PREVIEW： Realpolitik #4 ｜ The Errors of Analysts
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Summary
In the third episode of Realpolitik, we re-examine the history of the relationship between the state of Israel and the Arab state of Egypt, and the deal that led to it, the Oslo accords.
Transcript
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hello welcome to this the third episode of realpolitik i am your host firas modad
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in the previous episode we had gone over some of the history of the state of israel
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reaching i think up to the oslo accords maybe before we begin we can do a quick little recap
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on where we were so the state of israel was founded in 1948 the intention behind it was for
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britain to have a foothold in the middle east close to the suez canal and that could separate
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egypt and syria and prevent the emergence of a unified arab state that could become a threat
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in the mediterranean there was a long list of wars 1956 1967 1973 uh the arabs pretty much lost all
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of these wars and what this led to was the rise of palestinian militancy uh through leftist groups
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as well as secular groups that were trying to basically find a way to force the israelis to
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recognize the palestinians and to find a way to end the state of israel um in 1979 the egyptians
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figured that they couldn't beat israel and that their economy couldn't continue with endless wars
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so they signed a peace treaty with israel and the result of that was the assassination of the
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president who had signed the peace treaty in 1981 but the egyptian military continued with its uh plan
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to make peace and exit the arab israeli conflict and this led israel to return the sinai peninsula
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to egypt and it led to the um peace treaty that we still have today the camp david peace accords
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that still govern the relationship between egypt and israel now in 1978 because the palestinians
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had been in lebanon since 1970 after their expulsion from jordan and because they were launching a series
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of attacks on israel the israelis decided to invade south lebanon and they took a small strip of
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territory and then after a series of attacks uh ariel sharon the defense minister of israel at the time
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decided to launch a full-scale invasion of lebanon that reached the capital beirut this succeeded in
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forcing the palestinians out of lebanon they went into exile in tunisia and it seemed that the avenues
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for palestinian militancy were closed then two things happened first there was the palestinian intifada
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in 1987 where essentially protesters within the 1967 occupied territories began throwing stones at israeli
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soldiers uh launching strikes doing their best to find a way of objecting to uh israeli military
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government over their territory or what they believe is their territory the territory that they'd inhabited
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for hundreds of years in some cases uh two thousand years two thousand plus years remember the palestinians
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themselves are not just arab invaders there is arab blood mixed into them but they're also genetically
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quite jewish and quite canaanite in addition to having that arab influence and in addition to
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having converted to islam over the hundreds of years of islamic occupation of the holy land so there
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was this palestinian tifada um that really became a problem for israel that really embarrassed israel
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politically and the view from the israeli side was that it would be better for the palestinians to return
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to militancy because that would help justify the israeli position better in 1990 iraq decides to
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invade kuwait and the leader of the palestinians at the time yasser arafat decides that he's going to
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back iraq because he believed this was the last arab country that would support him um the syrians
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he'd had terrible relations with since the lebanese civil war and um his position there was untenable
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iraq was seen as the last state that he could bargain on and it also helped that the iraqis
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paid him 50 million dollars in exchange for his support for their invasion of kuwait this backfired
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spectacularly in 1991 the americans just decimated the iraqi army and kicked out the iraqis from kuwait
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and arafat found himself with zero backers then the soviet union had collapsed and he was completely
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isolated so what did he do he made peace uh the palestinians and the israelis negotiated a peace
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agreement that was supposed to lead to the establishment of a palestinian state in the west
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bank and gaza the territories that had most meaning for the israelis particularly the west bank because
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the setting of the bible is mostly jerusalem and the west bank places like rachel stoom places places
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like jericho places like hebron these have enormous spiritual meaning for jews and for muslims with islam
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claiming um to be the true heir of judaism and this became a problem and let's watch this quick video
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about the uh oslo peace accords and help sort of put them in context
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for what he called an historic and honorable compromise 30 years ago a hopeful moment in
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the conflict between israelis and palestinians it's a day for optimism two sworn enemies arrived at the
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white house to sign a peace agreement the deal was struck in secret by the principle israeli prime minister
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yitzhak rabin a former general represented israel have now agreed to lay down their guns representing
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the palestinians yasser arafat the chairman of the palestine liberation organization
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this is historic breakthrough between israel and the plo two national movements competing for the same
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space and for the first time they're prepared to recognize each other known as the oslo accords
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supported by president bill clinton it was designed to end years of violence by laying out a peace
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process a deal that could give palestinians their own state and land captured by israel in the 1967
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arab-israeli war president clinton felt this was his baby it charts a course toward reconciliation
