Weaponization of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process
Weaponization of the
Israeli-Palestinian
Peace Process
JEFFREY BOUTWELL
Executive Director
Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs
I
n early 1997, at a time when there was still much optimism that the Oslo
peace process would lead to a final and durable peace agreement between
Israel and the Palestinians, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) was conducting
contingency planning in the event that Israel felt it necessary to re-occupy large
portions of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Code-named “Field of Thorns,” the
IDF battle simulations involved deploying Merkava battle tanks and Apache
attack helicopters to bring massive firepower to bear on targets such as security
and police compounds within Palestinian-controlled areas. Urban warfare—
involving house-to-house searches by elite IDF troops hunting for Palestinian
snipers—was also part of the contingency scenario, the results of which estimated
that Israeli casualties could well be in the hundreds and Palestinian casualties in
the thousands.1
IDF contingency plans for moving against Palestinian-controlled areas
had been stimulated by the brief but intense conflict in September 1996 between
the Israeli Army and Palestinian police and security forces that broke out after
the controversial decision by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu to open
an archeological tunnel (the Hasmonean tunnel) under the Haram al-Sharif/
Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. During the several days of fighting that
followed, some 15 Israelis and more than 80 Palestinians died in gun battles in
and around the cities of Jerusalem, Nablus, and Ramallah. For the first time
since the signing of the Oslo accords in September 1993, Israeli troops and
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Palestinian security forces engaged in direct combat with each other. While the
so-called “Hasmonean tunnel” conflict in September 1996 ended after three
days, it provided a chilling scenario of what could happen should the IsraeliPalestinian peace process break down totally. For not only did the fighting
stimulate the IDF to carry out more extensive planning for full-scale combat,
but it also led the Palestinian Authority (PA) to increase and formalize the paramilitary training it conducted for both Palestinian police/security personnel and
civilians. As reported by Israeli military intelligence, the PA was training its
personnel in military-style formations, in the use of rocket-propelled grenades,
sniper rifles, and land mines—all with the aim of blunting a possible Israeli reoccupation of Palestinian cities and territory. Such training also extended to
civilians and youth groups—such as Fatah’s Shibiba—in the Gaza Strip.2
From the vantage point of Spring 2002, all of the above—and worse—has
come to pass. The al-Aqsa intifada that broke out in September 2000, likewise
sparked by a controversial Israeli government action regarding the Haram alSharif (the visit of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to the al-Aqsa mosque), has
witnessed the bloodiest fighting ever between Israelis and Palestinians. By early
April 2002, the fighting had resulted in the deaths of more than 350 Israelis and
1,000 Palestinians.3
From Intifida to Warfare
An informal rule of thumb used by international organizations, human rights
groups, and other NGOs is that domestic violence within a country, or conflict
between countries, can be classified as a “war” or “armed conflict” when
fatalities from that violence exceed 1,000 per year. Whatever the arbitrary nature
of this statistic, the Palestinian-Israeli violence that re-erupted in September
2000 can now regrettably be classified as a “war.”
In truth, the al-Aqsa intifida has from the beginning been a very different
type of conflict than that seen previously between Israelis and Palestinians,
certainly as far back as the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip
in 1967. Unlike the rocks and Molotov cocktails that characterized the first
intifada that raged between late 1987 and 1993 (and which ironically helped
produce the Oslo peace breakthrough), the current fighting is characterized by
weapons and combat techniques that are entirely military. And since September
2000, the spiral of military firepower employed has steadily increased.
