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Getting back on Course

Haaretz
September 2, 2004

By Aviv Lavie

The bus pulling out of a Tel Aviv parking lot on a hot afternoon is packed to the gills. It's hard to believe, but only a decade or two ago the friendly elderly people who are filling every single seat constituted the top echelons of the State of Israel's security establishment. Equipped with walking sticks, hearing aids and a great deal of curiosity, the veterans of the Council for Peace and Security are going to learn firsthand about an issue that is preoccupying their successors in the security establishment as well as the High Court of Justice, and will continue to do so: the route of the separation fence.

The class-trip atmosphere is heightened when Shaul Givoli, retired police major general and the council's director general, takes over the microphone in the front of the bus. After overcoming all the static, he explains the development of the legal struggle over the route of the fence. Givoli, a solidly built and friendly man, whose Hebrew would be an asset to today's generals, perspires in his confrontation with all the names in his story. When he has difficulty recalling the name of a High Court justice, and someone helps him and calls out "Cheshin," he begins to tell a joke about a meeting between two old friends: "There are three signs that you're old, says Old Man A. to Old Man B.: Everyone tells you that you look good; girls don't get angry when you compliment them; and the third - I forget." The passengers laugh in identification.

At the end, Givoli wants to thank the hosts, the architects of the Geneva Initiative. "The donations that we received this year declined from 2 million to half a million," he says, "but for Geneva, the situation is better, because they're much more attractive. We've decided to ask them to pay for the bus. So thanks to the Geneva Convention." "The Geneva Initiative," they hasten to correct him, "the initiative."

Aside from the organization and the bus, the Geneva presence on the field trip is expressed mainly in the figure of the guide, Shaul Arieli. Arieli is the realization of the dream of the left, which is searching for new leadership. A colonel in the reserves, the former commander of the Gaza Brigade, articulate (with a slight tendency to mispronounce foreign names), expert in the material to the last detail, he looks and sounds like a Boy Scout leader, as far removed as possible from the round-glasses, Yossi Beilin stereotype of the leftist. Arieli was with former prime minister Ehud Barak at Camp David, and is one of the significant figures behind Geneva, the man responsible for drawing the maps.

During the seven hours of the journey in the Jerusalem hills, which ends late at night, Arieli presents the route of the fence according to the Geneva principles, spicing his words with historical, theological and demographic information. He repeats this exhausting ritual twice and sometimes even three times a week: On one trip the listeners are members of the Young Guard of the Labor Party, on the next trip the employees of a private company who have asked to see the fence with their own eyes, and on other occasions the tour is open to the general public. And the bus is always full.

The high point of the tour takes place in the shadow of the huge, nine-meter high concrete monster that cuts through the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Abu Dis in the middle of the road. The security pensioners regard it in amazement, and one of them remarks: "Even after everything you know via the media, nothing conveys the feeling like standing opposite this thing." The wall is covered with graffiti, among which one can discern the blue-and-white Geneva stickers: "Yes to the Initiative." Yaniv, who organized the tour, pulls out another one from his bag and sticks it onto the wall. He repeats this ritual on every tour. There are over 40 stickers on the wall.

Appearing to disappear

Nothing makes the Geneva people angrier than the question of where they have disappeared to. Last December, shortly after the launch of the initiative, and at the height of the public debate, at a time when the Geneva Initiative was starring on satire programs and even impelled a right-winger to file a complaint with the police against Beilin and his friends for "aiding the enemy during wartime," Gadi Baltiansky, the Geneva headquarters director general, said that "if they don't attack you - you don't exist." This week, the architects of the initiative had a moment of satisfaction. In a penetrating article in Haaretz, Ze'ev Schiff mentioned that the document of understandings signed in Geneva lacks a series of agreements on various items, which were supposed to be included in the appendix to the initiative. Nine months later, the appendix still doesn't exist. Schiff wondered where it was.

