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Daniel Pipes- Contributor
Daniel
Pipes is director of the Middle
East Forum, a member of the
presidentially-appointed board of the U.S.
Institute of Peace,
and a prize-winning columnist for the New York Sun and The
Jerusalem Post. His most recent book, Miniatures:
Views of Islamic and Middle Eastern Politics (Transaction
Publishers) appeared in late 2003. His website, DanielPipes.org,
the single most accessed source of information specifically
on
the Middle East and Islam, offers an archive and a chance
to sign-up to receive his new materials as they appear. [go
to Pipes index]
 "The
Hell of Israel Is Better than the Paradise of Arafat"
Palestinian paradox...
[Daniel Pipes] 4/22/05
In the Palestinian
Authority's (PA) elections that took place in January 2005,
a significant percentage of Arab Jerusalemites
stayed away from the polls out of concern that voting in them
might jeopardize their status as residents of Israel. For example,
the Associated Press quoted one Rabi Mimi, a 28-year-old truck
driver, who expressed strong support for Mahmoud Abbas but said
he had no plans to vote: "I can't vote. I'm afraid I'll get into
trouble. I don't want to take any chances." Asked if he would
vote, a taxi driver responded with indignation, "Are you kidding?
To bring a corrupt [Palestinian] Authority here. This is just
what we are missing."
This reluctance—as well as administrative incompetence—helped
explain why, in the words of the Jerusalem Post, "at several
balloting locations in the city [of Jerusalem], there were more
foreign election observers, journalists, and police forces out
than voters." It also explains why, in the previous PA election
in 1996, a mere 10 percent of Jerusalem's eligible population
voted, far lower than the proportions elsewhere.
At first blush surprising, the worry about jeopardizing Israeli
residency turns out to be widespread among the Palestinians in
Israel. When given a choice of living under Zionist or Palestinian
rule, they decidedly prefer the former. More than that, there
is a body of pro-Israel sentiments from which to draw. No opinion
surveys cover this delicate subject, but a substantial record
of statements and actions suggest that, despite their anti-Zionist
swagger, Israel's most fervid enemies do perceive its political
virtues. Even Palestinian leaders, between their fulminations,
sometimes let down their guard and acknowledge Israel's virtues.
This undercurrent of Palestinian love of Zion has hopeful and
potentially significant implications.
Pro-Israel expressions fall into two main categories: preferring
to remain under Israel rule and praising Israel as better than
Arab regimes.
No Thank You, Palestinian Authority
Palestinians
already living in Israel, especially in Jerusalem and the "Galilee Triangle" area,
tell, sometimes volubly, how they prefer to remain in Israel.
Jerusalem.
In mid-2000, when it appeared that some Arab-majority parts
of Jerusalem would be transferred to Palestinian Authority
control, Muslim Jerusalemites expressed less than delight at
the prospect. Peering over at Arafat's PA, they saw power monopolized
by domineering and corrupt autocrats, a thug-like police force,
and a stagnant economy. Arafat's bloated, nonsensical claims
("We are the one true democratic oasis in the Arab region") only
exacerbated their apprehensions.
‘Abd ar-Razzaq ‘Abid of Jerusalem's Silwan neighborhood pointed
dubiously to "what's happening in Ramallah, Hebron, and the Gaza
Strip" and asked if the residents there were well off. A doctor
applying for Israeli papers explained:
The whole world seems to be talking about the future of the
Arabs of Jerusalem, but no one has bothered asking us. The
international community and the Israeli Left seem to take it
for granted that we want to live under Mr. Arafat's control.
We don't. Most of us despise Mr. Arafat and the cronies around
him, and we want to stay in Israel. At least here I can speak
my mind freely without being dumped in prison, as well as having
a chance to earn an honest day's wage.
In the colorful
words of one Jerusalem resident, "The hell of
Israel is better than the paradise of Arafat. We know Israeli
rule stinks, but sometimes we feel like Palestinian rule would
be worse."
