THE PROBLEM WITH ISRAEL
by
Jeff Halper
(November 16, 2006)
Let’s be honest (for once): The problem in the Middle East is not the
Palestinian people, not Hamas, not the Arabs, not Hezbollah or the
Iranians or the entire Muslim world. It’s us, the Israelis. The
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the single greatest cause of instability,
extremism and violence in our region, is perhaps the simplest conflict
in the world to resolve. For almost 20 years, since the PLO’s
recognition of Israel within the 1949 Armistice Lines (the “Green Line”
separating Israel from the West Bank and Gaza), every Palestinian
leader, backed by large majorities of the Palestinian population, has
presented Israel with a most generous offer: A Jewish state on 78% of
Israel/Palestine in return for a Palestinian state on just 22% – the
West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. In fact, this is a proposition
supported by a large majority of both the Palestinian and Israeli
peoples. As reported in Ha’aretz (January 18, 2005): Some 63 percent of
the Palestinians support the proposal that after the establishment of
the state of Palestine and a solution to all the outstanding issues -
including the refugees and Jerusalem - a declaration will be issued
recognizing the state of Israel as the state of the Jewish people and
the Palestinian state as the state of the Palestinian people...On the
Israeli side, 70 percent supported the proposal for mutual recognition.
And if Taba and the Geneva Initiative are indicators, the Palestinians
are even willing to “swap” some of the richest and most strategic land
around Jerusalem and up through Modi’in for barren tracts of the Negev.
And what about the refugees, supposedly the hardest issue of all to
tackle? It’s
true that the Palestinians want their right of return acknowledged.
After all, it is their right under international law. They also want
Israel to acknowledge its role in driving the refugees from the country
in order that a healing process may begin (I don’t have to remind
anyone how important it is for us Jews that our suffering be
acknowledged). But they have said repeatedly that when it comes to
addressing the actual issue, a package of resettlement in Israel and
the Palestinian state, plus compensation for those wishing to remain in
the Arab countries, plus the possibility of resettlement in Canada,
Australia and other countries would create solutions acceptable to all
parties. Khalil Shkaki, a Palestinian sociologist who conducted an
extensive survey among the refugees, estimates that only about 10%,
mainly the aged, would choose to settle in Israel, a number (about
400,000) Israel could easily digest. With an end to the Occupation and
a win-win political arrangement that would satisfy the fundamental
needs of both peoples, the Palestinians could make what would be
perhaps the most significant contribution of all to peace and stability
in the Middle East. Weak as they are, the Palestinians possess one
source of tremendous power, one critical trump card: They are the
gatekeepers to the Middle East. For the Palestinian conflict is
emblematic in the Muslim world. It encapsulates the “clash of
civilizations” from the Muslim point of view. Once the Palestinians
signal the wider Arab and Muslim worlds that a political accommodation
has been achieved that is acceptable to them, and that now is the time
to normalize relations with Israel, it will significantly undercut the
forces of fundamentalism, militarism and reaction, giving breathing
space to those progressive voices that cannot be heard today –
including those in Israel. Israel, of course, would also have to
resolve the issue of the Golan Heights, which Syria has been asking it
to do for years. Despite the neocon rhetoric to the contrary, anyone
familiar with the Middle East knows that such a dynamic is not only
possible but would progress at a surprisingly rapid pace.
The problem is Israel in both its pre- and post-state forms, which for
the past 100 years has steadfastly refused to recognize the national
existence and rights of selfdetermination of the Palestinian people.
Time and again it has said “no” to any possibility of genuine peace
making, and in the clearest of terms. The latest example is the
Convergence Plan (or Realignment) of Ehud Olmert, which seeks to end
the conflict forever by imposing Israeli control over a “sovereign”
Palestinian pseudo-state. “Israel will maintain control over the
security zones, the Jewish settlement blocs, and those places which
have supreme national importance to the Jewish people, first and
foremost a united Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty,” Olmert declared
at the January 2006 Herzliya Conference. “We will not allow the entry
of Palestinian refugees into the State of Israel.” Olmert’s plan, which
he had promised to implement just as soon as Hamas and Hezbollah were
dispensed with, would have perpetuated Israeli control over the
Occupied Territories. It could not possibly have given rise to a viable
Palestinian state. While the “Separation Barrier,” Israel’s demographic
border to the east, takes only 10-15% of the West Bank, it incorporates
into Israel the major settlement blocs, carves the West Bank
into small, disconnected, impoverished “cantons” (Sharon’s word),
removes from the Palestinians their richest agricultural land and one
of the major sources of water. It also creates a “greater” Israeli
Jerusalem over the entire central portion of the West Bank, thereby
cutting the economic, cultural, religious and historic heart out of any
Palestinian state. It then sandwiches the Palestinians between the
Wall/border and yet another “security” border, the Jordan Valley,
giving Israel two eastern borders. Israel would retain control of all
the resources necessary for a viable Palestinian state, and for good
measure Israel would appropriate the Palestinians’ airspace, their
communications sphere and even the right of a Palestinian state to
conduct its own foreign policy. This plan is obviously unacceptable to
the Palestinians – a fact Olmert knows full well – so it must be
imposed unilaterally, with American assistance. But who cares? We
refused to talk genuinely with Arafat, refused to speak at all with Abu
Mazen and currently boycott entirely the elected Hamas government,
arresting or assassinating those associated with it. And if
“Convergence” doesn’t fly this time around, well, maintaining the
status quo while building settlements has been an effective policy for
the past four decades and can be extended indefinitely. True, Israel
has descended into blind, pointless violence – the Lebanon War of 2006
and, as this is being written, an increasingly violent
assault on Gaza. But the Israeli public has accepted Barak’s line that
there is no “partner for peace.” So if there is any discontent among
the voters, they are more likely to throw out the “bleeding heart”
liberal left and bring in the right with its failed doctrine of
military-based security.
Why? If Israelis truly crave peace and security – “the right to be
normal,” as Olmert put it recently – then why haven’t they grabbed, or
at least explored, each and
every opportunity for resolving the conflict? Why do they continually
elect governments that aggressively pursue settlement expansion and
military confrontation with the Palestinians and Israel’s neighbors
even though they want to get the albatross of occupation off their
necks? Why, if most Israelis truly yearn to “separate” from the
Palestinians, do they offer the Palestinians so little that separation
is simply not an option, even if the Palestinians are willing to make
major concessions? “The files of the Israeli Foreign Ministry,” writes
the Israeli-British historian Avi Shlaim in The Iron Wall (2001:49),
“burst at the seams with evidence of Arab peace feelers and Arab
readiness to negotiate with Israel from September 1948 on.” To take
just a few examples of opportunities deliberately rejected:
• In the spring and summer of 1949, Israel and the Arab states met
under the auspices of the UN’s Palestine Conciliation Committee (PCC)
in Lausanne, Switzerland. Israel did not want to make any territorial
concessions or take back 100,000 of the 700,000 refugees demanded by
the Arabs. As much as anything else, however, was Ben Gurion’s
observation in a cabinet meeting that the Israeli public was “drunk
with victory” and in no mood for concessions, “maximal or minimal,”
according to Israeli negotiator Elias Sasson.