At the Geneva Initiative headquarters in Tel Aviv sit many experienced media consultants, who know that the correct way to deal with criticism is to embrace it. They quickly sent a reply to the editors, expressing complete agreement with Schiff's claim: It's true, the time has come to complete the agreement. We promise to work on it.

"The article illustrates the concrete nature of the Geneva Initiative and its chances of becoming a reality," says Baltiansky in satisfaction. But this concurrence with Schiff is somewhat misleading: While at Geneva headquarters they want to portray the delay as a technical matter that will be solved by means of hard work, Schiff claimed that the writing of the appendices is being delayed because the person in charge on the Palestinian side, Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, is opposed to an agreement that doesn't include a specific mention of the right of return. In other words, contrary to the claim that forms the basis of the Geneva Initiative, Israel has no partner for a reasonable agreement.

The Geneva headquarters is in no rush to adopt this part of Schiff's argument. "The Palestinian architects of Geneva have read the article, and they are now working on a response of their own," says Baltiansky. "But we really should be aware that the issue of a partner is a self-fulfilling prophecy. In a situation of assassinations and checkpoints, it's somewhat difficult for the Palestinians to get organized and to look like pursuers of peace. When Sharon prefers to return prisoners to [Hezbollah leader] Sheikh Nasrallah, and ignores [Palestinian prime minister] Abu Mazen, there's a price to pay: `There's no partner' is one of those empty slogans, and I know it, because I was there when they were invented." Baltiansky was Ehud Barak's media adviser during the Camp David summit.

Internal tiffs, as usual

The Geneva Initiative has come a long way from its heady and glittering launch on December 1, 2003, to the dusty tours along the route of the separation fence. Even the greatest opponents of the intiiative would find it hard to differ with the statement that the signing of the agreement was accompanied by a tremendous media explosion, and had an immediate effect on the public and the political discourse. Geneva landed on the Israeli agenda at a time when it was beleaguered by terror attacks and empty of political ideas, and within a short time created a whirlwind of new initiatives - from the programs of Shinui and of Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, to the disengagement plan. On the eve of the referendum on the disengagement plan conducted among registered Likud voters, Ariel Sharon tried to convince the voters by saying "It's either my disengagement or their Geneva Initiative."

Sharon suffered a blow in that referendum, but by announcing the disengagement plan, and by his determination to carry it out (so far), he landed a direct blow in the face of the architects of Geneva. Sharon and his plan placed them, and the entire left, facing a choice between two bad options: support for a process that in its essence lies in contradiction to the Geneva principles, which are based on rapprochement and an agreed-upon treaty; or opposition to evacuating settlements and reducing the scope of the occupation. The Geneva team reacted to this challenge in the usual manner of the Israeli left - with confusion and internal disagreements.

"During the first period, the process was stuck," says one of the architects of the initiative, "because there were sharp disagreements among members of the steering committee, both on questions of substance and on questions of tactics." The steering committee is a body that numbers about 20 members, including politicians Amnon Shahak, Yuli Tamir, Amram Mitzna, Avraham Burg and of course Yossi Beilin, former members of the security estabishment Shaul Arieli, Gideon Sheffer and Giora Inbar, and Professor Menahem Klein.

"You can find the entire spectrum of views regarding disengagement there," adds the same person. "From Beilin, who is vehemently opposed, to Shahak, who supports it. They all agree that the final status arrangement will be achieved through rapprochement and by agreement, but along the way there are huge differences. Some think we have to take up a clear stance against the disengagement, to tell the public that it's a mirage, a hallucinatory drug.

"But," he continues, "they also had a dilemma that usually characterizes a party running for elections, rather than an extra-parliamentary movement: If you say something now that nobody wants to hear regarding the dangers of a unilateral step and then have to wait until everyone wakes up and says `How right the Geneva people were!' - you're taking a chance that we won't survive because we'll seem like lunatics. In such a case, fund-raising is also liable to suffer dramatically. After all, one of the successes of Geneva was to create cooperation among a wide array of people, and nobody wants figures like Amos Oz or David Grossman to withdraw their support for us because of our opposition to the disengagement."

