It seems to me that the situation deteriorated not with Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount, which was, in and of itself, provocative and malicious, but rather when Arafat announced three months ago at Camp David that he could not sign a compromise agreement on Jerusalem. He represents, he said then, not only 5 million Palestinians but also the world’s billion Muslims. At that moment, to my mind, the possibility of a solution eluded us, and it turned into a religious conflict. You and I know that religious fanaticism, whether Jewish or Muslim, is your and my real enemy. Neither you nor I can live our lives as we desire under an extremist religious regime. In the end, the relevant borders for most Israelis and Palestinians are not only those between the two peoples, for all their importance, but those between the moderates and extremists on both sides. That should be one of our major motives for reaching a compromise, at almost any price, in order to weaken the religious forces that are growing so strong now.
But we cannot accept the solutions you are offering us, you say—there can be no peace with the settlements, there can be no peace when what we finally get, after such a long struggle, is a tiny state without control of our water sources and most of our territory, a state crosscut by hundreds of Israeli roads and roadblocks. There can be no peace when every time I open my blinds in the morning I see the settlement on the mountaintop that looms over me. Do you know that the settlers call me every night and demand that I leave my city? They, who only twenty years ago settled here by force.
It won’t be a just peace, I admit, but I hope that as a first step it will be a good-enough peace. We can’t hope for more than that in the meantime, but maybe afterward, many years from now, when animosity has diminished, when a normal fabric of life has been established, perhaps even trust renewed …
I want you to know, you say out of context, how sad and shocked I was by the lynching of the Israeli soldiers. It is horrifying. I blame the Palestinian police, because no matter how the Israelis got there, from the minute unarmed people are under your protection, you must safeguard them. No, such an atrocity simply must not be allowed to happen. Even in such a brutal struggle we must retain our humanity.
I ask if there are others who think as you do, and you say that the great majority of Palestinians were appalled by the incident. I have trouble believing you. The sight of the faces of the murderers and their cries of carnage are still so vivid in my memory. The hands proudly raised aloft, soaked in the blood of the murdered men. I then recall a conversation we had not long ago in a Jerusalem café, before the world turned over on all of us. There we concurred that the Oslo agreement had been possible because the two leaders, Rabin and Arafat, had finally realized, after years of holding to a militant, aggressive worldview, that the conflict was seeping into the innermost tissues of their peoples, infecting them with violence and brutality, and decomposing them from within.
And you remind me that we said one more thing on that day. We had no illusions about this—we knew that this peace process would be a very bitter one. That it would be full of successive acts of enmity and violence, on both sides, acts that time after time would move Israelis and Palestinians to cry out in rage, each in turn, Look how impossible it is to believe them! Look what a mistake we made when we made sacrifices to them! We’ll never, never live in peace side by side!
And so it was.
But never to this extent.
You interrupt the conversation for a moment, telling your wife that you forgot a dish in the oven. I hear your children laughing in the background. Your home. Things television doesn’t show.
Afterward you say, Look, you and I, we represent two overly emotional peoples. For that reason, so much depends on how our leaders lead us. For example, you say, I think that we Palestinians have to change the way we fight. I don’t believe it’s good to send children to throw stones, nor adults either. We need to find a nonviolent mode of struggle, a peaceful struggle, because the loss of life is terrible. But also because our behavior threatens you, and you respond overaggressively, not willing to listen to us. We need to turn to peaceful demonstrations, you say—maybe that way we can get across to you what we feel. But you, too, must change. You shouldn’t exaggerate the situation as if it is a threat to your existence.
You’re certainly right about that, I reply. I see that this brief conflict has revealed just how deep our existential fear is. That, perhaps, is the Palestinian tragedy, that you are facing a tough and complicated partner (one convinced it is the meekest, most malleable, most merciful partner there is). You have a partner with a history so difficult that nothing in the universe can give it a real sense of security and strength.
If you were more confident, you say, you wouldn’t use such heavy fire against demonstrators. Just think of what massive power you use against us.
“The peace of the brave,” I say, quoting Arafat.
Ah, you suddenly sigh. Politicians are ruthless.
Are you managing to get anything done these days? I ask.
How can I? Who can concentrate?
You could at least state publicly the things you tell me.
No, and certainly not as I once could. But I’m sure that most of the Palestinian public thinks as I do. Listen, people here understand that peace is a necessity. Not everyone here is pleased with all that’s happening. We have lost more people than you have, but I know that the Israeli sense of loss is just as great. We feel surrounded, under siege, but so do you. We must break free of this despair and this immobility, because, at the end of the day, we are going to have to live here together, and we can’t kill each other indefinitely. We’ll live here together, I say, and in the end we’ll also make peace, but it will be such a frail peace, always on the verge of being shattered. And underneath there will always be that volcano, and it will erupt again and again. Hundreds of years may pass before we have, if ever, a peace similar to the one between England and France, or between France and Germany. But what am I doing planning the centuries to come, when the question is what to do now, today?
