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                                PERSPECTIVES
                               APRIL 8, 2002

ESCALATING TO NOWHERE: 
THE ISRAELI AND PALESTINIAN STRATEGIC FAILURE

by Anthony H. Cordesman

===========================GulfWire~~Perspectives=========================

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

The present weekend thus far has been similar to last weekend on the media
front.  Most national television networks’ talk shows were especially active
in reporting on Israel-Palestine issues.  Most also once again devoted
substantial coverage to the continuing carnage inflicted by the Israeli
Defense Forces upon the inhabitants of refugee camps and towns in the
Palestinian territories occupied by Israel.  There was also continuing
emphasis on the plight of Israelis who were wounded earlier in a wave of
suicide bombings and, as a result, have subsequently died or remain in
critical condition.

For any and all who would but flick the television dials and see as well as
hear what was portrayed, there was an abundance of commentary and viewpoint
to consider.  In content and perspective, the reportage on American TV
networks stood in marked contrast with that which was conveyed in much of
the media in most other continents and countries.

The former, in contrast to the latter, continued to reflect the fact that
heated emotions, partisan feelings, political spinning, and ideologically
focused interpretations of who is or is more nearly “right," and who is or
is more nearly “wrong,” are running high these days.

Far less in abundance has been something else that is always needed, and in
the present instance, in short supply: namely, cooler, calmer, more
dispassionate assessments of a kind that remain conspicuous by their
relative absence on the analytical front.

It is in this light that GulfWire is pleased to share an effort by Dr.
Anthony H. Cordesman to enhance the interpretive component of where the
principal protagonists, in light of their stated objectives, find themselves
at this juncture.  His analysis also represents an attempt to indicate
where, absent more effective American and other international intervention
than any that has occurred to date, the major parties to the conflict appear
to be headed.  Implicit throughout what follows are questions of human,
strategic, and political costs and effectiveness not only to Israelis and
Palestinians, but, also, to the relationship between the United States and
each side’s respective leadership.

What Cordesman has to say about the cost to Israel is of special interest.
Assessing the effect thus far, he writes that, “The end result is a disaster
for Israel in terms of international relations and the media. The sympathy
gained by suicide bombings has been lost without any clear benefit. While
the US public still is sympathetic -- more because of the heritage of 9-11
than any real cause -- world opinion has moved sharply against Israel.”

Cordesman adds: “The broader risk for Israel is alienating US public and
Bush Administration support over time. Sharon clashed with Bush once before.
This time, Israel threatens to become an active strategic liability to the
US without providing any convincing evidence it is really acting to enhance
its own security. The tacit bargain in US-Israeli relations is not that
Israel should not act in its own defense, but that such action should be
clearly justified, balanced, and effective. The IDF military campaign to
date cannot meet any of these three tests.”

These and other perceived short-term costs to Israel are the result of the
Israeli leadership’s defiance of calls by the Bush Administration, the
United Nations Security Council, the European Union, and the League of
Arab States. All four have demanded an immediate withdrawal of the
additional Israeli Defense Force troops that have reentered and reoccupied
large swaths of Palestinian territory in the West Bank and Gaza.  As if
Israel’s growing international isolation and its policy flap with the Bush
Administration were not significant enough, the longer-term implications
for Israel, Cordesman notes, are hardly more favorable.  He writes,
“Regardless of how successful Israel is in the current series of sweeps,
it will have triggered a climate of mass violence in the West Bank and Gaza
that is far more intensive than it has ever been before.”

Cordesman goes further to argue that the Palestinian resistance to the
Israeli occupation is like “the IRA and similar movements, it cannot be
defeated.” Also important, he asserts, are the clear and eminent dangers
elsewhere in what, as a potential result of Israeli official actions and
inaction, may yet become a further unraveling of the relationship between
Israel and neighboring countries.  For example, Cordesman seems to imply
that, if the Israeli leadership does not reverse or substantially revise the
present course upon which it has set itself, “the risk of a serious Northern
Front with Lebanon will grow as will the risk of destabilizing or polarizing
Jordan.”

