Games Israelis Play

979 DAYS HAVE passed since the soldier Gilad Shalit was taken prisoner. Onany one of these days it would have been possible to free him for the pricefixed by Hamas right from the beginning: 450 "important" Palestinianprisoners, in addition to hundreds of others, as well as all the women andjuvenile prisoners.

In the eyes of our government, it is all about the return of the "kidnapped"soldier in exchange for "heinous murderers" who have "blood on theirhands".

In the eyes of Hamas, it is about releasing a Jewish "prisoner of war" inreturn for the freeing of hundreds of "resistance fighters" who have"carried out heroic attacks deep in the territory of the Zionist occupier."

Many had hoped that Ehud Olmert would tie up the affair before leaving office inthe next few weeks. But Olmert is afraid. Recently he has made several U-turns.One moment he decides this way, another time the other. Which would be morepopular? To act or not to act?

If he carries out the prisoner exchange and the soldier comes home, there willbe an eruption of public joy. Olmert will be the hero of the hour. But for howlong? Two days? Three? After this, a reaction will set in: How could he releasehundreds of vicious murderers? Surely they will carry out new attacks, Jewishblood will be spilled, children will be murdered. Olmert will be the scoundrelof the year.

A leader of stature makes a decision and accepts the consequences. But Olmert isa politician, only a politician. He has never been more than that. He is cynicalrather than moral, cunning rather than wise. He still hopes to come out intactfrom his manifold corruption affairs, and then, after the failure of BinyaminNetanyahu and Tzipi Livni, to return to power. So perhaps, he may calculate, itis best to leave the whole Shalit affair to the next prime minister.


BUT BEHIND the personal considerations there lurks a political problem, too. Howwill the prisoner exchange affect the balance of power between Fatah and Hamas?

The release of 1200 Palestinian prisoners will be perceived by the Palestinianpeople as a huge victory for Hamas. For them, it will demonstrate once againthat the Israelis understand only the language of force, as Hamas hasconsistently maintained. It will shame Mahmoud Abbas, the more so if Hamasbrings about the release of Fatah’s No. 2, Marwan Barghouti.

Olmert could, of course, prevent the humiliation of Abbas. Tomorrow morning hecould free a thousand prisoners belonging to Fatah, including Barghouti, as agesture to Abbas. That would take the sting out of the Hamas victory.

Simple? Certainly. Smart? For sure. Possible? Not at all. Not in our country.Not for Olmert and his ilk. To give Abbas something for nothing? Preposterous.Out of the question!

This exposes again the divided attitude vis-à-vis the PLO that has bedeviledIsraeli policy for dozens of years already. An inconsistency that is political,but also psychological.

SOME 40 YEARS ago I read a book by the psychologist Eric Berne, "Games PeoplePlay".

One of the book’s theses is that the ostensible motive for an action oftencontradicts the real, unconscious one. For example: a habitual felon sets out torob a bank, and is caught and sent to prison. The obvious motive is clear: hewants to get rich the easy way. But his real motive is quite different: he isafraid of life outside prison. In his unconscious mind he hopes to be caught,because in prison he feels secure. His place in the prison hierarchy is assured.

I am often reminded of this theory when I think about the curious behavior ofsuccessive Israeli governments towards the PLO.


IN SEPTEMBER 1993, after a long and bloody fight, Yitzhak Rabin signed anagreement with Yasser Arafat and recognized the PLO as the sole representativeof the Palestinian people. The logical continuation would have been for Israelto help in establishing a Palestinian state next to Israel and to do everythingto strengthen Arafat and the Palestinian Authority created by the agreement. 

But, oddly enough, successive Israeli governments have done exactly theopposite.

It started already with Rabin himself on the morrow of the Oslo agreement. Afterdeciding that our national interest demanded a partnership with Arafat, it wouldhave been logical for him to reinforce Arafat’s authority in the West Bank andthe Gaza Strip and sign a peace agreement with him as soon as possible, evenbefore the time limit set by Oslo (1999).

Contrary to the demonic image that Israel constructed for him, Arafat was theideal partner. He was a strong leader and all sections of the Palestinian publicaccepted his authority completely – including those who criticized him, evenincluding Hamas. He had the two attributes essential for making peace: the willto achieve it and the ability to convince his own people to accept it.

But, strangely enough, our government moved in the very opposite direction. Thepeace negotiations did not even start. The settlement drive continued unabated.Everywhere in the West Bank one could see the red tile roofs of the settlersspringing up. The absolutely essential passage between the West Bank and theGaza Strip was not opened – in spite of the solemn undertaking of the Israeligovernment to open four "safe passages". Not only did the economic situationof the Palestinians not improve, but on the contrary, it worsened perceptibly.Before Oslo, Palestinians could move freely in the whole of the country(including Israel proper). After Oslo, that freedom of movement was restrictedmore and more.

All this was already happening under Rabin, and became much worse after hismurder. The stupid decision of his successor, Shimon Peres, to assassinate theHamas bomb-maker Yahya Ayyash brought about a series of bloody revenge attacksand raised the prestige of Hamas – something totally opposed to Israeliinterests as presented by our leadership.

