When I covered the 1982 Lebanon war, I learned something surprising about wars: they attract all kinds of spectators, meddlers, do-gooders and do-badders. They use the conflict and the attention it generates to play out their own identity issues, passions and biases. My favorite in Beirut was a gentleman who showed up in August 1982 as the Palestinian guerrillas were sailing out of Beirut harbor. His name — I am not making this up — was Arthur Blessitt, the “Sunset Boulevard Preacher.” He had walked to West Beirut from Israel to pray for peace, dragging a 13-foot-long wooden cross with a little wheel on the bottom.
Arthur was harmless; some of the others, though, were mendacious, which prompted me to promulgate this rule: I adore the Israelis and Palestinians, but God save me from some of their European and American friends. Their grandstanding interventions — like those blockade-busters sailing to Gaza or the wealthy American Jews who fund extremist settlers’ housing purchases in Arab East Jerusalem — often fuel the worst trends on either side and divert our energies from the only thing that is important: forging a two-state solution.
So is there anything good happening in that regard? Yes. The effort by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to build the institutional foundations of a Palestinian state from the ground up — replacing the corrupt, jerry-built structure that Yasir Arafat created and Israel destroyed — is actually making progress. This matters — and must be nurtured.
You see, there are two models of Arab governance. The old Nasserite model, which Hamas still practices, where leaders say: “Judge me by how I resist Israel or America.” And: “First we get a state, then we build the institutions.” The new model, pioneered in the West Bank by Abbas and Fayyad is: “Judge me by how I perform — how I generate investment and employment, deliver services and pick up the garbage. First we build transparent and effective political and security institutions. Then we declare a state. That is what the Zionists did, and it sure worked for them.”
The most important thing going on in this conflict today is that since 2007 the Palestinian Authority, Jordan and the U.S. have partnered to train a whole new West Bank Palestinian security force in policing, administration and even human rights. The program is advised by U.S. Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton — one of the unsung good guys. The Israeli Army has become impressed enough by the performance of the new Palestinian National Security Force, or N.S.F., under Abbas and Fayyad that those forces are now largely responsible for law and order in all the major West Bank towns, triggering an explosion of Palestinian building, investment and commerce in those areas.
Here are highlights: the Jordanians have trained and the Palestinian Authority deployed and equipped five N.S.F. battalions and one Presidential Guard unit, some 3,100 men. Plus, 65 Palestinian first-responders have been trained and are being equipped with emergency gear. A Palestinian National Training Center, with classrooms and dorms, is nearing completion in Jericho so the Palestinians themselves can take over the training. The Palestinian Authority is building a 750-man N.S.F. camp to garrison the new N.S.F. troops — including barracks, gym and parade ground — near Jenin. At the same time, the Palestinian security headquarters are all being rebuilt in every major Palestinian town, starting in Hebron. An eight-week senior leadership training course in Jericho — bringing together the Palestinian police, the N.S.F. and Presidential Guards — has graduated 280 people, including 20 women.
A course for captains and below in how to handle everything from crowd control to elections has also begun. The reinvigorated Palestinian Ministry of Interior is leading the Palestinian security sector transformation, and the Canadians are helping to set up Joint Operations Centers across the West Bank so all Palestinian security services can coordinate via video conferencing. The Canadians are also helping the Palestinians to build a logistics center. Parallel with all this, Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu has reduced Israel’s manned checkpoints in the West Bank from 42 to 12.
This won’t be politically sustainable for Abbas and Fayyad, though, unless Israel begins to turn full authority over to the Palestinians for their major cities — so-called area A — in the West Bank. Palestinians have to see their new security services as building their state, not cushioning Israel’s occupation. There could be a moment of truth here for Israel soon, but at least it will be based on something real.
In sum, this dynamic — Palestinians building real institutions from the ground up and getting Israel to cede to them real authority — is the ballgame. Make it work across the West Bank and find a way to transfer it to Gaza (how about reopening the Israel-Gaza border and letting the new Palestinian N.S.F. control the passages to Israel?) and a two-state solution is possible. Let it fail, and we’ll have endless conflict. Everything else is just a sideshow.
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