Enemies exist in reality. In fact, the history of much of the world
and certainly of our region is the history of enemies engaged in
conflict and continued strife. The plight and hardship endured by
Palestinians, throughout this century, is the result of the
conflict with Israelis. The Israelis, too, have endured hardships
as a result of their conflict with Palestinians and Arabs. Whatever
the interpretations and justifications, in the final analysis, the
relationships between Palestinians and Israelis until now are best
characterized as those of enemies.
Some would like to explain the root cause of enmity as lying in
attitudes, in differing world views and in the refusal to
acknowledge the other for simply being the other. This implies a
psycho logistic approach to conflict and a sharp break with
reality. Granted that relationships of enmity have psychological
effects on individuals, groups and nations, but these are resultant
from a situation of conflict and not its root cause. To start with,
it is the specific and concrete situation of conflict which is
responsible for enmity and its various sociopolitical and
psychological manifestations.
Attitudes of Palestinian Arabs and Jews to each other, early on in
this century, could not be characterized as those of enmity. Enmity
between the two evolved as the result of the conflicting claims to
the land. As long as the Arabs did not perceive a threat from Jews
to their claim, they did not have a reason to suspect Jews and to
treat them as enemies. No one can argue that Palestinian Arabs were
inherently anti-Jewish and, therefore, disapproved of the arrival
of Jewish immigrants to Palestine on this ground. At the same time,
the Jewish immigrants who started to gather in Palestine did not
care much for the Arabs of the country. Their interest was the
return to the land without consideration for the Arab inhabitants
or their claims. Their return was certainly not motivated by an
inherently anti-Arab attitude, but rather by an ideological
disposition which eventually pitted them against the local Arab
population and other Arabs.
An Equation of Enmity
I am not arguing that relations between Arabs and Jews were ideal,
but that, if we want to understand the enmity between the two, we
have to examine the history of contact between them, especially
since the imposition of the British Mandate on Palestine. How the
Jews and Arabs came to perceive each other is dependent on the
establishment of a new entity on the one hand, and the dissolution
of society and national community on the other. Feelings and
attitudes of Jews and Arabs towards each other were formed in the
sociopolitical reality which prevailed during the British Mandate.
Certainly, the intercommunal strife and the ongoing confrontations
in different parts of the country led to the development of
stereotype images of the other in which negative psychological
projections became the norm.
There is here an equation of enmity in which the establishment of
state and loss of homeland reinforced and strengthened the mostly
negative images and attitudes formed up to 1948. To Palestinians,
the loss of homeland and disintegration of their society left scars
which they carried with them to their refugee camps, to host
countries and to every place they went. In one sense, the
Palestinians carried their enemies with them. The extent of
Palestinian hurt was best summarized by the term Al-nakbeh, the
disaster. Reminiscences and memories of life in cities, towns,
villages and homes left behind in Palestine were for a long time
the psychological mainstay of Palestinians. But they were also the
nucleus around which socialization of younger generations, born
outside Palestine, took place. The Israelis were responsible for
all this hurt and, naturally, it was expected that the hurt would
be returned not simply to Israelis, but also to Westerners who
supported the Jews in accomplishing their national objective to the
detriment of Palestinians.
To Israelis, the establishment of the State was the fulfillment of
an age-old dream. The turn of events which led to the creation of
Israel was, in part, due to the hostility and refusal shown by
Arabs to the Zionist enterprise. The original expectation was that
Arabs in Palestine would not be hostile. This expectation rested to
a great extent on negating the other and their claim to the land.
Arab hostility further reinforced the negation process of the
other, on the Israeli side. Negation, however, was accompanied by
the belief that the language of force was the only language
understood by Arabs. Legitimation for this position found various
justifications, especially in the first two decades of the life of
the State.
The 1948 war heralded the regionalization of the conflict and
enmity between Arabs and Jews. Political transformations took place
in the Arab world - Egypt and Iraq as examples - in part as
response to the defeat suffered by Arabs in the war. The centrality
of the Palestinian problem to the Arab nationalist movement, led by
Nasser, served to strengthen pan-Arab solidarity and the resolve of
Arabs to liberate Palestine. Among Palestinians, the fifties and
sixties witnessed socioeconomic and political transformations which
eventually enabled them to set up the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO).
