http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/scripts/article.asp?mador=4&datee=5/8/01&id=118908
Until the left returns to itself
By Akiva Eldar
Ha'aretz Tuesday, May 8, 2001
Where do the Arabs find the chutzpa to oppose Jews living in the Ariel
settlement cluster? What right do they have to fight against a new
Ma'aleh Adumim settlement neighborhood for Russians whose grandparents
(maybe) fasted on Yom Kippur? Haven't they heard of the right of
return for every Jew, even half Jews, to come back to the homeland?
Sorry, we call it something else, the Law of Return. When the
Palestinians refuse to give up the Law of Return, sorry, their right
of return, most Israelis, including the "leftist" voters, get very
angry. They're ready to "hand over" 97 percent of our historic
homeland to Yasser Arafat, and at the moment of truth he demands
leaving the gates of Jaffa open to millions of olim, sorry,
Palestinian refugees. When Ehud Barak adamantly refused to recognize,
even symbolically, the refugees' link to their homeland, their savage
brothers picked up the gun. That's one of the explanations, if not
the primary one, for the 41 percent of Meretz voters who, says the
Steinmetz survey, support the Sharon government policies.
In order to understand, if not to justify, the institutional violence
of the Palestinians, it's worth asking ourselves if any Israeli
government would ever be able to sign a peace treaty that includes
annulment of the Law of Return. Think of the scandal in the Florida
Jewish community, where they prefer sending their kids to another
vacation in Spain than on the risky trip to the Western Wall. And what
would we say if our government were to agree that 3 percent of
sovereign Israel were to be annexed to the Palestinian state; how many
Israelis would vote for an agreement that left 30,000 Israeli
civilians living in such annexed territory, permanent refugees in the
state of Palestine, all to guarantee territorial contiguity for their
neighbors?
From the Palestinian - and international community's - point of view,
building a new Jewish neighborhood in Ma'aleh Adumim is the same as
building a new Palestinian neighborhood in Haifa. But since the
symmetry is irrelevant, one can make do with the following questions:
What would we say if during negotiations over the final border, Yasser
Arafat were to surround Ma'aleh Adumim with Palestinian villages, the
way Barak did? Don't exert yourself. Yesterday, the Israeli
authorities demolished a Palestinian house in Beit Hanina. True, it
didn't have a building permit. Who among us would trade places with a
Palestinian waiting in line for a building permit?
It's said Arafat has once again not missed an opportunity to miss an
opportunity. True, if he had stuck to the theory of stages, he should
have grabbed the deal, which seemed too generous to the Israelis, that
Barak offered. According to Benjamin Netanyahu's book, Arafat would
have then lined up his troops on the new border and using the salami
method, force us slowly into the sea. But assume that Arafat is an
incorrigible serial sucker. Does that mean that the only conclusion is
that the "Peace Camp" should change its view of the Palestine
Liberation Organization as the only partner for peace? Shouldn't the
Al Aqsa Intifada be pushing forward the idea of a two-state solution,
a fair deal for the refugees and a logical division of Jerusalem?
Instead of dealing with such difficult questions and find pragmatic
answers to them, the Israeli left is pounding on the chests of the
Palestinians, hurting them and themselves. Did the Palestinians really
make a mistake when they picked up the guns? They learned that the
Israel "left" really understands the language of force. After all,
who built Kiryat Arba and who invented the Allon plan? Who used terror
against the foreign occupier and who evacuated Sinai only after a
bloody war? Until the peace proponents make use of the right of return
to themselves, Sharon, Sharansky, Peres and Ben-Eliezer can laugh all
the way to the new settlements.