It is in this context that Cordesman’ offers one of his more trenchant
observations.  In his view, “It is hard to think of a stupider Israeli
strategy than creating a ‘Palestinian’ Jordan and a serious permanent enemy
on its borders that would align itself with Iraq and other radical regional
states.”  Further, as if such a prospect by itself is cause for serious
concern, he adds, “Egypt may be forced into tolerating infiltration into
Gaza, and the Sinai peacekeeping mission may take on an entire new character
or fail.”

“The sad fact about this pattern of Israeli-Palestinian escalation,”
Cordesman posits, “is that it is leading nowhere. It can alter the balance
of violence on each side for a time, but it cannot give either side real
victory. In Israel’s case, it simply defers violence today at the cost of
breeding future violence.”

On the other hand, there is one short-term mini-palliative worthy of serious
and favorable consideration.  Without his saying so in as many words,
Cordesman seems to believe that it may lie in the United States’ reversing
one of its many earlier decisions to veto a UN Security Council resolution.
The one in question, like all the others that successive occupants of the
Oval Office have instructed U.S. Ambassadors to the United Nations to veto,
sought a peaceful and effective way forward in addressing some of the core
issues in the conflict.

In this instance, as in most of the other UNSC proposed resolutions dealt
with by the Bush Administration’s predecessors, the White House opted to
accommodate exceptionally strong Israeli pressure, and to bow to comparable
domestic pressure by various American leaders, in support of the Israeli
leadership’s preference.  In the most recent case, the Bush Administration
vetoed yet again a UNSC resolution that had the support of a majority of the
members. The resolution, with a view to saving the lives and diminishing the
threats to innocent people on both sides, proposed to interposition
international civilian monitors between the Israeli Defense Forces and the
Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories.

This is the context for the gist of a key Cordesman recommendation, which is
that, “Unfortunately, this escalation to nowhere is also an argument for
international diplomatic intervention, and possibly armed peacemaking,
rather than rational bargaining on the part of Israel and the Palestinians.”

Although Cordesman does not say so, it is of more than passing interest that
such an assessment has received an overwhelmingly positive response from the
international community at large.  To date, however, it has not set well
with the Israeli leadership.  Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon and virtually all
of his cabinet ministers and advisers have refused to accept such a force.
With Israel’s leaders’ having said no, American leaders, not for the first
time, have found it exceptionally difficult, if not out of the question, to
say yes.

In its refusal to seriously countenance the merits of such an idea, the
Israeli government, with the exception to date of its continuing massive
American financial, military, and political support, stands virtually alone
internationally.  Yet, in spite of its increasingly pariah status in the
eyes of most of the world’s leaders with regard to this and related points,
one could hardly have gotten such an impression from commentary on the major
American TV networks today. On the contrary, one Israeli official after
another, together with several American Congressional and other pro-Israeli
partisans who trumpeted the official Israeli viewpoint, dominated the
commentary to which most American TV viewers were exposed.

Against this imbalance in diagnosis and prognosis on what would be an
appropriate measure for alleviating the suffering on both sides, Cordesman’s
analysis has significant merit.  He argues persuasively that, “The price tag
of standing aside… is simply too high and such an international effort
increasingly seems to have the uncertain merit of being the least bad
option.”

John Duke Anthony
Publisher, GulfWire

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ESCALATING TO NOWHERE: THE ISRAELI AND PALESTINIAN STRATEGIC FAILURE
By
Anthony H. Cordesman

The Second Intifada has been an asymmetric war from the start; fought by two
peoples with asymmetric values and asymmetric goals, and using asymmetric
methods. This inevitably makes it even more difficult to resolve the
conflict than usual, and the problems involved are compounded by the fact
that Israeli and Palestinian are intermingled or live in close proximity,
and feel they have a seeming incentive to escalate or prolong the conflict.
Both sides also face the reality that they can only win the battle for
public opinion if they describe their war process as a peace process – or at
least a ceasefire process.