Mounting Nationalism, Fortress Mentality
The establishment of the PLO could be read as the start of an
empowerment process in which Palestinians acted out their hurt and
anger against those responsible for inflicting them. But the
fifties and sixties could be seen, in terms of enmity, as a time of
preparation for a second showdown. Arabs and Palestinians started
examining the causes of the disaster and they came to difficult
conclusions which reflected on the archaic nature of Arab social
organization, the corruption of political systems and the need to
match Israel, on different counts, if they were to win the next
round. Some Palestinians attributed some of Israel's advantage to
thinkers, academics and researchers who laid some of the groundwork
to its eventual victory. As a parallel, Palestinians set up their
own research centers, libraries and other academic institutions
which focused on their own society and on Israeli society, as well.
Knowing the enemy could not be left to feelings and emotions. More
in-depth understanding was needed, certainly not for the sake of
understanding as such, but in order to be better equipped to
confront the enemy. Thus, an element of objectivity seeped in which
affected the stereotypes of years past with more realistic
assessments.
With the mounting Arab nationalism of the fifties and sixties,
Israel developed a fortress mentality. Israeli foreign ministers,
on the yearly occasion of the State's establishment, were
accustomed to broadcasting messages in Arabic expressing
willingness to meet any Arab leader, in whatever place, to make
peace. In reality, however, Israel was not ready for peace because
it was preoccupied with the absorption of hundreds of thousands of
new immigrants and it was not ready to pay the exorbitant price of
peace. It is even doubtful that a majority of Israelis were
interested, or even cared, to know the Arabs and the Palestinians
and their experience in an objective manner. In fact, what befell
the Palestinians was of their own making and the Israelis never
felt responsible for what had happened. While Israel kept its alert
militarily and proceeded to amass information on its enemy neighbor
states, the preoccupations of Israelis were light-years from those
of their neighbors or even from those Arabs who lived within the
boundaries of the State.
The 1967 war was the turning point in the history of enmity between
Palestinians and Israelis. With Israeli jubilation and Arab
depression at the swiftness and outcome of the war, a new-old
reality reasserted itself: the two national groups were once again
living side by side in the territory of Mandatory Palestine but now
in a relationship of occupier and occupied. The prevailing
conditions were certainly different from those under the Mandate,
but the demographics of the post-1967 situation clearly indicated
that the conflict between Arab and Jew in Palestine remained to be
solved. The Palestinians, light-years away from the preoccupations
of Israelis, were all of a sudden at their doorstep. The Israelis,
who were depicted in the worst language possible, were slowly
discovered to have a colorful variety of characteristics and not
simply black. Boundaries between the two groups were strictly laid
and the occupation authorities made sure of exercising their
controlling power to that effect. In spite of this, the two groups
were once again face to face.
Israeli Reexamination
Those Israelis who were optimistic for a liberal occupation
eventually acknowledged that occupation is occupation. The
implication was that it could not be a viable system of governance
of one people over another.
To many Palestinians who came in daily contact with Israelis, the
reality of Israel as a different and distinct entity from the West
Bank and Gaza Strip started to be considered. The wounds and scars
of past years were not forgotten, but the knowledge of the other,
the enemy, started to be oriented more by reality than by feelings
and emotions emanating from reminiscences and memories of the
pre-1948 period. Yet the relationships of Palestinians and Israelis
were not normal ones, but those of enemies. As the "live and let
live" policy of early occupation evolved into more oppressive
measures to control the Palestinian population and its resources,
some Israelis started questioning the ethical and moral
implications of a continued occupation, though the majority of
Israelis did not care about what happened in the administered
territories.
On the Palestinian side, social and political developments were
geared to confronting occupation. In the act of confrontation, new
scars and wounds were imprinted on the Palestinians and eventually
on the Israelis, as well. Palestinians and Israelis became involved
in a mutual, and yet unequal, struggle. Palestinians realized they
were not powerless but were capable of hitting back at those who
controlled and restricted them. This realization provided
psychological reinforcement as it pitted Palestinian youngsters
against Israeli soldiers often in personalized confrontations.
