In
my youth I was an uncritical idealistic supporter of Israel because the new
State seemed a noble ideal in the aftermath of the Holocaust and the brutality
of World War 2. During my college years
of 1955-59 the second of the Arab-Israeli wars broke out. My professor of Greek Language at the
University of Richmond found time while translating Thucydides’ The History
of the Peloponnesian War to use his knowledge of the region to pontificate
on the underlying political and strategic issues of the Arab-Israeli Wars of 1948
and 1956. It was noble David fighting off the combined military forces of the
Arab Goliath.
David
won. Well, maybe better stated that Israel fought off the Arab aggressors and
the wars ended in a stalemate with Israel preserving its independence but the fundamental
issues of the war unresolved.
Regrettably those issues still have not been resolved despite regular bloody
battles large and small interspersed with truces and futile attempts to resolve
the conflict with a two-state compromise, but with no resolution of the
fundamental issue there can be no lasting peace.
So
what is this issue? Simply put, it is
about stolen land. A little history* may
help since most people today were not alive when the events occurred that gave
rise to the ongoing conflict, and the breathless talking heads on the morning
news obfuscate the issues through lack of context, ignorance or political
agenda.
Following
World War 2, with little consideration of the trouble it would create, the Western
Allies resettled the displaced Jews from the refugee camps of Europe to the British
“Mandate” of Palestine, which had been occupied for centuries by Jews,
Christians and Arabs co-existing together in a stable if not always harmonious
relationship, to carve out a new homeland for the Jewish people by evicting
non-Jewish residents from Palestine and moving them to “temporary” tent cities
outside the newly-created Jewish homeland. The intent was for them to be absorbed
into the surrounding largely Arab nations. The wealthier evicted residents
emigrated elsewhere (the U.S., Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan), while those
without resources were stuck in the refugee camps.
Tensions
in the Middle East escalated as Israel became stronger. With no resolution for the displaced
Palestinians and little interest among the Arab nations in absorbing them, war
broke out again in 1967 that resulted in Israel again defeating the Arabs and
seizing territory on the west side of the Jordan River and in Sinai, now called
the Occupied Territories. Israel
annexed these territories contrary to international law and UN resolutions and
began a systematic policy of building Jewish settlements on land taken from
Palestinians, demolishing their homes and villages, revoking their residency rights,
denying building permits to non-Israelis, putting down protests violently with
the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), and killing Palestinian teens who threw rocks in
protest against systematic abuse—all to intimidate and harass the Palestinians and
to seize and occupy Palestinian land with the intent to make a two-state
solution impossible.
This
is now and always has been an increasingly desperate fight between Palestinians
whose homes and lands were taken forcibly from them and the State of Israel,
whose citizens now occupy Palestinian homes, farms and villages. It is a fight over land and related issues of
property rights, title to property, eminent domain, right of conquest and just
compensation, all complicated by different legal systems, some based in common
law and others based in religious doctrines of competing religions that do not
allow for legal niceties, practical politics and reasonable compromise. To complicate the land issue there are
emotional issues that intrude: religious history, hopes and dreams, cultural
heritage, ethnic cleansing, the right of return, collective punishment.
Israel
and its supporters argue that it has the right to defend itself against
terrorists but however true that may be as a general principal surely that is
not the issue here. There is a
legitimate argument that when your homes, villages, orchards and livelihoods are
being stolen from you by a powerful state that daily threatens your survival,
you fight for your life and livelihood any way you can.
That is not terrorism, it is asymmetrical warfare.
The Palestinians have no army, no
tanks, no air force, no artillery, so they use what weaker peoples always do
when fighting against a conventional military force, they use guerrilla tactics,
they use what weapons they make in their cellars. That is not terrorism, it is the right of
self-defense and survival. Israel knows
that—they are the same guerrilla tactics the Irgun (predecessor of the
IDF) used against the Arabs in the 1930s and 40s.
The
current escalation of hostilities appears to have begun with the imminent
eviction of six Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem and spiraled
out of control from there. That may have
been the final straw but there was always a preceding event and we could get
into a long senseless argument about who started this current round of violent
conflict by looking at each event and what preceded it ad nauseam into
the past, but that would be singularly unsatisfying and unproductive—it would
not help to end the conflict and stop the bloodshed.