This has been especially the case with the Palestinians, who of course
had far less military firepower to begin with. At the outbreak of the conflict in
September 2000, Palestinians fought primarily with those weapons permitted
by the Oslo accords: Kalashnikov and M-16 assault rifles, pistols, and a few
jeep-mounted .50 caliber machine guns. Over time, however, and especially by
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early 2002, Palestinian police and security troops—as well as armed militias—
increasingly employed Katyusha rockets, mortars, anti-tank land mines, and
Kassam-2 surface-to-surface rockets against the Israeli army and civilians. The
Kassam-2 rockets, in particular—capable of being fired from Palestinian-held
territory against Israeli towns and cities—represent a significant escalation in
the type of military force that the Palestinians could bring to bear on Israel.4
Also worrisome to Israel is the introduction of anti-tank land mines that, for the
first time ever in February 2002, were successfully used to penetrate the armor
of a Merkava 3 tank and kill or injure the entire tank crew.5
Helping to bolster this increase in the military firepower employed by
the Palestinians as they seek to counter the still overwhelming Israeli advantage
in tanks, fighter aircraft, attack helicopters, and artillery, has been a more
ambitious smuggling operation to bring such weapons into Palestinian-controlled
territory. Although
small-scale border
smuggling and other Had the Karine A successfully
types of illegal weapons delivered its contraband weapons off
trafficking had been
the coast of Gaza, the military
occurring since the
signing of the Oslo firepower available to the Palestinians
accords,6 the scope of could have dramatically escalated the
such operations was
deadly conflict that has all but
growing and becoming
more sophisticated as shattered the Oslo peace process.
time passed. Smugglers,
using special operations-type rubber boats across the Dead Sea and fishing boats
coming down from Lebanon to the Gaza coast, were bringing in increasingly
sophisticated weaponry for Islamic extremist groups, the Palestinian Authority,
and PA-affiliated armed militias.
The most daring smuggling operation to date ended in failure in early
January 2002 when the Israeli Navy intercepted a freighter in the Red Sea, the
Karine A, and seized 50 tons of weapons reportedly supplied by Iran for delivery
to the Palestinian Authority off the Gaza coast. Along with twelve crewmen
and the ship’s captain (Omar Akawi, a member of the Palestinian naval police),
Israel confiscated Katyusha rockets having a range of 20 kilometers, anti-tank
rockets, mortar bombs, sniper rifles, land mines, and ammunition. The
sophisticated smuggling operation was said to have involved delivering the crated
weapons to three smaller boats in the port of Alexandria, Egypt, and then packing
them in watertight plastic cylinders that could be floated beneath the surface of
the Mediterranean off the Gaza coast, to be picked up by the Palestinian naval
police. Those involved reportedly included a Lebanese arms dealer, Adel
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Mughrabi, who purchased the weapons from Hezbollah and the Iranian
government and had them delivered to the Karine A near the island of Qeys, off
the coast of Iran.7
Had the Karine A successfully delivered its contraband weapons off the
coast of Gaza, the military firepower available to the Palestinians could have
dramatically escalated the deadly conflict that has all but shattered the Oslo
peace process. As it is, however, enough weapons have either made their way
into Palestinian areas—or have been manufactured by the Palestinians
themselves—to ensure a continuation of the vicious cycle of retaliation between
Israel and the Palestinians.
Weaponization of Palestinian Society
The violence being wrought by Israelis and Palestinians on each other is also
taking its toll on their respective societies. Public opinion polls in Israel show
markedly declining faith in the prospects for an eventual peace with the
Palestinians. Moreover, while Prime Minister Sharon and his hardline policies
continue to garner the support of a majority of Israelis, this support is anything
but robust. In reality, at the moment the Israeli political system is offering no
political alternatives for reviving the peace process, so the support for Sharon
can well be interpreted as being tinged with a sense of pessimism and even
despair over the future of Israeli-Palestinian relations.
