To the Palestinians, the intifada is an expression of their desire for freedom, dignity and sovereignty. It is an uprising that represents a will to endure, to resist and to reject enslavement. It is a fundamental cry for justice and dignity. Hence, to many Palestinians it is inexplicable that in Israel most public discourse has reverted to the fundamental issue of survival and Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. The debate about the legitimacy of Israel and its acceptance by the Arab world is once again being brandished as a motivation to return to Israel's "beleaguered" or "fortress" mentality. The subsequent "closing of ranks" represented by the current hard-line coalition Government in Israel is the outcome of this mentality and the major driving force behind its policies. The Government itself perpetuates the mindset of insecurity and hostility to serve its own ideology and longevity.
Totally absent from this deceptive paradigm are several essential facts that shaped contemporary Palestinian realities and political strategies. The most significant of these is the Palestine National Council (PNC) resolution of 15 November 1988 (motivated primarily by the previous Palestinian intifada in the Occupied Territories) accepting the partition of historical Palestine and recognizing the two-state solution, i.e. recognizing Israel. Another turning point was the commitment to the terms of reference of the Madrid Peace Process, particularly UN resolutions 242 and 338 and the land-for-peace formula. To the Palestinians, the historical compromise of accepting the June 4, 1967 boundaries (i.e. 22% of historical Palestine) has never been fully appreciated by Israel and its allies; in addition, it constitutes the minimum requirement for a viable state and consequently for a lasting peace. Any further loss of land would render both statehood and peace unattainable. Claiming all of historical Palestine or even the Partition Plan of 1947 for the nascent Palestinian state, let alone denying Israel's existence, has long been dropped from Palestinian discourse and policy.
Israel's shortsighted and dangerous attempts at reviving past questions of legitimacy and survival could become a self-fulfilling prophecy by resurrecting such elemental questions among Palestinian and Arab public opinion.
Another factor are the signed agreements legally binding on the parties, including interim agreements with the Palestinians and peace accords with two Arab states - Egypt and Jordan. A partial negation of obligations vis-…-vis the Palestinians is liable to encompass the rest, particularly within the Arab and regional Palestinian context. If Israel is seeking to isolate and "defeat" the Palestinians, it will only destabilize the whole region and jeopardize security on all fronts, including its own.
A revival of individual fear and insecurity, along with hostility towards and distrust of all Arabs and Muslims (directed most immediately towards the Palestinians), has been a major political instrument of extremist right wing governments in Israel. Its moral repugnancy is compounded particularly when employed as a means of maintaining control through the politics of fear and insecurity. An anachronistic regression to the most ardent Zionist ideology is finding expression both in the dangerous expanded land confiscation and settlement drive as well as in the resurgence of undisguised racist formulations on demography as a means of legitimizing ethnic cleansing advocating forced birth control among the Palestinians and collective expulsions of Palestinians from both Israel and the West Bank. While most Israelis had viewed such schemes previously as being evil and unconscionable, they are now being thinly disguised as pseudo-respectable "academic" studies in defense of purist Zionism (cf. Interdisciplinary Center's conference on Israeli National Security, Hertzliya, March 2001).
The manipulation of facts to hammer home a message of evasion of responsibility and misplaced allocation of blame compound the present danger. The orchestrated rhetoric of labels, mudslinging, and dehumanization is being exploited by the Sharon government and its hyper active PR machine as a convenient and self-serving political tool. In the long run, however, it is serving only to destroy the very foundations on which peace is to be built. If bulldozers demolishing Palestinian homes and building illegal Israeli settlements are responsible for destroying the chances of peace on the ground, Israeli official rhetoric and rationalizations are destroying the logic of peace in the minds of both peoples.
Within this mental-verbal political context, it has become convenient and facile to mislead the Israelis with the representation and perception of the intifada as a form of gratuitous "violence" threatening the very existence of their state, let alone their personal security. Equally cynical is the depiction of previous Israeli proposals in the context of the peace process as a "generous offer" or "concessions" handed down from the strong to the weak, and somehow inexplicably rejected by those ungrateful Palestinians. In reality the Israeli "generous offer" meant granting Israel license to annex Palestinian land including most of occupied Jerusalem, to maintain settlement clusters that destroy the territorial unity of the West Bank and the viability of the Palestinian state, to abolish the Palestinian refugees' right of return, to maintain Israeli security control and diminish Palestinian sovereignty, and to violate international law and UN resolutions.
