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Perfect Storm Coming to the Holy Land This article was written by Senator Mark Daly in March 2008 after returning from a Foreign Affairs fact finding trip to Israel. Sometimes in life, as in politics, you can have the perfect confluence of events that can bring all the elements required to make a momentous occasion occur. Ireland had that perfect alignment of the stars with our peace process. The elements are well known, genuine US interest, a British Prime Minister with the will to solve the issue, Republicans with vision, Unionist leadership with courage and tireless working public servants on both sides.
For centuries we had some or all of these elements missing when trying to solve the Irish question. Either the US had no interest, more interest in the relationship with England or no role to play, or the British PM had no interest, no will or was a hostage to Unionist numbers at Westminster.
Republicans often saw or were given no alternative. But then the perfect storm occurred- all elements were right to give us the Irish peace process. Bill Clinton, John Major/ Tony Blair, Albert Reynolds/ Bertie Ahern, David Trimble/ Ian Paisley, Gerry Adams/ Martin McGuinness- along with a lot of opportunity meeting circumstance.
Today in the Holy Land the storm clouds are gathering which have the potential to create the perfect storm but with a completely different result than that of Ireland’s.
The US has to be a major player in any solution, they no longer have a Bill Clinton figure driving the issue. Instead, there is an administration in trouble, without credibility in the region. The US at the best of times could not be considered a neutral player. The best that can be hoped for if they were engaged in the process is that they would be neutral in favour of the Israelis. But with the current state of the US presidency all it can give is a token show of sympathy like that seen this week with Condoleezza Rice's visit to Jerusalem. In an informal meeting with her own staff they admitted to me that the place has about 9 months to get some sort of agreement. After that it may well become a perfect storm. No matter what happens in Israel over the next two years nothing will interest the US in the Holy Land unless it directly affects the US itself. No amount of rockets into Israel and no amount of Israeli children or Palestinian children killed will cause anything other than a press statement from the White House. Thus the honest broker is gone, the broker required to read the road map or road maps of which there are many. Oslo, Camp David, Geneva, Annapolis but the issues along that road are all the same in ever road map, prisoners, refugees, right of return, Jerusalem, security.
Security is Israel's first concern outweighing all others thus to a degree creating the current storm clouds gathering on the horizon. With 443 deaths from suicide bombs in 2002 the government acted by building the wall, the fence, the security measure (the name depends on whom you are talking to). The Wall worked and it is not coming down anytime soon. As the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, a member of the Knesset, said to our delegation nothing succeeds like success.
With three deaths from suicide bombs in 2007 you can see why there is no problem with the wall in Israel but at the same time as providing security to Israel. It is annexation of the lands inside the West bank between it and the green line, the 1967 borders.
By cutting off access to farms and villages the Israelis will eventually force the abandonment of this land by the Palestinians. Which will in turn be settled (or planted to use an Irish context) by Israelis, thus creating problems for centuries to come.
This Wall is costing $5 billion but then if you are zig zagging over 720 km instead of following the 370 km of the West Bank border you can see why the bill is so high. But given its success as a security measure the price will be paid even if building has briefly been interrupted for budgeting reasons. The other clouds gathering include impending change in the Government in Israel with Netanyahu, the famous right winger from a by gone age, set to replace the coalition when, as it is predicted, it collapses in the next 12 months. The certain change of government, even in the minds of the current government ministers, is due to the belief in Israel that concessions have not worked and the time has come to batten down the hatches. More clouds gather on the Palestinian side. The Fatah party were defeated in the elections by Hamas due to a mixture of a lack of progress with the Israelis and an electorate tired of corruption. With more road blocks, 480 at last count, more Jewish settlements being built in the West bank since the Annapolis agreement the credibility of Fatah in the West bank is decimated with no tangible results to show for concession and agreements. The former which by and large were taken by the Israelis and the latter which were not give to the Palestinians. With nothing to show for any efforts there is a real and reasonable fear that the electorate will punish Fatah and reward the hardliners in the forthcoming election in January 2009.
The withdrawal form Gaza in a fashion that has been described by the Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni as the equivalent of throwing up the keys and see who catches them, it has proven to be a tactical disaster. The Israelis have effectively created a hostile entity controlled by Hamas, an organisation committed to the destruction of the state of Israel backed by Iran on their door step. The rocket attacks from Gaza are and will continue to be an escalating problem. As the rockets get better and the range of the rockets get longer more of Israel will come in range and more incursion by the Israeli army will result in more deaths of Palestinians in the West bank abd Gaza - more children will die.
In the current climate of changing administration in the US, Israel and West bank, no real benefits form the Annapolis agreement, increased security measures by the Israelis in the west bank and more rockets attacks from Gaza it is easy see the storm clouds gathering. The attitude of some Israelis can be seen by this statement on our visit by a senior foreign ministry official "we may not find a solution any time soon but we can make the situation better." But the question is better for whom? Peace is possible in the Holy Land but time is not a friend and as Ireland has shown all the stars must align but first the storm clouds must lift so that all can see the stars.
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