While there is a similar sense of despair in the Palestinian community
over how to escape from the current cycle of violence, if anything the
weaponization of the peace process is having a more profound effect on
Palestinian society. During the first intifada that began in December 1987, the
essentially non-violent character of Palestinian street protest against Israeli
occupation—symbolized for the world by Palestinian youth throwing rocks at
Israeli tanks—gave the Palestinians both the moral high ground and a good deal
of international sympathy and support. Just as important, the lack of overt
violence of the first intifada—and the inability of the Israeli army to suppress
Palestinian protest—had a profound effect on a substantial segment of Israeli
society, indirectly leading to the victory of the Labor Party and Yitzhak Rabin
in the elections of 1992. It was apparent to Rabin and many Israelis that the
occupation of more than two million Palestinians was a losing proposition,
with the security benefits of occupation being far outweighed by its economic,
social, and psychological costs. Thus Rabin was willing to take the risk of
negotiating with (and thus legitimizing) Yasir Arafat and the PLO, which in turn
led to the signing of the first of the Oslo accords on the White House lawn in
September 1993, where Rabin eloquently called upon Israelis and Palestinians
to halt the bloodshed between them.
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The international support and sympathy gained by the Palestinians during
the first intifada has very much evaporated during the current struggle, a fact
acknowledged by many Palestinians themselves. As expressed by Tawfiq Abu
Bakr, a member of the Palestinian National Council, the Palestinian “slide into
militarization,” and the excessive use of force and violence by both sides, has
weakened the Palestinian cause in the eyes of the world. Moreover, such violence
“negates our humanity and strengthens the forces of extremism on both sides,”
thus making long-term Palestinian-Israeli reconciliation that much more difficult.8
From the refugee camps of Balata outside Nablus to that of Rafah in
the Gaza Strip, illegal weapons are in plentiful supply in Palestinian society.
Says one Palestinian gun dealer, Khalil Abu Ali of Nablus, “if I call my clients
and say I’ve got 100 guns, they come running.”9 Even during the relatively
peaceful days of the Oslo process in the 1990s, when Palestinian-Israeli violence
in the territories dropped markedly, thousands of illegal weapons were making
their way into the West Bank and Gaza Strip from Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and even
Israel itself. Today, there could well be as many as 70,000 such illegal weapons,
ranging from automatic
pistols, submachine guns,
and assault rifles to hand Even during the relatively peaceful
grenades, mortars, Katyusha days of the 1990s, thousands of
rockets, and anti-tank
illegal weapons were making their
missiles. Equipped with such
assault rifles, Palestinian way into the West Bank and Gaza
militiamen from groups like Strip from Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and
Tanzim attack Israeli settlers
even Israel itself.
in well-planned ambushes
and drive-by shootings. In
late February 2002, these types of attacks occurred near the Jewish settlement
of Tekoa in the West Bank, at a bus stop in the Jerusalem neighborhood of
Neve Ya’akov, at the Atarot industrial park north of Jerusalem, and near the
settlement of Carmel, south of Hebron, killing a total of three Israelis and
wounding more than a dozen.10 A few days later, in early March, a lone Palestinian
sniper killed seven Israeli soldiers and three Jewish settlers at an Israeli roadblock
outside the settlement of Ofra, north of Ramallah.
Moreover, as noted above, members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, as
well as Islamic militants and even Palestinian police and security personnel, are
carrying out paramilitary operations (in squads of ten or more fighters) against
Israeli military outposts using mortars, hand grenades, and rockets.11 Many of
the hand grenades and explosives used in such operations are manufactured by
the Palestinians themselves, in rudimentary weapons factories hidden away in
the Gaza Strip. As far back as 1998, the Palestinian police were seeking to
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dismantle such weapons factories being operated by Hamas and Islamic Jihad.12
In the context of full-scale fighting between Palestinians and Israelis during the
current al-Aqsa intifada, however, it is unlikely that Palestinian police and security
units are expending much effort searching for these illegal weapons factories.
The Israeli Army and Jewish Settlers
Despite this increase in the weaponry available to the Palestinians, the Israeli
army can, of course, deploy far greater military firepower—at times of its
choosing—throughout the Gaza Strip and West Bank. In addition to tanks and
attack helicopters, the IDF has used jet fighters and navy gunboats in full-scale
attacks on PA offices and installations in Ramallah, Nablus, Gaza City, and
elsewhere.
