Examination of Witnesses (Questions 114-119)
MR MICHAEL
KEATING AND
MR ANDREW
GILMOUR
TUESDAY 22 JANUARY 2002
Chairman:
May I welcome you both. Mr Gilmour, you are
the chief regional affairs and senior political adviser to the
United Nations Special Co-ordinator in the Occupied Territories,
Mr Larsen. Mr Keating, you are the director, aid and socio-economic
affairs. I understand both of you have previously worked in Afghanistan,
and I begin with Mr Maples.
Mr Maples
114. I really wanted to ask you in the light
of the continuing violence, intifada, terrorism, all of those
things in the Palestine and Israel area, to what extent are the
Palestinian terrorists developing links with wider Islamic revolutionary
terrorism—al-Qaeda, for instance, and we have seen in the
attacks on the United States and other places in the world? Is
it still purely home grown or are there significant links developing?
(Mr Keating) Our view is that the links are fairly
minimal, or have been. In fact, one of the reasons that they were
minimal in the past is that the Palestinians have been so preoccupied
with their own problems that, by default, they did not develop
links with al-Qaeda as they might have done otherwise. They have
been curiously unimplicated in what has happened in Afghanistan
and, of course, there are some pretty fundamental differences
between terrorism in the part of the world where we are working
and in Afghanistan. I do not know if it would be helpful to give
you a little bit of the background that we feel is conducive to
terrorism in this part of the world? Obviously what is happening
in the Middle East is absolutely appalling at the moment. Over
1000 people have been killed in the last 16 months and the recent
attack in Hadera at a Bat Mitzvah was absolutely outrageous, but
there are some fundamental differences between the terror there
and in Afghanistan. First of all, the occupation is a major difference.
Afghanistan is not under occupation and was not at the time when
the Taliban were in charge. Secondly, those perpetrating the terror,
Palestinians undertaking terrorist attacks inside Israel, are
indigenous to the area; they are not foreigners. We believe their
motivation is very different, too. Not enough work has been done
about this but it would seem that the motivation of Palestinian
terrorists is as much personal as political. They do not necessarily
all belong to Islamic fundamentalist groups: some of them belong
to political parties, but from the one person we have met recently
who studied the motivation of the terrorists, while admitting
that the strong evidence is not there it would seem that all of
them have experienced personal humiliation or the humiliation
of their fathers or elders in their family. This is a very powerful
motivating factor which makes them more amenable to being used
by political groups, fundamentalists or not. So I think there
are some pretty basic differences between the kind of terror taking
place in Israel and the Occupied Territories and in Afghanistan.
115. I understand that but you said you think
the links are currently minimal. Do you think that there is a
likelihood or a possibility that those links will grow, or do
you think this will stay for all the reasons you have given, a
home-grown, indigenous movement?
(Mr Gilmour) As you may be aware, there is a fairly
consistent attempt over the last couple of months by certain elements
of the Israeli government, including the Prime Minister, to portray
Arafat as an Osama Bin Ladin and the Palestinian Authority as
the Taliban. This comparison, not surprisingly, is totally rejected
by the Palestinians, by a very large number of Israelis, and to
my knowledge the entire diplomatic community out there. Nevertheless,
it continues. Again, to our knowledge, there has been no evidence
whatsoever of links between the Palestinian Authority or even
Palestinian fundamentalist groups and al-Qaeda. There was, however,
a link discovered with the ship that was heading probably towards
the Gaza Strip through the Suez Canal with Hezbollah, which until
recently had been considered unlikely because the relations between
Iran, which was thought to be the main backer of Hezbollah, and
the Palestinian Authority had been extremely bad. The Iranians
believe that the Palestinians have sold out their own rights by
agreeing to the Oslo Accords. Therefore links between Iran and
the PA have been minimal and, therefore, between Hezbollah and
the PA. However, it does appear, if the evidence presented by
the Israelis is correct, that there is a link with Hezbollah.
In terms of your question about these links growing, we do fear
that the conditions amongst the Palestinians are growing so bad
and that the level of desperation, both economic but above all
political, is growing at such a dangerous rate, that anything
could be on the cards. I would not exclude anything in this regard.
We saw a high level of desperation last week in the town of Rafah
on the Egyptian border a couple of days after Israeli tanks and
bulldozers demolished about sixty homes. I have been travelling
around there for well over a year, and I have never seen such
a lack of hope on the part of the Palestinians as I saw there.
We spoke to some characters from Islamic Jihad and the secular
parties and the attitude there seemed to be, "We will continue
the struggle; we have no hope; we have nothing more to lose",
and we got the impression that that is what they genuinely feel.
