After serving four years as Israeli co-editor of the Palestine
Israel Journal (PIJ) and co-editing twelve issues, I am stepping
down from my role, leaving for a sabbatical abroad. Hillel
Schenker, who fulfilled the role of the Israeli co-managing editor
with great dedication, will begin to serve as the Israeli co-editor
of the journal alongside Ziad Abu-Zayyad. I am sure that under his
co-leadership, the PIJ will be greatly rewarded and I wish him
great success in his new position.
I believe that the Palestine Israel Journal will continue to play a
role, as it has in the past, in the process of enlightening the
Israeli and the Palestinian publics and moving them towards
acceptance of the peace process.
The current issue is another contribution to this process of
illumination. Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia (as well as
anti-Arabism) play a role in the accumulation of animosity and
hatred. They provide a basis for the ill-intended rhetoric and
actions that broaden the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They are the
backbones of the negative psychological inter-group repertoire and
therefore must be eliminated in both societies. The articles in the
issue present their scope, contents, roots and consequences. They
make an important contribution to their understanding.
In conclusion, I would like to say that the work at the PIJ is not
a normal one. I always saw it as a mission that goes beyond
personal needs and goals. Only this view allowed me to persist and
continue the important undertaking of the PIJ. We went through all
kinds of crises and it was not always easy for me to cope with
them. Interestingly, the large crisis - the political one, of the
violent context, we passed with relative ease, and this shows that
the PIJ has the strength of conviction in peaceful coexistence. No
doubt the credit for this success has to be given to the
Palestinian partners, and especially to Ziad.
During the years of my mission in the PIJ, I tried my best not only
to help the Journal to continue and publish the best issues that we
could, to expand the list of contributors and promote it to new
audiences, but also to create a climate of trust, cooperation and
intimacy in the organization. This was a special challenge, as I
believe that in the PIJ we should recreate an example of what
should be good relations among people.
I leave the PIJ with a good feeling that the mission is being
fulfilled. We play an important role in "maintaining the channels
for cooperation and dialogue between the Palestinians and Israelis
and provide a forum where the complex issues of the conflict are
examined seriously, freely and critically." Also I believe that we
succeed to create a warm and friendly atmosphere in the
office.
Due to financial difficulties, the staff worked for many months
without salaries, and I admire their devotion and loyalty to the
Journal. They are the ones that provide the energy, wisdom and
tolerance that plays an important part in the PIJ's existence. It
was an honor to work with such a staff, and I wish them much
success in their personal life, as well in the mission they perform
for the benefit of the two nations.
Personal Observations about Israeli-Palestinian
Relations
I would like to use this opportunity to sum up my observations and
evaluations about Israeli-Palestinian relations, which my role at
the PIJ helped to collect. I have learned that accumulated
grievances, hostility, fear, hate and contentions are deeply rooted
in the psyche of both nations. Years of violent confrontations,
which caused suffering to the Jews and Palestinians in this region,
and the continuous mutual delegitimization were imprinted on the
collective psyche of both nations. These ferocious experiences
penetrated deeply into the public cultures of both nations and fed
the creation of a destructive psychological repertoire. This
repertoire motivated and led to violent actions on both
sides.
We Jews are imprinted by the continuous Palestinian violence, which
not only hurts us, but also arouses strong feelings of fear and
insecurity because of our specific long, collective traumatic
history. We view our fallen and injured indiscriminately - whether
soldiers or civilians that include children and women and men. All
of them - whether they fell in suicidal bombings, knifings,
battles, stone-throwing or attempts to arrest people - are
perceived as victims of Palestinian terror. This way of thinking
diminishes the brutal meaning of real terror acts and their
consequences. We also indiscriminately view different ways of
Palestinian resistance to our occupation. All acts of resistance,
either violent or nonviolent, serve many of us as evidence of the
Palestinian refusal to resolve the conflict peacefully, their wish
to destroy the Jewish state of Israel, their anti-Semitic views,
their barbaric traditions, their fanaticism and lack of concern
about human life. The result of this view is that a great majority
of the Jews in Israel are ready to inflict almost any harsh measure
to stop Palestinian violence and other acts of resistance, and to
teach them a lesson. They pay little attention to the context of
the Palestinians' violence and resistance, its reasons, basis,
types or types of performers.