Today we will do nothing, you say. Today both your and our blood is boiling. We have to wait a few days and hope that things will calm down a bit. Afterward we’ll decide what we can do.
And so, agreeing that we will speak more frequently, we bid each other farewell.
Stop Mumbling
November 2000
The al-Aksa Intifada continued to gain momentum, despite a statement made by Arafat and Barak at an emergency summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, initiated by President Clinton, calling for an end to the bloodshed. Inside Israel, heated demonstrations of Arab Israelis in support of the Palestinians resulted in the killing of thirteen demonstrators—all Israeli citizens. An inquiry committee was later established to investigate the Israeli police’s excessive use of force. The Israeli public was astonished at the sights of Palestinian violence in Israel and in the occupied territories. Many members of the Israeli left found themselves angry and disappointed with the Palestinian leadership, which seemed to have completely abandoned the path of political negotiations. The “confused left” later contributed, reluctantly but without question, to the rise of a new, strong leader—Ariel Sharon.
It is hard to believe that very many Israelis will be willing to listen to the Palestinians’ claims today, especially when they are accompanied by cruel and bloodcurdling acts of terror. Still, anyone who seeks a solution, who is not willing to be a passive victim of those who sow death and hatred all around us, must listen.
Those who talk today with Palestinians in key positions, officials of the Palestinian Authority and intellectuals, must admit that there is justice in their claims. A look at the map of Palestine that the Oslo process was to create reveals why the Palestinians felt trifled with. They realized that, after a bloody struggle, they would not be granted a real state, but rather a bunch of spots of national identity, surrounded and sliced by the ongoing presence of the Israeli occupier. This, and other no less harsh claims, means that any defense of the Israeli position req
uires quite a bit of logical contortion, not to mention moral acrobatics.
When examining the major obstacles that now prevent, as they will in the future, any sort of agreement, you discover the centrality of the issue of the settlements. Is it entirely out of bounds to hope that, after tempers cool a bit, Israel will reopen this subject to discussion? And will it, this time, do so with an understanding that it can no longer impose a solution to this charged issue on the Palestinians? Will Israel recognize that it is in its own manifest interest to endure short-term pain, almost intolerable pain, in order to realize, over generations, its truly essential goals?
The position of official and semiofficial Palestinian spokesmen today is that Israeli settlers who wish to remain in the territories under Palestinian sovereignty will be allowed to do so. The rest must return to Israel. At the same time, the Palestinians accept, without a choice, the possibility that certain settlement blocks will be annexed to Israel, as part of a symmetrical exchange of territory.
It is hard to believe that many Israelis today will agree to trust the goodwill of future Palestinian leaders. They will not entrust their safety to them. But neither do you have to be a great expert to comprehend that no country in the world can accept the existence, deep inside it, of heavily armed and fortified enclaves protected by the soldiers of another country, linked to that other state by dozens of restricted roads. Every rational person must understand that if we do not find a quick solution to this problem, the situation will quickly deteriorate into a Bosnian one, in which Jewish and Palestinian civilians will be shooting at each other in an endless spiral of blood.
So we have no choice but to say, with no equivocation, what many Israelis have been thinking for years. To achieve a just peace, one that has a real chance of lasting, many settlements will have to be dismantled. Not only the tiny settlements that were intended for evacuation under the Oslo agreement, ones like Ganim, Kadim, and Netzarim, but also others, as large and as established as they may be, whose location is liable to prevent a future agreement. This would include Ofra, Beit El, Elon Moreh, and Kiryat Arba. The same is true of the settlements in the Jordan Valley and on Mt. Hebron, as well as the eastern part of the Gush Etzion block.
We shouldn’t feign innocence—the great majority of the settlements were located exactly where they are in order to prevent any chance of a future peace treaty or, to our detriment, to frustrate the creation of a territorially contiguous Palestinian state. Now that this goal has in fact been achieved, complicating the situation to the point of despair, the settlers are proclaiming: See? Under these conditions we can’t make peace!
So the moment has come in which all Israelis must ask themselves, honestly, if they really are prepared to be killed for the right of a few thousand settlers to live in armed and alienated enclaves in the midst of an Arab population. Are they prepared to perform reserve duty there, engaging in a Kosovo-style combat against the Palestinians? Are they prepared for their sons and daughters to die defending the settlements?
The constant clashes between Israel and the Palestinians have impelled us more than once to dig ourselves into positions that are clearly very difficult to defend—such as our eighteen-year sojourn in Lebanon. In the end, we are forced to abandon those positions, by the skin of our teeth, after painful bloodletting.
For that reason, this is the time to ask again, as if for the first time, whether the statement “We won the Six-Day War” really requires reaching the conclusion that “we will therefore remain here forever, in the midst of a conquered people.” Is this really the only way to take advantage of the great Israeli victory in that war?
