UK House of Commons - Foreign Affairs Select Committee
Foreign Policy Aspects of the War against Terrorism
2 July 2006
Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-54)
MS NOMI BAR-YAACOV
19 OCTOBER 2005
Q40 Sir John Stanley: I am sorry if I did not put that sufficiently clearly. I think you were agreeing with what I was saying. I was saying to you do you agree that the Israeli government's position is that they are under no obligation to withdraw back to the 1967 boundaries?
Ms Bar-Yaacov: According to the Roadmap, they are supposed to withdraw to the September 2001 line, so the lines that are pre the Intifida, which fall very short of the 1967 borders. The discussion today is nowhere near really whether Israel is going to withdraw to the 1967 borders or not at present, since, according to the steps of the Roadmap, which is the only peace plan on the table, there is a different question of withdrawal at stake, and the current question of withdrawal is really from the three remaining Palestinian towns that Israel has reoccupied after the Sharm understandings of early on this year, of February this year. Again, I reiterate, I think Israel views the '67 question as a final status question. I do not think that there is one opinion or another in government as to the final borders of a peace agreement. It is an issue that they view as an issue to be negotiated with the Palestinians as part of the final status agreement. The questions of withdrawal at the moment are of much smaller areas than the 1967 borders. I also want to just mention in this context that President Bush said that in his view Israel can keep some of the settlement blocs in the West Bank, which clearly means that there will not be a withdrawal to the 1967 borders if Bush's words, which were made in a public speech in the White House, are to be taken seriously.
Q41 Sir John Stanley: Finally, just on Jerusalem, do you see any possible basis under which there will be an agreed settlement in the context of Jerusalem?
Ms Bar-Yaacov: I think that is the crux of the matter. I think Jerusalem is at the heart of the matter. I think it is the most important issue, and I very much hope that there will be serious negotiations on Jerusalem soon so that the matter can be resolved.
Q42 Sir John Stanley: You hope that. I am sure we all hope that, but my question, which is a difficult one, but from where you come from, with all your background and expertise and knowledge of how both sides are approaching Jerusalem, do you honestly believe there is any realistic possibility of a settlement?
Ms Bar-Yaacov: I think there is a realistic possibility of a settlement, but again, Jerusalem, final borders, refugees and settlements are the four key issues for final status negotiations. They have been put in a separate category under the Oslo Agreement, under the Roadmap, and that is the current framework for peace. So unfortunately, Jerusalem is only going to be negotiated as part of the final status agreement. Yes, it is possible to negotiate Jerusalem. Yes, there is a blueprint for what could happen in Jerusalem, in the Clinton parameters, in the Tabah negotiations, in the Geneva Accords. The solution is more or less in place. Yes, I believe that there is a possible solution for Jerusalem. My question is, when will the politicians negotiate it? Not this year. The year 2006, do not forget, is an election year, both in Palestine and in Israel.
Q43 Mr Pope: What effect do you think the withdrawal from Gaza has had on Israeli public opinion? Is Israeli public opinion, strangely, taking the Hamas line that this is a humiliation for Israel, a defeat? What are some of the effects of that, for example, on Israeli policy towards the wall? Does it make it more difficult for Israel to manoeuvre on being more reasonable about the siting of the wall, about the line of the wall? Is it harder for the Israeli government to take a more reasonable line on that because of public opinion?
Ms Bar-Yaacov: I think the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza was welcomed by the vast majority of the Israeli population. It is not seen as a Hamas victory in Israel; it is seen as a Hamas victory in Palestine, it is seen as a good move, as a pro-peace move in order to move the peace process forward. Much will depend on whether Gaza will remain quiet or not. Public opinion in Israel will sway if violence erupts either from Gaza or, more probably, from the West Bank, because it is unlikely that Hamas and other militant factions will operate from Gaza since it is in no-one's interests to have the Israelis re-occupy Gaza. It is not in any Palestinian party's interests and certainly not in Israel's interests. So the leverage they have is to attack Israel from the West Bank. Much will depend on how that goes in terms of the sustainability of Israeli public opinion. At present there is a honeymoon period. Yes, this was good, but if there are more Palestinian attacks on Israelis, there will not be any further evacuations from the West Bank. Gaza really has to succeed. In terms of the wall, as I said, I think Israelis are more sensitive today than they were when they planned the route to Palestinian humanitarian needs, and many Israeli human rights organisations and humanitarian organisations are petitioning Israel's Supreme Court in order to move sections of the fence or wall or to open gates there, and there is some room for manoeuvre there.