They “win” if they can label the other side as resisting peace and/or as
responsible for the violence. This means the both sides have a reason to
publicly agree to any new ceasefire proposal, regardless of whether they
intend to honor it. It also means that Israel has a strong reason to call
Palestinian tactics as “terrorism,” while the Palestinians have an equal
incentive to label Israel as using “excessive force” and as an occupier.
Both sides also believe in these labels, but they have made them political
weapons in an effort to delegitimize the tactics and methods of the opposing
side.

THE LEGITIMACY, ILLEGITIMACY, AND ALEGITIMACY OF ASYMMETRIC WARFARE

From a purely military perspective, it is not clear that this labeling
exercise has any particular moral, ethical, or military validity. Israel
uses modern weapons and superior force because it has the necessary assets,
their use minimizes direct Israeli casualties, and the Palestinians have
only limited ability to respond in kind. The Palestinians are a
lightly-armed and divided proto-state, and are forced to use guerrilla and
insurgent methods including suicide bombings and attacks on civilians, while
they have every incentive to smuggle in arms and weapons. The Israelis can
fight as formal, uniformed combatants. The Palestinians must generally fight
as paramilitaries and covert action groups in civilian dress.

Labeling either side’s methods as illegitimate is highly questionable. Each
side fights in the way it finds most advantageous, and the moral and ethical
difference between Palestinian suicide bombings and Israeli “collateral
damage” seems dubious. As is the case with the fighting in Northern Ireland,
the Sudan, Sri Lanka, and Kashmir, asymmetric warfare is almost always
unpleasant and almost always have high civilian casualties. The present
civilian body count does seem to total about three to four times as many
Palestinians as Israelis, but this does not make Israel’s methods “wrong” or
Palestinian violence against Israeli civilians “wrong.” The basic rule in
asymmetric warfare is to fight on the most advantageous terms possible,

What is striking about the present fighting, however, is that both sides
seem to be committed to a process of enduring conflict and escalation that
is unlikely to offer either side serious mid to long-term advantage, much
less victory.

THE ISRAELI STRATEGIC FAILURE

The Israeli example is most striking at the present time. Sharon has
deployed the IDF in some of the most serious fighting since 1982, and his
failed invasion of Lebanon. He has called up some 31,000 reservists and well
over 10,000 IDF troops are deployed forward. In the process, they have
become deeply involved in urban warfare in most of the Palestinian cities
and towns on the West Bank, as well as broadly deployed in perimeter defense
in many contact areas in the occupied territories.

The sheer shock of the IDF offensive has halted suicide bombings and put the
Palestinians on the defense, but net results are likely to ultimately be
unimpressive at best and more likely to be counterproductive to Israel’s
interests.

o   The IDF has gravely weakened the Palestinian Authority and its security
services, but its broad sweeps and arrests only seem to have had limited
success in locating and disarming the younger and more hardline elements
like the Fatah Hawks and major terrorist groups like Hamas and the
Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

o   It is easy to issue rhetoric about rooting out terrorists and also
impossible to actually do it without prolonged occupation and total control
of the areas being occupied. Some IDF planners felt it would take 6-8 weeks
of occupying an urban area to do this. It is unclear that any amount of time
can find most of the youths involved or prevent large numbers of arms from
being hidden, and it seems nearly certain that the IDF won’t get the time it
needs.

o   The IDF probably is breeding more future guerrillas and suicide bombers
than it is arresting. Civilian casualties and collateral damage are
relatively high, IDF discipline has often been poor and trigger happy, and
contact between the IDF and ordinary Palestinians has been alienating. No
one seems cowed or deterred.

o   Palestinians are learning that cities, towns, and built-up areas are
great military equalizers where Palestinian knowledge of urban terrain and
ability to hide in civilian facilities makes it very difficult for the IDF
to exploit its advantages in firepower and technology – even when using UAVs
and advanced intelligence sensors. The end result is either short-range
firefights or the use of tanks, artillery, and aircraft in strikes that
inevitably increase collateral damage and civilian casualties, have limited
effectiveness, and have media and political costs that offset their military
advantages.

