MIDEAST DEBATE Israeli Embassy Explains Actions To College Media By Rebecca Regan-Sachs Hoya Staff Writer

Spokespeople from the Embassy of Israel yesterday defended their country’s recent military operations in the West Bank, calling the excursions into Palestinian towns and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s headquarters a “surgical campaign against terror.”

In a press briefing for Washington-area college media, Israeli Embassy Spokesman Mark Regev and Counselor for Public Affairs at the Israeli Embassy Aviva Raz-Shechter explained Israel’s goals, tactics and motivations for the current campaign.

“I think all Israelis wish we weren’t there,” Regev said. “We want to withdraw. But if we pull out now, we’re just going to have more suicide bombings, and then we’re going to have to go back.”

Regev noted that there have been no suicide bombings within the last week, “not because Arafat’s giving different orders, but because the operation has been a success,” he said.

Operation Defensive Shield, as Israel calls it, started March 29 with an attack on the headquarters of Arafat. The offensive, which followed seven suicide bombings in Israel during the Jewish holiday of Passover, has resulted in the takeover of six Palestinian towns by the Israeli army. One thousand two hundred thirty Palestinians and 422 Israelis have been killed since the Palestinian uprising began 18 months ago.

Raz-Shechter described Israel’s offensive as the “result of a terrorist campaign headed by Arafat himself.” Israel’s current goals, she said, are to “eliminate terrorist infrastructure” and ultimately achieve a cease-fire. “Once there’s a cessation of violence, we can get back to negotiations,” she said.

Regev refuted charges that the Israeli military was itself using “terrorist” tactics to fight terrorism. “We don’t fight the same way because we don’t target innocent civilians,” he said. “We are striking surgically against terrorist organizations. We do make mistakes, but they are mistakes . it’s like the U.S. [in its campaign] against Osama bin Laden.”

Vice President of Georgetown’s Young Arab Leadership Alliance Samer Oweida (SFS ’04) contested the notion that the conflict was a solution to terrorism. “While it is justifiable for Israel to defend itself, what they are doing is not rooting out terrorist activity but terrorizing Palestinian civilians,” he said.

“If they want to end the violence, they should end the ultimate terrorism: occupation.” He noted that the Camp David Accords would have provided the Palestinians a state, but one that was “basically divided . you would have to go through Israel to get to Palestine.”

YALA Director of Community Relations Kate McDonald (COL ’04) called the suicide bombings the “symptom of an illegal occupation.”

“The statement that the Israeli army is doing this to stop suicide bombings is sort of ridiculous,” she said. “They’ve been doing things like this for 34 years, and it hasn’t stopped suicide bombings. We need to be looking at a much larger picture here.”

Regev said suicide bombings should be considered elements of terrorism. “Suicide bombings don’t happen because people are desperate,” Regev said, noting the “desperate” situation of people in other areas of the world who do not resort to violence. “Suicide bombings happen because people encourage it to happen, and it is the infrastructure of terrorist organizations that encourages it to happen .We attack [Arafat’s] infrastructure because it’s part of the terrorist problem.” A military offensive was necessary, he said, because “you can’t give concessions in the face of terrorism. If terrorism is seen as paying political dividends, there will be no motivation to stop it.”

At the 2000 Camp David peace summit between Arafat and then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, “the Palestinians were basically offered it all,” Regev continued. “Through peace, there could have been a Palestinian state.” Arafat, however, balked at what Regev described as considerable Israeli concessions, including the establishment of a Palestinian state and control over close to 100 percent of the territory in question.

It raises the question, he said, “what are the Palestinians fighting for?”

McDonald refuted his view, saying that although the Palestinians were offered almost all the land they were asking for at Camp David, that land constituted only 22 percent of the Palestinian territory laid out in the original 1948 boundaries set by the United Nations.

“You need two to tango,” Raz-Shechter said. “People need to remember that there was no counter-offer [by Arafat at Camp David].” She also cited instances in 1995-6 where Arafat was able to control some of the Palestinian terrorist organizations under pressure from the international community. “When he wanted to, he could [curb terrorism],” she said.

Regev noted Israel’s concern with the encouragement of violence it perceives in the Palestinian media and education system in addition to the encouragement it claims come from the government.

“Arafat’s promised to [stop] all this and just never delivers,” Regev said. “If you really want peace, why are you cooperating [with terrorist organizations]?”

The spokespeople said they were disturbed by what they characterized as incomplete press coverage of the situation. Regev described news reports he had seen in which reporters interviewed “10 different Israelis and got 10 different opinions” about their government’s actions. By contrast, he said, interviews with Palestinians seemed to show a uniform support for Palestinian actions against Israel.

“There are 200,000 people in Ramallah,” Regev said. “You can’t find one person who wants to criticize Arafat? Of course there are people like that, but they can’t speak out. If you don’t repeat the party line, you get in trouble.”

He compared Arafat’s “autocratic” regime to dictatorships in Iraq and Cuba and said there was a “fundamental problem with press coverage” when reporters questioned information supplied by those governments but gave Palestinians “the benefit of the doubt.”

These issues were part of the reason the Israeli Embassy wanted to brief reporters on college campuses, the spokespeople said. “College campuses have been at the forefront of many political movements throughout history and are one of the most important venues for open debate on current affairs,” the Israeli Embassy’s media advisory stated. “Students attending universities in and around Washington, D.C., play an especially significant role in both the present and future political discourse surrounding events in the Middle East, among other important world issues.”

“The youth is the future,” Raz-Shechter explained. “We see what’s happening on campuses . Students from Arab and Palestinian backgrounds are very vocal. They are twisting the whole story. We will meet these people in a few years in the top positions . and we want to spread information and education.”

Students at Georgetown had mixed reactions to the Israeli Embassy’s characterization of the conflict.

According to co-founder and co-president of Students for Middle East Peace Brett Sander (SFS ’04), “the whole issue of who is a terrorist and who is not a terrorist is very complex. I think every state goes out and does what it thinks is best to combat terrorism . but the way to really decrease the terrorism is to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

Dan Capizzi (SFS ’05), who described himself as “undecided” about the situation in the Middle East, said he was “sympathetic” to the Israeli point of view in light of America’s response to the Sept. 11 attacks. “But I also believe that they [the Israelis] are fooling themselves if they think Arafat can control all of the terrorism involved. I think they should pull out quickly, and the U.S. should encourage them to pull out quickly.”

“For the most part, I agree with [Israel’s] assessment of Yasser Arafat,” Keith Krause (SFS ’05) said. He expressed doubts, however, that the removal of Arafat would solve the problem. “I think the measures [Israel] would have to take to cease the violence would be so draconian that they wouldn’t be feasible.”

“We understand there is no military solution for this conflict; there is only a political one,” Raz-Shechter said.

“I believe, I hope, I have to believe that Palestinians want peace with Israel,” Regev said. “I don’t expect them to love us after all these years of conflict, but I hope [we can live together]. If you stop terrorism, everything is possible.”