Israeli soldiers in 1948 (photo: Israeli Foreign Ministry)
The establishment of the Zionist enterprise in the territories of historical Palestine, from its beginnings to the founding of the state in 1948, was implemented by exploiting the entire array of means available for colonial settlement: the building of civil society, financial institutions, agricultural settlements, extensive diplomacy and of course the use of a wide array of power mechanisms, whilst relying on the protective umbrella of a superpower. The occupation of the territories added in 1967, in contrast, was a purely military act, an entirely Israeli product. The occupation of these territories since then has been defined legally and administratively first and foremost as a military mission.
Special Cyclical Logic
For one who ideologically aligns with the Zionist narrative, which
describes the wars of Israel—from the beginning of the Zionist
enterprise to its last attack against Lebanon—as a series of border
incidents that began with the enemy attack against an
always-surprised-and-defensive-military, it is simple to view the
cyclical nature of Israel’s military actions as deriving from the
relation between Arab hostility, their ongoing aspiration to destroy
Israel and acquire the power necessary to open a new round at the
appropriate place and time. In contrast, one who assumes that Israeli
policies since the beginning of the Zionist enterprise until today were
aggressive, active and full of initiative—and now there are such people
amongst even relatively conservative historians—must still explain the
special cyclical logic of Israel’s wars. This comparison of force can
be thus explained: Zionist diplomacy contends that it suffers from a
chronic shortage of “a partner for peace.” In contrast to this
contention, it is the unwillingness of the Arab side to cooperate with
the Israeli diplomatic effort to avoid discussion of an egalitarian
division of resources and instead engage in endless talk about “peace,”
as a utopian event belonging to the undefined future. So, the Israeli
military has, in reality, always suffered from the absence of a partner
for war, at least at the level of conventional warfare between
political entities that can allow for a forced change of borders. Apart
from the offensive flare-up in 1973 (which, in contrast to the obvious
narrative of Israeli society, was not forced on Israel but was another
assault in a series of battles beginning with the Israeli attack on
Arab armies in 1967 and ending with the ceasefire agreements of 1974),
throughout its years of existence, Israel primarily faced a diplomatic
rejection of political recognition and sporadic guerilla fighting.
The building of the Israeli fighting force, together with the massive
nuclear capacity that accompanies it, is not intended for
implementation, but to preserve a diplomatic, economic and military
balance of power founded on absolute supremacy, an arrangement that
exists between every colonial power and the countries and communities
in its area of influence. It is not coincidental that on the regional
level, the forces possessing the capacity and motivation to reach a
comparable level of influence stood up to Israel at every stage: Egypt,
Iraq, and Iran. It is also not coincidental that all three of these
states attempted, primarily (although unsuccessfully, to this day), to
limit in various ways the nuclear gap, which predetermines the borders
of the diplomatic and military game, the bottom line meaning of which
is always: one-sided imposition of the Israeli dictate.
If indeed this picture accurately describes the reality in which the
Israeli military acts, it is possible to examine the contention
increasingly heard lately, primarily following the entanglement with
Lebanon in the summer of 2006, that the Israeli forces did not succeed
in attaining a military resolution or a clear victory in any war since
1967. Some added that this inability to achieve decisiveness is a
result of a situation in which the political rank in Israel did not
succeed in giving the military clear goals and imposed upon it an
unfocused mission. On the contrary, I wish to contend here that the
strategic goal was clear throughout, at least to those responsible for
its implementation, and they have strived to implement it in a
continuous and consistent manner, adjusting to a surrounding that has
significantly changed in the past two decades.
The strategic goal to which I am referring derives from the principles
that the true interest of the Zionist side from the beginning of the
conflict to today is not territorial but demographic, or more precisely
the ongoing aspiration to alter demographic relations over increasingly
large territories. From this perspective, the true events did not occur
(and are not occurring) during violent outbreaks—which naturally
attract the most attention—but in an ongoing, systematic and daily
manner, through both diplomacy and war, as tactical and complementary
processes toward the goal.
Naked Control
The primary achievements of fighting in 1948-1949 were the destruction
of village and urban centers and the deportation of Palestinians from
extensive territories, and most of the efforts in the years after this
were invested in protecting this achievement against the “infiltrators”
and completing the dispossession of those who remained in their places.
The demographic and economic developments were what permitted, 18 years
later, the expansion of the process and the swallowing of additional
territories along with another massive deportation which dispossessed
the remaining population of the vast majority of their landholdings and
a proletarization of the landless occupied population. This population
served to build the economic capacities which are part of the overall
colonial power of Israel. The change in the global situation at the end
of the 1980’s and beginning of 1990’s resulted in a massive immigration
of Jews (“new immigrants”) and non-Jews (“foreign workers”) in the
1990’s, and altered the mission concerning the occupied Palestinian
population. No longer dispossession (which was completed) or
exploitation (which became redundant), but the naked technology of
power, whether through ethnic units of the Israeli military (border
police) or sub-contractors (the Palestinian Authority).
