Marian Houk - June 15, 2007
 
 
GENEVA - The Israeli security deployment -- involving the army, police, and Shin Bet -- at the entrance of the Palestinian-owned Ambassador Hotel in East Jerusalem Wednesday was an unexpected sight.

But it wasn`t because of the appearance of Jabril Rajoub, a controversial Fatah commander who served as Yasser Arafat`s former National Security chief. Instead, as one of the Israeli security officials in a short-sleeved navy jacket with a communication wire leading to his ear, explained, it was because "our minister is here".

He was referring to Gideon Ezra, Israel`s current minister of environmental protection, who is perhaps better known, at least among Palestinians, for his long service in the Israeli General Security Service (Shabak, or Shin Bet) from 1962 to 1995.

During more than half of that time, Rajoub was in jail, after! which he was deported to exile with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), to return only after the exchange of recognition between Israel and the PLO as part of the Oslo Accords.

The Israeli government will not engage with any members of the present Palestinian national unity government other than with President Mahmoud Abbas.

But Ezra was quite willing to join Rajoub in a discussion on "The Current Security Crisis", sponsored by the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI). He and Rajoub shook hands, then -- when Rajoub took the initiative -- they exchanged formal kisses on both cheeks. Ezra told the meeting that "I came here because I believe we have to find a solution."

The veteran Jerusalem media publisher and PLO loyalist Hanna Siniora presided over the meeting, and told the audience that "we want to see if we can give any hope."

Rajoub, who is originally from Hebron, told the audience that he was sitting next to the! first man who put him in prison -- Ezra. Rajoub said he was just 15-and-a-half years old at the time, in December 1968, adding that this first detention lasted for four-and-a-half months.

Eventually, Rajoub was to spend over 17 years in jail, where he learned Hebrew, before being deported. He made his way to join the PLO-in-exile, and returned after Israel and the PLO exchanged recognition as part of the Oslo Accords. He also served at the late PLO chairman Yasser Arafat`s whim in various security posts, and is now taking what Siniora called a "one-year sabbatical," to pursue a Master`s degree in Israeli studies at Bir Zeit University in Ramallah.

Ezra recounted that, in 1994, after Oslo, he was in charge of general security in "Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem," when Arafat sent Jabril (and also, at the time, Marwan Barghouti, now serving five life sentences in an Israeli jail for charges related to the second Intifada), to coordinate with Israeli security.

! The Israeli minister told the audience that he had asked Rajoub to deliver two Palestinians who had made their way to Jericho after having been wounded in an attack on Israelis near Ar Ram. But, Ezra said, he did not hear from Rajoub -- and the two wanted Palestinians participated in another attack a few months later, in which an Israeli was killed. Rajoub showed no reaction to the story.

The physically more imposing Fatah commander, in a somber grey suit, spoke in a resonant voice and his intense dark eyes reflected whether he was bored, engaged, or annoyed. He would have had to have an Israeli permit to travel to Jerusalem.

By contrast, Ezra -- bone-thin, chain-smoking (but only outside of the hotel), with calm green-blue eyes -- wore a non-assertive grey pinstriped suit that hung loosely on his frame, and black sports shoes of the type now worn by many soldiers.

The Jerusalem Post reported in 2005 that Ezra had also served two years "as a member of a M! ossad hit squad assembled by prime minister Golda Meir to avenge the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics."

He was promoted to deputy head of Shin Bet from March 2001 to February 2003. Since then, Ezra has nearly continuously occupied various ministerial posts. An Ariel Sharon loyalist, Ezra followed the former prime minister to the Kadima party, and was a strong supporter of the unilateral Israeli "disengagement" from Gaza.

Rajoub reproached Ezra, during the discussion, for using the terms "Judea and Samaria" -- to which Ezra responded by repeating the terms a number of other times during the discussion.

Confidence between Israel and Palestinians is now at less than zero, Rajoub said. "So we do need a third party to be engaged -- the international community".

The Palestinians trusted the late Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, Rajoub declared, and added that there were two other Israelis that Palestinians could work with: th! e Meretz-Yahad party leader and former minister Yossi Beilin (co-sponsor of the Geneva Initiative), who wants to end the occupation of the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967, and a former Israel Defence Forces (IDF) chief of staff and head of military intelligence, Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, who was once elected to the Knesset and briefly served as a minister - but who is no politician.

Lipkin-Shahak has recently been named to head a steering committee to suggest ways to implement the recommendations made in the Winograd report to correct mistakes made in the "Second Lebanon War". Lipkin-Shahak also recently suggested in an interview with Israel Radio that the IDF should reoccupy Gaza if Qassam rockets are ever fired at Ashkelon -- a coastal city with port and pipeline infrastructure that is much larger and more strategically important than Sderot, which has, until now, been the place most affected.