o   The Israeli informer network seems to be suffering badly. In the past,
Israel could rely on good internal intelligence sources within the
Palestinians and the use of special action teams with excellent Arabic, the
ability to blend in, and which could use Toyotas instead of tanks. Israeli
action has led many informers to turn away from Israel and a number have
been executed as collaborators

o   The IDF invasion has done more than undercut and weaken the Palestinian
Authority security forces. It has done much to unify Hamas, the Palestinian
Islamic Jihad and pro-Arafat fighters like the Fatah Hawks.

o   The IDF’s actions have done much to convince the Palestinians they have
nothing left to lose. Much of the success of ceasefires, counterinsurgency,
and peace efforts depends on the expectations of the opponent. The broad
destruction of civilian infrastructure, collateral damage, and civilian
casualties may temporarily suppress existing insurgents, but it breeds
future violence.

o   Israeli action is likely to trigger an escalation of Lebanese, Iranian,
and Iraqi support of Palestinian extremists, action across the Israeli
border with Lebanon, and the smuggling of more advanced arms and technology.

o   Israeli action undercuts Jordanian and Egyptian ability to take strong
action to block arms smuggling and infiltration. While there is little risk
of a broader Arab-Israeli war in the classic sense, broader Arab and Islamic
support for asymmetric war is already taking place.

o   There have been few strikes on Israelis and Jews outside Israel for
nearly the last decade. Israel may well however, push the Palestinians,
Islamic extremists, and other radical Arab groups to export their attacks to
other nations and regions.

o   There are no rules or pressures that force the Palestinians to focus on
suicide bombings. As the Hezbollah showed in Lebanon, the use of
sophisticated timing devices, booby traps, and long-range weapons can – if
anything – reduce the casualties to the terrorist while leaving the IDF with
the option of having to escalate broadly in strikes on civilian areas where
the weapons are located or the sponsoring groups are believed to be located.

o   As Al Qaida has already shown, the exercise of this kind of military
supremacy can easily trigger efforts at decisive terrorist attacks using
chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons. Covert biological
attacks are a particularly disturbing option.

o   The end result is a disaster for Israeli in terms of international
relations and the media. The sympathy gained by suicide bombings has been
lost without any clear benefit. While the US public still is sympathetic –
more because of the heritage of 9-11 than any real cause – world opinion has
moved sharply against Israel.

The broader risk for Israel is alienating US public and Bush Administration
support over time. Sharon clashed with Bush once before. This time, Israel
threatens to become an active strategic liability to the US without
providing any convincing evidence it is really acting to enhance its own
security. The tacit bargain in US-Israeli relations is not that Israel
should not act in its own defense, but that such action should be clearly
justified, balanced, and effective. The IDF military campaign to date cannot
meet any of these three tests.

THE PALESTINIAN STRATEGIC FAILURE

If anything, the Palestinian failure in strategy is more serious than that
of Israel. A reversion to guerrilla and insurgent warfare would have made
sense if the Palestinians had no hope of a favorable settlement of the kind
offered at Camp David or Tabah, if triggering a processing of unending
low-level violence could force Israel to create a Palestinian state on more
favorable terms, or if such violence promised to trigger some form of
decisive outside intervention that was more favorable to the Palestinians by
either the international community or some decisive Arab military
intervention.

None of these options are really open to the Palestinians. If anything, the
Second Intifada has already severely limited Palestinian options in
negotiating favorable terms with Israel, the human and economic cost of has
already offset any limited territorial gains that the Palestinians might get

out of international intervention, and outside Arab military intervention
remains unlikely and would either be unsuccessful and/or incredibly costly
to the Palestinians if it occurred.

