Why Incitement is Ignored

Richard Holbrooke is probably the most accomplished and experienced US diplomat that served in recent years in the US Department of State, and therefore his ideas should be seriously considered. He is responsible for the greatest achievement of the Clinton administration in foreign policy--the Dayton Agreement that ended the Bosnian War. Before that, he had served as the US ambassador to Germany, assistant secretary of state for Far Eastern affairs and then assistant secretary of state for European affairs. He also became the US ambassador to the UN and was regarded as the leading candidate to be Secretary of State, had Hillary Clinton won the presidency in 2008.
 
In his book on his role in achieving the Dayton Accords, Holbrooke considers why the war in Bosnia erupted. He raises the theory that was widely cited in intellectual circles in the 1990's that the war in the Balkans  was due to "ancient hatreds" between Serbs, Croats, and Muslims. But then he dismisses this theory completely and argues instead that the hatred that fed the conflict had been deliberately inflamed. He writes that there was a deliberate policy of incitement by the Serbian leadership through Belgrade Television, which spread ethnic hatred "like an epidemic." In short, incitement was not a symptom of the Balkan Wars but rather, according to Holbrooke, it was a root cause.
 
In the Arab-Israeli conflict, incitement has not been taken as seriously. Formally, there are many clauses on incitement throughout the Oslo Agreements, especially the 1995 Interim Agreement. The parties are legally bound to abstain from incitement and hostile propaganda. They were supposed to foster "mutual understanding and tolerance." The first phase of the 2003 Roadmap calls on "all Palestinian institutions to end incitement against Israel." But in practice many of these clauses were dormant. Israeli governments put the greatest attention to the most politically explosive issues like borders and security. The most senior officials in the Prime Minister's office were involved in those committees and not in the incitement committee. There were those who undoubtedly felt that  if Israel complained about incitement, it would be perceived that it was looking for an excuse to get out of the peace process and not make any concessions.
 
Dennis Ross wrote an 800 page book, The Missing Peace, in which he tried to analyze why the Oslo Agreements failed. He criticized the US for ignoring the issue of Palestinian incitement: "The Palestinians' systematic incitement in their media, an educational system that bred hatred, and the glorification of violence made Israelis feel that their real purpose was not peace."  He insists that any peace process in the future must be based on a code of conduct that prohibits behavior contradicts the peacemaking. Ross is extremely open in explaining the reasons why the US did not deal with the incitement issue. Washington was always afraid of halting the peace process. It did not want to confront Arafat and mistakenly accepted his arguments that he was too weak. But Ross warns that there cannot be successful negotiations if there is one environment at the peace table and another environment in the streets.
 
The most extreme case of incitement that has been on the international agenda in recent years is incitement to genocide, which is war crime under Article 3 of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The UN Tribunal on Rwanda actually convicted three Hutu leaders for incitement to genocide in December 2003 , showing how seriously this issue is taken.  When a leading Hamas member, Yunis al-Astal, who serves in the Gaza Parliament, called for incinerating the Jews (mahraka), Israel has every reason to use the laws against genocidal incitement, as well. 

Incitement does not have to be as extreme as direct incitement to mass murder, as in the Rwandan or Hamas cases. There are clear cases of incitement to violence, alone, perpetrated by the Palestinian Authority alone. For example,  Palestinian Media Watch reported that Palestinian Authority Television carried a report on July 8 and July 15 of a Palestinian child saying that the Sixth Fatah Conference of August 2009 was important because it made "us aware...that we will be combatants and wage resistance against the Israelis." One of the strongest elements in any effort to promote violence is to advocate the demonization of an opponent. In this spirit the PA's senior religious leader characterized Jews as the "enemies of God," It is impossible to seriously advance peace when Palestinian institutions and official media are still calling for a return to war.

Incitement can also involve denying the legitimacy of the other side. Israel and the PLO exchanged letters of mutual recognition in 1993 which was supposed to improve how the parties related to each other. When the PA educational system prints maps that show Israeli cities as part of Palestine, that might not promote violence, but it is undoubtedly a form of incitement. On many occasions the attacks on the legitimacy of Israel are prevalent in Palestinian mosques, as well. Unfortunately this kind of activity continues under the Palestinian Authority.

The Israeli government has decided to take the issue of Palestinian incitement seriously and has appointed officials to monitor what the Palestinian leadership is saying. In his joint press conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on July 6, President Obama voiced his concern with the incitement issue: " I think it's very important that the Palestinians not look for excuses for incitement." Israel has a strong foundation today for demanding at the negotiating table zero tolerance for continuing incitement by any agency of the Palestinian Authority. This is not a side issue that can be ignored but goes at the root any meaningful peacemaking.