The ability of the Jewish-Zionist colonial project to grab control over
more and more land in the Middle East was connected throughout the
years to a combination of internal and external factors, which can be
grouped together in three major categories:
1. External factors created an international constellation which
permitted the massive employment of force. The constraint forced on
Israel to evacuate the Sinai Peninsula after it was occupied in 1956
resulted from an incorrect analysis of the international mood and
balance of powers. Lessons from the 1956 crisis were learned and
implemented, and eventually led Israel to take cover in the shadow of
the American superpower in a manner that would protect it from similar
errors. Beyond this episode, Israel generally knew to negotiate through
a winning combination of international manipulations, which created
around it an umbrella of extensive privileges and retrospective
approval for almost every step it took.
2. The regional consideration was related to Israeli military power
and an evaluation of the balance of powers in relation to the Arab
armies. In general, it is possible to state that the crushing balance
of power in favor of the Israeli military was tested one time only: in
1973 it appeared as if the power balance demanded a price that Israeli
society would refuse to pay over an extended period of time. Also here,
lessons were learned immediately: the primary Arab military force,
Egypt, was taken out of the circle of fighting while making the
necessary concessions, and Israel could continue with even more force
in the remaining fronts.
3. The social factor is complex, hidden and to a great extent the
determinant factor of them all: the complex of factors responsible for
the ability of Israeli society to digest and police the results of its
occupations without descending into an open totalitarian regime as
defined by international standards. Here is the key to strategic
decisions from the school of Ben Gurion concerning the extent of taking
over Palestinian territories in 1949. Even in the situation created
following the violent deportation of a large portion of the Palestinian
population of the territories held by the state of Israel and the
destruction of all the urban and a majority of the rural centers, a
huge and ongoing effort was required to complete the dispossession of
the minority that remained and to preserve the Jewish-Ashkenazi
character of the state of the masters. Even today, almost 60 years
afterwards, the dispossession has still not been completed with the
Bedouin lands in the Negev, large areas of the Galilee and some of the
urban centers (the “mixed” cities).
And still, after more than 40 years of occupation, it is important to
try and focus the discussion on how, and to what extent, the Israeli
military has changed in the wake of the massive occupation of
territories in 1967 and the rule over them to this day. Here comes the
question of continuity between Israeli policies prior to 1967 and
afterwards, primarily in light of the dominant paradigm amongst the
liberal Zionist Israeli Left, which views the occupation of 1967 as a
watershed that altered the face of Israeli society and its relations
with its surroundings. Beyond this, the discussion touches upon a
series of generally held beliefs, from the assumption that the
structural changes in the Israeli military reflect changes in the
character of the society and regime in Israel, and to the assumption
that the dominant part played by the military in the daily maintenance
of the occupation also empowers its rule in any future development. To
all of this is added the increasing questioning, from the beginning of
the first Intifada, throughout the Oslo years and primarily during the
second Intifada, the extent that the Israeli military is directly
responsible for the escalation in the violent conflict.
Tripled Division
Since 1967, the political-public structures in Israel were transformed
into a complex system that holds multifaceted discussions, possessing
various functions directed internally and externally. In a situation in
which a lie becomes the truth and truth becomes a lie, it is extremely
difficult to decide on everything concerning the policies and
intentions of Israel, according to its statements and the convoluted
political discussion that it creates. It is easier to attempt to
determine intention by way of what is actually done. Here, it is
possible to point to numerous systems that function securely and with a
clear purpose. This includes the settlement system, the economic system
and the varied systems of security forces—the civil police force,
border police, military, and secret services—implemented to control the
range of oppressed populations in the various areas of Israel.
In order to understand the role of the military in the complex of
processes to preserve the “occupation” following 1967, attention must
be paid first of all to the key role assigned to it from the first
years of the state in relation to the Arab population. The severance of
the remaining Palestinian refugees from their material and political
property after 1949 was implemented under a “military government.” The
struggle for the most important resource, land, was conducted primarily
through confiscation for military purposes, and primarily in the
frontier regions. Intelligence personnel fulfilled a substantial
portion of the daily tracking of the population, both in the
territories under Israeli control and those over its borders. Also, as
a primary symbolic resource, the military served as a main tool for
political oppression, first and foremost from the decision not to
enlist the Palestinians of 1948 to military service. More than an
“enlightened” decision to refrain from forced conscription, there was
here a conscious decision to force on the Palestinians no conscription,
thereby permitting their continued marginalization and exclusion from
political resources. The assumption was that military service would
strengthen their demand for civil integration, a demand that Israel
does not intend to allow for, as testified to by the treatment the
Bedouins and Druze receive. Their enlistment into the security forces
did not improve the situation of their communities, and filled a
central role in the political division of the remaining Palestinian
minority under Israeli rule into smaller groups.