Similarly, the misrepresentation of the intifada as an immediate and "orchestrated" resort to "violence" betrays a total lack of awareness of Palestinian conditions and the build-up of pain and anger at the continued victimization of the Palestinians in the course of a severely flawed peace process. To the Palestinians, the peace process had become a punitive process and an instrument of power politics designed to perpetuate their subjugation and Israel's control and domination. Thus, it represented an absence of political will and a weakness in the moral fiber of Israel and the international community, particularly in their blatant disregard of international law and Palestinian rights. By refusing to acknowledge (and deal with) legitimate Palestinian grievances and Israeli excesses, Israel not only indulged in willful ignorance, but also compounded the injustice and persistently brought about the current tragic breakdown.
A steady supply of official Israeli erroneous justifications and deceptive rationalizations (including blaming the victim), served only to deepen hostilities and distortions. Also conveniently, it afforded the Israeli government a cheap means for the evasion of responsibility and accountability, with the Palestinians somehow "deservedly" bringing upon themselves the full force of Israeli military assaults while the Israeli army engaged in "self defense." By the same illogic, "defending" the settlement of Psagot by shelling Palestinian homes and terrorizing whole families living in Ramallah-Bireh became synonymous with "defending" Tel Aviv and Haifa. Similarly, the siege and starvation of the Palestinian people became the justifiable price that the Palestinians had to pay for their insubordination, ingratitude, and "terrorism." Assassinations, extra-judicial killings, and cold-blooded murder were "legitimized" as safeguards not only for the personal security of every individual Israeli but also for the survival of the state itself.
All the while, and with the relentless battering of the captive Palestinian population, the refrain "Stop the Violence!" hammered the Palestinians with painful monotony. In the meantime, the essential fact of the occupation itself has been eradicated from the discourse and the blame-game. Sharon's insistence on the language and tactics of "war" not only created the grand deception, but also provided him with the elements and cover for his anti-peace policies. His objective of achieving a "state of non-belligerency" and a prolonged transitional phase with the Palestinians once they "stop the violence," is an attempt at normalizing and perpetuating the occupation by bringing about Palestinian acquiescence and submission to the fact of the occupation through military repression. The false symmetry in the illusion of "warring parties" also disguises the imbalance of power while justifying the "rules of engagement" fallacy that transforms every Palestinian into a legitimate target as a potential "combatant." The Palestinians are thus instantly robbed of their humanity, their civilian status, the protection of the law (particularly international humanitarian law), the safety of moral norms, and the fact of their own victimization and suffering.
Such political and verbal machinations may serve to deceive international public opinion for a while; ultimately, however, they will backfire within Israel. The patronizing "disappointment" of some members of the Israeli "peace camp" at the Palestinian unwillingness to fit their preconceptions of a unilateral peace, or to play the "grateful native" role, or to acknowledge the Israeli version of "what's good for them" has (wittingly or not) played into the hands of the Sharon's, Lieberman's, and Ze'evi's of the Israeli government by providing justifications and fanning the flames of extremism while legitimizing Palestinian-bashing as a national pastime. Generating a culture of fear and distrust, with the inevitable claim to impunity and rejection of accountability, will not only taint Israel's moral fiber; it will also demolish the requisite bridges that must be built between both peoples to maintain the prospects of future peace despite the current chasm.
Ultimately, once the dust settles and sanity is restored, there will be a need for interlocutors and constituencies for peace on both sides. Beyond ideology, racism, extremism, and militarization, a negotiated peaceful settlement is the only solution. Rather than indulging in the negation of the other, each side must engage in the process of rehumanizing the other. The painstaking and painful dialogue of the 1970's and 1980's provided a successful antidote to the then prevailing politics of hate. It also legitimized negotiations and prepared both publics for a culture of mutuality and inclusive politics (thus launching the Madrid process in 1991 in the midst of the earlier intifada). It became evident then, as it must be now, that there is no military solution. As one chapter in a predominantly painful history, it must not be driven out of our collective memory by the revival of past mindsets of absolutism and hate. Sharon and his partners must not be given the mandate to destroy the future with the worst policies and rhetoric of the past. If anyone must succumb to the urge to go back to the basics, what can be more basic than the essential humanity and equality of rights of all peoples and individuals?
