In May 2008, the Israelis marked 60 years of independence, and the
Palestinians marked 60 years since their Nakba (catastrophe). This
was a culmination of two very different, frequently conflicting
narratives.
According to the Israeli narrative, the Jews came to being a people
in the area of the land of Israel, or Zion, over 3,000 years ago,
as documented in the Bible. Almost all of the Jews were expelled
from the land about 2,000 years ago, though some Jews remained in
such joint towns as Pekiin and Shfaram and began returning to the
four holy cities of Tiberias, Safed, Jerusalem and Hebron in the
Middle Ages. The concept of return was originally spiritual - the
return to Zion. The geographical aspect became clear only with the
appearance of the modern Zionist movement at the end of the 19th
century, which began the campaign for the return of a significant
number of Jews to their homeland, Eretz Yisrael (the Land of
Israel).
While there were those in the Jewish Diaspora who believed that the
area which became known as Palestine was "a land without a people
for a people without a land," some leading Zionist thinkers such as
Asher Ginsberg (known as Ahad Ha'am), and definitely the Zionist
pioneers who arrived at the end of the 19th and the beginning of
the 20th centuries, knew otherwise. From the beginning, there was a
love-hate relationship between the new arrivals and the Arabs, who
eventually defined themselves as the Palestinian people after the
collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
According to the Palestinian narrative, Palestine was part of this
larger Islamic empire. Its land is Islamic waqf (the collective
property of the Muslim people). The Zionists were, in their
majority, European settlers who were coming to colonize, usurping
the land, and not a persecuted people returning to its
homeland.
As World War I was drawing to a close, the British tried to square
the circle by issuing the Balfour Declaration in 1917, which
promised to create a national home for the Jewish people in
Palestine, without prejudicing "the civil and religious rights of
existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine."
As the sun set on the British empire, they transferred the fate of
the British Mandate over Palestine to the newly created United
Nations, which was supposed to guarantee a stable international
community after the bloody horrors of World War II. Unable to
produce a bi-national one-state solution, a two-thirds majority of
the UN General Assembly voted for Resolution 181, the Partition
Plan, creating a Jewish and an Arab state in the Mandate area of
Palestine, to the west of the Jordan River. The area to the east of
the Jordan River had been removed from the area designated for
Palestine to create the Emirate of Trans-Jordan in 1921 under the
Hashemite Prince Abdullah, known later as the Hashemite Kingdom of
Jordan.
While the modern Jewish national liberation movement, Zionism,
based its claim to a state on the principle of the right to
national self-determination for all peoples, there is no doubt that
the murder of one-third of the Jewish people by the Nazis in the
Holocaust during WWII may have been the factor that guaranteed the
support of the international community for the creation of a Jewish
state.
The Palestinians, naturally, did not feel that they should have to
pay the price for Europe's responsibility for the Holocaust.
History says that the Jews accepted the Partition Plan, while the
Palestinians and their Arab neighbors did not.
The war, known according to the Israeli narrative as the War of
Independence, guaranteed the establishment of the state of Israel
in the expanded territory of the 1949 Armistice Lines, known today
as the Green Line or the 1967 borders. In the Palestinian
narrative, it is known as the 1948 War, which resulted in the
Nakba, the expulsion of about 800,000 refugees from their homeland
and the destruction of about 500 villages.
According to the original Israeli narrative, a large majority of
the refugees left their homes because they were asked to leave by
the leaders of the neighboring Arab countries to clear the area for
battle, or because of the perils of war. The term Nakba was not a
part of the Israeli discourse. According to the Palestinians, they
were driven out by force or intimidated by massacres and other
pressurizing methods.
The Israeli narrative has changed over the years due to the work of
the "New Historians," like Benny Morris, Ilan Pappe and Avi Shlaim,
who, using official sources, have revealed that a significant part
of the Palestinian refugee problem was also caused by Israeli
military actions to "encourage" the Palestinians to leave.
Today, there is a realization that a solution to the refugee
problem is one of the key components of a future peace agreement
between Israel and the Palestinians. As Israel marked its 60th
anniversary, and the Palestinians marked the 60th anniversary of
the Nakba, many Israelis felt that it was difficult to celebrate
without reservations.
While Israel has many great economic, social, cultural and
educational achievements to its credit, the ongoing conflict is a
constant drain on its economic and psychological energies. And
generations of Israeli mothers have continued to dream that their
sons and daughters would not have to serve in a compulsory
army.
Even people on the Israeli right, such as Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who were nurtured on the
tradition of Greater Israel "on both sides of the Jordan," now
understand that a two-state solution is the key to future Israeli
security and prosperity. Olmert has even declared that "without a
two-state solution, Israel is finished" [as a Jewish state].
Unfortunately, their deeds have not matched their words.
The Arab Peace Initiative offers Israel peace and normalized
relations with the entire Arab and Muslim world, based on the
establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel and an
agreed-upon solution to the refugee problem. Israel should declare
that it welcomes the initiative as the basis for negotiations with
the Palestinians and the entire Arab world.
It is clear that a two-state solution will be based on a
Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem - with
possible mutual border rectifications and equal land swaps -
alongside the state of Israel. It requires a total halt to the
settlements and the eventual dismantlement of almost all the
settlements in the West Bank, in exchange for peace and
security.
Israelis and Palestinians have been so traumatized by the ongoing
conflict that we appear to be incapable of arriving at a solution
on our own. The weaknesses of our respective leadership testify to
this fact. We need the constructive involvement of the
international community, led by the United States, to facilitate an
agreement, to monitor its success and to guarantee it
financially.
These mutual traumas are the primary reason why a one-state
solution is not feasible in the foreseeable future. The break-up of
the former Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and
developments in other parts of the world indicate that nationalism
is still a very potent force in the 21st century. Israelis will not
easily give up their dream of a Jewish state, and the Palestinians
have an equal right and motivation to achieve a Palestinian state.
After we achieve a two-state solution, it will be possible to move
forward towards an Israeli-Palestinian confederation, or even a
Middle Eastern Community modeled after the European Union.
In 2008, it is clear that the Israelis cannot truly celebrate their
independence until the Palestinians are also able to celebrate
their independence.