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between two peoples who have both known the bitterness of exile on the white house lawn the tensions were
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visible to the last minute there were issues rabin is insisting that our fat can't come in a
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you know anything that looks like a uniform we're telling our fat don't even you can't come with a
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you you don't bring a weapon you know he's always always had a pissy you don't bring a weapon to the
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white house then at a point the president looks at rabin and he says you're going to have to shake his hand
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and rabin looked like someone had punched him in the stomach and he stood there for a moment this is
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man he considered a terrorist all his life and then the handshake
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to give the palestinians a state and for it's akrabin the israeli prime minister
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and defense minister who had been responsible for the signing of this accord the aim was to create
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a state that was 80 jewish for the israelis the big fear was this they wanted control over the west
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bank for religious purposes and for strategic purposes if you look at a map of israel it's an
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extremely tiny narrow country with no strategic depth and its strategic depth comes from holding
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the west bank the problem is that the west bank came with an enormous number of israel of palestinians
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and these palestinians pretty much wanted always to end the state of israel this was the
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objective of the whole palestinian uh militant movement and indeed a lot of the political movements
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that animated the palestinians so if we look at a map here you see that this is the west bank and the
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border of the west bank is somewhat here and this leaves israel at its narrowest space at its narrowest
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place with around eight kilometers of territory so strategically unless the palestinian state was
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fully disarmed and was truly subservient to israel there was no prospect that the israelis would accept
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it because it meant that the minute that there was a invasion eight kilometers is absolutely nothing
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um the israelis would be overwhelmed their country would be cut in half and they would be defeated
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so this was the thinking at the time and it obviously caused division within the israeli society
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and within the palestinian society now on the uh palestinian side the reaction was for the most part
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terrorism and so we saw a pretty long series of attacks you can see some of them here uh from 1993
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when the peace accords were signed through 1994 through 95 through 96 onwards until an israeli prime
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minister ariel sharon the same guy who'd invaded uh lebanon in 1982 built a separation wall that
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completely put the two populations apart and that prevented the palestinians from being able to
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access israel before that the borders were between the west bank and israel were largely open it's
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just that the west bank was subject to israeli military rule and uh israel proper was subject to
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civilian rule and so we see here one of you know the aftermath of one of these attacks it was
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criminal it was horrific it mainly targeted civilians if you look at the areas that were hit it was
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markets it was buses it was um civilian areas the logic behind it was simply to say to the israelis
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absolutely no we don't accept peace and from the israeli right um their reaction was not terrorism for
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the most part their reaction was political obviously because they had a functioning state and a functioning
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democracy and there was growing opposition to the idea of giving this extremely valuable territory to
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palestinians who would never actually accept the state of israel as being legitimate and indeed the way
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that the uh plo and fatah the organizations that represented the palestinians the way that they tried to
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sort of sell this was we failed militarily for now we have to accept the two-state solution the subtext
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being one day we will overwhelm the jews and we will be able to defeat them this always was part of the
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thinking of the palestinians even some of those in the so-called palestinian peace camp which was
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you know a bit of a misnomer um as these attacks on civilians by organizations like hamas and the islamic
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jihad uh increased in israel it became harder and harder to justify the idea of a peace agreement then
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something cataclysmic happened in 1995 um an israeli gunman at 11 10 p.m as an outcome of murderous
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criminal assassination attempt the prime minister of israel and the minister of defense mr nishak
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rabin passed away he was hit by three bullets in his chest and his abdomen so the israeli prime minister
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itzhak rabin who had signed the oslo peace accords and tried to figure out a way to end this conflict
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with the palestinians um under the illusions of the liberal moment that we could all live in peace
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together he was shot and he was shot by an israeli who thought that rabin was a traitor for agreeing to
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cede the west bank and perhaps parts of jerusalem to the palestinians it wasn't a palestinian who
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killed him it was an israeli and uh eventually the israeli right won the elections in 1996
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there was a back and forth with a bunch of different elections and then in 2000 ariel sharon uh the
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gentleman that i had mentioned uh as as the guy who invaded lebanon he becomes prime minister
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and he becomes prime minister after going to the holiest place for jews and for muslims
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in jerusalem and by doing so the palestinians believed that he had uh desecrated the temple mount
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or the dome of the rock or the al-aqsa mosque uh obviously the original mount is name is the temple
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mount i mean the palestinians call it something different but the actual name this is where
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solomon's temple is supposed to have stood this is the original holy of holies for the jewish people
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since the muslims occupied jerusalem they built two mosques there and they claim it as theirs and when the