• In 1949 Syria’s leader Husni Zaim openly declared his readiness to be
the first Arab leader to conclude a peace treaty with Israel – as well
as to resettle half the
Palestinian refugees in Syria. He repeatedly offered to meet with Ben
Gurion, who steadfastly refused. In the end only an armistice agreement
was signed.
• King Abdullah of Jordan engaged in two years of negotiations with
Israel but was never able to make a meaningful breakthrough on any
major matter before his
assassination. His offer to meet with Ben Gurion was also refused.
Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett commented tellingly: “Transjordan said –
we are ready for peace
immediately. We said – of course, we too want peace, but we cannot run,
we have to walk.” Three weeks before his assassination, King Abdullah
said: “I could justify a peace by pointing to concessions made by the
Jews. But without any concessions from them, I am defeated before I
even start.”
• In 1952-53 extensive negotiations were held with the Syrian
government of Adib Shishakli, a pro-American leader who was eager for
accommodation with Israel.
Those talks failed because Israel insisted on exclusive control of the
Sea of Galilee, Lake Huleh and the Jordan River.
• Nasser’s repeated offers to talk peace with Ben Gurion, beginning
soon after the 1952 Revolution, finally ended with the refusal of Ben
Gurion’s successor, Moshe Sharett, to continue the process and a
devastating Israeli attack (led by Ariel Sharon) on an Egyptian
military base in Gaza.
• In general, Israel’s post-war inflexibility was due to its success in
negotiating the armistice agreements, which left it in a politically,
territorially and militarily superior
position. “The renewed threat of war had been pushed back,” writes
Israeli historian Benny Morris in his book Righteous Victims. “So why
strain to make a peace
involving major territorial concessions?” In a cable to Sharett, Ben
Gurion stated flatly what would become Israel’s long-term policy,
essentially valid until today:
“Israel will not discuss a peace involving the concession of any piece
of territory. The neighboring states do not deserve an inch of Israel’s
land…We are ready for peace in exchange for peace.” ln July, 1949, he
told a visiting American journalist, “I am not in a hurry and I can
wait ten years. We are under no pressure whatsoever.”
Nonetheless, this period saw the emergence of the image of the Arab
leaders as intractable enemies, curried so carefully by Israel and
representing such a powerful
part of the Israeli framing. Morris (1999: 268) summarizes it
succinctly and bluntly: For decades Ben-Gurion, and successive
administrations after his, lied to the Israeli public about the
post-1948 peace overtures and about Arab interest in a deal. The Arab
leaders (with the possible exception of Abdullah) were presented, one
and all, as a recalcitrant collection of warmongers, hell-bent on
Israel’s destruction. The recent opening of the Israeli archive offers
a far more complex picture.
• In late 1965 Abdel Hakim Amer, the vice-president and deputy
commander of the Egyptian army invited the head of the Mossad, Meir
Amit, to come to Cairo. The visit was vetoed after stiff opposition
from Isser Harel, Eshkol’s intelligence advisor. Could the 1967 war
have been avoided? We’ll never know.
• Immediately after the 1967 war, Israel sent out feelers for an
accommodation with both the Palestinians of the West Bank and with
Jordan. The Palestinians were
willing to enter into discussion over peace, but only if that meant an
independent Palestinian state, an option Israel never even entertained.
The Jordanians were also
ready, but only if they received full control over the West Bank and,
in particular, East Jerusalem and its holy places. King Hussein even
held meetings with Israeli
officials but Israel’s refusal to contemplate a full return of the
territories scuttled the process. The annexation of a “greater”
Jerusalem area and immediate program of
settlement construction foreclosed any chance for a full peace. • In
1971 Sadat sent a letter to the UN Jarring Commission expressing
Egypt’s willingness to enter into a peace agreement with Israel.
Israeli acceptance could have prevented the 1973 war. After the war
Golda Meir summarily dismissed Sadat’s renewed overtures of peace
talks. • Israel ignored numerous feelers put out by Arafat and other
Palestinian leaders in the early 1970s expressing a readiness to
discuss peace with Israel.
• Sadat’s attempts in 1978 to resolve the Palestine issue as a part of
the Israel-Egypt peace process that were rebuffed by Begin who refused
to consider anything beyond Palestinian “autonomy.”
• In 1988 in Algiers, as part of its declaration of Palestinian
independence, the PLO recognized Israel within the Green Line and
expressed a willingness to enter into
discussions.
• In 1993, at the start of the Oslo process, Arafat and the PLO
reiterated in writing their recognition of Israel within the 1967
borders (again, on 78% of historic Palestine). Although they recognized
Israel as a “legitimate” state in the Middle East, Israel did not
reciprocate. The Rabin government did not recognize the Palestinians’
national right of self-determination, but was only willing to recognize
the Palestinians as a negotiating partner. Not in Oslo nor subsequently
has Israel ever agreed to relinquish the territory it conquered in 1967
in favor of a Palestinian state despite this being the position of the
UN (Resolution 242), the international community (including, until
Bush, the Americans), and since 1988, the Palestinians.
• Perhaps the greatest missed opportunity of all was the undermining by
successive Labor and Likud governments of any viable Palestinian state
by doubling Israel’s
settler population during the seven years of the Oslo “peace process”
(1993-2000), thus effectively eliminating the two-state solution.
• In late 1995, Yossi Beilin, a key member of the Oslo negotiating
team, presented Rabin with the “Stockholm document” (negotiated with
Abu Mazen’s team) for
resolving the conflict. So promising was this agreements that Abu Mazen
had tears in his eyes when he signed off on it. Rabin was assassinated
a few days later and his successor, Shimon Peres, turned it down flat.
• Israel’s dismissal of Syrian readiness to negotiate peace, repeated
frequently until this day, if Israel will make concessions on the
occupied Golan Heights.
• Sharon’s complete disregard for the Arab League’s 2002 offer of
recognition, peace and regional integration in return for relinquishing
the Occupation.
• Sharon’s disqualification of Arafat, by far the most congenial and
cooperative partner Israel ever had, and the last Palestinian leader
who could “deliver,” and his
subsequent boycott of Abu Mazen.
• Olmert declared “irrelevant” the Prisoners’ Document in which all
Palestinian factions, including Hamas, agreed on a political program
seeking a two-state solution
– followed by attempts to destroy the democratically-elected government
of Hamas by force; and on until this day when
• In September and October 2006 Bashar Assad made repeated overtures
for peace with Israel, declaring in public: “I am ready for an
immediate peace with Israel, with which we want to live in peace.” On
the day of Assad’s first statement to that regard, Prime Minister
Olmert declared, “We will never leave the Golan Heights,” accused Syria
of “harboring terrorists” and, together with his Foreign Minister Tzipi
Livni, announced that “conditions are not ripe for peace with Syria.”
