Israel's elusive two-state solution now a three-way struggle

by Mark Silva

For years, the Bush administration has advanced the vision of a "two-state solution'' for Israelis and Palestinians, without exercising a high level of its own energy in the pursuit of that .

But now that the terrorist-based Hamas party has seized control of Gaza in a bloody takeover, the White House could be confronting a three-state solution -- with the conciliatory but endangered Palestinian government of the Fatah Party's Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank seeking the release of tax collections that Israel has held as sanction for Hamas gaining control of the Palestinian parliament last year. The problem with Hamas in any three-state calculation, however, is that it does not recognize Israel's right to exist.

As Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert arrives at the White House on Tuesday, the Middle East Crisis has assumed a more complex and troubling status than Bush has ever confronted.

"It seems unlikely that the end result will have much impact on the peace process,'' Anthony Cordesman, a seasoned analyst with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote today. "There really wasn’t one before the new fight. Neither the government of Israel or the Palestinian factions was ready to be the peace partner of the other. The most that renewed US and other efforts could have done was lay the ground work for future progress, defining a “road map” with substantive content, and ameliorating some problems. ''

For more, see Cordesman's essay:

The Strategic Implications of the Palestinian Crisis

By Anthony H. Cordesman
Center for Strategic and International Studies

One new war is already taking place. The conflict between Hamas and Fatah (and in reality the Palestinian Authority) seems to have effectively divided the Gaza and West Bank into two separate bodies where any political compromise will be hollow and at best cloak a somewhat less over level of struggle. Arafat’s divide and rule tactics, Israel's shattering of the Palestinian security forces, the failure of the peace process at every level, Islamist extremism, and Israeli walls and settlements have all helped create a divide that is far more polarized than even the most pessimistic Israeli and Palestinian government officials expected even a few short weeks ago.

Hamas turned out to be far better organized and far more effective than was expected, and clearly had planned at least many elements of the campaign in the Gaza. The Palestinian security forces, on the other hand, were even weaker, more divided, more corrupt, and more unpopular. It is still unclear why Fatah was so ineffective and so badly prepared, and why intelligence on Hamas’s planning and capabilities was so bad. Even in May. Some US advisors and Israeli officials were still counting on the training of the Presidential Guard and Hamas’s “weakness” to force Hamas to compromise. At least some IDF officers were saying that Israel could, in a dire emergency, intervene in support of the Palestinian Authority.

In practice, Hamas seems to have caught Abbas and his security team without warning, with several key officials out of the areas, and with the others totally unprepared. These included Muhammed Dahlan, Abbas’s security advisor; Rashid Abu Shbak, the former head of Preventive Security; Yussef Issa, the current head of Preventive Security, and figures like Samih al-Madhoun.

There are indications that the younger members of Fatah’s security forces turned on their leaders or simply stood aside – seeing the older “Tunisians in Gaza as corrupt, brutal, and ineffective. The impact of the fighting with the IDF since 2000, and starving the Palestinian Authority of money to “hurt” Hamas, both helped Hamas. In fact, starving the Palestinians to hurt Hamas did even more to expose the corruption, brutality, and incompetence of far too many Palestinian Authority leaders, officials, and security forces.

In practice, Israel and the US had no time in which to react, even if they wanted to. Neither did moderate Arab powers like Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. The most Abbas could do was try to consolidate power in the West Bank where Hamas, the PIJ, and other radical elements have no real power base – as yet.

It seems unlikely that the end result will have much impact on the peace process. There really wasn’t one before the new fight. Neither the government of Israel or the Palestinian factions was ready to be the peace partner of the other. The most that renewed US and other efforts could have done was lay the ground work for future progress, defining a “road map” with substantive content, and ameliorating some problems.

The current state of affairs seems likely to delay even these efforts. Gaza will almost certainly become a “third” front in Israel's active struggles with its neighbors – along with Syrian and the Hezbollah in Lebanon. It will present new security problems for Israeli containment, and possibly pin down more IDF and security forces along the border with the Gaza and Egypt, but also virtually eliminate any success in getting Israeli to relax its security restrictions on Gaza, try to deal with Hamas, or seek a comprehensive peace settlement. In fact, the end result may be to simplify Israel's security problems by creating a total wall or separation in the south, easing its ability to use money and utilities like water and power as leverage, and conduct targeted attacks in Gaza. Same low-level asymmetric struggle; fewer operational constraints on the IDF and on hostile Israeli action.

In contrast, Egypt will face far more difficulty in having to secure the Philadelphia corridor and Sinai border in the face of a hostile Palestinian “government” in Gaza – at least some sympathy for Hamas among Egyptian other ranks and junior officers. Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia will all face more serious problems in dealing with Iranian, Al Qa’ida, and Syrian support, arms smuggling, and money transfers. The world is also likely to face more security problems in dealing with radical and embittered elements of the Palestinian diaspora.

The real issue will be whether Abbas can create something approaching an effective government, security structure, and economy in the West Bank; or whether the initial Fatah victory there will be wasted by corruption, ineffectiveness, repression, and a lack of resources. Hamas’s victory may be a short-term victory for Israel if the Gaza is split, but all of the same problems in terms of the overall fate of the Palestinian people, and the deep impact this has on the Arab and Muslim world remain. Furthermore, if the Palestinian Authority should fail in the West Bank, the security consequences for both Israel and Jordan would be far worse. A radicalized Palestinian entity with no hope in peace, no real ties to moderate Arab governments, and no economic options would have little to lose in waging any kind of asymmetric struggle it could conceive of.

One other potential impact is that the division of the Palestinian movement may become one more Middle Eastern “fact on the ground.” If it does, no one in the region will want a Gazan mini-state under radical control. Gazan moderates are likely to leave in any way they can, along with surviving Fatah loyalists and West Bank and diaspora radicals are likely to move or infiltrate in. Throw in cadres from Iran, Al Qa’ida, etc., and any form of economic aid or development becomes problematic.

A West Bank mini state, however, is scarcely more convincing except as a token symbol. A weak West Bank will have even more problems with the settlements, the “wall,” and Jerusalem. It can only be economically viable if tied closely to Israel with links to Jordan, but this requires a level of security that may be impossible for the Palestinian Authority to create, particularly with Hamas and PIJ infiltration and spoiler operations going from the West Bank to Israel (or Jordan). The outside world may also face the problem of distinguishing “Gazan” and “West Bank” Palestinians, making it even harder for the diaspora and Palestinians seeking to emigrate and find work.