The director
of the Bayt Hanina community council in northern Jerusalem,
Husam
Watad, found that the prospect of finding themselves
living under Arafat's control had people "in a panic. More than
50 percent of east Jerusalem residents live below the poverty
line, and you can imagine how the situation would look if residents
did not receive [Israeli] National Insurance Institute payments." In
the view of Fadal Tahabub, a member of the Palestinian National
Council, an estimated 70 percent of the 200,000 Arab residents
of Jerusalem preferred to remain under Israeli sovereignty. A
social worker living in Ras al-‘Amud, one of the areas possibly
falling under PA control, said: "If a secret poll was conducted,
I am sure an overwhelming majority of Jerusalem Arabs would say
they would prefer to stay in Israel."
Indeed, precisely
when Palestinian rule seemed most likely in 2000, the Israeli
Interior Ministry reported a substantial increase
in citizenship applications from Arabs in eastern Jerusalem.
A Jerusalem city councilor, Roni Aloni, heard from many Arab
residents about their not wanting to live under PA control. "They
tell me—we are not like Gaza or the West Bank. We hold Israeli
IDs. We are used to a higher standard of living. Even if Israeli
rule is not so good, it is still better than that of the PA." Shalom
Goldstein, an adviser on Arab affairs to the Jerusalem mayor,
found likewise: "People look at what is happening inside the
Palestinian-controlled areas today and say to themselves, ‘Thank
God we have Israeli ID cards.' In fact, most of the Arabs in
the city prefer to live under Israeli rule than under a corrupt
and tyrannical regime like Yasser Arafat's."
So many Jerusalem
Arabs considered taking out Israeli papers in 2000 that the
ranking Islamic official in Jerusalem issued
an edict prohibiting his flock from holding Israeli citizenship
(because this implies recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the
holy city). Faysal al-Husayni, the Palestine Liberation Organization's
man in charge of Jerusalem affairs, went further: "Taking Israeli
citizenship is something that can only be defined as treason," and
he threatened such people with exclusion from the Palestinian
state. Finding his threat ineffective, Husayni upped the ante,
announcing that Jerusalem Arabs who take Israeli citizenship
would have their homes confiscated. The PA's radio station confirmed
this, calling such persons "traitors" and threatening that they
would be "tracked down." Many Palestinians were duly intimidated,
fearing the authority's security forces.
But some
spoke out. Hisham Gol of the Mount of Olives community council
put it
simply: "I prefer Israeli control." An affluent
West Bank woman called a friend in Gaza to ask about life under
the PA. She heard an ear-full: "I can only tell you to pray that
the Israelis don't leave your town," because "the Jews are more
human" than Palestinians. One individual willing publicly to
oppose Arafat was Zohair Hamdan of Sur Bahir, a village in the
south of metropolitan Jerusalem; he organized a petition of Jerusalem
Arabs demanding that a referendum be held before Israel lets
the Palestinian Authority take power in Jerusalem. "For 33 years,
we have been part of the State of Israel. But now our rights
have been forgotten." Over a year and a half, he collected more
than 12,000 signatures (out of an estimated Jerusalem Arab population
of 200,000). "We won't accept a situation where we are led like
sheep to the slaughterhouse." Hamdan also expressed a personal
preference that Sur Bahir remain part of Israel and estimated
that the majority of Palestinians reject "Arafat's corrupt and
tyrannical rule. Look what he's done in Lebanon, Jordan, and
now in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He has brought one disaster
after another on his people."
The Galilee Triangle.
Nor are such pro-Israeli sentiments limited to residents of
Jerusalem. When Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon's government released a trial balloon in February 2004
about giving the Palestinian Authority control over the Galilee
Triangle, a predominantly Arab part of Israel, the response came
strong and hard. As Mahmoud Mahajnah, 25, told Agence France-Presse, "Yasir
Arafat runs a dictatorship, not a democracy. No one here would
accept to live under that regime. I've done my [Israeli] national
service; I am a student here and a member of the Israeli Football
Association. Why would they transfer me? Is that logical or legitimate?" One
resident quoted what he called a local saying, that "the ‘evil'
of Israel is better than the ‘heaven' of the West Bank." Shu‘a
Sa‘d, 22, explained why: "Here you can say whatever you like
and do whatever you want—so long as you don't touch the security
of Israel. Over there, if you talk about Arafat, they can arrest
you and beat you up." Another young man, ‘Isam Abu ‘Alu, 29,
put it differently: "Mr. Sharon seems to want us to join an unknown
state that doesn't have a parliament, or a democracy, or even
decent universities. We have close family ties in the West Bank,
but we prefer to demand our full rights inside Israel."
