelope around the Palestinian areas, controlling what comes in and goes out, it is likely to face a Palestinian threat more dangerous than anything it ever faced in Lebanon.
Israel Fights Alone
A seminal lesson of the Oslo experience is the need for Israel to retain, in perpetuity, both the right and ability to combat terror independently of other actors. From the moment the PA took control of territory in 1994, it never truly fought terrorism; despite Palestinian pretense, most Israeli and international terrorism experts knew the PA efforts were just a charade. It was a naïve and costly belief—made famous by the late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin—that the Palestinians would fight terror more readily than Israel because they lack an interventionist judiciary (such as the Israeli Supreme Court) or vocal human rights organizations (such as B'Tselem).
While Israel should welcome the cooperation of others—including the Palestinians—it now knows from bitter experience what can happen when it handcuffs its own ability to fight terror for the sake of a political accord. Israel should accept no restraints. It must retain its capability to collect intelligence inside the Palestinian area. This means insisting that in any permanent status accord, the Palestinians must accept continued collection by Israel of human intelligence as well as an agreed set of aerial reconnaissance flights (by day and night). Israel also must insist that Palestinians recognize Israel's right to detain, arrest, and interrogate terrorist suspects in the event the Palestinians do not take action against such suspects themselves. Moreover, mechanisms must be created by which the Palestinians share all terrorism-related information with Israel; full transparency is essential.
Should these terms not be included in a permanent status agreement, Palestinian extremists are certain to expand their terrorist capabilities.
Fewer Forces and Guns
When the first Oslo agreements were signed (Oslo I in 1993 and Oslo II in 1995), most of Israel's negotiators never conceived of Palestinian security and intelligence organizations as potential enemies. Instead, they sought to strengthen these institutions as much as possible so they could play their expected role in fighting terror. Unfortunately, these terror fighters—including PA police and intelligence organizations—were themselves terror purveyors. They played an active role in such episodes of terrorism as the 1997 Hasmonean Tunnel riots and the launching of the post-Camp David war in 2000.
Israel needs to re-think the Oslo-era assumption that stronger PA security forces mean more security for Israel. Instead, Israel should seek to limit Palestinian security organization to the smallest and weakest force capable of providing necessary police functions in PA territory. This would mean a reduction in the number of competing and overlapping forces, shrinkage of the total manpower, and collection of most of the weapons in the hands of the various forces.
A weak military force will contribute to peace and stability in Palestinian society and in its relations with Israel. The emphasis on strong police forces, instead of providing the PA with the tools to fight terror, only fed the PA's authoritarian power and its appetite for more terror against Israel. And at least in the security realm, one may reasonably question the new conventional wisdom that maintains that more centralization and clearer lines of control are conducive to peace. In an authoritarian regime, centralization may certainly improve efficiency, but that is only desirable if the security forces themselves are committed to fighting terrorism.
The 1993-2000 experience also underscores an important lesson about another key feature of Oslo security arrangements: the supposed benefits of security cooperation. The fact is that six years of Israeli-Palestinian joint patrols and combined headquarters contributed virtually nothing to mutual understanding on both sides. In practice, the daily regimen of "jointness" provided no barrier against terrorism and did not even prove to be an obstacle to the use of Palestinian security forces in direct conflict against Israel. In the future, a wholly different approach is called for: both parties would be wise to restrict security cooperation to those situations and areas in which neither side is able to act solely by itself.
Link: http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=62778
Yaakov Amidror, a reserve major general in the Israel Defense Forces, commanded Israel's National Defense College and headed the research and assessment division of Israeli military intelligence. He was the Ira Weiner Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy when he prepared this study.
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