To all this we can add the unnecessary wars, more limited conflicts and
the bloody attacks that served mainly to bolster Israel’s position,
directly or indirectly, in its attempt to extend its control over the
entire land west of the Jordan: The systematic killing between
1948-1956 of 3000-5000 “infiltrators,” Palestinian refugees, mainly
unarmed, who sought mainly to return to their homes, to till their
fields or to recover lost property; the 1956 war with Egypt, fought
partly in order to prevent the reemergence onto the international
agenda of the “Palestine Problem,” as well as to strengthen Israel
militarily, territorially and diplomatically; military operations
against Palestinian civilians beginning with the infamous killings in
Sharafat, Beit Jala and most notoriously Qibia, led by Sharon’s Unit
101. These operations continue in the Occupied Territories and Lebanon
until this day, mainly for purposes of collective punishment and
“pacification.” Others include the campaign, decades old, of
systematically liquidating any effective Palestinian leader; the three
wars in Lebanon (Operation Litani in 1978, Operation Peace for the
Galilee in 1982 and the war of 2006); and more.
Lurking behind all these military actions, be they major wars or
“targeted assassinations,” is the consistent and steadfast Israeli
refusal (in
fact extending back to
the pre-Zionist days of the 1880s) to deal directly and seriously with
the Palestinians.
Israel’s strategy until today is to bypass and encircle them, making
deals with governments that isolate and, unsuccessfully so far,
neutralize the
Palestinians as players.
This was most tellingly shown in the Madrid peace talks, when Israel
only allowed Palestinian participation as part of the Jordanian
delegation. But it
includes the Oslo
“peace process” as well. While Israel insisted on a letter from Arafat
explicitly recognizing Israel as a “legitimate construct” in the Middle
East, and
later demanded a
specific statement recognizing Israel as a Jewish state (both of which
it got), no Israeli government ever recognized the collective rights of
the Palestinian
people to selfdetermination.
Rabin was forthright as to the reason: If Israel recognizes the
Palestinians’ right to self-determination, it means that a Palestinian
state must by definition emerge – and Israel did not want to promise
that (Savir
1998:47). So except for vague pronouncements about not wanting to rule
over another people
and “our hand outstretched in peace,” Israel has never allowed the
framework for
genuine negotiations.
The Palestinians must be taken into account, they may be asked to react
to one or another of our proposals, but they are certainly not equal
partners with claims
to the country rivaling ours. Israel’s fierce response to the eruption
of the second
Intifada, when it shot more than a million rounds, including missiles,
into civilian centers
in the West Bank and Gaza despite the complete lack of shooting from
the Palestinian side
during the Intifada’s first five days, can only be explained as
punishing them for rejecting
what Barak tried to impose on them at Camp David, disabusing them of
the notion that are
equals in deciding the future of “our” country. We will beat them,
Sharon used to say
frequently, “until they get ‘the message’.” And what is the “message”?
That this is our country
and only we Israeli Jews have the prerogative of deciding whether and
how we wish
to divide it.
Non-Constraining Conflict Management.
The irrelevance of the Palestinians to Israeli policy-makers is merely
a localized expression of an overall assumption that has determined
Israeli policy
towards the Arabs since the founding of the state. Israel, Prime
Ministers from Ben
Gurion to Olmert have asserted, is simply too strong for the Arabs to
ignore. We therefore
cannot make peace too soon. Once we get everything we want, the Arabs
will still be
willing to sue for peace with us. The answer, then, to the apparent
contradiction of why
Israel claims it desires peace and security and yet pursues policies of
conflict and
expansion has four parts.
(1) Territory and hegemony trump peace. As Ben Gurion disclosed years
ago, Israel’s geo-political goals take precedence over peace with any
Arab country.
Since a state of non-conflict is even better than peace (Israel has
such a relationship
with Syria, with whom it hasn’t fought for 34 years, and is thereby
able to avoid the
compromises associated with peace that might threaten its occupation of
the Golan
Heights), Israel makes “peace” only with countries that acquiescence to
its expansionist
agenda. Jordan gave up all claims to the West Bank and East Jerusalem
and has even
ceased to actively advocate for Palestinian rights. Peace with Egypt,
it is true, cost
Israel the Sinai Peninsula, but it left its occupation of Gaza and the
West Bank intact.
Differentiating between those parts of the Arab world with which it
wants an actual
peace agreement, those with which it needs merely a state of
non-conflict and those
which it believes it can control, isolate and defeat creates a
situation of great flexibility,
allows Israel to employ the carrot or the stick according to its
particular agenda at any
particular time. Israel can pursue this strategy today only because of
the umbrella,
political, military and financial, provided by the United States. This
is rooted
in many different sources including the influence of the organized
Jewish community and
the Christian fundamentalists on domestic politics and the Congress
most obviously.
Bipartisan and unassailable support for Israel, however, arises from
Israel’s place in
the American arms industry and the US’ defense diplomacy. Since the
mid-1990s Israel has
specialized in developing hi-tech components for weapons systems, and
in this way it
has also gained a central place in the world’s arms and security
industries. One could
look at Israel’s
suppression of the Intifadas, its attempted pacification of the
Occupied Territories and occasional combat with the likes of Hezbollah
as valuable opportunities
in almost laboratory-like conditions to develop useful weaponry and
tactics. This
has made it extremely valuable to the West. In fact, Israel is among
the five
largest exporters of arms in the world, and is poised to overtake
Russia as #2 in just a few
years (based on Jane’s assessment, May 2, 2006). The fact that it has
discrete military ties
with many Muslim countries, including Iran, adds another layer of
rationality to its
guiding assumption that a separate peace with Arab states is achievable
without major concessions
to the Palestinians. If any state significantly challenges Israeli
positions,
Israel can pull rank as the gatekeeper to American military programs,
including to some degree
the US defense industry, and thus to major sources of hi-tech research
and
development, a formidable position indeed.
(2) A militarily defined security doctrine. Israel’s concept of
“security” has always been so exaggerated that it leaves no breathing
space whatsoever for the
Palestinians, thus eliminating any viable resolution of the conflict.
This reflects, of
course, its traditional reliance on overwhelming military superiority
(the “qualitative edge”)
over the Arabs. So overwhelming is it perceived – despite its
near-disaster in the 1973
war, its failure to pacify the Occupied Territories and, most recently,
its failure against
Hezbollah in Lebanon – that it precludes any need for accommodation or
genuine
negotiations, let alone meaningful concessions to the Palestinians.
Several Israel
scholars, including exmilitary officials, have written on the
preponderance of the military in
formulating government policy. Ben Gurion’s linking the concept of
nation building
with that of a nation-in-arms, writes Yigal Levy (reviewing Yoram
Peri’s recent book
Generals in the Cabinet Room: How the Military Shapes Israeli Policy),
made the army an
instrument for maintaining a social order that rested on keeping war a
permanent
fixture. The centrality of the army depends on the centrality of
war…But the
moment the political leadership opted to create a ‘mobilized,’
disciplined and inequitable
society by turning the army into the ‘nation builder’ and making war a
constant, the
politicians became dependent on the army. It was not just dependence on
the army as an organization,
but on military
thinking. The military view of political reality has become the main
anchor of Israeli statesmanship, from the victory of Ben Gurion and his
allies over Moshe
Sharett’s more conciliatory policies in the 1950s, through the
occupation as a fact of
life from the 1960s, to the current preference for another war in
Lebanon over the political
option (Ha’aretz August 25, 2006).