The entrance
to Umm al-Fahm, the largest Muslim town in Israel, sports the
green
flags of the Islamic Movement Party that rules
the town, along with a billboard denouncing Israel's rule over
Jerusalem. That said, Hashim ‘Abd ar-Rahman, mayor and local
leader of the Islamic Movement, has no time for Sharon's suggestion: "Despite
the discrimination and injustice faced by Arab citizens, the
democracy and justice in Israel is better than the democracy
and justice in Arab and Islamic countries." Nor does Ahmed Tibi,
an Israeli Arab member of parliament and advisor to Arafat, care
for the idea of PA control, which he calls "a dangerous, antidemocratic
suggestion."
Just 30 percent of Israel's Arab population, a May 2001 survey
found, agree to the Galilee Triangle being annexed to a future
Palestinian state, meaning that a large majority prefers to remain
in Israel. By February 2004, according to the Haifa-based Arab
Center for Applied Social Research, that number had jumped to
90 percent preferring to remain in Israel. No less startling,
73 percent of Triangle Arabs said they would resort to violence
to prevent changes in the border. Their reasons divided fairly
evenly between those claiming Israel as their homeland (43 percent)
and those cherishing Israel's higher standard of living (33 percent).
So intense was the Arab opposition to ceding the Galilee Triangle
to the Palestinian Authority that Sharon quickly gave the idea
up.
The issue
arose a bit later in 2004 as Israel built its security fence.
Some
Palestinians, like Umm al-Fahm's Ahmed Jabrin, 67,
faced a choice on which side of the fence to live. He had no
doubts. "We fought [the Israeli authorities so as] to be inside
of the fence, and they moved it so we are still in Israel. We
have many links to Israel. What have we to do with the Palestinian
Authority?" His relative, Hisham Jabrin, 31, added: "We are an
integral part of Israel and will never be part of a Palestinian
state. We have always lived in Israel and there is absolutely
no chance that that will change."
Preferring Israel to the Arab Regimes
Palestinians—from the lowest level to the highest ranking—sometimes
acknowledge how they prefer Israel to Arab countries. As one
PLO official observed, "We no longer fear the Israelis or the
Americans, regardless of their hostility, but we now fear our
Arab ‘brothers.'" Or, in the general observation of a Gazan, "The
Arabs say they're our friends, and treat us worse than the Israelis
do." Here are examples of attitudes toward three states:
-
Syria.
Salah Khalaf (a.k.a. Abu Iyad), one of the PLO's top figures,
declared in 1983 that crimes committed
by the Hafiz al-Assad regime against the Palestinian people "surpassed
those of the Israeli enemy." In like spirit, Yasir Arafat
addressed a PLO figure murdered at Syrian instigation at
his funeral: "The Zionists in the occupied territories tried
to kill you, and when they failed, they deported you. However,
the Arab Zionists represented by the rulers of Damascus thought
this was insufficient, so you fell as a martyr."
-
Jordan.
Victor, a Jordanian who once worked as advance man for
a senior Saudi government minister, observed in 1994
that Israel was the only Middle Eastern country he admires. "I
wish Israel would just take over Jordan," he said, his brother
nodding in vigorous agreement. "The Israelis are the only
people around here who are organized, who know how to get
things done. And they're not bad people. They're straight.
They keep their word. The Arabs can't do anything right.
Look at this so-called democracy in Jordan. It's a complete
joke."
-
Kuwait.
Palestinians collaborated with Iraqi forces occupying Kuwait
in 1990, so when the country was liberated,
they came in for some rough treatment. One Palestinian newspaper
found that in Kuwait, "Palestinians are receiving treatment
even worse than they have had at the hands of their enemies,
the Israelis." After surviving the Kuwaiti experience, another
Palestinian minced no words: "Now I feel Israel is paradise.
I love the Israelis now. I know they treat us like humans.
