One of our readers expressed his uneasiness over the fact that the
previous issue of our journal, focusing on the subject of "Children
of the Conflict," dealt mostly with the plight of Palestinian
children, and much less on the negative effects of the conflict on
Israeli youngsters. Other readers may feel that the present issue,
devoted to "The Struggle for Land," is equally slanted in favor of
the Palestinians.
While presenting a balanced view of events is the basis for all
trustworthy journalism, artificially "balanced" reporting has
nothing to do with serious journalism. It is certainly not the
fault of this journal that there is no symmetry whatsoever between
the pain and grievances experienced over the last fifty years by
the Palestinian people and those experienced by the Israeli
people.
One could argue that part of the Palestinian misfortunes were the
outcome of their leaders' "all-or-nothing" approach, their
systematic rejection of any compromise with the Jews in this
country. The Palestinian leadership rejected the proposal of the
United Nations General Assembly in 1947 to partition
Palestine/Eretz Israel into two states, one Arab and one Jewish,
connected by an economic union. Misreading the reality on the
ground and underestimating the strength of the Jewish society in
Israel, they courted disaster by launching a war on the newly born
state.
In retrospect, however, putting the blame on one Palestinian leader
or another for failing to gauge the real balance of forces in the
conflict at that time, resolves absolutely nothing. It is of
interest only to historians. It cannot contribute to diminishing
the sufferings of the Palestinian people, most of whom became
hapless refugees due to the Arab-Israeli war of 1948-49. As a
result of this war, part of what according to the UN partition plan
was supposed to become the Palestinian Arab state was incorporated
into the State of Israel, part (the West Bank and East Jerusalem)
was annexed by Jordan, and the Gaza Strip came under Egyptian
military administration.
Moreover, the Israeli authorities expropriated vast tracts of Arab
land within the new borders after the expulsion and flight of
hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the war. Subsequently,
various pseudo-legal stratagems against the remaining Arab
residents facilitated the transfer of Arab land into Jewish hands
in order to expand and build new Jewish farms, towns and
villages.
Following the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war, the policy of
expropriating Arab land was resumed in the Occupied Palestinian
Territories (OPT). Jewish settlers were allowed and/or encouraged
to establish themselves on the expropriated lands in various parts
of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as well as in East Jerusalem.
All this was in violation of the Geneva Convention on territories
o:cupied following wars, and of other international laws and
regulations.
Thus for years, while the embittered Palestinians continued to
reject all or any compromise with the hated "Zionist entity," the
Israeli authorities, though repeatedly stressing their readiness
for peace talks, used the stubborn Palestinian refusal to negotiate
in order to gradually expand their control over the disputed
land.
Is there a way out of this imbroglio - a reasonable way out
acceptable to both parties to the conflict?
Complex situations created by historical upheavals have, as a rule,
no simple solutions, for it is usually impossible to repair the
injustice done to one party without causing grave injustice to the
other. Readmitting into Israel Palestinian refugee families (who by
now number over two million souls) and restoring land ownership to
the status quo ante (before 1948) would no doubt appear to many, if
not most, Palestinians as a natural act of justice.
But what would be the effect on Israel? The demographic change
would transform Israel from a Jewish country into a binational
state, with all the explosive tensions inherent in such a
transformation. What would become of the hundreds of thousands of
Israelis who, for two generations, have been raising their children
and grandchildren on land previously owned and/ or cultivated by
Palestinian peasants?
The changeover would be experienced by those Israelis as a terrible
injustice. In short, "total justice" as demanded by many
Palestinians would be seen by many Israelis as "total
injustice."
Nevertheless, Israel is serious about desiring a peaceful
compromise, there is much that it can and should do in order to
repair wherever possible the injustices inflicted on the
Palestinians. Even more important, it is now necessary for Israel
to draw a clear line which would put an end, once and for all, to
unilateral confiscation of Palestinian land. No peace, and
certainly no reconciliation between Palestinians and Israelis, is
possible without the government of Israel halting additional Jewish
development in the OPT at the expense of what is left of
Palestinian land.
Many, perhaps a majority of Palestinians, have been ready under the
PLO leadership to consider an honorable compromise, but on one
condition: not only no more bloodshed, but also no more
land-grabbing, regardless of the pretext invoked to "justify" it.
Otherwise, all professions of Israeli "goodwill" and its
aspirations to "peace and rapprochement" will be regarded by the
Palestinians as meaningless and hypocritical slogans whose purpose
is to lull them into political submission.
Behind the Oslo Declaration of Principles of September 1993, lay a
philosophy of mutuality, which set out to change the rules of the
game and apply a novel and honest approach to the demands and
aspirations of both parties.
The PLO under Yasser Arafat expressed its readiness to forego its
previous dreams of eliminating "the Zionist entity" and destroying
the state of Israel. De facto, if not de jure, Arafat recognized
Israel's right to exist in peace and security. For its part, the
Rabin-Peres government accepted the right of the Palestinians to
self-rule and reconciled itself, de facto if not de jure, to the
emergence at a future stage of a Palestinian State in the West Bank
and Gaza, alongside the State of Israel. The great conceptual
change was in the mutual acceptance of a territorial compromise,
more or less based on the pre-June 1967 borders.
It is this conceptual change which the Netanyahu government is now
repudiating. Hence the stalemate in the Israeli-Palestinian peace
negotiations and the danger of a deterioration that could lead to
violent confrontations and, eventually, to another Arab-Israeli
war.