Ze’ev Maoz, in an article entitled “Israel’s Nonstrategy of Peace,”
argues that Israel has a well-developed security doctrine [but] does
not have a
peace policy…Israel’s history of peacemaking has been largely
reactive, demonstrating a
pattern of hesitancy, risk-avoidance, and gradualism that stands in
stark contrast to its
proactive, audacious, and trigger-happy strategic doctrine…The military
is essentially the only
government organization that offers policy options – typically military
plans – at
times of crisis. Israel’s foreign ministry and diplomatic community are
reduced to public
relations functions, explaining why Israel is using force instead of
diplomacy to deal with
crisis situations (Tikkun 21(5), September 2006: 49-50).
Again, this approach to dealing with the Arabs is not recent: It is
found throughout the entire history of Zionism and has been dominant in
the Yishuv/Israeli
leadership from the time of the Arab “riots” and the recommendations
for partition from the
Peel commission in 1937 until this day, with a few very brief
interruptions: Sharett
(1954-55), Levi Eshkol (1963-69) and, perhaps, Rabin in his Oslo phase
(1992-95). Sharett
labeled it the camp of the military “activists,” and in 1957 described
it as follows:
The activists believe that the Arabs understand only the language of
force...The State of Israel must, from time to time, prove clearly that
is it strong, and
able and willing to use force, in a devastating and highly effective
way. If it does not prove
this, it will be swallowed up, and perhaps wiped off the face of the
earth. As to peace
– this approach states – it is in any case doubtful; in any case very
remote. If peace
comes, it will come only if [the Arabs] are convinced that this country
cannot be
beaten….If [retaliatory] operations…rekindle the fires of hatred, that
is no cause for fear for
the fires will be fueled in any event (Morris, 1999: 280).
Feeling that its security is guaranteed by its military power and that
a separate peace (or state of non-conflict) with each Arab state is
sufficient,
Israel allows itself an
expanded concept of “security” that eliminates a negotiated settlement.
Thus Israel defines the conflict with the Palestinians just as the US
defines its
War on Terror: As an us-or-them equation where “they” are
fundamentally, irretrievably and
permanently our enemies. It is no longer a political conflict, and thus
it has no
solution. Israel’s security, in this view, can be guaranteed only in
military terms, or until each and
every one of “them” [the Palestinians] is either dead, in prison,
driven out of the country
or confined to a sealed enclave. This is why rational attempts to
resolve the conflict
based on mutual interests, identifying the sources of the conflict and
negotiating
solutions has proven futile all these years. Israel’s guiding agenda
and principles have
nothing whatsoever to do with either the Palestinians or actual peace.
They are rooted
instead in an uncompromising project of creating a purely Jewish space
in the entire
Land of Israel, with closed islands of Palestinians. Even Israel’s most
ardent
supporters – organized American Jewry, for instance – do not grasp this
(Christian
fundamentalists and neocons do, and its just fine with them). The claim
made by these “pro-Israel”
supporters and, indeed, by Israel itself, that Israel has always sought
peace and has
been rebuffed by Arab intransigence, is actually the opposite of the
case. Again, Israel is
seeking a proprietorship and regional hegemony that can only be
achieved
unilaterally, rendering negotiations superfluous and irrelevant. Like
the Zionist ideology
itself, Israel’s security doctrine is self-contained, a closed circuit.
That’s why peace-making
efforts over the years, Israeli as well as foreign, have failed
miserably. If the
assumption – encouraged by Israel – is that the conflict can be
resolved through diplomatic means,
then Israel can justly be accused of acting in bad faith. Israel and
its interlocutors
are essentially talking past each other.
The prominence (one is tempted to say “monopoly”) of the military in
political policy-making explains the mystery of why Labor in the
post-Ben Gurion
era chose
territorial expansion over peace. Uri Savir, the head of Israel’s
Foreign Ministry under Rabin and Peres and a chief negotiator in the
Oslo process, provides a
glimpse into this dynamic in his book The Process (1998:81, 99,
207-208). After the
Declaration of Principles between Israel and the Palestinians was
signed on the White
House lawn in September 1993; Rabin chose a new team of negotiators.
Led by Deputy Chief of Staff
Gen. Amnon Shahak, it was composed mostly of military officers. When
the military grumbled
bitterly at having been shut out of the Oslo talks, Rabin…did not
reject the
criticism...That Israel’s approach should be dictated by the army
invariably made immediate security
considerations the dominant one, so that the fundamentally political
process had been
subordinated to shortterm military needs.
In Grenada, Peres had painstakingly explained to Arafat Israel’s stand
on security, especially external security and the border passages. “Mr.
Chairman,
I’m going to give you the straight truth, without embellishment,” he
said…We will not
compromise on the operational side of controlling the border passages
[to Jordan and
Egypt]. We’re concerned about the smuggling of weapons. Ten pistols can
make for many victims,”
he stressed. “This is absolutely vital to our security.”
Arafat, who translated this straight talk into a vision of Palestinians
caged in on all sides, replied: “I cannot go for a Bantustan….”
In the end, Israel’s security doctrine generally prevailed. Would
compliance with Arafat’s demand for more power and responsibility have
improved Israel’s
security? The truth is, we will never know…. Now the bureaucrats and
the officers who ruled the Palestinians had
been asked to pass on their powers to their “wards”…Some of these
administrators found it
almost unbearable to sit down in Eilat with representatives of their
“subjects.” We had been
engaged in dehumanization for so long that we really thought ourselves
“more
equal” – and at the same time the threatened side, therefore
justifiably hesitant. The group
negotiating the transfer of civil powers did not rebel against their
mandate, but whenever we
offered a concession or a compromise, our people tended to begin by
saying” “We have decided to
allow you…” “Security” became ever more constrictive as right-wing
soldiers and
security advisors began moving into the highest echelons of the
military and political
establishments during the years of Likud rule. Fourteen of the first
fifteen Chiefs of
Staff were associated with the Labor Party; the last three – Shaul
Mofaz, Moshe
Ya’alon and Dan Halutz – are associated with the right wing of the
Likud, a mix of
ideology and militarism that reinforces a concept of security that,
even if sincerely held,
cannot create the space needed for a viable Palestinian state.
(3) Israel as a self-defined bastion of the West in the Middle East.
Israel’s European orientation, including a view of the Arab world as a
mere hinterland
offering Israel little of value, explains why Israel does not place
more importance pursuing
peace with its neighbors. Israel does not consider itself a part of the
Middle East
and has no desire whatsoever to integrate into it. If anything, it sees
itself as a
Middle Eastern variation of Singapore. Like Singapore, it seeks a
correct relationship with its
hinterland, but views itself as a service center for the West, to which
its economy and
political affiliations are tied. (Israel, we might note, has built the
Singaporean army into what
it is today, the strongest military force in Southeast Asia.) That
means it lacks the
fundamental motivation to achieve any form of regional integration, as
evidenced by
its off-hand dismissal of the Saudi Initiative of 2002 that, with the
backing of the
Arab League, offered Israel recognition, peace and regional integration
in return
for relinquishing the Occupation. And finally,
(4) The immaterial Palestinians. Israel believes that it can achieve a
separate peace with countries of the Arab and Muslim worlds (and
maintain its overall
strong international position) without reference to the Palestinians.