The West Bank [still then under Israeli control] is better
[than Kuwait]. At least before the Israelis arrest you, they
bring you a paper." With less exuberance, Arafat himself
concurred: "What Kuwait did to the Palestinian people is
worse than what has been done by Israel to Palestinians in
the occupied territories."
Many Palestinians
already understood the virtues of Israeli political life decades
ago. As one man from Ramallah explained, "I'll
never forget that day during the Lebanon war [of 1982], when
an Arab Knesset member got up and called [Prime Minister Menachem]
Begin a murderer. Begin didn't do a thing [in response]. If you
did that to Arafat, I don't think you'd make it home that night." Before
the Palestinian Authority came into existence in 1994, most Palestinians
dreamt of autonomy without worrying much about the details. After
Arafat's return to Gaza, they could make a direct comparison
between his rule and Israel's, something they frequently do.
They have many reasons for preferring life in Israel:
Restraints on violence.
After the PA police raided the house of a Hamas supporter in
an after-midnight operation and
roughed up both him and his 70-year-old father, the father yelled
at the police, "Even the Jews did not behave like you cowards." And
the son, when he came out of the PA prison, declared his experience
there much worse than in the Israeli jails. An opponent of Arafat's
pointed out how Israeli soldiers "would first fire tear gas,
and then fire rubber bullets, and only then shoot live ammunition.
They never shot at us without a direct order to shoot, and then
they only shot a few bullets. But these Palestinian police started
shooting immediately, and they shot everywhere."
Freedom of expression. ‘Adnan
Khatib, owner and editor of Al-Umma, a Jerusalem weekly
whose printing plant was burned down by PA police in 1995,
bemoaned the troubles he'd
had since the Palestinian Authority's heavy-handed leaders got
power over him: "The measures they are taking against the Palestinian
media, including the arrest of journalists and the closure of
newspapers, are much worse than those taken by the Israelis against
the Palestinian press." In an ironic turn of events, Na‘im Salama,
a lawyer living in Gaza, was arrested by the PA on charges he
slandered it by writing that Palestinians should adopt Israeli
standards of democracy. Specifically, he referred to charges
of fraud and breach of trust against then-prime minister Binyamin
Netanyahu. Salama noted how the system in Israel allowed police
to investigate a sitting prime minister and wondered when the
same might apply to the PA chieftain. For this audacity, he spent
time in jail. Hanan Ashrawi, an obsessive anti-Israel critic,
acknowledged (reluctantly) that the Jewish state has something
to teach the nascent Palestinian polity: "freedom would have
to be mentioned although it has only been implemented in a selective
way, for example, the freedom of speech." ‘Iyad as-Sarraj, a
prominent psychiatrist and director of the Gaza Community Mental
Health Program, confesses that "during the Israeli occupation,
I was 100 times freer [than under the Palestinian Authority]."
Democracy.
Israel's May 1999 elections, which Netanyahu lost, impressed
many Palestinian observers. Columnists cited
in a Middle East Media and Research Institute (MEMRI) study remarked
on the smooth transition in Israel and wanted the same for themselves;
as one put it, he envies the Israelis and wants "a similar regime
in my future state." Even one of Arafat's employees, Hasan al-Kashif,
director-general of the PA's Information Ministry, contrasted
Netanyahu's immediate and graceful exit from office with the
perpetual power of "several names in our leadership" who go on
ruling in perpetuity. Nayif Hawatma, leader of the terrorist
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, wished the
Palestinian Authority made decisions more like Israel:
We want the PNC [Palestine National Council] to discuss the
developments since 1991, particularly the Oslo accords, which
were concluded behind the back of the PNC contrary to what
happened in Israel, for example, where the accords were presented
to the Knesset and public opinion for voting.
His facts might not be completely accurate, but they do make
his point.
Rule of law. As the intifada of
1987 degenerated into fratricidal murder and became known as
the "intrafada," PLO
leaders increasingly appreciated Israeli fairness. Haydar ‘Abd
ash-Shafi‘, head of the Palestinian delegation to the Washington
peace talks, made a remarkable observation in 1992 according
to a transcript published in a Beirut newspaper: "Can anyone
imagine that a family would be happy to hear a knock at the door
in the middle of the night from the Israeli army?" He continued: "When
the infighting began in Gaza, the people were happy because the
Israeli army imposed a curfew." Likewise, Musa Abu Marzouk, a
high-ranking Hamas official, scored points against Arafat in
2000 by comparing him unfavorably with the Jewish state: "We
saw representatives of the Israeli opposition criticize [Israeli
prime minister Ehud] Barak and they were not arrested … but in
our case, the Palestinian Authority arrests people as the first
order of business."
