Democratic Palestine : 36 (ص 21)
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- Democratic Palestine : 36 (ص 21)
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which was only brought up in this case because the victim
was a Circassian officer in the service itself. In a previous
case, involving the killing of two Palestinians captured in an
operation in 1984, Israeli Attorney General Zamir had res-
igned because his intention to have the killings investigated
was blocked by the government and Peres in particular. An
opinion poll at that time showed that 70% of the Israeli
public backed Peres against Zamir. «Facing a choice bet-
ween security and the law, they chose security,» commented
the Washington Post, June 8, 1986.
The enemy outside
Under the impact of the uprising, previous Zionist security
failures have been revived. This is clearest in Lebanon which
Isracl invaded in 1982, on the assumption that by eradicating the
PLO there, mass resistance in occupied Palestine could be easily
squelched. This have failed, the opposite now seems to be the
case: The uprising has spurred morc struggle against the Zionist
occupation from South Lebanon, after some years of preoccu-
pation with secondary cvaflicts. Though not at the level aspired
to by Palestinian revolutionaries, guerrilla attacks increased
against Israel in 1988, as compared to 1987. In the first half of
1989, UNIFIL counted 98 attacks against the IDF/SLA in South
Lebanon. By the summer, Israel was involved in a virtual war
with major attempts to cross the border to occupied Palestine
occurring roughly weekly, several Israeli soldiers killed and
ongoing attacks by the Lebanese resistance. In early August,
the Israeli army reported 31 attempts to cross the border in the
last two years, claiming only two of them to have been success-
ful.
Israel continued its policy of «pre-emptive strikes,» launching
an average of two air raids on Lebanon each month over the past
two years. As Syria reinforced in Lebanon in conjunction with
the war between General-Aoun and the nationalist forces, the
statements of Israeli officials showed that Zionist policy on sec-
urity had not changed: In mid-August, Likud MK of the Knesset
Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Yehoshua Saguy,
stated, «Abandoning Lebanon’s air space and coastal waters
means a direct threat to Israel’s ability to defend its borders.» At
the same time, Israel widened its circle of declared enemies in
June, by banning Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezballah as «ter-
rorist» Organizations on a par with the Palestinian resistance
organizations.
At the same time, Rabin has been forced to admit failure to
extinguish popular resistance on two fronts: «We have learned
the hard way, that it is impossible to uproot terror easily.»
According to his count, 30 new anti-Israeli guerrilla organiza-
tions have been formed since 1982, while the army budget for
fighting insurgents from Lebanon has grown four to seven times
(Haaretz, September 11, 1989).
The Jordanian front has also become a cause for concern. As
of October 1989, there had been nine attacks against the Israeli
occupation from across the Jordan River, four of them involving
Jordanian soldicrs acting on their own, and the rest launched by
Democratic Palestine, December 1989
the Palestinian resistance. After rockets landed near an Israeli
settlement in early September, a prominent settler said on
Israeli radio, «It’s like we're returning to the situation of 20
years ago.» In September, Israel was reported to be installing an
early warning system along the Jordanian border like the one on
the Lebanese border, whereas before observation posts and
mobile patrols were deemed sufficient.
The uprising has focused the bulk of concern on the previ-
ously ignored Palestinian core of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but
Israeli officials and experts continue to devote attention to the
Arab aspect of the confrontation, though to a lesser degree. An
article of the former intelligence officer, Alouph Harevan, of
the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem was written in 1988, but
appears oblivious to the ramifications of the uprising. [ts main
conclusion is that «Israel's strategic situation in the 1980s has
been better than in any previous decade» due to the absence of
an Arab war coalition (The Jerusalem Quarterly, Winter 1989).
During the period of the uprising, Isracli statements about the
«Arab threat» have been fewer and usually related to specific
things. The January 10, 1988 Sunday Times reported that Israel
was considering an attack ona «secret Syrian nerve gas factory.»
Israeli officials have expressed concern about newly acquired
Arab ballistic missiles, Syria’s acquisition of a more advanced
bomber from the Soviet Union, and the «Iraqi danger» after the
Gulf war. In February 1989, Shomron said that «Israel must take
the war to the enemy,» threatening a return to the policy of «pre-
emptive strikes,» never abondoned in relation to Lebanon.
However, the possibility of Israel staging a larger military oper-
ation, as a diversion from the intifada is fraught with risks. The
failure of Isracl’s assassination of Abu Jihad to stop or even les-
sen the intifada, proved that limited surgical operations are
futile.
However, advocates of «pre-emptive strikes remain, as
exemplified by Reuvan Pedatzur’s July 14, 1988 article in
Haaretz, which argues for a return to this policy as practiced in
1967, in view of the Arab states’ acquisition of more sophisti-
cated weapons, and because such strikes constitute an essential
and permanent part of Israel’s strategic doctrine. Military pro-
duction also continues, to enable such options to be realized if
decided upon: Israel’s development of the Arrow missile in
cooperation with the US; the May 1988 test launching over the
mediterranean of the potentially nuclear-tipped Jericho IT mis-
sile; the September 1988 launching of the first reconnissance
satellite in the Middle East; and the May 1989 unveiling of the
Markava Mark 3 tank which can be sealed for chemical, nuclear
or biological warfare.
Territory - Security drawback
The most immediate and clear-cut effect of the intifada on
Israeli security thinking is diminished belief that more territory
means more security. This was dramatically highlighted by the
May 1988 emergence of the Council for Peace and Security,
grouping roughly half the senior officers of the reserves, and
headed by Aharon Yariv, former head of military intelligence p>
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