Not with the peoples,
it is true; that would require a degree of concession to the
Palestinians “on the ground”
beyond which Israel is willing to go. Knowing this yet having little
interest in either the
Palestinian people or the Muslim masses, Israel is willing to limit its
state of
peace/non-conflict with governments – Egypt, Jordan, an emerging Iraq
(although Israel is
arming the Kurds), the Gulf states, the countries of North Africa
(Libya included), Pakistan,
Indonesia and some Muslim African countries. In the view of Israeli
leaders surveying with
satisfaction the political landscape, the notion that Israel is too
strong to ignore
seems to hold true. Though it has sustained some serious hits in
Lebanon, at the moment
Israel is flying high with its central place in the American neocon
agenda of
consolidating American Empire, its key role in what the Pentagon calls
“The Long War”
to ensure American hegemony, remains, despite growing doubts over
Israel’s
ability to “deliver.”
Whether or not US policy has been “Israelized” or the “strategic
alliance” between the two countries merely rests on perceived common
interests and services
Israel can offer the US, the Bush Administration has provided Israel
with a window of
opportunity it is exploiting to the hilt. Despite the Lebanese setback,
Israeli leaders
still believe they can “win,” they can beat the Palestinians, engineer
Israel’s permanent
control over the Occupied Territories and achieve enough peace with
enough of the Arab
and Muslim worlds. That is what Olmert’s “Convergence Plan” (now
temporarily
shelved) is all about, and why he has resolved to implement it while
Bush is still in
office. Israel’s security, then, rests in that broad sphere defined by
military might,
services provided to the US military, the uncritical support of the
American Congress, its
military diplomacy including arms sales, Israel’s central role in the
neocon agenda, its
ability to parley European guilt over the Holocaust into political
support, its ability
to manipulate Arab and Muslim governments and its ability to suppress
Palestinian
resistance. So what’s wrong with this picture? Nothing, unless one
truly wants
peace, security and “the right to be normal” – and unless
considerations such
as justice and human rights enter into the equation. From a purely
utilitarian
perspective, Israel is a tremendous success. Perhaps the most hopeful
sign of Israel’s
“normalization” is its acceptance by most of the Arab and Muslim world,
best illustrated by
the very Saudi Initiative Israel so summarily ignored. But this also
pinpoints the
problem. The Saudi/Arab League offer was contingent upon Israel’s
relinquishing the
Occupation, something it is not prepared to do. True to form, Israel
responded to
the offer “on the ground” rather than through diplomatic channels.
Sharon carried out his
plan of “disengagement” from Gaza explicitly to ensure Israel’s
permanent and
unassailable rule over the West Bank and East Jerusalem, while his
successor Olmert
vigorously pushed a plan under which the Occupation would be
transformed into a permanent
state of Israeli control. All this conforms to Israeli policy going
back to Ben Gurion
which asserts that if Israel limits its aim to achieving a modus
vivendi with the Arab and
Muslim worlds rather
than full-fledged peace, it can ensure its security while retaining
control over the land west of the Jordan River. To be sure, occasional
spats will erupt such
as those in Gaza or with the Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel might even be
called upon to do
America’s dirty work in Iran, as it played its role (limited as it was)
in Iraq. But
those (or at least this was the thinking before the Lebanese debacle)
are easily contained,
American co-opting of Egypt and Jordan providing the necessary cushion.
This Israeli realpolitik rests on an extremely pragmatic approach to
the conflict akin to what the British termed “muddling through.” If
Israel’s goal
was to resolve the
conflict with the Palestinians and seek genuine peace and regional
integration, it could easily have adopted policies that would have
achieved that, probably
long ago. The goal, however, is conflict management, maintaining the
“status quo” in
perpetuity, and not conflict resolution. Muddling through well suits
Israel’s attempt to
balance the unbalance-able: expanding territorially at the expense of
the
Palestinians while still maintaining an acceptable level of security
and “quiet.” It enables
Israel to meet each challenge as it arises rather than to lock itself
into a strategy or
set of policies that fail to take into account unexpected developments.
Yesterday we tried Oslo;
today we’ll hit Gaza and Lebanon, tomorrow “convergence.”
It may not look rational or neat, but conflict management means going
with the flow; staying on top of things, knowing where you are going
and having
contingency
plans always at the ready to take advantage of any opening, and dealing
with events as they happen. Not long-term strategies but a vision
implemented in many
often
imperceptible stages over time, under the radar so as to attract as
little attention or opposition as possible, realized through short-term
initiatives like
the Convergence Plan which progressively nail down gains “on the
ground.”
If this analysis is correct, Israel is willing to settle for
peace-and-quiet rather than genuine peace, for management of the
conflict rather than closure, for
territorial gains
that may perpetuate tensions and occasional conflicts in the region,
but do not jeopardize Israel’s essential security. Declaring “the right
to be normal” becomes
a PR move designed to blame the other side and cast Israel as the
victim; it is
not something that Israeli leaders sincerely expect. Indeed, their very
policies are based
on the assumption that functional normality – an acceptable level of
“quiet,” the economy
doing well, a fairly normal existence for an insulated Israeli public
most of the
time – is a preferred status to the concessions required for a genuine,
and attainable, peace. What About the Battered And Exhausted Israeli
Public?
The Jewish Israeli public only partially buys into all this. It would
prefer actual peace and normalization to territorial gains in the
Occupied Territories,
though it definitely prefers separation from the Arab world to regional
integration. If
Israelis prefer peace to continued conflict with the Palestinians and
their Arab neighbors, why,
then, do they vote for governments that pursue the exact opposite, that
prefer conflict
management and territory to peace? Mystification of the conflict on the
part of
Israeli leaders plays a large role, just as it does in the “clash of
civilizations” discourse in
other Western countries. Since Israel’s strategy of enduring a certain
level of conflict as an
acceptable price for territorial expansion would not be tolerated if it
was stated in those
terms, successive Israel governments from Ben Gurion to Olmert instead
convinced the
public that there is simply no political solution. The Arabs are our
intransigent and
permanent enemies; we Israeli Jews, the victims, have sought only peace
and a normal
existence, but in vain. And that’s just the way it is. As Yitzhak
Shamir put it so colorfully: "The
Arabs are the same
Arabs, the Jews are the same Jews and the sea [into which the former
seek to throw the latter] is the same sea." Israel effectively adopted
the clash of
civilizations notion years before Samuel Huntington.