The Palestinians do have many ways to escalate over time. Regardless of how
successful Israel is in the current series of sweeps, it will have triggered
a climate of mass violence in the West Bank and Gaza that is far more
intensive than it has ever been before. The recruiting base is nearly equal
to the population and the distinctions between religious extremists like
Hamas and the PIJ and secular radical groups like the Fatah Hawks has been
severely undercut. The Palestinian Authority security forces have been
gravely weakened and alienated at the same time. Much of the Israel network
of informant and intelligence agents in the West Bank and Gaza has already
been destroyed.

The key to destroying guerrilla and insurgent movements is not only to
defeat their current structure and manpower, but also to remove the support
that breeds new movements and the causes that create new terrorists. Israel
cannot succeed in either of the latter goals. If anything, it is likely to
create a hydra–like structure of small, disparate movements and cells
operating at comparatively low levels and self-directed and based on popular
support. The end result will lack Arafat’s central direction and control and
be almost impossible to locate and defeat. It can be suppressed for a time
in individual areas and cases. But like the IRA and similar movements, it
cannot be defeated.

The Arab states and Iran have been give a far greater incentive to host
Palestinian armed movements, allow arms smuggling, and stonewall any
international counterterrorist efforts. Israel may be able to limit the flow
of arms, but it cannot prevent it totally. Almost inevitably, longer-range
rockets, mortars, and other weapons will flow into the West Bank and Gaza.
Anti-tank guided weapons, man-portable anti-aircraft missiles, sophisticated
timers, and better explosives will flow as well even if the Hezbollah do not
create an active threat on Israel’s northern border. Under such conditions,
Israeli efforts to separate Israelis and Palestinians, and even the use of
mass expulsions and relocations, will simply breed new forms of violence. It
will increase the incentive to provide longer-range weapons and for the
Palestinians to use weapons of mass destruction in covert attacks. The risk
of a serious Northern Front with Lebanon will grow as will the risk of
destabilizing or polarizing Jordan. It is hard to think of a stupider
Israeli strategy than creating a  “Palestinian” Jordan and a serious
permanent enemy on its borders that would align itself with Iraq and other
radical regional states. Egypt may be forced into tolerating infiltration
into Gaza, and the Sinai peacekeeping mission may take on an entire new
character or fail.

Yet, for all of Israel’s potential strategic futility, the end result is
strategic futility for the Palestinians as well. Whatever Arafat’s motives
and calculations in hoping armed struggle would be more favorable than
following up on Camp David and Tabah, the fact remains that no combination
of new forms of Palestinian violence, outside pressure, and Arab-Islamic
action offers as good a mid to long-term end game. Palestinian and Arab
escalation cannot force a rigid return to the 1967 boundary or undo the fact
of “greater Jerusalem.” Longer-range attacks may well lead to more
expulsions and more civilian deaths and collateral damage. It may trigger
more extreme Israeli measures to deprive Gaza and the West Bank of power and
water. While economic warfare will hurt both sides badly, it will hurt the
Palestinians more.

Mass violence on the part of the Palestinians effectively precludes
education, investment, and economic development, as well as any chance of
benefiting from Israel’s economic strengths. As so many similar conflicts
show, it wastes generations in the name of the past, delaying – if not
destroying – the future. Syria locked itself into another generation of
pointless confrontation with Israel when Hafaz Asad refused to compromise
with Ehud Barak. Even the most successful Palestinian pursuit of armed
struggle will be far, far more costly and destructive.

ESCALATING TO NOWHERE AND THE “LEAST BAD OPTION”

The sad fact about this pattern of Israeli-Palestinian escalation is that it
is leading nowhere. It can alter the balance of violence on each side for a
time, but it cannot give either side real victory. In Israel’s case, it
simply defers violence today at the cost of breeding future violence. It
also may do much to create the kind of long-term specter that Yitzhak Rabin
feared most: A hostile Arab and Islamic world equipped with weapons of mass
destruction and missiles that could, in some future escalation, use them. If
anything, that situation may be worse than Rabin feared. Instead of missiles
with nuclear weapons, it could be covert attacks with biological weapons.