The use of this type of military force against the Palestinians has led to
much international condemnation. The furor over Israel’s use of targeted
assassinations against key leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Tanzim, and other
militant groups has been especially intense.13
In addition to the IDF, of course, there are well-armed Jewish settlers.
Equipped with government-issue Galil assault rifles, M-16s, and Uzi submachine
guns, the Jewish settlers are a constant reminder to the Palestinians that complete
sovereignty and control over their lives remains a distant dream. While only a
small minority of the more than 200,000 settlers living in the territories is
considered extremist (with an even smaller percentage belonging to such outlawed
organizations as Kach and Kahane Chai), the settlers do represent a potent
armed force vis-à-vis the Palestinians among whom they live, and the settlements
themselves are part of the IDF communications network and territorial defense
structure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The inability or unwillingness of successive Israeli governments to
constrain the more militant settlers in the territories continues to be a grave
concern for the future of the peace process. In June 1998, the Likud government
of Benjamin Netanyahu took the unprecedented step of approving the creation
of settler civil guard units in Ma’ale Adumim, Ariel, and other large West Bank
settlements, a move long opposed by previous governments, Israeli military
commanders, and police officials. As criticized by Knesset member Dedi Zucker
at the time, such units could evolve into “armed militias of extremist settlers
serving as a private army of the Yesha (Jewish settler) Council.”14 This has
indeed happened at times, with armed settlers operating independently of, or
even in direct opposition to, army and police authority in the territories. Despite
the prohibitions on militant organizations like Kach and Kahane Chai, supporters
of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane have formed new groups such as the Committee
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for Safety of the Roads, that act as little more than vigilantes in mounting armed
patrols on the roads and byways of the West Bank.
Moreover, beginning in 2000—even before the outbreak of the new
intifada—settler leaders had been speaking of increased violence as a way of
attempting to derail the peace process. In June 2000, when it appeared that a
summit meeting of President Clinton, Prime Minister Barak, and Palestinian
Authority Chairman Yasir Arafat might produce a last-minute agreement, settler
leader Pinchas Wallerstein warned that Jewish settlers would “react with the
greatest harshness” to what they considered “immoral, illegitimate, and illegal”
concessions on the part of the Israeli government in giving up West Bank and
Gaza territory.15 One need only think back to Yigal Amir’s rationale for
assassinating Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 to see why such
threats are taken seriously. In the end, the summit collapsed with no agreement,
paving the way for Palestinian frustrations to erupt a few months later in
September. Once full-scale violence did break out, the more militant Jewish
settlers, armed with government-issue Galil and M-16 assault rifles, contributed
to the escalating cycle of violence with both unprovoked and retaliatory attacks
against Palestinians. By March 2002, the horror of the killings had led to the
formation of new vigilante settler groups—known by names such as “Avengers
of the Infants”—that were carrying out acts of terror against Palestinian civilians,
including the bombing of an Arab school.
Weapons Provisions of the Oslo Accords
How did the promise of the Oslo process in the 1990s end in disaster? In part,
the seeds of its own destruction were sown by the Oslo accords themselves.
The Oslo agreements signed by Israel and the Palestinians in 1993 and
1995 contained a wide range of measures for promoting both Palestinian selfgovernment and Jewish-Arab reconciliation. One of the most important
components of those accords in achieving these goals was the right of the
Palestinian Authority to raise and equip a strong domestic police and security
force that could enforce order in the West Bank and Gaza Strip while also
cooperating with Israeli security forces to thwart terrorist attacks against Jews.
Specifically, the 1995 Oslo II accord (and later, the January 1997 Hebron
Protocol) provided for a Palestinian police force of some 30,000 personnel,
equipped with 15,000 automatic rifles and pistols, 240 heavy machine guns, 45
armored vehicles, lightly armed shore patrol vessels, and associated
communications and transportation equipment. Oslo II also set limits on the
number of armed Palestinian police and security personnel that could be
deployed in individual towns and villages.