Q44 Mr Pope: We visited Qalqilya, which you mentioned, and I think we were all quite shocked by what we saw there, the fact that the wall and wall plus razor wire entirely encircles a Palestinian town. It appears to be strangling that town. We met farmers whose land was on the other side of the barrier. We saw schoolchildren whose school was on one side of the barrier and their homes were on the other, and to get in and out it takes around two hours. It seems to me that if the Israelis' point in this wall and the barrier was security, then this is entirely self-defeating because the kind of anger that this engenders, the obvious injustice of it, can only fuel violence. Is there a growing acceptance in Israeli public opinion that the existence of the wall in places like Qalqilya is an affront to normal human rights?
Ms Bar-Yaacov: I think Israeli public opinion is so much in favour of the construction of the wall that not that many people have examined the precise route as in Qalkilya, which I mentioned here a couple of years ago, and Tulkarm, and now I mention east Jerusalem because that is, as I see it, the most serious problem. I think it could lead to a third Intifada. I think, precisely like you, that it does not meet long-term Israeli security goals. If the problem of the sub-fences, the system of fences encircling certain areas like Qalkilya, like Tulkarm, like east Jerusalem, is not resolved, the Palestinians will eventually resort to violence and maybe even soon.
Q45 Richard Younger-Ross: Just coming back to Gaza and the movement of the Israeli settlers out of Gaza, some of those had already been moved once from previous settlements. Do we know where they have gone to? Are any of them settling in lands which the Palestinians are still going to want back in the West Bank and other places?
Ms Bar-Yaacov: No. It was one of the issues that everybody feared, that the 8,000 were moved to the West Bank, but in fact they have not. Many of them are still in hotels and many of them are in Ashkelon, which is a town just north of Gaza in Israel proper. I do not think there is a serious risk that they will move to settlements in the West Bank. I think the Israeli government knows that that is not advisable.
Q46 Richard Younger-Ross: On a totally separate issue, in terms of the wall and the wall alignment, it has been put to me at a meeting here some time ago that the construction of the wall actually aligns with water courses but the water courses tend to pop up on the Israeli side of the wall and not on the Palestinian side of the wall. Do you have any evidence of that?
Ms Bar-Yaacov: There are some areas in which there is a water problem. As I said, the best study on this was done by OCHA, the Office for Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs of the UN in Jerusalem, and they are negotiating with the Israeli army the specifics of these issues. I think there is a problem there and I think to a certain degree it is being addressed. It is being addressed in the sense that it is out in the open and there are negotiations going on on this matter. I am not sure that it has been resolved.
Q47 Chairman: Can I take you back to the Palestinian Authority. You said at the beginning it was necessary to strengthen Abu Mazen. Can you tell us your assessment of the internal struggle that is going on. You have made some references to it. How serious is this factionalism within Fatah? Is Fatah capable of in effect taking on and defeating Hamas, or is it more likely that elements within Fatah will be aligned to Hamas in a new political configuration? Could you clarify the differences in the politics on the Palestinian side between the West Bank and Gaza. The popular view is that Hamas is very strong in Gaza, Fatah is very strong in the West Bank, but that is a caricature. Could you give us your expertise on that.
Ms Bar-Yaacov: Hamas is stronger in Gaza than it is in the West Bank, but there are certain towns in which different factions of Fatah in the West Bank rule and certain municipalities in the West Bank in which Hamas have won municipal elections. The third round of the Palestinian municipal elections is scheduled to take place in December, and it is widely expected that Hamas will win a number of key municipalities in the big towns in Gaza but not necessarily the West Bank. In that sense, the caricature is actually right. By and large, Hamas have more power in Gaza, although its power in the West Bank should not be underestimated, plus their ability to operate out of the West Bank should not be underestimated. In terms of the in-fighting in Fatah, it is a very serious problem. Fatah is extremely disorganised. They are going to hold a convention, their primaries, only after the legislative elections. It is not clear yet how many lists they will run under but, unlike Hamas, who are extremely well organised and basically put together a one-candidate per list and then everybody falls in under that, Fatah ego and pride is very different. What happens is if a candidate is not top of the list, he then runs as an independent, so you get Hamas fractured into ten different independent parties, where everybody knows you are Fatah but you could not take being number two on a list so you decide to set up your own party, and you have too many parties running and that is extremely problematic. There is also the distinction old guard/new guard, the young Palestinians versus the old ones, and the problem of corruption within primarily the old guard. Since no-one has done anything about the corruption, people like, for example, the current Prime Minister, Ahmed Qorei Abu Ala, is viewed as extremely corrupt. No-one is willing to take him on, and if he decides to run in a separate list, that will split and splinter Fatah, and that is not a good thing. Marwan Barghouti, who is in prison, is most likely to be the head of the list, and he is most likely to win many, many votes and to operate from prison through Qaddura Faris or other emissaries, but I would rate the problem with inside fighting in Hamas and lack of loyalty, a certain dysfunctional structure that everybody operates for their own good. There is not a good co-operation between the different ministers. The situation is serious. On top of that you have the Fatah militant factions, who do not even consider Abu Mazen, so to speak to be Fatah. They take the law into their own hands, and they are armed; they are not willing to disarm. Abu Mazen tried to co-opt them and buy them into mainstream Fatah and they refused. I am speaking primarily of the Al Aqsa brigades. They have a gang mentality. They are loyal to their own gang master. They are certainly not loyal to Abu Mazen. So in that sense Hamas are much better organised plus, as I said before, they are clean. They do not suffer from that tainted image that unfortunately Fatah have earned themselves.