In the Palestinian case, the butcher’s bill is not even deferred. There is
no practical prospect of a better future than was offered at Camp David or
Tabah. The Second Intifada has already wasted the assets – if not the
lives – of a new generation of Palestinians. No war can bring them closer to
1967 (or 1948) without devastating the land and cities at issue and victory
in such a problematic war seems unlikely at best. Time is being wasted that
is desperately needed for economic development if a “Palestine” is ever to
cope with its grim demographics and population growth, and lack of resources
and skills, and the prospects of any kind of effective economic integration
with Israel diminishes. The Palestinians outside the West Bank and Gaza
remain trapped in de facto concentration camps with no practical hope of
return to territories that are already overpopulated and with poor capital
and near-term development prospects.

Unfortunately, this escalation to nowhere is also an argument for
international diplomatic intervention, and possibly armed peacemaking,
rather than rational bargaining on the part of Israel and the Palestinians.
Both sides are where they are as much out of self-inflicted wounds as any
fault of their opponent. Both sides have failed to reason out the
consequences of their strategies and military actions. Without firm
pressure, they will drift almost endlessly in and out of violence and their
only hope of peace will be one of mutual futility and exhaustion. This is a
grim prospect for the international community as well because any
intervention based on practical and fair solutions is likely to incur
serious opposition from both sides and even make them turn on the
peacemaker. The failed leaders and strategies of Israel and the Palestinians
can also defeat both negotiation and any form of international observers and
peacekeepers. The price tag of standing aside, however, is simply too high
and such an international effort increasingly seems to have the uncertain
merit of being the least bad option

                             ===================

DR. ANTHONY CORDESMAN holds the Arleigh Burke Chair in Strategy at the
Center for Strategic and International Studies and is Co-Director of the
Center’s Middle East Program. He is also a military analyst for ABC and a
Professor of National Security Studies at Georgetown. He directs the
assessment of global military balance, strategic energy developments, and
CSIS’ Dynamic Net Assessment of the Middle East. He is the author of books
on the military lessons of the Iran-Iraq war as well as the Arab-Israeli
military balance and the peace process, a six-volume net assessment of the
Gulf, transnational threats, and military developments in Iran and Iraq. He
analyzes U.S. strategy and force plans, counter-proliferation issues, arms
transfers, Middle Eastern security, economic, and energy issues.

Dr. Cordesman served as a national security analyst for ABC News for the
1990-91 Gulf War, Bosnia, Somalia, Operation Desert Fox, and Kosovo. He was
the Assistant for National Security to Senator John McCain and a Wilson
Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian. He has
served in senior positions in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the
Department of State, the Department of Energy, and the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency. His posts included acting as the Civilian
Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Director of Defense
Intelligence Assessment, Director of Policy, Programming, and Analysis in
the Department of Energy, Director of Project ISMILAID, and as the Secretary
of Defense’s representative on the Middle East Working Group.

Dr. Cordesman has also served in numerous overseas posts. He was a member of
the U.S. Delegation to NATO and a Director on the NATO International Staff,
working on Middle Eastern security issues. He served in Egypt, Iran,
Lebanon, Turkey, the UK, and West Germany. He has been an advisor to the
Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Forces in Europe, and has traveled extensively in
the Gulf and North Africa.

OTHER GULFWIRE APPEARANCES

"The West and the Arab World: Partnership or a 'Clash of Civilizations?'"

"Strategy in the Middle East: The Gap Between Strategic Theory and
Operational Reality"

"A Firsthand Look at Saudi Arabia Since 9-11"

"Iraq: A Dynamic Net Assessment"

"If We Fight Iraq: Iraq and Its Weapons of Mass Destruction"

"If We Fight Iraq: Iraq and the Conventional Military Balance"

"Escalating to Nowhere: The Israeli and Palestinian Strategic Failures"

"Reforging the U.S. and Saudi Strategic Partnership"

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