Rebuttal
We decided to publish this erudite article of Hanan Ashrawi - with our comments - because it is an excellent example of persuasive propaganda with no resemblance to the truth. To start from the basics: Jews ruled Palestine many centuries before the Prophet Mohammed was born. Mohammed believed in military solutions and deceiving unbelievers. His Arabs from the South of the Arabian Peninsula conquered the Middle East and much of North Africa in the 8th century. They found large Christian communities in this area, which were converted to Islam or allowed to live as dhimmis of inferior status. In other words, the so-called Christian Arabs of today are not Arabs at all. They were here before the Arabs arrived and call themselves "Christian Arabs" because they fear the Moslems or for reasons of convenience. The "Christian Arabs" of Palestine left the country in large numbers both during the reign of King Hussein and during the last decade. In Bethlehem, they constituted over 70% of the population when Hussein took over, but less than 50% when he left in 1967. By now, the figure is less than 40% and a mosque towers over the Church of the Holy Nativity. Territorial expansion and ruling non-Moslems has been a Moslem trait and ideal ever since Mohammed, limited only by the pragmatic instruction of the Koran that unbelievers too strong or too remote to be conquered may be left in peace. Thus Moslem conquests are by definition justified and any area once conquered must not be yielded.
The Israel-Arab conflict should be viewed in this context. Both Jews and Arabs claim all of Palestine West of the Jordan River, but the Jewish mainstream was always ready for territorial compromises in the vain hope they would buy peace. The Arab use of "international legitimacy" and "legitimate Palestinian rights" to buttress their case is cynical. The Balfour Declaration and the confirmation of Jewish rights to rule Palestine by the League of Nations preceded the United Nations resolutions the Palestinians cite in support of their claim. "International legitimacy" is whatever suits the major powers at a given time in history. The conjunction of oil interests with a multiplication of Third World dictatorships in the UN led to such aberrations as UN Resolution 194, which conflicts with the UN Charter as it aims to destroy a member-state of the UN. The time may not be far distant when oil and natural gas are supplanted as major energy sources. When this happens, the post-1948 anti-Israeli UN resolutions will probably have no more "international legitimacy" than the resolutions of the League of Nations have today.
Palestine does not belong to the "Palestinians" and never did. They did not even call themselves Palestinians until the middle 1960s. Before that, the word "Palestinian" meant "Jewish," while the local Arabs called themselves simply "Arabs." The creation of the PLO by Gamal Abdul Nasser in 1964 was a brilliant ploy to distort the parameters of the dispute, largely for propaganda purposes. It was inconvenient to have a conflict between 20-odd Arab states with an area 530 times greater than Israel, a population more than 30 times greater than Israel's and enormously richer natural resources. Far better to invent a "Palestinian" nation that would be the eternal "underdog," - a nation consisting partly of immigrants from Syria and other Arab countries who came to benefit from the rapidly growing economy Zionist Jews created.
The "Palestinian refugee problem" was created when the armies of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan supplemented by contingents from Iraq, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states, invaded newborn Israel in May 1948 after rejecting the UN partition resolution. Their declared aim was to destroy the hated Jewish state, but they were defeated. The war spawned two refugee problems: some 500,000 Arabs fled from the areas that became Israel and roughly the same number of Jews fled to Israel from Arab states. Israel absorbed its refugees from its own meager resources. The Arab states successfully demanded that the UN underwrite the cost of the refugee camps in their territory and - with the sole exception of Jordan - refused to absorb their inmates. UN Resolution 194 gave them a permanent casus belli, which was exactly what they wanted. The welfare of the refugees meant nothing to them.