I
have been an interested observer of this conflict all my adult life, literally
since its beginning, but I have become increasingly cynical as the years have
gone by that there is any negotiated or compromise settlement possible given
the complex and intractable nature of the issues and the obstinance of the feuding
parties. The flower fades. Hope and
peace are withering away.
I
last wrote about the Arab-Israeli conflict in 2010 when former Vermont Senator
George Mitchell, an experienced negotiator, was dispatched to the region to try
to jumpstart negotiations. I believed
then and I still believe that the “two state solution” makes rational sense by
giving each side much of what it wants: an independent Palestine incorporating
the contiguous occupied territories; Israel at its original borders; Jerusalem
as an independent free city controlled jointly by Christians, Jews and Muslims;
and a mutual non-aggression pact that assured the cessation of hostilities and
a measure of tranquility.
What
has changed in the past ten years is that while I still believe the two-state
solution is the most desirable outcome, I no longer believe it is a possible
outcome. I cannot see any
circumstance in which Israel voluntarily surrenders the Occupied Territory for
use as the Palestinian homeland, or vacates Jewish settlements built on
Palestinian land, or gives up Jerusalem as its undivided capital, and I cannot
foresee any stomach in the international community to pressure it to do so. Anything less than that would not be
acceptable to the Palestinians and would not result in lasting peace.
Writing in 2010 I had suggested that actions by the government of
Benyamin Netanyahu and his ultra-right political allies made peace less likely
because Israel had imposed a series of draconian and punitive measures on the Occupied
Territories: restricted movement of Palestinians; built new Jewish settlements among
the Palestinians, taking Palestinian lands and dispossessing the inhabitants;
bulldozed Palestinian homes built without Israeli permits while refusing to
issue permits to Palestinians; used repressive and aggressive military and
police actions against Palestinians; imposed restrictions on food, medical
supplies, fuel and food brought into the territories; blocked export of trade
goods out of the territories; and interfered with international charitable and
social service agencies providing much needed relief services.
A reasonable person might conclude those strategies were intended
to provoke the Palestinians to violence in order to give Israel’s political and
military leaders cover to justify continued repressive tactics while they built
and expanded Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory. When the Palestinians fight back against the
repression Israel loudly proclaims that its right of defense against Palestinian
“terrorists” justifies and excuses wildly-disproportionate destructive attacks
on Palestinians, currently evident in the IDF attacks on Gaza.
When there is such disproportionate power between the two sides,
as there is between the Israelis and Palestinians, a negotiated resolution is impossible
because it would be a de facto surrender. The brutality of the current conflict has
resulted in the expected and dutiful urgent calls by international powers for both
sides to stand down into some form of truce. Of course if an armed truce
happens it will be a temporary respite until once again the Palestinians are
fed up with the daily abuse and sanctimonious pronouncements by the Israelis that
they are the good guys trying to maintain order against hostile troublemakers
and terrorists while they feign ignorance about any alleged abuses.
Eventually the international powers may get fed up with these ugly and dangerous periodic destabilizing violent flareups and could get together to impose a solution on the partisans. But don’t hold your breath.
_________________
*This is a brief outline of events in a complex,
rich and interesting history. It is not possible to understand the
difficulties of peace without comprehending how this intractable problem has
developed, the current players and parties to the conflict, and their various
agendas. To name a few: The extreme right wing religious parties of
Israel led by Netanyahu who argue that they have the right to all the land
formerly occupied by Jews in Old Testament times. American Christian Fundamentalists, who have
co-opted elements of the extreme right wing of the U.S. Republican Party, who
support Israel’s Zionists because they believe that Jesus will return when the
Jews are in full control of the Promised Land. Elements of Hamas, Iranian-backed Islamist
militants, with their own agenda that includes gaining control of the al Aqsa
Mosque and East Jerusalem, which has
significance as the third most important holy place for Muslims. The Palestine Liberation Organization.
