Democratic Palestine : 35 (ص 15)
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- Democratic Palestine : 35 (ص 15)
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Israeli Security
Where did it start and where does it end?
In occupied Palestine, wearing clothes or painting pictures
with the colors of the Palestinian flag is a security offense; so is
throwing stones, teaching a neighbor’s child to read or planting
a tree. One can ask whether peace itself is thought to threaten
state security: Why else to arrest Palestinians who engage in
peace dialogues with Israelis, or prevent Israeli peace activists
from visiting West Bank villages, or convict Israeli politicians
for meeting PLO officials?
Judging by the daily functioning of the Israeli occupation
forces, security appears to be a term so broad as to defy
definition. The ambiguity and elasticity of the Israeli security
concept became obvious to the world during the 1982 invasion
of Lebanon; today it stands exposed by the brutality enacted
against the unarmed masses of the intifada. Still, when the
PLO launched Its peace offensive in 1988, it faced a barrage of
queries as to whether its proposals would meet Israeli security
needs.
In this study, we will examine how the Israeli state views
security, hoping to provide a background for assessing the
prospects for the PLO’s peace initiative, and the intifada’s
impact on the course of the Arab-Zionist conflict. We will deal
with the elements of Israeli security, how this concept has
changed over the years, and the impact of the intifada on
Israeli thinking in this sphere.
It is our thesis that the main reason for the elasticity of the
Israeli security concept lies in the nature of the state itself,
which is based on the Zionist ideology. As a settler-colonial
enterprise, the Zionist movement had to concern itself with all
aspects of building a state: territory, natural resources, im-
migration, industry, infrastructure, etc. It could not be content
with a narrow definition of security restricted to the military
sphere alone, although this is in fact the bulwark of the whole
project. We will not here focus on the military aspect in detail
for the simple reason that we previously dealt with this topic
extensively in a study on the Israeli role in the region (see DP
nos. 24 - 32). Here we ask the reader to bear in mind the
primacy of military supremacy in Israeli thinking, both in
terms of sophisticated weaponry and the training, combative
morale and integrity of the armed forces, for this is a main
factor in evaluating the effects of the Palestinian intifada.
Besides imposing a comprehensive definition of security, the
Israeli state’s nature means that it can be extremely difficult, if
not impossible, to distinguish between legitimate security con-
cerns on the one hand, and the Israeli drive for expansion and
military supremacy on the other. Objectively, Israeli statehood
occurred via uprooting and disempowering the Palestinian
people, occupying their land and that of neighboring Arab
peoples. Thus, Israel engendered the hostility of Palestinians
and Arabs, and necessitated their struggle to redress these
grievances. As a logical consequence, any expression of
Palestinian national identity or Arab progress can be construed
as a threat to Israeli security, because it challenges the essence
of the Zionist project.
Democratic Palestine, October 1989
WHO IS THE ENEMY—
PALESTINIAN OR ARAB THREAT?
Israeli strategists generally count the Arab «invasion» in
1948 as the major challenge to Israel’s establishment. Yet
assuming the Zionists exert their military prowess where they
sense a threat, one should note actual practice. The Zionist
militias began their concerted campaign of armed attacks on
the Palestinians in December 1947, five months before the
Arab armies entered Palestine, and in fact right after the UN
approved the establishment of a Palestinian and Jewish state.
One can argue that the real brunt of Israeli violence over the
years has been most consistently directed against the Palesti-
nians, at home or in exile, as in Lebanon.
There are even indications that the Zionists found the Arab
intervention convenient, for it provided them with the ap-
pearance of fighting regular armies rathering than brutalizing a
mainly civilian population. On May 13, 1948, the US consul
general in Palestine reported the British view that Deir Yassin,
where 250 Palestinians were massacred on April 9th, «might be
repeated by the Jews to deliberately provoke a premature at-
tack by the Arab armies» (Stephen Green, Taking Sides:
America’s Secret Relations with a Militant Israel 1948/1967, p.
32).
After the Arab retreat, «military stabilization» of the cease-
fire lines involved fighting the attempts of Palestinians trying
to return to their land and families. The other side of the coin
was the imposition of martial law on those Palestinians re-
maining in the Zionist state, not to be lifted until 1966,
whereafter it was imposed on the rest of Palestine occupied in
1967. Military rule was enacted in the name of security, but
functioned mainly to gain control of land resources.
In another vein, the Swedish UN mediator, Count Folke
Bernadotte, was assassinated by the Zionists on September 17,
1948, after he submitted a report recommending the return of
the Palestinian refugees. Was this a security operation to
forestall the Palestinian return?
In My People, The Story of the Jews (1968), Abba Eban
paints a typical picture of Israel’s situation after 1948: «... the
Arab governments renewed their attempt to harry Israel out of
existence.There is no precedent in modern international history
for such a comprehensive and diversified hostility. Eban builds
up to the 1956 attack on Egypt, citing «a massive Egyptian
armament program... the seizure of the Suez Canal... Alliances
with Syria and Jordan under Egyptian command gave Israel a
sensation of encirclement.» In 1967, Eban claims, Syrian in-
itiated hostility, counting on «uncritical Soviet support.» Eban
credits the Soviet Union with bringing Egypt into the picture,
and goes on to describe an alliance of almost all the Arab
states, whereby their troops «converged toward Israel like
greyhounds advancing to tear the quarry to pieces... Israel
faced the greatest peril to her existence that she had known
since the hour of her birth» (pp. 500 - 505). >
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