Review 22.2
15th - 28th February, 1997

EDITORIAL

The plaudits for Joseph Gutnick were not exactly rolling in last week. "Such a guy should be considered as a criminal. What is he doing? He is destroying the peace process", Jibril Rajoub, Arafat's security chief - adorned in black shirt and suit - told the Channel 9 Sunday program. The Australian representative of the PLO, Mr Ali Kazak, visited the Department of Foreign Affairs to lodge a formal protest. The once august, but sadly now in terminal decline Australian Jewish News cringed in its editorial "n ot all the news Gutnick makes is good news or welcome", arguing that his support for the Jews in Hebron "is a mistake; wrong in principle and unwise and self defeating in practise". You won't lose too much sleep if you ignore them all: What Joseph Gutnick did in Hebron was right.

What has raised the ire of Mr Gutnick's critics? Primarily, that a wealthy religious Jew from Australia is making financial donations to the Likud Party of Benjamin Netanyahu and to the Jewish community of Hebron. The latter funds are used to help rebuild houses within the 20% of Hebron's territory allocated to Israel under the recently signed Hebron accord. Mr Gutnick is helping to fund the refurbishment and rebuilding of existing Jewish dwellings. Hardly a crime. The dwellings are in disrepair, and in urgent need of attention. The building projects do not go beyond any agreed territorial borders, they are legal, within the terms of the Hebron agreement and supported by the Israeli Government.

"He spends his money on politics; on the side of one party - the most extreme party - to divide the nation, to call for hatred and from our point of view it's a total negative contribution," complains Israel's former Prime Minister Shimon Peres. Sure, it's a negative contribution. Gutnick doesn't donate money to Labour.

But Shimon Peres and his predecessors in the Labour Party have for years taken millions of dollars in overseas contributions from Jews in the United States, Australia and Europe. Now they charge that Gutnick shouldn't donate to Likud, an ingenuous suggestion born of the bitter realisation that Gutnick's support probably tipped Netanyahu over the line to election victory.

It's the same type of Labour confrontational rhetoric that drove away voters from the party at the last election. Prime Minister Shimon Peres repeatedly delayed the Israeli withdrawal from Hebron, fearful of the backlash from settlers and Israelis who didn't trust him. In the end it was Netanyahu who delivered Hebron to the Palestinians, something Peres was never able to do.

Netanyahu may be good for the Jews, but as Gutnick notes he's also "good for the Arabs".

Netanyahu succeeded where Peres failed. How? Because rather than lambast, denigrate and disparage the conservative critics of a Hebron withdrawal he did what any good politician would do - he sold them the deal.

Netanyahu's predecessors resorted to attacks and condemnations of settlers and opponents and in so doing helped to polarise the nation. It is the same type of divisive verbal violence, so universally deplored after Rabin's assassination, which now reappears in commentaries accusing Gutnick of positioning himself "beyond the pale, just as the Hebron zealots are and deserve to be" and campaigning for "the fanatics".

But Gutnick is no zealot. Rather than support Jewish extremists - which he unequivocally and adamantly does not, indeed, joining in their universal condemnation - the effect of Gutnick's actions has been to neutralise and undermine them.

To sell the deal to the Israeli right - and particularly to Hebron's tense and despondent residents - Netanyahu couldn't turn to his cabinet. Those with any standing among the right had either prominently split over the agreement, or abandoned Netanyahu, hoping the deal would collapse under the weight of protest. Science Minister Benjamin Begin resigned his portfolio.

National Infrastructure Minister Ariel Sharon, Communications Minister Limor Livnat, Transport Minister Yitzhak Levy, Deputy Prime Minister Rafael Eitan, and Immigration Minister Yuli Edelstein all voted against the agreement in Cabinet. Yes, Netanyahu had a deal with Arafat, but how could he now sell the agreement to an Israeli right wing, many of whom had already branded him a "traitor"; accusing him of selling them out? Enter Joseph Gutnick.

Joseph Gutnick offered the residents of Hebron reassurance at a time of unprecedented tension and potential disaster. In offering to assist in the rebuilding of Jewish homes in disrepair he reassured the Jews of Hebron that they had not been abandoned. Amongst a fearful and tense population Gutnick acted like a circuit breaker, calming the hotheads, forcing them to come to terms with the reality of the accord.

Ultimately he sold them on the reality and inevitability of the Hebron agreement. Gutnick's presence and influence with the settlers at a crucial time, undermined the groundswell of opposition, lancing the potentially explosive resentment building towards the Government. "We still trust Netanyahu," Gutnick declared, soothing tensions and eventually delivering the residents of Hebron behind the Likud Government's agreement. He helped the residents of Hebron to understand the need to come to terms with reality. They didn't necessarily like nor approve of the agreement, but as Gutnick argues, "we made a decision that this was the reality; it was important to accept that and move on".