"In this debate, one could say that I was on the clear-cut, noisy side," says Daniel Levy, Beilin's assistant and right-hand man, who has more than once been called "the man behind the agreement." "I thought that we definitely should not be a weak echo of Sharon, that we had to come to the public and say that there was need of a strong partner, not a weak one. But maybe I'm mistaken, and what I propose wouldn't have been effective."

The disagreements surfaced in background discussions with journalists as well. In a meeting with the staff of one of the television channels, Yossi Beilin and Amnon Shahak showed up, and almost every other word of Shahak's was "as opposed to what Yossi said." The problem, says a journalist who was present at the meeting, was that the Geneva people had become irrelevant. "We told them, present an alternative to disengagement in Gaza, do a Geneva in Gaza," he says. "Had you quickly presented an alternative plan to Dahlan, people would have seen that there was something to it." Your problem, he says, "is that there's no idea, the ideological fuel has been used up, disengagement is the only game in town."

Like many other Israeli leftists before them, the architects of Geneva found themselves maneuvering with difficulty between the need to maintain some proximity to the Israeli consensus, and the continued talks with the Palestinians. In a meeting held several weeks ago on the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea, the Israelis heard harsh things from their colleagues, the members of the Palestinian Geneva headquarters. Hisham Abed Al Razq, the minister for prisoner affairs in the Palestinian Authority, said there that many of the moderate Palestinian leaders, including the Geneva people, are afraid for their lives, and that if Israel leaves the Gaza Strip unilaterally, Gaza will be controlled by gangs and Hamas sympathizers.

"Very harsh feelings were expressed there by the Palestinians," says MK Yuli Tamir. "They said that we don't understand their side at all. That we're abandoning them. The problem is that we've returned to the times when even having the two sides meet and listen to one another constitutes an achievement. These are times in which unilateral action has become a holy mantra."

Dror Sternschuss, the public relations man who is running the Geneva campaign, illustrates the gaps: "The Palestinians actually made it clear to us that in order for the disengagement to work, we have to pressure Israel to allow Arafat to come to Gaza." Even those among the Israelis who accept this position, know that they can't do anything about it: A call by the Geneva people to bring Arafat to Gaza will not advance his chances of moving from the Muqata, but it will severely undermine the image of the initiative among the Israeli public.

To make some progress, it was decided to act. After the meeting in Jordan, the Geneva architects announced the establishment of a special team, called "From Geneva to Gaza," with Avraham Burg leading the Israeli side. "We couldn't decide whether to go with a small `yes' to disengagement and a big `but,' or a big `yes' and a small `but,'" says one of the people involved.

And what was decided?

"The wind is blowing in the direction of a medium-sized `yes' and a medium-sized `but.'"

At the Geneva headquarters, they believe that the days of soul-searching belong to the past. "There really was confusion at the beginning," says Gadi Baltiansky, "and we needed a period of adjustment. First we were confronting a vacuum, now we are confronting a unilateral move. But now the confusion has disappeared, and our approach is very clear: We have to turn the disengagement into a lever for a final status agreement. In accordance with that decision, we are working with the Palestinians on papers, and are preparing an inventory list - what has to be done so that the disengagement can lead later to an agreement, and what must definitely not be done, because it will lead to a worsening of the conflict. That is a very clear challenge."

Daniel Levy: "At the moment, the most important thing is to work on the `how' of Gaza. There are ways of implementing the disengagement from Gaza in a manner that will lead to anarchy and cause tremendous damage to the possibility of ever reaching a solution, and there are ways of doing it so that it will lead to a future agreement. There are enough people in the Israeli establishment who understand that if we do something stupid, we are liable to become involved in a much greater mess than today. One of our problems is that it isn't easy for us to get the Palestinians to talk about it, because they say `As long as you're doing it unilaterally, be our guests, we won't do anything, and don't ask us to.'"

