The use of might will not prove right in Israel's quasi-war

By Martin Woollacott

LONDON: Asymmetrical war is the name given to it by military theorists. What it comes down to in real life is this: one man killed by precision munitions fired from a state of the art helicopter in one place, and eight young men and women crushed to death by an ordinary diesel bus in another place about 50 miles away.

One was carefully planned, the other may have been hardly planned at all. One was the act of a strong state and a strong army, the other an act typical of a weak society.

But, different though they were, they could not have been better timed, as Ariel Sharon prepares for power, to illustrate not just the limitations of force in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but the way in which its use constantly defeats any rational purpose.

For what will happen as a consequence of these two acts? Will the thought that they might be selectively assassinated by the Israel is make Palestinian leaders shrink from organizing or encouraging attacks?

All that can be said is that it never has in the past, and that the effect of assassinations -- and over the years there have been so many, in Beirut, Tunis, Malta, and many other places, as well as in the West Bank and Gaza -- has nearly always had the reverse effect, leading to more, rather than less, violence.

Has the disappearance from the scene of the 20 or so men the Israelis are said to have targeted and killed in the troubles that began last September changed anything for the better?

The truth, rather, is that in a situation like the one in which the Palestinians find themselves there is no shortage of men, driven by both anger and ambition, anxious to step into the shoes of people who are killed.

Some figures, notably Arafat himself, are irreplaceable, and one prominent Israeli this week took the argument to its reductive end by raising the possibility that the Israelis might destroy the Palestinian Authority itself, not necessarily by assassination but by making it impossible for it to function at all.

That idea will not have many followers in any Israeli government, which desperately needs somebody to talk to on the other side and understands in practice, whatever spokesmen say in public, that there are some restraints being imposed by the Authority on Palestinian military action.

Still, the decapitation of the enemy is an old Israeli fantasy and remains a temptation. What the assassinations show is that Israeli policy is driven not by what it may be rationally useful to do but rather merely by what can be done.

All kinds of options, from full-scale bombardments of areas from which they are fired on to the reoccupation of Palestinian towns, are ruled out, at least for the moment. But assassinations are technically possible, not too risky for the forces involved, and not too costly politically, in spite of international protests. So they are done -- because "something" has to be done.

What will follow the bus attack? First, it is probable that the Egged bus company will sack many, or all, of the few Gaza and West Bank men it still employs, and that other Israeli firms will do the same, so that, regardless of how long the borders are sealed or virtually sealed, there will be, even if the restrictions are eased, even less work for Palestinians in Israel.

There is madness here, too: 30,000 Gaza workers commuted to Israel before last September. It was work useful to Israel, but vital to Gaza, which has little industry or agriculture of its own.

Now the United Nations estimates that unemployment in the West Bank and Gaza is nearly 40 percent -- higher in Gaza -- and this is probably an underestimate. That there is any work at all in Gaza and the West Bank is largely due to the money the international community is putting in, including emergency payment of civil service salaries.

How can it help Israel, one might ask, that in Gaza, where half the population is under 14, there should be almost no jobs and no possibilities for advancement, however modest, except in the single field of fighting Israelis?

If Israel's main problem in negotiations with the Palestinians was, and remains, that it is too strong, then that is also its main problem in the state of quasi-war that now exists.

Strength does not necessarily produce effective policies, and it may rule out others that might be effective. One of Israel's leading intellectuals, the military writer Martin van Creveld, has been incisive on the subject of the disadvantages of strength.

"A war waged by the strong against the weak," he wrote, "is problematic for that very reason ... Fighting the weak demeans those who engage in it and therefore alienates its own purpose. He who loses out to the weak loses; he who triumphs over the weak also loses. In such an enterprise there can be neither profit nor honor."

It was in part a perception of this problem which led Israel, after the first intifada, down the road of negotiations, if not far enough.

And it is in part a perception of this problem that guides the Palestinians when they provoke the Israelis into actions that they believe will shame them before the world community and in their own eyes.

When military establishments are asked by governments, particularly by governments headed by ex-generals, for suggestions as to what to do, they tend to come up with answers, because that is their job.

But the frustrating truth is that both know the answers are no good. Reoccupation would, the experts say, be relatively easy, although casualties might be quite high.

Three or four days of tough fighting might be tolerable if it were not for the international condemnation that would follow, the confirmed enmity of the Muslim world, and even more the years of hell holding the Palestinians down that would then lie before Israel.

Separation with coercive population transfers and the liquidation of outlying settlements? Harder to do, because it would involve deportations, somewhat easier to maintain, but you would still have to have military positions deep in Palestinian territory, and you would still be an island in a sea of rancor.

And what if, at the end of a long period, strategic realities do shift, and Israel ceases to be the strongest power in the region? Possible to deal with such a change when the background is one of a fair peace, concluded years before: not so easy if you are still at harsh odds with the Palestinians.

That is why Yossi Beilin, the departing minister of justice and one of the Israelis who has done most for peace, is right to argue that to formally set aside the goal of a final settlement is wrong and dangerous.

There are no acceptable radical military options for Israel, and even Sharon seems to half see that. There is, meanwhile, no evidence that the present policy of limited confrontation, occasional assassination, and punitive economic measures will induce the Palestinians to agree to the interim settlement and the abandonment of any real effort to reach a final settlement which Sharon proposes.

The reality is that while a final settlement was a desirable goal before the Camp David failure, it now represents the only way out of an increasingly desperate situation for both Israelis and Palestinians.

-- Guardian News Service