Islam glorifies jihad against unbelievers, who are always discriminated against in Moslem states. Jihad means war, wars can be lost and the loser pays a price for starting them. The Arabs have not paid this price - not even in part - though both in 1948 and in 1967 they wanted to wipe Israel from the map. The Western powers always bailed them out after defeats for selfish economic reasons. So whining about Israel's "misdeeds" is merely contemptible. The Arabs should thank Allah that Israel could not and did not want to treat them like the victorious Allies treated the Germans after World War II, when the entire German population East of the Oder-Neisse river line, as well as the Germans of the Sudetenland, were transferred to what remained of Germany West of the two rivers mentioned.
Hanan Ashrawi is "Secretary General of the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue & Democracy." Yet the Palestinian Authority is a corrupt dictatorship. She writes: "To many Palestinians it is inexplicable that in Israel most public discourse has reverted to the fundamental issue of survival and Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state." When the Arab states and the Palestinians themselves propose the rescinding of UN Resolution 194 and the UN votes to do so, she will have the right to make such a statement. Besides, it is difficult to believe Ashrawi has not heard or read the pronouncements of Marwan Baghouti, not to mention some statements in Arabic of Arafat and her colleagues on the PNC, claiming Palestine "from the river [Jordan] to the [Mediterranean] sea" or that she is unaware of the vicious anti-Jewish hatred spewed by the broadcasts of the official PA radio and TV as well as the schoolbooks of PA schools.
Ashrawi is troubled by the "anachronistic" revival of Zionism. After 33 years of thinly disguised anti-Zionist propaganda in Israel's left-wing press and media, the rise of "new historians" promoting Arab claims, the legitimization of PLO terrorism by the Oslo agreements and two outrageous decisions of Israel's Supreme Court denying the Government's right to allocate land for specifically Jewish settlement, the PLO may be forgiven for thinking that Zionism was dead. It was revived by the Al-Aqsa intifada, because the PLO's violent insistence on the "right of return" of Palestinian refugees and its denial of Jewish rights to the Temple Mount shocked most Israeli Jews into realizing that Arafat did not want a lasting peace but only the destruction of Israel in stages. From 1974 until 2000, the Labor Party, Meretz, the legal establishment they dominate and sundry extra-parliamentary movements like "Peace Now" and "Gush Shalom" posed as Zionist but acted to promote post-Zionism.
The Al-Aqsa intifada was the final straw that caused the reversal of the trend. To justify it, Ashrawi argues: "Equally cynical is the depiction of previous Israeli proposals in the context of the peace process as a generous offer... inexplicably rejected.... In reality the Israeli 'generous offer' meant granting Israel license to annex Palestinian land including most of occupied Jerusalem, to maintain settlement clusters that destroy the territorial unity of the West Bank and the viability of the Palestinian state, to abolish the Palestinian refugees' right of return, to maintain Israeli security control and diminish Palestinian sovereignty, and to violate international law and UN resolutions." Really!? The Oslo agreements did not stipulate the "right of return". Even the post-Zionist Government that accepted Oslo knew that this "right" meant the eventual disappearance of the Jewish state and was only ready to discuss the issue. Neither the Oslo-Cairo agreements nor UN Resolutions 242 and 338 require Israel to withdraw from all territory beyond the 1967 borders. This will remain true no matter how often the Arabs or anyone else repeat the contrary. And under international law, there is no such thing as "Palestinian land" - except for the areas already ceded to the Palestinian Authority. So Barak's offer to Arafat was indeed generous.
To sum up: The Israel-Arab conflict is not about the West Bank and Gaza. It is about Palestine. If the Palestinians want the Jews to respect their desire to rule Palestine - or as much of it as they can get by violence and foreign support, they have to respect the Jewish desire that Palestine - or as much of it as possible - be ruled by Jews. There must be reciprocity. If the Palestinians want Israel to remove Jewish "settlements" from Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, they should not be surprised if the Jews begin to demand the removal of Arab "settlements" from Galilee, the Negev and other Arab-populated parts of Israel. After losing three aggressive wars they began, the Arabs are in no position to dictate the terms of peace. They can go on hoping that time is on their side. Or they can stop hating and start thinking rationally.
