The explosion of Israeli-Palestinian violence over the past few days is, in the strange manner of such negotiations, a product of the fact that a final peace agreement is tantalisingly close and thus at its most vulnerable point. The two sides have been grappling over “final status” issues; the signs are there that they were getting pretty close to agreement. The immediate spark for this week’s violence was provided by the deliberately provocative incursion by Ariel Sharon, the hard-line Likud leader, into the precincts of the Arab- administered Muslim holy site of Haram al- Sharif, also revered by Jews as Temple Mount. Sharon’s intention was ostentatiously to assert his belief in a united Jerusalem, in short to scupper attempts by Ehud Barak’s government to reach some kind of compromise with Yasser Arafat. But he was also asserting his credentials as standard-bearer of the Israeli right at a moment when Barak’s equally unaccommodating predecessor, Binyamin Netanyahu, looks poised for a comeback. Sharon’s clumsy confrontationalism was to be expected from a man reviled in the Arab world and beyond for his role in Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon and the subsequent Palestinian refugee-camp massacres, from a man who has championed Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, from a man who has learned nothing over the years about the futility of racial and religious hatred. Sharon and Netanyahu are to peace what a fox is to a chicken coop. They play cynical politics with peace while consistently expecting others, particularly the United States, to mop up the blood they shed. They are men without vision. And yet they, and more violence and tears, may be what awaits the Middle East should they succeed in overwhelming Barak’s minority government when a hostile Knesset reconvenes this month. But while Sharon’s offensive gesture was the spark, it was in a sense handy for Arafat, who is seeking to turn the upheaval to his own advantage. Ever since the 1993 Oslo agreement, Arafat’s negotiating position has been very weak, dependent as it is on a balance of power weighted in Israel’s favour. In recent months Arafat has appeared less and less in control, outgunned by the Israelis and riding a wave of disillusionment with the peace process. The postponement of the talks at Camp David convinced many Palestinians that armed conflict, like Hizbullah’s in Lebanon, was the only way. It partly accounts for the pent-up fury released on the streets in past days. Arafat needs new diplomatic clout and he needs to regain some control of the process. This is a make-or-break time in his own career as well as the peace process. It is said that members of Arafat’s own organisation, Fatah, rather than Hamas militants, are playing a key role in the fighting. That is not surprising. Confrontations, especially if they are spontaneous, give Israelis a foretaste of what they might face should the peace process break down altogether, and galvanise the Americans into fresh endeavours to rescue it – these alter the power balance a little in the Palestinians’, and Arafat’s, favour. After all, it was the six-year Intifada that produced Oslo. When calm is restored, Arafat could enter the last phase of negotiations from a position of greater strength. He will also, thanks to Sharon’s blunder and Israel’s subsequent military excesses, have won back US favour. If Arafat doesn’t deliver an agreement which his people can accept soon, the logic of confrontation will escalate. The firepower Israel is deploying shows the lengths it will go to to retain its mastery. That would be a disaster. The long, sorrowful history of Palestine has shown that this is a struggle that nobody can win. Defence force puzzle What on earth is going on with our defence force? The ink has hardly dried on the contracts committing taxpayers to spend R32- billion on equipment when Parliament is told that there will have to be major cutbacks, including the closing of three air force bases and our much-punted Rooivalk helicopter system.
We made international commitments months ago to be part of a peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of the Congo but we are told the army would not be able to participate in operations of this kind without additional funding. Yet, despite this, the army employs “approximately 8 000 supernumerary personnel for whom it has no work at an average annual cost of R479-million”, says chief of defence staff Jack Grundlingh. He also estimates the South African National Defence Force will be spending between R243-million and R330- million treating defence force personnel for HIV/Aids-related illnesses by 2003/4. The result of all this is that the average readiness of our landward defence capabilities is 45% of capacity with 19 of the 45 full-time companies available for deployment, 88 aircraft and 46 helicopters disposed of and only 15 of the navy’s 24 vessels operational. Despite a lengthy defence review process in Parliament we clearly do not have a coherent defence strategy, nor do we have the funds to operate the defence force that exists, let alone one expanded by R30-billion worth of equipment. With 8E000 people employed to do nothing at all, there are serious management problems, never mind the problems of deep- seated racism that have led to several fatal shooting incidents. It was fitting to praise the defence force for its role in the rescue operations in Mozambique, but that’s where the celebrations should end. As a matter of urgency, the government and particularly Minister of Defence Mosiuoa Lekota should now come clean with the nation and tell us what is really going on.