Rajoub excoriated Israel for the "no-partner" policy it adopted ! six years ago, and warned that a security-first approach would not succeed.

He called on Israel to recognize that the new national unity government (with significant Hamas participation) was a Palestinian achievement, and could help settle the conflict, because "it gave Abu Mazen [Abbas] a clear-cut and full mandate to start negotiations on the basis of international legitimacy".

Rajoub added that another new element was the renewed Arab Initiative, which he said "offers collective normalization, collective security arrangements and a solution of the issue of the refugees -- which, I must say, was and will remain a source of concern for both Israelis and Palestinians".

The Palestinians want an independent Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, Rajoub told the audience. "This is a red line for all Palestinians, and we will never accept less for our forthcoming Palestinian state."

He maintained that "if Israelis want to say `let bygones be bygones! ,` let them think of a way to end the occupation," and urged the Israeli government to "take a decision to stop all kinds of settlements, and [related] actions in Jerusalem."

This, Rajoub stated, would provide a solution to a lot of issues -- including the rocket fire on Israel from Gaza.

Israel Radio reported recently a dramatic reduction -- but not a complete cessation -- of the launching of Qassam missiles into Israel. [On Friday, June 1], Israeli news reports said that Hamas had not fired any rockets in the past 48 hours (though other groups had).

For his part, Ezra told the meeting Wednesday that just stopping the Qassams was not enough: "What will influence Israelis will be no more striking by arms from Gaza, the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and no more terror." He said that he would not mind if there were third party involvement, but then noted that "the Egyptians are making a lot of efforts, but they are not succeeding."

! Ezra said that he didn`t know of any country except the Palestinian Authority which "lets terrorists act freely." He said that if Palestinians would like a free country, they would have to install order. Conversely, if Israel could rely on Palestinians to take on security matters, he said "I promise you Israel will be much less involved than it is today."

He asked for Palestinian promises to try to avoid "terror", to try "to take control of Jenin" and to "take charge of the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip."

This last is a curious demand that has emerged from the Israeli government in recent days -- Israel now seems to be calling for Palestinian forces on Gaza`s border with Egypt, while Israel apparently still does not desire Egyptian military forces there. By the terms of the 1979 peace treaty with Egypt, only Egyptian border police, in limited numbers, have been allowed in the demilitarized Sinai Peninsula.

When asked, Ezra indicated that the Arab! initiative held some interest: "I am in favour of it, the government is in favour of it; let`s sit and talk."

But, he added, "Hamas doesn`t want peace with us, they want to destroy us." He argued that "Jerusalem Arabs behave differently than the Palestinians in Gaza. The problem is that, on the other side, we have a Hamas government we are not going to deal with."

In an interview Thursday, a day after the Ezra-Rajoub meeting, Siniora said that Israel and the international community should change its policy on Hamas.

"We are now in our darkest hour -- and the international community is not helping."

Siniora said he believed firmly, like Rajoub, that "to have stability in a Palestinian political system, there has to be support for our national unity government."

While there may be many Palestinians who do not like Hamas, Siniora [a Christian] said, it was clear that Hamas, like the Israelis, "cannot be moderated by force ... and that divide-! and-rule does not work".

Siniora drew a comparison between the present situation and Israel under the Herut and Likud parties, which eventually moderated their early position claiming all of the former British Mandate of Palestine ("Eretz Israel").

Siniora also pointed to another parallel: "Israel is behaving now exactly as it once did with the PLO -- saying that it is a terrorist organization -- but that changed."

Siniora, who was the publisher of the Jerusalem daily paper Al Fajr, as well as a member of the Palestine National Council, was received by then U.S. secretary of state George Schultz in Washington between 1987 to 1988, when the U.S. refused to deal with the PLO.

"Honestly, I have been working for the last 35 years, mostly backing the PLO and recognition by Israel and the US -- and it took a long time. But it happened," he argued.

Hamas has already moved in a positive direction, Siniora maintained, and needed to be helped and encou! raged to go further.

"Hamas has accepted the Mecca Agreement, thus, at least implicitly recognizing the Arab peace plan and the agreements between the PLO and Israel. And it has signed on to the national unity government platform -- and this is, at least, implicit recognition of Israel [if not more]."

With a note of exasperation, Siniora added: "I know, for sure, that many Israelis are already in contact with Hamas now, semi-officially. This is exactly like the situation [twenty years ago] when I once helped the U.S. approach the PLO."
Marian Houk, a former UN Radio official writes for Egypt`s Al-Ahram newspaper.