This manipulative framing of the conflict also fashions discourse in a
way that prevents the public from “getting it.” Israel’s official
national
narrative supplies a
coherent, compelling justification for doing whatever we like without
being held accountable – indeed, it renders all criticism of us as
“anti-Semitism.” The self-evident
framing which determines the parameters of all political, media and
public discussion goes something like this:
The Land of Israel belongs exclusively to the Jewish people; Arabs (the
term “Palestinian” is seldom used) reside there by sufferance and not
by right. Since the
problem is implacable Arab hatred and terrorism and the Palestinians
are our
permanent enemies, the conflict has no political solution. Israel’s
policies are based on
concerns for security. The Arabs have rejected all our many peace
offers; we are the victim
fighting for our existence. Israel therefore is exempt from
accountability for its actions under
international law and covenants of human rights.
Any solution, then, must leave Israel in control of the entire country.
Any Palestinian state will have to be truncated, non-viable and
semi-sovereign. The conflict
is a win-lose proposition: either we “win” or “they” do. The answer to
Israel’s
security concerns is a militarily strong Israel aligned with the United
States.
One of this framing’s most glaring omissions is the very term
“occupation.” Without that, debate is reduced solely to what “they” are
doing to us, in other
words, to seemingly self-evident issues of terrorism and security.
There are no “Occupied
Territories” (in fact, Israel officially denies it even has an
occupation), only Judea
and Samaria, the heart of our historic homeland, or strangely
disembodied but certainly
hostile “territories.”
Quite deliberately, then, Israelis are studiously ignorant of what is
going on in the Occupied Territories, whether in terms of settlement
expansion and
other “facts” on the ground or in terms of government policies. One can
listen to the
endless political talk shows and commentaries in the Israeli media
without ever hearing a
reference to the Occupation. Pieces of it yes: Settlements, perhaps;
the Separation
Barrier (called a “fence” in Israel) occasionally; almost never house
demolitions or
references to the massive system of Israel-only highways that have
incorporated the West
Bank irreversibly into Israel proper, never the Big Picture. Although
Olmert’s Convergence Plan, which is of fundamental importance to the
future of Israelis, is
based upon the annexation of Israel’s major settlement blocs, the
public has never
been shown a map of those blocs and therefore has no clear idea of what
is actually being
proposed or its significance for any eventual peace. But that is
considered irrelevant
anyway. When, very occasionally, Israelis are confronted by the massive
“facts of the
ground,” they invoke the mechanism of minimization: OK, they say, we
know all that,
but nothing is irreversible, the fence and the settlements can be
dismantled, all
options continue to be open. In this way they do not have to deal with
the enormity of what
they have created, one system for two peoples, which, if the status quo
cannot be
maintained forever, can only lead to a single bi-national state or to
apartheid, confining the
Palestinians to a truncated Bantustan. While the official narrative
deflects public
attention from the sources of the conflict, minimization relieves
Israelis of
responsibility for either perpetuating or resolving it.
Framing, then, becomes much more than a PR exercise. It becomes an
essential element of defense in insulating the core of the conflict –
the
Occupation itself, the proactive policies of settlement that belie the
claims of “security,” and
Israel’s responsibility as the occupying power – from both public
scrutiny and public
discussion. Defending that framing is therefore tantamount to defending
Israel’s very claim
to the country, the very “moral basis” of Zionism we Israelis
constantly invoke. No wonder
it is impossible to engage even liberal “pro-Israeli” individuals and
organizations in a
substantive and genuine discussion of the issues at hand.
One result of such discursive processes is the disempowerment of the
Israeli public. If, in fact, there is no solution, then all that’s left
is to
hunker down and carve out
as much normality as possible. For Israelis the entire conflict with
the Arabs has been reduced to one technical issue: How do we ensure our
personal security?
Since conflict management assumes a certain level of violence, the
public has entered
into a kind of deal with the government: You reduce terrorism to
“acceptable” levels,
and we won’t ask how you do it. In a sense the public extends to the
government a line
of credit. We don’t care how you guarantee our personal security.
Establish a Palestinian
state in the Occupied Territories if you think that will work; load the
Arabs on
trucks and transfer them out of the country; build a wall so high that,
as someone said,
even birds can’t fly over it. We, the Israeli Jewish public, don’t care
how you do it. Just
do it if you want to be re-elected.
This is what accounts for the apparent contradiction between the public
will and the policies of the governments it elects. That explains how
in 1999
Barak was elected with a clear mandate to end the conflict, and when he
failed and the
Intifada broke out, that same public, in early 2001, elected his mirror
opposite, Ariel
Sharon, the architect of Israel’s settlement policies who eschewed any
negotiations at all.
Israelis are willing to sacrifice peace for security – and do not see
the contradiction –
because true “peace” is considered unattainable. In fact, “peace”
carries a negative political
connotation amongst most Israelis. It denotes concessions, weakness,
increased
vulnerability. Israel’s unique electoral system, in which voters cast
their ballots for parties rather
than candidates and end up either with unwieldy coalition governments
incapable of
formulating and pursuing a coherent policy, only adds to the public’s
disempowerment and its
unwillingness to
entrust any government with a mandate to arrive at a final settlement
with the Arabs. Because the “situation,” as we call it, has been
reduced to a technical
problem of
personal security without political solution, Israelis have become
passive, bordering on irresponsible. They have been removed from the
political equation
altogether.
Any attempt to actually resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict (and its
corollaries) will have to come from the outside; the Israeli public
will simply not make a
proactive move in that direction. While the government will obviously
oppose such
intervention, the Israeli public may actually welcome it – if it is
announced by a friend (the
US), pronounced authoritatively with little space for haggling (as
Reagan did over the
sale of AWACs surveillance aircraft to Saudi Arabia in the early
1980s), and couched
as originating out of concern for Israel’s security. Israeli Jews may
be likened to the
whites of South Africa during the last phase of apartheid. The latter
had grown accustomed to
apartheid and would not themselves have risen up to abolish it. But
when
international and domestic pressures became unbearable and de Klerk
finally said, “It’s over,”
there was no uprising, even among the Afrikaners who constructed the
regime. I sincerely
believe that if cowboy Bush would get up one morning and say to Israel:
“We love you,
we will guarantee your security, but the Occupation has to end.
Period,” that
you would hear the sigh of relief from Israelis all the way in
Washington.
As it stands, the Israeli leadership thinks we are winning, the people
are not so sure but are too disinformed and cowed by security threats
(bogus and
real) to act, and the peace movement has been reduced to a pariah few
crying out in the
wilderness. Given the support Israel receives from the US in return for
services
rendered to the Empire, Europe’s quiescent complicity and Palestinian
isolation, the
question remains whether Israel’s strategy of conflict management has
not in fact
succeeded – again, considerations of justice, genuine peace and human
rights aside. Say
what you will, the realists can point to almost sixty years during
which Israel has
emerged as a regional, if not global superpower in firm control of the
greater Land of Israel. If
Olmert succeeds in implementing his Convergence Plan, the conflict with
the Palestinians
is over from Israel’s point of view – and we’ve won.
