http://www.guardian.co.uk/gweekly/pal.html
Middle East peace in the balance
Comment by Martin Woollacott
THE illusion that there can be security without justice, with which
Binyamin Netanyahu seduced Israelis in the last election, lies shattered
in the streets of Gaza and Ramallah. Netanyahu promised Israelis that
they could have security, the physical safety they naturally crave after
generations in the firing line, and yet pay no price for it either in
land or in changes in the political status of Palestinians.
His mendacity or self-delusion is now clear for all to see. But the
failure is not his alone. It is ironic that in the centennial year of
Zionism - Theodor Herzl's The Jewish State was published in February 1896
- Zionism in its Likud variant should persist so blindly in the denial to
Palestinians of the human and political rights which Jews in Israel have
so vigorously demanded for themselves. Where Herzl once saw his imagined
Israelis chatting in German in Viennese-style cafés, with grateful Arabs
in the background, their sons grapple in combat with Palestinian enemies.
What Netanyahu and his government refuse to see, with not a shred of the
excuses that can be offered for the early Zionists, is that one state
evoked another, and until the Palestinian state is as much a reality as
the Jewish one, there can be no guarantee of security. Perhaps not even
then, but not until then.
When Netanyahu made it clear, during the campaign and after his victory,
that he had not changed his absolutely negative position on Palestinian
statehood, he all but pulled out the keystone from the arch of peace. If
he does not soon radically change that policy, the arch will fall, with
ruinous consequences for the Middle East and all who live there.
This would not be a resumption of the old occupation, or even of the
intifada. Neither the practical co-operation which marked the one nor the
relative restraint which marked the other are recoverable now. Full-scale
fighting between Israeli forces and some or all of Yasser Arafat's armed
units, with or without his approval, is entirely possible now, or later,
if after some temporary patching up, there is no change of Israeli
policy. It would be an unequal war, no doubt, but one terrifying in its
results, because, once that kind of blood has been spilt, all the
structures and leaders upon which peace could be based would have been
swept away.
Netanyahu's churlish refusal to see Arafat, then a hasty meeting, under
American pressure, dressed up as a success, the faltering of the
day-to-day contacts on which the peace process as a practical matter
depended, the failure to move Israeli troops, as promised, out of Hebron,
the announcement of new settlements, the closing of Palestinian offices
and a youth centre in Jerusalem - these were deliberate signals intended
to convey one thing and one thing only: that there would be no state and
no Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem. Only idiots or amateurs could
have supposed that this would not lead, and lead pretty swiftly, to a
Palestinian explosion. Unfortunately, both are present among Netanyahu's
circle of advisers.
His own reponsibility is great. The bankruptcy of the Likud tradition,
only incipient under Begin and Shamir and masked by military adventures
and diplomatic stonewalling, is now full-blown under Netanyahu. Vladmir
Jabotinsky, father of what became the Likud tradition, famously spoke of
the "iron wall". This was the idea that after throwing themselves
endlessly at the ramparts of Israeli strength, the Arabs would eventually
recognise that they were in a position of permanent weakness and would
negotiate accordingly.
In a way that has proved correct. The Arabs, including the Palestinians,
have negotiated from a position of weakness. But the sting in the tail
has been that, in the end, the Palestinians are still there, still angry,
and still dangerous.
It was Netanyahu who was the prophet of the "easy" version of the iron
wall. He sold a fable to the more gullible among the Israeli people,
distressed that, in spite of peace, Israelis were still dying. This was
that "security" could be had, with no price to be paid and no dangers to
be endured. The settlements could stay and be expanded, the Palestinians
could be denied a state. Seeing the Palestinian Authority essentially as
nothing more than a defective instrument of Israeli security, he
naturally proposed that nothing more be conceded to it, and demanded that
it come up to scratch, as if it were a mercenary police force falling
down on the job.
What emerged then, at the tail end of the Likud tradition, was a bastard
version which held that security could be had without costs or
casualties. It did not envisage the full-scale re-occupation of the
territories. That would be too expensive in lives and money and there
would also be diplomatic costs. But, by some magic, the Palestinians
would go along with not getting a state and would take no revenge. What
was this magic? The answer is pitiful. It was "peace with security".
Having virtually nothing to give to the Palestinians, except some
economic crumbs, all that could be promised was to trade off Israeli
security for Palestinian security. If you don't hurt us, we won't hurt
you, also known as We will hurt you if you hurt us. If wars could be
ended like this, there would not be a violent spot on the globe.
What is so mindless about this approach is its asymmetry. Jews of course
need land, a state, self-esteem and pride. But Palestinians - they, of
course, can make do with physical safety alone.
Israel still has the possibility, even under Netanyahu to take up the
Palestinian offer. The Palestinians are ready to make peace on the basis
of a minimal restitution of what was taken from them.
Less than half, perhaps less than a third, of the land that was once
Palestinian, and the possibility of erecting on this restricted basis a
small state. It is symptomatic of the cast of mind of too many Israelis,
Labour as well as Likud, that such an offer cannot been seen for what it
is - amazing, unprecedented, almost incredible.
Do all Palestinians subscribe to it? Of course not. Do even those who do
nevertheless see it as a first step toward other objectives, such as
securing a right of return to Israel, or cherish inward hopes that over
time demography may change the balance of power in the Holy Land? Of
course they do. Yet what is on offer is still astonishing. It is madness
for the Israelis to refuse it.
(c) Guardian Media Group plc 1996. All rights reserved.