Q48 Chairman: Could the Israelis then actually be more likely to get an agreement with Hamas than with a disputatious and divided Fatah?
Ms Bar-Yaacov: No. Hamas is not interested in negotiating. Hamas's charter, which I have in front of me, the be-all and end-all of it is that peace negotiations are just something they would not even consider, and they consider totally wrong, and Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it has obliterated others before it. It has extremely racist statements against the Jews, "the cowards would never sleep" and things like that, in its official covenant. No, I do not think peace negotiations with Hamas are on the agenda, unless Hamas change their charter, disarm and sign a document which states that they are renouncing terror and interested in a peaceful way to resolve disputes.
Q49 Chairman: I put the question because some people have the view that somehow that would be the best solution, but I agree with your view. Can you also, while we are on this problem, deal with this. Are there other groups apart from Hamas and the Fatah groups that are significant players in this process?
Ms Bar-Yaacov: Fatah and Hamas are the main actors in the process and, to go back to Hamas, there is a debate as to whether they would be willing to transform into a political party, and if they do, whether they will be able, as I said, to give up their arms, to change their charter and to renounce terror and potentially negotiate. So there are issues that have to be worked on with them. There are other groups but they are smaller groups. As I said, there are local gangs everywhere. They certainly have power. Al Aqsa brigades are quite an important spoiler; there is Palestinian Islamic Jihad; there is the PFLP. Those are groups that carry out suicide bombings inside Israel so you cannot ignore them as a force in the equation.
Q50 Chairman: Some of them are based in Syria or in Lebanon.
Ms Bar-Yaacov: Some of them are headquartered in Damascus. Hamas have links both to Damascus and to Beirut. Most of them are Iranian-funded. Iran is one of Israel's main concerns. You have just come back from there, so you know all too well how serious the problem is.
Q51 Ms Stuart: That actually leads on quite interestingly from what you have just said, looking beyond Israel and Palestine to outsiders. There is this common perception that Egypt plays an incredibly important role in the whole development of the Middle East, having the elections and things, but how would you assess Egypt's role, positive or negative, towards a final solution?
Ms Bar-Yaacov: Extremely positive. I think Egypt—and I said this here two years ago—have done over the last two years an amazing job, so I just reiterate it and strengthen it. I think Egypt has played a crucial role in the ceasefire negotiations of the different factions in Gaza and the West Bank. I think they know the situation on the ground in Gaza and they have the ear of the Palestinians and the trust of the Israelis. They are in a unique position because it is also a strategic interest of theirs. They have a border with Gaza. They have a very good intelligence service so they know what is going on. They have the power. I would rate their role as absolutely critically important. The only potential problem in Egypt is the democratisation process because with this initiative of the greater Middle East, as you know, it is easier said than done, and it is potentially giving legitimacy to small, very extreme parties in Egypt that are very anti-Israeli. That is the only caveat that I would raise, more so long term, but I would rather raise it now, because those parties are not interested in peace with Israel. The peace Israel has with Egypt is a cold peace, a strategic interest peace. It is not a warmth of the parties or the two states really coming together. They have very little in common, but they are interested in a stable Palestinian entity.
Q52 Ms Stuart: Strategic interests are by far more durable than feelings of warmth. Could the UK do more to strengthen their hand in terms of democracy-building in Egypt, which must be the long-term prospect, and may not always be necessarily as much welcomed by those in power now?
Ms Bar-Yaacov: I am not sure what the UK is doing in Egypt at the moment, to be honest, so it is hard for me to assess. I know what they are doing vis-a"-vis the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and that is they are giving 100% backing to Egypt and a lot of encouragement and support. In terms of the democratisation process in Egypt, as I said, I really think it has to be treated with silk gloves. The only advice I can give the British government is to map out what this actually means, not only for Egypt internally but for the whole region, because it has a potential to destabilise, not only to stabilise.
Q53 Ms Stuart: If you think of something, let us know.
Ms Bar-Yaacov: OK, I will send it in.
Q54 Chairman: I think we have come to the end of our session. I would like to thank you for your answers and giving us a very useful briefing. Some of us will be travelling to the region in the next few weeks, and so hopefully we will be able to get there better informed than we otherwise would have been. Thank you for coming.
Ms Bar-Yaacov: Pleasure. Thank you very much.
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