The military government was officially cancelled in 1966, after it
fulfilled a majority of its roles, and was not long after imposed on
the Palestinians in the territories occupied in 1967. Here also it
served as a primary means in the battle for the resource of land. The
removal of the military regime from 1948 Palestinians and its
imposition a short time later on the 1967 Palestinians continues even
today to be the primary tool for implementing the internal and external
policies of Israel—total formal separation between the occupied
territories and those under Israeli sovereignty. This separation of
course only relates to Palestinians, while Israeli security forces,
settlers, other Israelis and those holding foreign passports can move
freely within the territories. In the first stage, the military created
two hostile groups through the system of selective military enlistment
and the regime that it imposed, and since 1967 it has established a
three way division: an enlisted group that is diverted more and more to
missions of direct rule in the occupied territories; a group of
subjects with more rights, i.e., Palestinian citizens of Israel; and
finally those completely excluded from all participation in the
political game and from all civil rights. The mental border today
passing through “Arab Israelis” and the rest of their people—a border
that is expressed in the civil proposals raised in the past few years
by Palestinian citizens of Israel, and which defined them as a matter
of fact and with no exception as a minority group within the Jewish
state in the territories of 1967—this is the most important for Israeli
interests. The elimination of this border would pull the rug out from
under the conduct of Israeli politics.
In summary, it is possible to divide the military history of the occupation since 1967 into three central periods.
The first, which began in 1967, ended in the beginning of the 1990’s,
between the outbreak of the first Intifada, the Gulf War and the
imposition of a general closure on the territories, and lasted until
the signing of the Oslo agreements. This period was characterized by
the aspiration for a normalization of life in a manner that would
promote the economic interest of the occupied, if not as a collective,
at least as individuals. The Israeli military was also a partner to
this approach. It filled the territories with bases for training and
instruction and left the work of policing to small police forces
accompanied by reserve duty soldiers with low level military training
and to new recruits.
The second period concerned the management of the occupation under the
wide umbrella of the political agreements. In this period the most
systematic effort was conducted to implement the vision of control via
sub-contractors, a vision whose inception was the failed attempt to
establish “village associations”.
The third period commenced with the outbreak of the second Intifada,
and resulted in heights of violence and killings and what is perceived
today on the Israeli side as a unilateral resolution of the struggle
and the imposition of the Israeli solution both on the international
and local levels.
Engineering the Territory
It is possible to see how the role of the military changes in
accordance with broader changes when we examine its functioning from
the beginning of the second Intifada until today: in the first stage,
the military received a clear order to generate conflict and to injure
as many as possible from the armed forces on the other side. Those who
suffered great losses in the first weeks attempted to move the fighting
to the area of Israel in a wave of suicide attacks, but then the
Israeli forces implemented an unprecedented array of collective
punishments and demonstrated its capacity to paralyze all possibility
of civilian life within its area of control. The heavy price paid by
Israeli society during this stage was deemed as worthwhile: under the
cover of fire, it was possible to redesign the territory in an
unprecedented manner. The final stamp of this process was the building
of the Separation Wall and implementing the unilateral steps in Gaza
and the northern West Bank.
From here onwards, we are witness to two alternative processes that are
being implemented at a varying pace and in accordance with changing
conditions on the ground: on the one hand, a tendency to normalize as
much as possible the current state of affairs. The military, which was
requested to generate confrontation at any price, is now requested to
create a daily routine that can prove to the world that not only
Israelis benefit from the situation, but also the occupied population.
In order to do this, it is important to create new statistics that
present a low number of Palestinian casualties, to “civilize” the large
passages in the Wall through transferring their management to civilian
companies, and to permit Palestinian movement through bottle passages
created by Israel and to rebuild the texture of Palestinian life in
accordance with the needs of Israeli rule. All of these of course
created extended periods of calm.
On the other hand, the complete illusion of the political process that
Israel has waved since Madrid and Oslo is certainly liable to
occasionally result in violent outbreaks, and these also serve the
Israeli interest as under the cover of fire, it is possible to expand
the unilateral moves and the engineering of the territory such that the
vision of Zionist rule will transform into the sole reality with which
the world will be forced to accept. Thus, for example, it should be
expected that attacks that are directed toward the Jewish population in
the occupied territories permit implementation of building plans for
internal separation walls, and thus complete the construction of cages
for Palestinian civilians.
The sole effective strategy against this terrifying vision, which is
being realized before our very eyes, is a transition to widespread
civil resistance. This, for as long as it will last, is liable to
neutralize the effectiveness of the use of force by the Israeli
military and to arouse increasing international pressure. The Israeli
forces do everything in their power, as they did during the beginning
of the first Intifada, to escalate Palestinian civil resistance into a
military struggle which can be brutally put down. Single spots, such as
Bil’in, present local models of the use of this mechanism. Only the
expansion of this form of action to mass protest, together with the
final collapse of the Palestinian Authority, is liable to deeply change
the present dynamics.
If I must estimate when these processes will come to a head, I hope
that perhaps in ten years, when we come together again to mark 50 years
of occupation. This will then be the final party.
Yossi Schwartz is a professor of history at Tel Aviv University and the
Co-Chairperson of the Alternative Information Center. This article
originally appeared in the AIC Hebrew language publication Mitsad Sheni
and was translated to English by the AIC.
|
News 