For years the peace camp has been mumbling about the necessity to evacuate the settlements. Mumbling, not yelling out loud, both because it recoils at the idea of uprooting families, children who were born there, and because of the fear that such an act will create a national trauma. But we can no longer continue to mumble. Logic requires the uprooting of many settlements that cannot be defended and whose existence will destroy the all-too-fragile chance for peace. Supporters of peace must make this mental switch to the end. The events of the last month, even if they elicit fear and doubt, in fact support such a step, and reveal the great danger inherent in lacking the courage to take this decision.
An Invitation to Dialogue: Response to a Palestinian Open Letter
November 2000
In early November 2000, Palestinian intellectuals published in the major Israeli newspapers an urgent statement. They offered several basic principles that should be fulfilled in order to renew the peace process and end the violence: namely, an end to the Israeli occupation, acceptance of Jerusalem as the capital of both states, and Israeli recognition of its responsibility for the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem. “Peace and co-existence will not be accomplished by imposing an unjust settlement that goes against the will of the people. This land is destined to be the home of our two peoples … It is our hope that, out of the tragedies of recent weeks, a new and fair vision of peace can emerge between the two peoples.”
The author’s reply to the Palestinian appeal was published in Arabic in the Palestinian newspaper al-Ayyam on November 18, 2000.
Sirs and Madams,
A week ago, 121 Palestinian academics and public activists published an open letter to the Israeli public. As a member of that public, I would like to respond.
Before I address the substance of what you wrote, I would like to state that the publication of a letter in the Israeli press is of great importance. In these times, each side is hearing only gunshots and belligerent rhetoric, and many have despaired of any rational dialogue. So I would like to thank you for having opened the door to a conversation of a different type, without which we will not reach a solution.
As an Israeli who seeks peace, I agree with no small number of the positions presented in your appeal. This applies both to your description of the harsh reality that prevailed in the occupied territories under the façade of the Oslo Accords and to the pointlessness of a peace agreement that reflects, more than anything else, Israel’s military superiority. Similarly, most of the “broad principles” you proposed seem to me to be a possible basis for a future agreement.
However, as an Israeli who seeks peace, what I find missing from your open letter is a statement that such an agreement will constitute the end of all claims on both sides, and that it will contain a recognition of the 1967 borders as the permanent borders between Israel and Palestine. I would have hoped to see such a letter more clearly address the future relations between the two states, a joint war on terror, and a joint campaign against incitement, without which future generations will grow up infected with hatred and racism.
I do not pretend to represent anyone else, but it seems to me that I am not alone in my opinions. A growing number of Israelis recognize that a peace agreement must lead to the establishment of a sovereign and independent Palestinian state. To achieve this, Israel must retreat from almost all the territories it occupied in 1967, evacuating most of the settlements, with consensual border rectifications based on an exchange of territory. Israel’s cabinet includes ministers who speak of dividing Jerusalem and turning it into two capitals for the two peoples, together with a compromise on sovereignty over the holy sites. Generous Israeli ideas about the refugee problem are also being proposed today, with the goal of resolving this issue.
I am not trying to claim that these are the opinions of the Israeli majority, but it is also clear to me that they are not those of an insignificant minority.
And that is not something to be taken lightly. The Israeli public now feels threatened, for several reasons. Most Israelis were not at all aware of the depth of Palestinian rage over the way the peace process was conducted. They were taken by surprise by the violence that was directed against them. They had believed that the peace process had brought with it a road map toward reconciliation. Most of the Jewish public in Israel (like most of the Palestinian public) was not familiar with
the details of the agreement. Israelis felt that they had already made huge concessions, that they had overcome their anxieties and traumas. And here, right at the finish line, as they saw it, their partners in the process betrayed them, violated a signed agreement, and who knew what more those Palestinians would demand, once they had “received” their independent state.
I am familiar with the Palestinian responses to these claims. I agree with some of them. Yes, the Israelis don’t honor agreements. And the Israeli military presence in the occupied territories is violent. There are also the settlements, the areas sealed by the army, and the siege. As well as the brutal military response against stone throwing.
I write these lines and feel the depressing futility of repeating arguments that are so familiar to all of us. What is the point of beating round the bush along the familiar path of recrimination, when hundreds of innocent people, Palestinians and Israelis, are being killed? What is the point, in the current situation, of trying to determine who is guilty or who started it all? All of us, Israelis and Palestinians, are participants, to one extent or another, in the tragedy that has come upon us. But there’s one thing that can’t be doubted despite all this fear and confusion: If the leadership on both sides is not truly courageous, Jewish and Palestinian children will continue to kill each other, and we, their parents, will send them to die (and we’ll then charge each other with “making use of children”).
The al-Aksa Intifada has, with great force, brought Palestinian pain, humiliation, and anger to the surface. The entire world and, within it, many Israelis also now understand that the Oslo agreements must be reopened and that a new peace agreement, a fairer and bold one, must be drafted. Such an agreement will present difficult challenges to both peoples, perhaps too difficult to bear. Both sides will have to give up concrete and important assets. Both will also have to give up the delusions and illusions that have accounted for their strength and hope and national consciousness.