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In addition to limiting authorized weaponry to one for every two
Palestinian police and security personnel, the Israeli government insisted on the
creation of an Israeli-Palestinian Joint Security Coordination and Cooperation
Committee (JSC) to oversee “arrangements for entry of the Palestinian Police
and the introduction of police arms, ammunition, and equipment.”16 Initially,
most of these weapons were Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifles (standard issue
of the Palestine Liberation Army), brought by Palestinians returning from abroad.
In addition to keeping an updated registry of any and all firearms in its possession,
the Palestinian Authority was also required to pass legislation and strictly control
small arms and light weapons in the civilian population.17
Almost from the beginning, however, the issue of illegal weapons in the
Palestinian community was a major stumbling block to further progress in the
peace process. In October 1996, the Israeli government published a list of “Major
PLO Violations of the Oslo Accords,” which noted that while “the PA is
obligated to disarm and disband all militias operating in the autonomous areas,”
it has “failed to undertake a
systematic crackdown on illegal
Israeli underworld figures weapons, and has confiscated
coordinate shipments of black just a few hundred of the tens
market M-16s and Uzis into the of thousands of weapons
circulating in the autonomous
West Bank and Gaza, while areas.” 18 In addition to
Israeli soldiers themselves have describing how Palestinians
been caught stealing weapons were smuggling illegal weapons
across the Jordan River and
from army depots and selling Dead Sea and through
them to Palestinians.
underground tunnels linking
Egypt to the Gaza Strip, the
Israeli government accused the Palestinian Authority itself of complicity in
organized smuggling by capitalizing on the VIP status of PA limousines and
aircraft entering the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
In turn, Palestinian officials retorted that Israelis themselves were heavily
involved in running guns into the territories. Israeli underworld figures coordinate
shipments of black market M-16s and Uzis into the West Bank and Gaza, while
Israeli soldiers themselves have been caught stealing weapons from army depots
and selling them to Palestinians. A more recent import are M-16s sporting the
cypress tree of Lebanon, stolen from weapons stocks of the South Lebanese
Army when it was disbanded as Israel withdrew from Lebanon in May 2000.19
As is common elsewhere around the world, weapons smuggling from Israel to
Palestinian areas is heavily intertwined with narcotics, stolen cars, and other
contraband.
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Despite the profits to be made in weapons smuggling (an M-16 can
command up to $5,000), the main motivations among Palestinians for acquiring
small arms and light weapons are political and cultural. For many individuals,
according to Palestinian legislator Hussam Khader, “buying a gun is a priority ...
it comes before buying a house, or marriage. Palestinian women will sell their
gold to buy guns for their husbands or sons.”20 For groups like Fatah and Tanzim,
weaponry ensures political power and independence, whether in relation to the
Israeli army, rival militias, or the Palestinian Authority itself. For Arafat and the
heads of his security forces, the stockpiling of illegal weapons—in excess of
the 15,000-plus allowed by Oslo II—likewise represents a lever of control over
an increasingly divided Palestinian community.
The Way Ahead
What, if anything, can be done to break the current cycle of violence and facilitate
a return to political negotiations and the peace process?
Despite long-standing Israeli opposition to any form of substantive
international involvement, the time has come for a strong international
peacekeeping presence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Previous proposals for
deploying UN peacekeepers to the region have been frustrated, and indeed, the
creation of the commission headed by former United States Senator George
Mitchell in 2000 was seen at the time as a way through which the Clinton
administration, on behalf of Israel, could forestall UN action.21
After 18 months of intense violence, however, the United Nations needs
to take the lead in promoting the concept of inserting an armed peacekeeping
force into the West Bank and Gaza Strip to separate Palestinians and Israelis.
While such a mission entails great risks, not least for the international
peacekeepers who will likely find themselves targets of both Jewish and Arab
extremists, one must ask: if Kosovo, Bosnia, and East Timor, why not the West
Bank and Gaza Strip? Following more than one hundred years of Arab-Jewish
communal violence in Palestine—beginning with the first great waves of Jewish
immigration in the late 1800s—and with the Oslo peace process all but dead,
the international community has a responsibility and a moral duty to act.
