Author: Daniel Pipes
Publication: New York Post
Date: August 6, 2002
URL: http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/54083.htm
Appearances to the contrary, Israel
is defeating the Palestinians. For one piece of proof, note this reversal
a few weeks ago: Yasser Arafat announced his belated acceptance of a generous
Israeli offer that he had spurned two years earlier. This time, however,
the Israelis responded with disdain.
To be sure, the Palestinian campaign
of terror continues apace, with frequent, bloody successes. But it has
failed to have the intended effect of demoralizing Israelis. Quite the
contrary, the violence has promoted a sense of resolve and unity the likes
of which Israel has not enjoyed for decades. "Rather than undermine our
morale, the terrorist attacks only strengthen our resolve," observes writer
Yossi Klein Halevi. A "notoriously fractious society has rediscovered its
commonality," he concludes.
In contrast, consider three ways
in which the Palestinians' own violence is causing them to suffer, lose
ground and have doubts:
* Palestinian impoverishment. Two
years of terrorism has brought on huge economic losses to Palestinians.
Unemployment is variously estimated between 40 percent and 70 percent.
Underemployment is no less dramatic: "University graduates, architects
and engineers, men who once wore suits, now hawk flavored water, fruit,
paper napkins and chewing gum alongside street children with their hands
for alms," reports The Chicago Tribune.
As a result, more than 50 percent
of residents on the West Bank and some 80 percent in Gaza live below the
poverty line, according to one recent survey. Just getting food is a problem.
"I've been confined to my home for more than a month. I have eight children,
we've eaten all we have," laments a falafel seller in Nablus.
He is hardly alone: Preliminary
results of a survey conducted in the Palestinian areas by Johns Hopkins
University finds 30 percent of children suffering from chronic malnutrition
and another 21 percent from acute malnutrition. (This said, even the Palestinians
acknowledge that no one has died of starvation.)
The Palestinian Authority itself
is nearly bankrupt, unable to pay salaries or other expenses.
* Palestinian depression. Palestinian
violence has ended normal life in the West Bank and Gaza, where the population
labors under curfews, transportation barely moves, schools are mostly shut
and hospitals hardly function.
The result is severe depression.
"Today is my wedding day, and I want to die," exclaimed a bride who had
few guests at her marriage, no food to serve them and hardly any presents
from them.
Misery leads some Palestinians to
even contemplate the unmentionable; "I don't say [Israeli] occupation would
be better," said a farmer in Jericho who let his peppers wilt on the vine.
"But if they were occupying us, at least the city might be open," permitting
his produce to get to market.
More broadly, 55 Palestinian intellectuals
and public figures signed a petition in June condemning the continuation
of suicide bombings in Israel. Ehud Ya'ari of the Jerusalem Report notes
that "instead of automatic applause for the attacks, there is now a readiness
to allow expressions of doubtfulness and dissent."
* Palestinian recruitment woes.
The unremitting Palestinian campaign of violence has prompted what appear
to be effective Israeli countermeasures. Destroying the houses of suicide
bombers' families, for example, dissuaded at least two would-be suicide
bombers in recent days from carrying out their operations. Israel's Defense
Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, for one, detects in this particular development
"the initial signs of deterrence" at work.
The highly trained cadres of the
war's opening months have been replaced by hastily recruited volunteers
or in some cases (such as the planted bomb at the Hebrew University cafeteria)
different means entirely. Hamas publicly acknowledges that it needs to
find new methods against Israel, suggesting that the 70 suicide attacks
of the past two years cannot be sustained.
The unwillingness of Hamas leaders
to dispatch their own children to their deaths adds piquancy to this evolution.
Israeli media have widely played recordings of a Hamas leader's wife as
she is entreated to allow her son to become "one of the martyrs." To this
she stiffly replies that the boy "is not involved in any of that . . .
my son is busy with his studies."
In brief, terrorism is not working.
It takes a toll on the Palestinians without having the intended effect
on Israel. Barring a major change, the Palestinians will wear themselves
out fairly soon, probably by the year's end.
Daniel Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org)
is director of the Middle East Forum.