As Israel handed back the remainder of Hebron to the Palestinian Authority, there were none of the anticipated Jewish settler reprisals or violence. Absent were the anticipated demonstrations that characterised the Labour Government's handovers. The changeover occurred without incident, but more significantly there has been relative calm since. Well, perhaps not entirely without incident. Our black shirted PLO security chief Jibril Rajoub rode into Hebron only hours after the accord had been signed. In the spirit of reconciliation and peaceful cohabitation of the agreement he addressed the assembled Palestinian residents eager for the first official Palestinian response to the Hebron accord. "There is part of our city still bleeding and remains under the occupation," he said. "There are among us 400 settlers, 400 stones laying on chests. To thos e settlers, we say clearly and frankly, YOUR PLACE IS NOT HERE." Talk about difficult neighbours.

It took Rajoub 35 minutes to breach half a dozen provisions of the same agreement that his boss had just signed, including Article 22 of the Oslo II Accord, which states that Israel and the Palestinian Authority " shall seek to foster mutual understanding and tolerance and shall abstain from incitement, including hostile propaganda against each other". It must be the Palestinian Authorities favourite article, so honoured is it in the breach rather than the practice.

Nevertheless, Jibril Rajoub and his followers have other plans. Four hundred Jews remaining as an enclave among the 120,000 Arab population of Hebron is not exactly formidable. With 80% of the town now under Palestinian control, both the settlers and the Palestinians know that time, attrition, fear, difficult conditions and a few "incidents" will wear down those remaining Jews. But Joseph Gutnick has thrown a spanner into the works.

Refurbished apartments and good community facilities are not so easily abandoned. Facts on the ground are harder to shift. The residents of Hebron are hunkering down, not so easily intimidated, not so easily forsaken.

There are Jewish extremists living in Hebron, but there are also many decent and reasonable residents. Similarly, there are many respectable and peaceful Arab residents in Hebron who co-exist alongside some of the most violent devotees of Hamas and other extremist Islamic fundamentalists; people who would sooner stick a Katyusha through your bedroom window than sit down for tea. Hebron has historically always been a hotbed of tension, extremism and religious passions on both sides. It does not mean the people there should be abandoned to fight some internecine feud. Whatever happens in Hebron, happens in the Palestinian territories, Israel and the Middle East. Indeed, the whole future of the peace process, the success of genuine reciprocity rests in the outcome of the withdrawal from Hebron and surrounding regions.

Whether you subscribe to their world view or not, the Jewish communities of Hebron are a reality - facts on the ground, if you like. Their permanent presence is guaranteed by the peace accords supported by the previous Labour government as well as Netanyahu's government. "Hebron is the cradle of Jewish history. The Jewish people's right to live there is unassailable," argues Benjamin Netanyahu who has repeatedly encouraged developers - including Gutnick - to build in the Jewish part of Hebron.

The world's oldest Jewish community, the Jewish residents of Hebron survived the Arab uprising of 1936 and earlier, the massacres of 1929 when 450 unarmed Jewish residents turned down offers of military support from the Haganah, relying on their friendly relations with their Arab neighbours. Sixty seven Jewish women, children and men were slaughtered by those neighbours. In 1992 a crazed Israeli settler opened fire on Palestinians at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, killing 29 Muslim worshippers.

To isolate and ignore Hebron's population is to do so at our peril. Quick to turn in on themselves and even others, the Hebron community is a powderkeg that you don't deal with simply by shouting a few insults, turning your back and flicking a match at while you walk off. It's a lesson that both Israelis and Palestinians have learned the hard way.

There is an unbecoming duplicity in the attacks on Joe Gutnick's decision to legally spend his money where and how he chooses. Prime Minister John Howard, to his credit, rejected PLO demands that Gutnick be prevented from donating funds to Hebron. "A private citizen can do whatever he wants with his money", the Prime Minister said. Yet in daily papers and on radio talk back Gutnick has been condemned for donating his money abroad.

Meanwhile, Mr Kazak and Mr Rajoub forget to inform the Australian public that massive building projects have begun in the Palestinian sector of Hebron, bankrolled by donations from the Arab states of the Gulf and Arab communities around the world. And guess what, can you believe it - with private donations from Australia too.

Sometimes you can lose sight of the big picture, locked into the mindset and witless orthodoxy of the past. Fortunately, the realism and foresight of Benjamin Netanyahu, John Howard and Joe Gutnick has brushed aside the cobwebs and contributed to the complex advancement of the peace process drama. Pity we can't say the same for some of the bit players in the audience.