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jews enter this space the palestinians simply go wild and ariel sharon knew that and as part of his
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election campaign in the year 2000 he went there and it triggered a mass uprising by the palestinians
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a second intifada but unlike the first intifada this was absolutely not peaceful this was an insurgency
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in the west bank uh mixed with a bunch of terrorist attacks inside israel and the objective was to
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make the peace process fail and this is an objective that was shared with the new prime minister of
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israel ariel sharon so we end up in this situation where the two sides have tried war from military to
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military and they've gotten pretty much nowhere and the two sides have tried militancy in lebanon it had
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succeeded because although israel occupied lebanon from 1978 in the year 2000 it was forced to withdraw
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without signing any kind of peace agreement and for the palestinians this became the new template
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they became convinced that just as uh the militancy of the lebanese of hezbollah backed by iran had led to
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the expulsion of israel from lebanon something similar could be done against the israelis and this is
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what animated hamas which has had a pretty long and deep relationship with israel for a very long time
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this is what convinced them that the way forward was more militancy and they've been committed to
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this path since then in 2005 ariel sharon the same prime minister who had helped trigger the al-aqsa
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intifada or the second intifada or whatever you want to call it in 2000 decided that he was going
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to give up on gaza and decided that there were too many palestinians in gaza so the israelis had to
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separate from them and this was a policy that was pursued both in gaza and to a lesser extent in the
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west bank so here's what had happened even as the israelis and the palestinians were officially bound
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by a peace treaty that would lead to a palestinian state in the west bank more and more israelis
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especially religious jews moved to the west bank and tried to establish settlements there both legal
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and illegal now under international law these are seen as illegal but in reality this is simply the
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right of conquest the problem with the united nations and all of the resolutions of the united nations
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is that they don't recognize the basic reality that we are a conquering species and that part of what
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we do is go and occupy land and colonize it and build it up for our children and that involves kicking
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out the children of others this is part of our nature uh we've decided since the second world war to
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stop recognizing that this is a part of our nature but i find that to be extremely naive and extremely
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reckless so anyway the israelis were focused given that they couldn't fully control all of the west
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bank and that they couldn't fully control gaza they were focused on controlling as much territory as
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possible that would give them security and that would protect them against both the palestinians and
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other arab groups and that would uh enable them to solve the problems that they face militarily
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because after the experience with the wave of suicide attacks targeting israel they didn't actually
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believe that a peaceful resolution was possible they believed that the only way to govern was through
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strength and that the only way they could um keep their state was basically by imposing their uh military
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dominance on everybody in the region this is in a sense also a little bit idealistic because although we
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are a conquering species for us to function there must be some basis for peace that involves a level of trust
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and a level of a mutual legitimacy um i accept that this land isn't is land that perhaps i covet
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and that one day i would like to take but that right now it's occupied by someone else and i have to
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face reality and do some business with them while accepting that they covet my land and i covet theirs
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so in a way the oslo peace accords were too idealistic but the israeli position was too militaristic
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and the reason that it played out this way was because of the mutually exclusive claims of the two sides
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either these holy places are given by god to the jews or they are given by god to the muslims
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this is what underpins this conflict there's a national element in that the palestinians claim to be
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a separate nation from the other arabs i find that a bit questionable um they are civilizationly arabs
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regardless of the details of their ethnicity they are civilizationally muslim more importantly uh the
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difference between them and the jordanians and the syrians and the muslim lebanese isn't really
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substantial um so there is this national element but underneath it all is the religious element and for
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the israelis one of the paradoxes of israel is this as i said in the last episode israel was founded as
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a secular project it was meant to be a national homeland for the jewish people uh not a religious
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return project but as jews lived in the land in ever greater numbers due to the peculiarities of israeli
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politics and due to the fact that more and more religious jews migrated to israel and due to the
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fact that religious jews have a much higher birth rate than secular jews the importance of religion
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in this conflict in this conflict to the jews increased very dramatically so in a way it's akrabin the
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guy who signed the peace agreement with the palestinians and his foreign minister shimon perez
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they were the last of the israeli secular generation that saw israel purely in nationalistic terms
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and over time the thinking of the jewish population of israel changed and they began to see the country
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in much more religious terms so for somebody who is a secular jew like rabin it was conceivable to give
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the holiest territories in israel to a hostile religion and a hostile national identity like the
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