Dror Sternschuss, as befits a PR man, loves to speak in metaphors. "The greatest test is whether we will succeed at the right moment in turning the disengagement from Gaza into a full final status agreement. Our attitude toward the disengagement is like judo - to exploit your opponent's momentum when he comes to hit you, so you can flip him over. Sharon hit at the concept of the agreement with unilateral disengagement? We'll embrace him, and we'll try at the right moment to turn it into an agreement. The disengagement will be either a major achievement or a dismal failure, and I believe we'll do the right things to ensure an achievement."

Those are nice slogans. Can you explain how it's actually done? At present it looks as though you're outside the game.

"The original initiative also emerged after a long period of quiet and important work. It's not slogans; we are working with the Palestinians on the `how' in a very concrete manner. Because the disengagement is not taking place tomorrow, I don't have to provide answers at the moment, and it's possible that if I do so, that could torpedo our plans."

Going out to the field

Aside from being involved in harsh dilemmas, the Geneva people have spent recent months mainly on activity in the field, which in a manner typical of the initiative, they made sure to package in catchy slogans: "Geneva in the field," and even "Deep Geneva." The activity is divided into three main types - field trips starring Shaul Arieli; meetings in the communities on the periphery, with several Geneva people attending a meeting with the local residents; and meetings in people's homes. The Geneva people boast of an increasing number of places they have visited: They have already been in Pardes Hannah, Kfar Shalem, Reut, Kibbutz Evron, Be'er Sheva, Rehovot, Nir David, Yokneam, Holon, and even the settlement of Efrat.

The list of places to which they have been invited includes several real surprises, for example the Aish Hatorah yeshiva, which is located in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City. Even more surprising was the identity of the speaker sent by the Geneva headquarters - Elias Zananiri, a Palestinian journalist who is a spokesman for the Palestinian Geneva headquarters. He summed up the experience: "I am willing to appear before any type of audience. I thought I was going to meet a group of yeshiva students. But in fact they were Jewish American students from all kinds of political movements. They welcomed me with great respect, they said they were very pleased to meet a different kind of Palestinian, which enabled them to see someone different from the image with which they are familiar. It was interesting for me, too, because it was an opportunity to see what the other thinks of you. It's like a compass that enables you to find your way."

The Geneva people have not been welcomed everywhere: In Mitzpeh Ramon, Yossi Beilin and Amram Mitzna were attacked by about 60 demonstrators, apparently students in the hesder yeshiva (which combines Torah studies with military service). They hit their car windshields, threw sand on them, and even tried to punch Beilin. Afterward the demonstrators broke into the hall and prevented the meeting from taking place. In Arad, too, rioters succeeded in torpedoing the planned event, which was held only on the second try.

Gadi Baltiansky proudly waves several newspaper clippings and articles. For example, that of Ari Shavit, who wrote in Haaretz toward the end of last year, at the height of the initiative's glory, that "what will determine the moral status of the Geneva Initiative is not its content ... but the way in which it is marketed. If it is directed inward to the Israeli home, it will be not only legitimate, but even welcome." And after the launching ceremony: "They went to Geneva in spite of everything. After everything they have said in recent years about the need to convince [the development towns] Sderot and Ofakim, they couldn't resist the temptation."

"We have moved from Geneva to Be'er Sheva," says Baltiansky, "and it's much less glamorous and much more drab. But the same media that reprimanded us for not going to the periphery, is now asking where we have disappeared to."

With all due respect to fieldwork, when one adds up the numbers of participants in all the tours, community center evenings and home visits, the total barely reaches 10,000 people. Less than half a Knesset seat.

"True, but I believe that it has an effect beyond the event itself. When we come to a community like Mitzpeh Ramon, and 80 people come to listen, how many events do they have there? The secretary of the workers' council, the community rabbi and the head of the local council come, those who are known as the leaders of the community, and if they are convinced, I hope that afterward they will turn into agents of change. If we sit with the Ethiopian students at Tel Aviv University, I hope that each of them will afterward bring the news to his surroundings. If that doesn't happen, we've failed."