On Tue, 24 Oct 2000, Doug Henwood wrote:
> Does nonviolence depend in part on the exhaustion of your opponents?
> Wasn't the British empire near the end of its life in India? In the
> U.S. south, wasn't the local elite under attack from the federal
> government and national opinionmakers? Israel, however, seems in a
> most uncompromising mood, and has forever.
>
Ungovernability has definite costs. The peace process emerged because Israelis didn't want their sons to die patrolling the West Bank. And because they wanted economic prosperity. Economic ease may be even more closely linked to the peace process in Israeli minds than it is in reality. Israelis see the 90s as marking a complete change from a country proud of privation to a country proud of its shopping malls. But the real effects are considerable. To start with, all of those shopping malls are now ghost towns. The Palestinians don't even have to bomb to terrorize people anymore. The tourist industry just entirely died -- and you have only to walk along the beach in Tel Aviv and look at the billions of dollars of brand new hotels that went up in the 90s to see a powerful elite constituency for peace. On top of that is FDI, which has jumped enormously in the last two years. I would be surprised if that doesn't drop off markedly as well if the troubles continue. Related to that is the rapid growth of the IT industry that Israel has been so proud of. If the intifada continues, it will suffer a large brain drain as the American-educated Jews with children decide they'd rather make it in the States. And lastly there is the captive market of Palestinian consumers which I just I saw estimated in an FT article at $2.5 billion in annual exports.
Ironically, the least important input economically seems to be Palestinian labor. During the long closure after the 1996 riots, Israel not only substituted other immigrants from Eastern Europe and Asia, the employers were happier with them, precisely because they weren't as worried about racial explosiveness inhibiting their exploitation. It is the Palestinians who need to work -- the old story that the only thing worse than being exploited is not being exploited. But the Israeli ruling class understands that in the long term employing Palestinians is politically a necessity.
The most likely outcome now is:
Barak and Sharon form a unity government within the week; Arafat declares a state on November 12th; Israel makes some annexations and enforces closure; the intifada goes on for at least a year, probably two,
with Arab money-help (Saudi Arabia just pledged them a billion) but not much else.
And then 2,000 dead Palestinians later, Israel gives in. And this, god help me, is the optimistic view.
Giving in would mean: Jerusalem is placed under separate sovereignty; the Dome of the Rock/Temple Mount is placed under international control; the bantustans are made continuous; some annexations are reversed and others are swapped out; a token number of refugees, say 100,000 are taken back, many other accepted in principle who can be counted on not to come, and money is paid in compensation to the rest. All those outcomes are completely possible. There were all bruited about seriously just before the last break-down. There will be two years now to have them seep in.
Of course you'll never go broke betting on a more pessimistic outcome. Or on outcomes that are complete breaks with history, like the overthrow of several conservative Arab regimes. But as to the point at hand, an year-long intifada wouldn't depend on guilt for its effect. It would rather be a matter of morale. Israelis don't feel guilty. They simply feel they've got what the other side wants and they'd feel the same in their shoes. But they can be made to feel it's not worth the candle. And the weird thing about this kind of struggle -- what really disguishes it from plain old fashioned war, whether one feels like characterizing it as nonviolent or not -- is that the stronger party can be induced to have the lower morale. As odd as it may seem, the Palestinians feel great about the future right now and the Israelis feel awful and adrift and afraid.
The original intifada didn't depend on guilt for its effect either. And the intervening peace has made the Israelis much softer and less willing to sacrifice their lives and happiness for the supposed good of their country.
Michael
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com