This week, General
Aharon Zeevi Farkash, the chief of IDF Intelligence, declared
that Israel is paying a very heavy price in trying to advance
the current peace process with the Palestinians. The Intelligence
commander did not elaborate? Dr Michael Widlanski, a Middle
East analyst at the Rothberg School at Hebrew University, has
apparently discovered what the intelligence chief meant. Widlanski
tells IsraCast that Israeli security forces were aware of the
dangerous terrorist cell in Tul Kerem that carried out the night-club
bombing in Tel Aviv, but decided not to smash the ring for fear
of upsetting the current lull with the Palestinians.
In this interview with David
Essing, Dr Widlanski talks of what apparently transpired as
well as assessing the outcome of the Palestinian meeting in
Cairo:
Listen
to the Interview (07:41)
David Essing: Dr. Michael Widlanski,
what is your take on what happened in Cairo, has the Palestinian
leader Mahmoud Abbas taken the process one step forward by getting
the agreement from the terrorist organizations, Hamas and Islamic
Jihad and so forth, to continue with this lull in the attacks
on Israel?
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Dr. Michael Widlanski
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Michael
Widlanski:
I'm not sure David, where the proof is in the putting,
you know everybody is using buzz words but they don’t even know
what they mean, words like Hudna, which means cease-fire, and
Tahadia, which means cooling off period or lull, and frankly,
we don’t know what that means. People have been saying that
the PLO, especially under Abbas, is going to bring down the
violence and bring down the terrorism and Hamas and Jihad. And
what we've seen so far is that he's bringing them on board as
establishment parts of the Palestinian leadership, and they
are regarding the lull or the cease-fire as a very temporary
and very one-way affair where Israel doesn’t run after them,
but whenever they decide that they're ready, they can attack
Israel.
David Essing: And at the same
time, Mahmoud Abbas is not going to dismantle the terror organizations
as has been demanded by Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon?
Michael
Widlanski:
Absolutely not, I have a very skeptical, cynical
view of Mr. Abbas, or Dr. Abbas. I've been watching him for
years and I've looked at secret documents that he's been involved
with, he is called for an end to Palestinian violence against
Palestinians, he's called for what he calls 'intifaudat a sallah',
the end of Palestinian weapon anarchy. He wants people not to
kill each other in the streets of Gaza. Well, that's good, that's
fine and we can support that, but he also talks about unity
of all the security services and the police and everything else,
and he doesn’t say, most of the time when he's talking in Arabic,
that its because he doesn’t want people to attack Israel or
Israeli targets. He says its because it's for Palestinian interest
and the Palestinians are keeping their options open, including
the arms struggle, and the Intifada, whatever they call the
Intifada, and they can open up these options at any time, if
Israel doesn’t move fast enough. Now David, I want you to know
some other thing, people aren’t focusing on this, but he's demanded
the total release of all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli hands
immediately. Now that’s a very major demand, and it's also a
major input of manpower for him and for the terrorists, if they
don’t want to complete the peace process peacefully.
David Essing: In effect, are
we seeing then Israel running the risk of recycling the Oslo
process, in other words as you say that the terrorist organizations
are kept in tact by the Palestinian leadership to be used whenever
they see it fit?
Michael
Widlanski:
In fact, its actually a worsening of the Oslo process,
because as the weapon systems develop, and you get better and
better explosives, and more and more weapons flowing from Lebanon
and from the Egyptian desert into Israel, you're getting a very
bad situation. Israel withdraws closer into the center of its
own country, and somebody who has a Sam 7 missile, or somebody
who has another shoulder launched weapon or even an RPG, can
bring down helicopters and planes with great ease, and they
can even lob mortors strategic targets in Ashdod and Ashkelon.
That's a very serious situation and I'm scared about it.
David Essing: But on the other
hand, would the Palestinian leadership with Mahmoud Abbas ever
agree to condone this, because lets face it, the international
community, and primarily president George W. Bush, has made
very clear that the terrorism must stop, that if there's any
return to the terrorism, the whole process will be put on hold?
Michael
Widlanski:
Well, Abbas is talking about a process of half a
year, a year, two years, three years, he's looking for the long
term future, he plans to serve as the Palestinian president
for five years he says. George Bush is not going to be president
for longer than another three and a half - four years. So he's
looking to a situation where the Palestinians get a lot of their
demands in the interim and then can press Israel and he can
obviously have the right of plausible deniability - I didn't
do it, somebody did it, it wasn't under my control, you see
I’ve stopped most of the violence, most of the incitement. I
wouldn’t bet the whole house that he is the greatest thing since
sliced bread.
David Essing: Well, the first
stage of the roadmap process, and Prime Minister Sharon has
been insisting upon this, is that the Palestinian leadership
must dismantle the terrorist organizations. From what you've
just said, do you think there is a possibility that Bush might
back down and might agree, might accept the fact that there
is a drop in the terrorism, so why press Mahmoud Abbas to go
into some kind of civil war with the terrorist organizations
by trying to dismantle them?
Michael
Widlanski:
My big problem is not so much with Bush, but with
Sharon and Mofaz, because I think their talk has not been matched
by actions. We know for example David, and you probably know
this from your sources as well, that the recent blast in Tel-Aviv
in which five people were killed, involved a cell coming out
of Tul Kerem, which was slated to be arrested several days before
the Tel-Aviv attack, and it wasn’t arrested because the Israeli
authorities believed that they shouldn’t embarrass Mahmoud Abbas
by arresting people before the talks on Cairo. That’s a very
severe price to pay for diplomacy.
David Essing: But does Sharon
have any choice now, keeping in mind that lets face it, the
US, and particulary after the Bush visit to Europe, is working
more or less in tandem with the Europeans and the US, wants
to go on this process as far as possible, so Sharon has to play
ball, does he not?
Michael
Widlanski:
I think that the US is trying to show a happier face
to Europe. There's no doubt about that. I don't necessarily
think that Bush is turning into Chirac, or turning into a variation
of any of the other European leaders. I think, however, that
we're seeing Sharon pull-back on a lot of security demands and
turning over Jericho, turning over several other cities, almost
allowing the release of the PFLP leadership, and Fuad Shubaki,
who's responsible both for the assassination of Rehavam Zeevi,
known as Gandi, and the Karin A operation. This was a terrible
thing. And it didn’t just slip through the radar, somebody allowed
it to get on the plate of Mahmoud Abbas, and for him to go forward
with it, and somebody is putting out stuff, that the Palestinians
are beginning to agree with the idea of pulling back on what
they call the right of return, Hackal Auda, well that’s nonsense.
We’ve heard about that in the Israeli media three-four days
last week, tell me David, did you see any signs of it in Cairo?
Of course not, it's a bunch of baloney.
David Essing: So you’re not
too optimistic about where we're going with this renewed process.
Michael
Widlanski:
I'm optimistic that we'll eventually get to peace
but I’m realistic about where we are right now and with whom
we are dealing.