Protection of minorities. Christians and secular Muslims
particularly appreciate Israel's protection at a time when Palestinian
politics has taken an increasingly Islamist cast. The French
weekly L'Express quotes a Christian Palestinian to the
effect that when the Palestinian state comes into existence, "the
sacred union against the Zionist enemy will die. It will be time
to settle accounts. We will undergo the same as our Lebanese
brothers or the Copts in Egypt. It saddens me to say so, but
Israeli laws protect us." His fear is in many ways too late,
as the Palestinian Christian population has precipitously declined
in recent decades, to the point that one analyst asks if Christian
life is "to be reduced to empty church buildings and a congregation-less
hierarchy with no flock in the birthplace of Christianity?"
Economic benefits.
Palestinians who live in Israel (including Jerusalem) appreciate
Israel's economic success, social services,
and many benefits. Salaries in Israel are about five times higher
than in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Israel's social security
system has no parallel on the Palestinian side. Palestinians
living outside of Israel want economically in; when the Israeli
government announced the completion of an 85-mile-long section
of a security fence to protect the country from Palestinian terrorists,
one resident of Qalqiliya, a West Bank border town, reacted with
a revealing outrage: "We are living in a big prison."
Tolerance of homosexuals.
In the West Bank and Gaza, conviction for sodomy brings a three-
to ten-year jail term,
and gay men tell of being tortured by the PA police. Some of
them head for Israel where one estimate finds 300 mostly male
gay Palestinians living. Donatella Rovera of Amnesty International
comments, "Going to Israel is a one-way ticket, and once there
their biggest problem is possibly being sent back."
Palestinians
living in the West who visit the Palestinian Authority are
vividly
aware of its drawbacks compared to Israel. "There
is a difference between the Israeli and the PA occupation," wrote
Daoud Abu Naim, a medical researcher in Philadelphia, while visiting
family in Shuafat:
The Israelis
whom I met with over the years have been diverse. Some have
been
insensitive to our needs, and some have not
been. On the other hand, the Arafat/Rajoub regime is more than
simply "corrupt." It is exclusively interested in setting up
a dictatorship in which Palestinian citizens will have no civil
liberties whatsoever.
Rewadah Edais,
a high school student who lives most of the year in San Francisco
and visits Jerusalem regularly, added, "The
Israelis took our land, but when it comes to governing, they
know what they're doing."
Conclusion
Several themes
emerge from this history. First, for all the overheated rhetoric
about
Israel's "vicious" and "brutal" occupation,
Palestinians are alive to the benefits of its liberal democracy.
They appreciate the elections, rule of law, freedom of speech
and religion, minority rights, orderly political structures,
and the other benefits of a decent polity. There is, in short,
a constituency for normality among the Palestinians, difficult
as that may be to perceive in the hate-filled crowds that so
dominate news coverage. Second, many of those who have tasted
Israel's economic benefits are loathe to forego them; however
impervious Palestinians may seem to economics, they know a good
deal when they have one. Third, the percentage of Palestinians
who would prefer to live under Israeli control cited in the estimates
noted above—an overwhelming majority of 70 to 90 percent—point
to this being more than a rarity among Palestinians. This has
obvious implications for Israeli concessions on the "right to
return," suggesting that Palestinians will move to Israel in
large numbers. Fourth, it implies that some of the more imaginative
final status solutions that involve the redrawing of borders
will be hard to implement; Palestinians appear no more eager
to live under Palestinian Authority rule than are Israelis.
In word and deed, then, even Palestinians acknowledge Israel
as the most civilized state in the Middle East. Amid the gloom
of today's political extremism and terrorism, this fact offers
wisps of hope.tRO
This piece first appeared in Middle East Quarterly
copyright
2005 Daniel Pipes
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