Palestinians discovered that Israeli soldiers felt fear the same
way they themselves did. This discovery often took on an
exaggerated projection: fear is a characteristic of the enemy but
not of us; we are so daring, determined and heroic that nothing can
stop us. This exaggerated projection eventually gave way to the
realization that the conflict in its essence is a political one and
needs a political solution to resolve it.
This realization started to take hold among some Israelis too.
Peace groups which started forming in the late seventies and
matured into the eighties saw no option but to acknowledge the
rights of Palestinians. There was a reexamination and a
redefinition of the Israeli position, albeit in limited circles,
yet it proved essential in facilitating contact with the enemy, the
PLO and its emissaries in distant capitals. The official line,
however, persisted in its adamant negation of the Palestinians as
represented by the PLO. The occupation, with all its oppressive
measures, set the stage for a revision of positions on both sides.
This revision was not planned nor was it total as significant
numbers, on both sides, continued to insist on maxima list and
exclusivist positions, i.e., either us or them.
While the first two decades of occupation led inadvertently to a
slow change in perception among segments of both societies, it was
regional and international events which molded the changing
perceptions and reinforced them. The 1973 war which culminated in
the Sadat visit and the peace between Egypt and Israel was a
crucial link in the transformation process of enmity. The Israeli
invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the dispersal of the PLO fighters
was another such link because it forced the PLO to redefine. The
changes of the mid and late eighties in the Eastern bloc countries
eventually left their impact on all parties to the Arab-Israeli
conflict, each for its own reasons and interests.
Ready for Accommodation
The Intifada, with its specific call to end occupation, was a mass
reaction to an actual situation of occupation; there was no talk
among the Intifada Palestinians of dismantling Israel. The message
was clear: the occupation must end and Palestinians should exercise
their right to self-determination. The Palestine National Council
(PNC) decisions of 1988 showed the willingness of Palestinians to
accommodate, based on realistic assessments of changes within the
Occupied Territories, the region and the world.
On the Israeli side, some veteran politicians were expressing fears
that a continued subjugation of another people would result either
in an apartheid state or in a binational state. The conclusion was
that Israel should rid itself of ruling another people. But neither
this position nor the PNC decisions, on the Palestinian side, were
unanimous.
The Gulf crisis and war made many Palestinians realize that their
cause was no longer a number one priority in the Arab world. It was
also clear that the alliance which was created to confront Iraq
would be recreated to come to the rescue of Israel, if it were
seriously threatened. Political realities and alliances were
changing around them and Palestinians needed to adapt themselves to
those changes in order to survive. For Israel, the changes in the
region and the global balance of power meant that new possibilities
were arising which necessitated a change of position towards the
Palestinians.
The handshake between Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin in Washington
was certainly not the result of a drastic change of heart in both
men, but was a political one reflecting the changing realities and
interests of both Palestinians and Israelis. It was not the
culmination of a genuine reconciliation process but the reflection
of a political process, of accommodation and negotiation. Each side
wanted to get the most out of this process and notions such as
historic• reconciliation were certainly not part of the game.
For reconciliation to occur, we must await another process of
transformation which will probably take another decade or two. In
this process Palestinians have the unenviable task of creating
their institutions, developing their economy and upgrading the
extent and quality of their social services. In other words, the
Palestinians need to get to the point of being independent and
feeling confident about themselves. Cooperation between strong and
weak, rich and poor is not destined to succeed.
The vision of a new Middle East necessitates also the realization
by Israelis that they cannot be hegemonic or patronizing. Issues
such as relative justice to Palestinian refugees and the sharing of
one Jerusalem with mutual respect and tolerance are important
components in the creation of the vision of a new Middle East. Much
needs to be done in order for the process to come to its maturation
point. Changes in attitudes and feelings and willingness for mutual
acknowledgment and trust are based on actual experiences. The more
these experiences in the coming decade or so reinforce positive
attitudes and feelings, the more they will lead to an era of peace
and prosperity for all in this region.