Yet so overwhelming is our military might, so massive and permanent
have we made our controlling presence in the Occupied Territories, that
we have
fatally
overplayed our hand. Ben Gurion’s formula worked. We now have
everything we want – the entire Land of Israel west of the Jordan River
– and the Arab
governments have sued for peace. But four elements of the equation that
Ben Gurion (or
Meir or Peres, or Netanyahu, Barak, Sharon, Olmert and all the rest)
did not take into
account have arisen to fundamentally challenge the paradigm of power:
(1) Demographics. Israel does not have enough Jews to sustain its
control over the greater Land of Israel. (Indeed, whether Israel proper
can remain
“Jewish” is a question, with the Jewish majority down just under 75%,
factoring in the Arab
population, the non-Jewish Russians and emigration.) Zionism created a
strong state, but it
did not succeed in convincing Jews to settle it. The Jewish population
of Israel
represents less than a third of world Jewry; only 1% of American Jews
made aliyah. In fact, whenever
Jews had a choice – in North Africa, the former Soviet Union, Iraq,
Iran, South
Africa and Argentina, not to mention all the countries of Europe and
North America
– they chose not to come to Israel. And it is demographics that is
driving Olmert’s
Convergence Plan. “It's only a matter of time before the Palestinians
demand 'one man,
one vote' - and then, what will we do?", he asked plaintively at the
2004 Herzilya
conference. Olmert’s scheme retains control of Israel and the Occupied
Territories (in his
terms Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem) while doing the only thing
possible with the
Palestinians who make up half the population – locking them into a
truncated Bantustan
on a sterile 15- 20% of the country.
(2) Palestinians. Israel’s historical policy of ignoring and bypassing
the Palestinians can no longer work. Palestinians comprise about half
the population of the
land west of the Jordan River, all of which Israel seeks to control,
and will be a clear
majority if significant numbers of refugees are repatriated to the
Palestinian
Bantustan. Keeping that population under control means that Israel must
adopt ever more
repressive policies, whether prohibiting Israeli Arab citizens from
bringing their spouses
and children from the Occupied Territories to live with them in Israel,
as recent
legislation has decreed, or imprisoning an entire people behind 26-foot
concrete walls. Despite
Olmert’s assertion that Israelis have a right to live a normal life,
normalcy cannot be
achieved unilaterally. Neither an Occupation nor a Bantustan nor any
other form of oppression
can be normalized or routinized; it will always be resisted by the
oppressed.
Strong as Israel is
militarily, it has not succeeded in pacifying the Palestinians over the
last 40 years of occupation, 60 years since the Naqba or century since
the Zionist
movement claimed exclusive patrimony over Palestine and begin to
systematically
dispossess the indigenous population. The Palestinians today possess
one weapon that Israel
cannot defeat, that it must one day deal with, and that is their
position as gatekeepers.
Until the Palestinians signal the wider Arab, Muslim and international
communities that they
have reached a satisfactory political accommodation with Israel, the
conflict will
continue and Israel will fail to achieve either closure or normalcy.
(3) The Arab/Muslim peoples. The role of Palestinians as gatekeepers
reflects the rise in importance of civil society as a player in
political affairs. Israel’s
lack of concern over the Arab and Muslim “streets,” its reliance solely
on peace-making with
governments, indicates a major failure in Israel’s strategic approach
to the
conflict: Its underestimation of the power of the people. Sentiments
such as “We don’t care about
making peace with the Arab peoples; correct relations with their
governments are enough,”
ignore the fragile state of Arab governments created by the rise of
Muslim fundamentalism,
which in turn has been fueled in large part (though not exclusively, of
course) by
the Occupation. If Hezbollah has the power to create the instability is
has, imagine what
will happen if the Muslim Brotherhood seizes power in Egypt. The
disproportionate bias
towards Israel in American and European policies only fuels and
sharpens the “clash of
civilizations,” while Israel’s Occupation effectively prevents
progressive elements
from emerging in the Arab and Muslim worlds. The strategic role played
by Palestinians as
gatekeepers has a
significant effect upon the stability of the entire global system. The
Israel-Palestine conflict is no longer a localized one.
(4) International civil society. As we have seen, Israeli leaders,
surveying the international political landscape as elected officials
do, take great
comfort. They believe
that, with uncritical and unlimited American support, their country is
“winning” its conflict over the Palestinians (and Israel’s other
enemies, real and
imagined). Like
political leaders everywhere, they don’t seriously take “the people”
into account. Yet, The People – what is known as international civil
society – have some
achievements under their belt when it comes to defeating injustice.
They forced the
American government to enforce the civil rights of black people in the
US and to
abandon the war in Vietnam. They played major roles in the collapse of
South African
apartheid, of the Soviet Union and of the Shah’s regime, among many
others. Since
governments will almost never do the right thing on their own, it was
civil society,
through the newly established UN, that forced them to accept the
Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, the Geneva Conventions and a whole corpus of human rights
and
international law. With the International Court of Justice and the
International Criminal Court
at our disposal, as well as other instruments, and as civil society
organizes into Social
Forums and other forms of action coalitions, major cases of injustice,
such as Israel’s
Occupation, are becoming less and less sustainable. As the Occupation
assumes the
proportions of an injustice on the scale of apartheid – a conflict with
global
implications – Olmert may convince Bush and Blair to support his plan,
but the conflict will not
be over until two gatekeepers say it is, the Palestinians and the
people worldwide.
The Only Way Out: Forcing Israel To
Take Responsibility
Israel has only one way out: It must take responsibility for its
actions. No more blaming Arafat and Hamas and the Arabs in general. No
more playing the victim.
No more denying Occupation or the human rights of a people just as
lodged into
this land as the Jews, if not more so. No more using the military to
ensure “our”
security. No more unilateralism. Instead, Israel must work with the
Palestinians to
create a genuine twostate solution. No Geneva Initiative whereby the
Palestinians get a
non-viable 22% of the country; nor convergence/realignment/apartheid.
Simply an end of
Occupation and a return to the 1967 borders (in which Israel still
retains 78% of the
country) – or, if a just and viable two-state solution is in fact
buried forever under massive
Israeli settlement blocs and highways, then another solution. And a
just solution to the
refugee issue. Over time, the Palestinians – who are greater friends of
Israel than
any Israeli realizes – might even use their good offices to eventually
enter into a regional
confederation with the neighboring states (see my article in Tikkun
20[1)]17-21: “Israel
in a Middle East Union: A ‘Two-stage’ Approach to the Conflict.”).
This is a tall order, and it will not happen soon. The military’s
mobilization of Jewish Israelis has created a remarkably high consensus
(85% support
the construction of the Wall; 93% supported the recent war in Lebanon),
making it
impossible for truly divergent views to penetrate. Some of this has to
do with overpowering
feelings of selfrighteousness, combined with the perception of Israel
as the victim (and hence having
no responsibility for what happens, a party that cannot be held
accountable). Disdain towards Arabs also allows Israel to harm
Palestinian (and again
Lebanese) civilian populations with impunity and no sense of guilt or
wrongdoing.