The Palestinians focus mainly on their land and their conditions of
life as a result of occupation. They see that the Zionist project
does not end. It began in 1882 and, in spite the fact that the
Jewish state of Israel was established in 1948, the project has
continued through 2005 with the same vigor, determination,
manipulation, force and self-righteousness as in the 1920s or
1930s. It is clear to them that we did not finish the expansion
with their disaster of 1948 - but dunam (ΒΌ acre) after dunam
we continue to expand into Palestinian land and destroy the dream
of establishing their independent state. This expansion is done
with the powerful means of the state, with the participation and
help of all its mighty institutions, organizations and organs. This
expansion has not been carried out by irredentist and fanatical
groups, but by the Israeli government, the legislative body, the
legal system and all the powerful security forces of Israel, which
have planned and executed the scheme of expansion, often performing
illegal acts in accordance with the Israeli laws.
No nation in the world looks passively on the destruction of its
own national basis, but all the nations resist, mainly violently,
their own destruction. Within this context, any resistance to
Jewish presence, occupation or expansion, whether violent or
peaceful, is met with an iron fist and presented as a reflection of
the will to annihilate Jews with terrorism. The acts of preventing
violence and controlling Palestinian life are interwoven into the
massive machinery that embitters the life of the Palestinians on a
daily basis through roadblocks, curfews, territorial closures,
prevention of free movement, limitation of basic human rights and
control of almost every aspect of their life. All are consequences
of an evil occupation. In such a climate it is hard to see any
progress towards a peaceful resolution of the conflict.
We, the Israeli Jews, have much more power and control to transform
the reality that can change the motivational basis of the
Palestinians to engage in violence. But the governments that ruled
Israel in the past four years did not search for accommodation,
negotiation and a peaceful resolution with the Palestinians that
could meet their minimal national needs. The leadership shifted its
aspiration to ensure security through force, to expand Israel into
the West Bank to the maximum potential in the present international
context, to establish maximum control over the life of the
Palestinians, to widen the schism in Palestinian society and to
weaken the Palestinian Authority (which later served as a
justification for the refusal to negotiate). All of this was done
with a well-propagated rationalization about the lack of a partner,
the weakness of the Palestinian leadership and the lack of security
that has always been accepted by the majority of the Israeli
Jews.
These goals serve as a fertile ground for the arousal of
dissatisfaction by the Palestinian masses that lose hope in the
peace process. They lead to the disintegration of the central
moderate authorities, the growth of extreme forces and an increase
in violence which later serves as evidence to the Israeli public of
the rightness of the governmental claims. It is a self-fulfilling
prophecy at its best.
I am not diminishing the colossal meaning of the withdrawal of the
Jewish settlements and military presence from the Gaza Strip. This
is an historical precedent that indicates that settlements can be
dismantled in Greater Israel. In spite of this dramatic change, the
future does not look promising. Although many Israelis and
Palestinians recognize the contours of the possible
Israeli-Palestinian final agreement in the Clinton Plan, the Taba
talks and the Geneva Initiative, there is no real will or intention
on the Israeli side to grasp this possibility and make an effort to
turn the dreams of peace into reality.
The changes in the Israeli political map and the elections in both
societies place both of them on a crossroads. There is a
possibility to open a new page in relations by beginning
negotiations and moving in coordination via the Road Map towards a
peaceful resolution of the conflict. But there is also a real
possibility that the elected Israeli government will continue
unilateral moves in order to fortify Israel behind the wall,
creating a Bantustan Palestinian state. The latter path will surely
lead to the continuation of the conflict and mutual
bloodshed.
Although the Israeli public has traveled a long way from denying
Palestinian national existence, it still has to progress further to
support the accepted contours of a possible solution, which ensures
the existence of Israel as a Jewish state and also sets the
conditions for the establishment of a sovereign, viable and
contiguous Palestinian state, with a divided Jerusalem. It will be
in the power of the new elected Israeli government to determine the
course of events. It is my hope that it will embark on the road of
well-intentioned and frank negotiations that can bring peace and
prosperity to the deeply wounded nations, and will not yield to the
extreme forces that strive to continue the bloody conflict for
generations.
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