They live in squalor really unparalleled for that region and,
at the same time, they have no political horizon and I think this
is the number one problem we have now. The Palestinians feel—and
this is a point of view that has total consensus amongst Palestinians
I have spoken to, and I would put them in the hundreds in the
last few weeks, from the most friendly human rights democracy
activists to the most hardline Islamist fundamentalists to security
apparatchiks—that there is no hope because the Prime Minister
of Israel, in their view, will not make any forward step towards
the Mitchell report and, at the same time, in their view, he will
always find an excuse to avoid entering into the Mitchell recommendations.
At the same time, they feel the international community has given
up on the Palestinians. This is also a very wide perception and,
therefore, they ask what is to be gained by doing what the international
community wants them to do which is to arrest the terrorists and
to incarcerate them and interrogate them? The lack of hope on
their part is extremely worrying and will have, in our view, very
negative effects on a great number of people.
Mr Olner
116. Following on from that, I do not demur
from the picture you have painted but how much authority now in
respect does Yasser Arafat command amongst his own population
on the West Bank and Gaza and, more importantly, amongst Arab
leaders in the region?
(Mr Gilmour) As you are aware, Israeli troops entirely
re-occupied a Palestinian city in the West Bank yesterday which
we feel is very worrying. In fact, the man for whom we work, Mr
Larsen, yesterday described this as a dangerous escalation leading
to more loss of life on both sides, and it is certainly what we
feel too.
117. Do you think the Israelis are deliberately
making Arafat feel small? Belittling him? It is important to see
whether there is a linkage.
(Mr Gilmour) Deliberately I cannot judge. Certainly
reading the Israeli press, it seems a large number of Israelis
believe it is, indeed, a deliberate attempt—and I can cite
you a lot, but I will not—but certainly many Israelis believe
their government is engaged in a deliberate attempt to humiliate
and, finally, crush the Palestinian Authority, in particular Arafat.
How much control has he? Well, you may also be aware there are
Israeli tanks within 50 yards of his compound now in Ramallah.
It is not exactly easy for him to control the areas—even
those not under occupation. Clearly, though, he did after December
16. The Palestinians made an enormous effort to convince their
people to stop doing any more terrible acts, and for three weeks
there was not a single Israeli casualty, although, on the other
side, there were 14 Palestinians killed by the Israelis. Again,
to quote Mr Larsen, we feel "this period of calm by the Palestinians
was squandered and it squandered an opportunity during almost
one month of calm to move into the Mitchell recommendations'.
So this is, again, another serious problem. There was a period
of calm, during which Arafat did manage to persuade his people,
and I think most of his power to keep the lid on things is through
persuasion rather than coercion because he does not control. He
cannot even move his police from one town to another; the police
stations have been demolished in extraordinarily large quantities;
the capacity of the Palestinian security services has been massively
weakened over the last few months, with the Israeli attacks on
their installations, so I do not think he can "control' things.
But he is Mr Palestine; he represents their cause more than anything
else; and, if he can persuade them that it is in their interests,
as he did in the middle of December, to hold off, then he can
be successful; but if he gets nothing in return—which is
what the Palestinians feel—then he cannot convince his people
to hold off. This is what has happened. When, last week, the Israelis
renewed their policy of targeted killings, this broke the truce
and the Palestinians responded, and, coming from Israel, which
we did two days ago, one can see in the Israeli press and in society
strong anger towards the government for what they believe was
deliberately breaking the truce and leading to the renewal of
Palestinian violence.
118. Do you see a successor to Arafat?
(Mr Gilmour) No, not at the moment, certainly none
that could possibly have such a standing within his people, who
could make the concessions, if it comes to that. No other Palestinian
has anything like, even a fraction of, the standing Chairman Arafat
has to make historic concessions.
Chairman
119. Historic concessions were made by Prime
Minister Barak. Was it possible for President Arafat to accept
those? Was it a failure of leadership on his part to reject what
were the most generous concessions made by any Israeli government?
(Mr Gilmour) There are two schools of thought as to
how generous the concessions were by Mr Barak. Certainly a large
number of Israelis believe they were unprecedented—and,
indeed, they were. On the other hand, I have yet to meet a Palestinian
who could have accepted what was offered at Camp David. What looked
as if it might have been offered six months later in the Clinton
proposals last December 2000, and then Taba last January, was
significant; however, time ran out and Prime Minister Sharon was
elected. But at Camp David—as I said, I have never encountered
a Palestinian who believes that what was offered was acceptable.
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