Although Israel has a small but vital peace movement and dissident
voices are heard among intellectuals and in the press, the combination
of
mystification (“there is no
partner for peace”), disdain, vilification and dehumanization of the
Palestinians, a selfperception of Israelis-as-victims, the supremacy of
all-encompassing “security”
concerns, and a compelling but closed meta-narrative means that little
if any
space exists for a public debate that could actually change policy.
Because the Israel
public has effectively removed itself as a player – except in granting
passive support to its
political leaders who pursue a program of territorial expansion and
conflict management – a
genuine, just and sustainable peace will not come to the region without
massive
international pressure. This is starting to happen as the Occupation
assumes global proportions
and churches, together with other civil society groups, weigh campaigns
of divestment
and economic sanctions against Israel – forms of the very nonviolent
resistance that
the world has been demanding. The Israeli Jewish public, unfortunately,
has abrogated its
responsibility. Zionism, which began as a movement of Jews to take
charge of their
lives, to determine their own fate, has ironically become a skein of
pretexts serving only
to prevent Israelis from taking their fate in their own hands. The
“deal” with the
political parties has turned Israeli government policies into mere
pretexts for oppression, for
“winning” over another
people, for colluding with American Empire.
The problem with Israel is that, for all the reasons given in this
paper, it has made itself impervious to normal political processes.
Negotiations do not
work because Israeli policy is based on “bad faith.” If Israel’s actual
agenda is
territorial expansion, retaining control of the entire country west of
the Jordan and foreclosing any
viable Palestinian state, then any negotiations that might threaten
that agenda are put
off, delayed or avoided. All Israeli officials and their surrogates –
local religious
figures, representatives of organized Jewish communities abroad,
liberal Zionist peace
organizations, intellectuals and journalists defining themselves as
“Zionist,”
“pro-Israel” public figures in any given country and others – become
gatekeepers. In effect –
deliberately or not - their essential role is not to engage but to
deflect engagement, to
“build a fence” around the core Israeli agenda so as to appear to be
forthcoming but to
actually avert any negotiations or pressures that might threaten
Israel’s unilateral
agenda.
It’s a win-lose equation. If Ben Gurion’s principle that the Arabs will
sue for peace even after we get everything we want, then why
compromise? True,
Israel could
have had peace, security and normalization years ago, but not a
“unified” Jerusalem, Judea or Samaria. If the price is continued
hostility of the Arab and
Muslim masses and no integration into the region, well, that’s
certainly something we can
live with. In the meantime, we can rely on our military to handle any
challenges to
either our Occupation or our hegemony that might arise.
This logic carried us through almost to the end, to Olmert’s
Convergence Plan that was intended to “end” the Occupation and
establish a permanent
regime of Israeli
dominance. And then Israel hit the wall, a dead-end: The rise of Hamas
to power in the Palestinian Authority and the traumatic “non-victory”
over Hezbollah.
Both those events exposed the fatal flaw of the non-conflict peace
policy. The
Palestinians are indeed the gatekeepers, and the Arab governments in
whom Israel placed all its
hopes are in danger of being swept away by a wave of fundamentalism
fueled, in large part,
by the Occupation and Israel’s open alignment with American Empire.
Peace,
even a minimally stable non-peace, cannot be achieved without dealing,
once and for all,
with the Palestinians. The war in Lebanon has left Israel staring into
the
abyss. The Oslo peace process died six years ago, the Road Map
initiative was stillborn and,
in the wake of the war, Olmert has announced that his convergence plan,
the only political
plan the government had, was being shelved for the time being. Ha’aretz
commentator Aluf Benn spoke for many Israelis when he reflected:
Cancellation of the convergence plan raises two main questions: What is
happening in the territories and what is the point of continuing
Olmert's government?
Olmert has noanswers. The response to calls to dismiss him is the
threat of Benjamin
Netanyahu at the helm. But what, exactly, is the difference? Both now
propose
preservation of the status quo in the territories, rehabilitation of
the North and grappling with
Iran. At this point, what advantage does the head of state have over
the head of the
opposition? (Ha’aretz, August 25, 2006)
Without the ability to end or even manage its regional conflicts
unilaterally, faced with the limitations of military power,
increasingly isolated in a world for
whom human rights does matter, yet saddled with a political system that
prevents
governments from taking political initiative and a public that can only
hunker down, Israel
finds itself not in a status quo but in a downward spiral of violence
leading absolutely
nowhere. Even worse, it finds itself strapped to a superpower that
itself is discovering the
futility of unilateralism in its own Middle East adventures even while
encouraging
Israel to join in. Still, knowing that governments will not do the
right thing without
being prodded by the people, the Israeli peace camp welcomes the active
intervention of the
progressive international civil society. In the end we can only hope
that the
Israeli mainstream will join us.
The door to peace is still wide open. The Palestinian, Lebanese,
Egyptian and Syrian governments have said that war raises new
possibilities for
peace. Even Peretz
said as much, but was forced to backtrack when Tzipi Livni, the Foreign
Minister, declared the “time was not ripe” for talks with Syria.
Instead the
Olmert government appointed the chief of the air force to be its
“campaign coordinator”
in any possible war with Iran, and then named Avigdor Lieberman, the
extremist right-winger
who is on record as favoring a attacks on Iran as well as a nuclear
strike on
Egypt’s Aswan Dam, as Deputy Prime Minister and “Minister of Strategy.”
Israel will simply not walk through that door, period. There is no
indication that one of the lessons learned from the Lebanese disaster
will be the
futility of imposing a
military solution on the region. On the contrary, the chorus of protest
in Israel in the wake of the war is: Why didn’t the government let the
army win? Demands
for the heads of Olmert, Peretz and Halutz come from their military
failure, not from
a failure of their military policy. But instead of demanding a
government inquiry as to
why Israel lost thewar, the sensible Ha’aretz columnist Danny
Rubinstein suggests a
government inquiry on why Israel has not achieved peace with its
neighbors over the past
sixty years. The question then is, will the international community,
the only force
capable of putting an end to the superfluous destabilization of the
global system
caused by Israel’s Occupation, step in and finally impose a settlement
agreeable to all
the parties? So far, the answer appears to be “no,” constrained in
large part by America’s
view that Israel is still a valuable ally in its faltering “war on
terror.” Only when the
international community – led probably by Europe rather than the US,
which appears to
be hopeless in this regard – decides that the price is too high and
adopts a more
assertive policy towards the Occupation will Israel’s ability to
manipulate end. Civil society’s
active intervention is crucial. We – Israelis, Palestinians and
internationals – can
formulate precisely what the large majority of Israelis and
Palestinians crave: a win-win
alternative to Israel’s selfserving and failed “security” framing based
on irreducible human rights. Such a campaign would contribute
measurably to yet another critical project: A
meta-campaign in which progressive forces throughout the world
articulate a truly new
world order founded on inclusiveness, justice, peace and
reconciliation. If, in the
end, Israel sparks such a reframing, if it generates a movement of
global inclusiveness
and dialogue, then itmight, in spite of itself, yet be the “light unto
the nations” it has
always aspired to be.
___________
(Jeff
Halper is the Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House
Demolitions. He can be reached at jeff@icahd.org).