Things reached a climax at the 2000 Camp David summit conference. Ehud Barak,the then prime minister, initiated the conference and then scuttled it himselfwith a blend of arrogance and ignorance. In the following days, instead ofdeclaring that the talks would continue until peace was achieved, he spread themantra "There is no one to talk with! We have no partner for peace!" In thishe was inspired by the evil genius of his advisor (then and now), Amos Gilad,who twisted army intelligence reports to suit his destructive purpose.

Not only did Barak destroy the "Zionist Left", but he also dealt ashattering blow to Fatah, the movement that had promised the Palestinians peacewith Israel. Not content with that, Barak allowed Ariel Sharon to carry out hisprovocative visit to the Temple Mount, accompanied by hundreds of soldiers andpolicemen. Thus he triggered the outbreak of the 2nd intifada and prepared theground for Sharon to come to power.

When Sharon was elected Prime Minister at the beginning of 2001, he wasdetermined to destroy Arafat and Fatah. He blockaded Arafat in the RamallahMukataa and demolished the Fatah infrastructure throughout the occupiedterritories. When Arafat was murdered (one can guess by whom) Mahmoud Abbas waselected to fill his place.

Contrary to Arafat, who had been demonised by the Israeli leadership fordecades, Abbas was seen in Israel as a nice, peace-loving person, an absolutelyideal partner for peace. It could have been expected that our leadership wouldnow move energetically to fortify his regime by a rapid advancement in the peacenegotiations, a massive release of prisoners and the freezing of thesettlements. But lo and behold: the opposite happened. Sharon ridiculed himpublicly by calling him a "plucked chicken", the settlements were enlargedand the Wall was extended at a frantic pace.

Even more blatantly, Sharon evacuated the costly Gaza Strip settlements withoutany arrangement with the Palestinian Authority, leaving behind a complete chaosin which Hamas thrived.

THE CONSEQUENCES were not late in arriving: in the Palestinian elections,closely monitored by international inspectors, Hamas won a victory thatsurprised everyone, including the Hamas leadership itself. Israel boycotted thenew Hamas government. In order to minimize the damage to his party, Abbas formeda Fatah-Hamas unity government, but Israel (followed by Europe and the US)boycotted that one, too.

This situation benefitted, of course, Hamas. Palestinian support for Abbas isbased mainly on the hope that he can bring about peace with Israel. If he isunable to do that, who needs him?

The Israeli government – and its satellites in Washington DC – were notcontent with that. They tried to establish Muhammad Dahlan, a man considered bymany Palestinians as an agent of Israel and the US, as the strong-man of theGaza Strip. To preempt this move, Hamas assumed direct power in the Strip,turning it into "Hamastan". Thus Abbas lost all power over almost half ofthe Palestinians in the occupied territories.

This would probably have been impossible if Israel had not completely cut offthe Gaza Strip from the West Bank, in violation of the agreements it had signed.In Oslo it was declared that the West Bank and the Strip constitute one singleentity, and that they would be connected by safe passages. In practice, not asingle passage was opened, not for a single day. Those who claim that Israel hasserved the Strip to Hamas on a platter do not exaggerate.

The continuation is well-known: Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza, Hamaslaunched rockets at Israel, a cease-fire was declared, which the Israeli armyviolated on November 4 by entering the Strip and killing several Hamasmilitants, Hamas launched more Qassam rockets, Israel started the Gaza War.Israeli leaders asserted publicly that they were waging the war also for Abbas’sake, thus marking him in the eyes of the Palestinians as a collaborator withthe enemy against his own people. The Hamas regime in Gaza survived.

The net result: Hamas was hugely strengthened and according to all expectationswill increase its power in the next elections. Most governments in the worldunderstand now that they must start a dialogue with Hamas.

MANY PEOPLE around the world believe in the anti-Semitic myth that we Jews areimmensely clever and that all our actions prove our diabolical cunning.Therefore, the ascent of Hamas must be the result of a shrewd Zionistconspiracy. The existence of Abbas (and Arafat before him) hinders the Jews fromtaking hold of the whole country, because the world demands a compromise withthe "moderate" Palestinian leadership. But the world accepts that there canbe no compromise with the murderous Hamas, and therefore the clever Jews areinterested in a Hamas victory.

On the other hand, many Israelis believe that our governments are composed ofexceedingly stupid politicians who do not know what they are doing. TheseIsraelis believe that the series of actions that have weakened Fatah andreinforced Hamas are just a march of folly, the result of Israeli stupidity.

I propose a compromise between the two perceptions: Israeli policy is indeedfoolish, but there is method in this foolishness. It can go on only because itconforms with a deep-seated desire, which most people are not conscious of or donot want to admit: to hold on to all of Eretz Israel and not to allow aPalestinian state to come into being.

If we want to change this, we must drag the unconscious motivation up to thelevel of consciousness: what do we want? Peace or more territory? Co-existencebetween two states or occupation and eternal war?

It is too late to turn the wheel back. Hamas is now a part of reality. It is inthe Israeli interest that a Palestinian unity government be set up, a governmentwith which we can reach an agreement that will be kept. If we have alreadyplayed such a pivotal role in turning Hamas into a central Palestinian power, byall means let’s talk with them!

This way we can also free Gilad Shalit in a prisoner exchange – before his1000th day in captivity.