Such an international intervention, however, will succeed only if
positive, unilateral steps are taken by both the Israeli government and the
Palestinian Authority to reduce the threat of armed violence, whether aimed at
each other or at an international peacekeeping force.
For its part, the Israeli government should affirm the existence of a new
Green Line—following agreement with the Palestinians—that would bring a
large number of West Bank settlements into Israel proper. Several proposals
have been advanced that would redraw the boundary so as to incorporate as
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many as 70 to 80 percent of West Bank settlers into Israel, at a cost to the
Palestinians of some 10 to 15 percent of total West Bank territory.22 In return,
Israel would agree to disband all remaining settlements in the West Bank, to
leave the Gaza Strip entirely, and to turn over all of the housing and infrastructure
in such settlements to the Palestinians. Israel could be compensated by the
international community for this housing and infrastructure, which in turn would
provide an immediate benefit to the Palestinians by providing housing for tens
of thousands of people.
Finally, international pressure (including the withholding of international
aid) must be brought to bear on Yasir Arafat and the Palestinian Authority to
crack down on the armed militias of Tanzim and Hamas, to resume joint security
cooperation with Israel to thwart terrorist acts, to seize illegal weapons from
civilians, and to enact a civil constitution for Palestine that safeguards political
dissent and due process. As noted
in March 2001 by Christopher
Despite long-standing Israeli Patten, the European Union’s
opposition to any form of commissioner for external
substantive international relations, “In order for us to go
on and provide substantial
involvement, the time has come assistance to the Palestinian
for a strong international administration, we will need to see
peacekeeping presence in the a tough realistic budget, some
real transparency, and measures
West Bank and Gaza Strip.
to ensure complete anticorruption.”23 Given losses to the
Palestinian economy of as much as 25 percent of its GDP because of the violence
(well over $2 billion), the international community should use whatever economic
leverage it can muster to demand reforms from the Palestinian Authority.
At present, such developments are unlikely, despite being sorely needed
to break the cycle of violence in Israel/Palestine. As of March 2002, the one
glimmer of hope was a peace initiative by the Saudi Arabian government that
called for full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza Strip in return
for complete peace and normalization of relations with the Arab world. Whatever
the modality of restarting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, however, what
will be paramount is the marginalization of Jewish and Palestinian rejectionists
(whether secular or religious). The ability of militants on both sides to foment
violence will continue to undermine the ability of the Israeli and Palestinian
governments to make peace, once they have decided to do so. Thus, a general
campaign of disarming these militants and the armed factions they support,
and of cracking down on the black market in small arms and light weapons, will
also be necessary.24 The Israeli and Palestinian communities are tragically a long
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way from being ready for such measures. When they are, the international
community must make available the necessary political and financial support so
that the peace process cannot be so readily undermined again. WA
Notes
1. Peter Hirschberg, “War Games,” The Jerusalem Report, 4 September 1997: 26-27.
2. Amos Harel, “PA forces said training hard to take on IDF,” Ha’aretz (English Internet Edition
– EIE), 1 June 1998.
3. The violence that began on 28 September 2000 was precipitated, according to Palestinians, by
the provocative visit to the Al-Aqsa mosque on the Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount) by Ariel
Sharon; many Israelis claim the Sharon visit was only a pretext for massive violence that had already
been planned by the Palestinian Authority.
4. The Islamic group Hamas was claiming responsibility for the Kassam-2 attacks, saying they
were the Palestinian equivalent of Israeli airstrikes against Palestinian cities and civilians; see “IDF
readies for large operation in Gaza,” Ha’aretz (EIE), 13 February 2002. In March, Kassam rockets
fired from the Gaza Strip were landing near Israeli towns in the Negev desert.
5. Of the four crew members, three were killed and one injured; Israeli military authorities noted
that never in 10 years of roadside bomb attacks against IDF forces in south Lebanon had an entire
tank crew been similarly killed or injured. See “3 IDF Soldiers Killed in Palestinian Bombing,” Israel
Line, 15 February 2002.
6. Jeffrey Boutwell, “The Wild West Bank,” Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, January/February 1999.
7. See Jack Katzenell, “Israel Describes Weapons Seizure,” Associated Press, 6 January 2002, and
BBC, “Arms ship captain acted ‘under orders’”, BBC website, 8 January 2002.
8. Tawfiq Abu Bakr, “Weapons and the Two Palestinian Intifadas,” CGNews, Special Series: Views
on Nonviolence, 30 January 2002 (Common Ground News Service, Washington, DC). In addition
to strongly condemning the “brutal use of force by the Israeli army,” Abu Bakr also is quite candid
in blaming Hamas and Islamic militants for destroying the peace process with their suicide bombing
campaign in early 1996 that undermined Shimon Peres and greatly facilitated the election of Benyamin
Netanyahu.
9. Quoted in “Smugglers from all sides arm intifada,” Toronto Star, 17 December 2000.
10. See “Two Israelis Killed in Drive-by Shooting,” IsraeLine, 25 February 2002.
11. See “Palestinians Use Anti-Tank Grenades for First Time,” IsraeLine, 1 November 2000.
12. Amira Hass, “PA police uncover Gaza arms factories,” Ha’aretz (EIE), 29 March 1998.
13. See “Palestinian Memo to the Mitchell Committee of Inquiry,” Palestine Negotiation Affairs
Department, Ramallah, 13 January 2001. According to Israelis such as Knesset member Naomi
Chazan, former prime minister Ehud Barak admitted that Israel was carrying out targeted
assassinations of Palestinian activists, a measure that Chazan condemned as immoral and “totally
illegal according to any international criteria or law” (quoted in Washington Post, 8 January 2001).
14. Quoted in Amos Harel and Nadav Shragai, “Army approves civil guard in West Bank
settlements,” Ha’aretz (EIE), 12 June 1998.
15. Quoted in “Settlers Escalate Resistance to Peace Process,” IsraeLine, 23 June 2000.
16. Oslo II, Annex I, Article III (#1.h).
17. Article XIV of the Oslo II accord states that “no one but Palestinian police may manufacture,
sell, acquire, etc., firearms, ammunition, weapons, explosives, unless otherwise provided for in
Annex I,” while Annex I (Article II) allows the PA to “issue permits in order to legalize the
possession of and carrying of arms by civilians.”
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18. “Major PLO Violations of the Oslo Accords,” Government Press Office, Jerusalem, 25
October 1996, item 4.
19. See Suzanne Goldberg, “Guns for sale—how stolen Israeli weapons arm Fatah’s fighters,”
Guardian, 16 December 2000.
20. Quoted in “Smugglers from all sides arm intifada,” Toronto Star, 17 December 2000.
21. A point made by Israelis as well, such as Meron Benvenisti, who has criticized the Mitchell
Committee as “one more instrument for stifling any initiative for examining the actions of Israeli
security forces and for uncovering the truth lurking behind the propaganda smokescreen.” Quoted
in Cheryl A. Rubenberg, “The Clinton Years: U.S. Policy Toward Israel and Palestine, Part Two,”
Palestine Center for Policy Analysis, Washington, DC, 10 January 2001 (available online: http://
www.palestinecenter.org/frames.html).
22. See Joseph Alpher, Settlements and Borders, Study No. 3 of Final Status Issues: Israel-Palestinians
(Tel Aviv: Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, 1994).
23. Quoted in “EU to Monitor PA Funds,” IsraeLine, 14 March 2001.
24. See Jerome M. Segal, “A Blueprint for a New Beginning in the Mideast,” New York Times, 17
February 2002.
Editor’s Note
This article was written prior to the Israeli military action in the West Bank of
late-March/early-April 2002.
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