WHAT CHANCE PALESTINIAN SELF DETERMINATION?
ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS IN THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES: A
Guide
A Special Report of the Foundation for Middle East Peace
March 2002
Published by the Foundation
for Middle East Peace
"Unless there is willingness in Israel
to change its mentality or to evict settlements, and not only the isolated ones; unless
Israel seriously considers going back to the1967 borders--some minor adjustments here and
there will be fine--then the conflict will continue for a very long period of time. No
Palestinian leader in his right mind will ever accept a situation in which Israel can keep
its settlers happy and achieve peace."
- Khalil Shikaki, Associate Professor of Political Science at Bir Zeit University and
Director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah, in Palestine-Israel
Journal, Vol. VII, No. 3, 4, 2000
"Every time I have gone to Israel in connection with the peace process on each of my
trips I have been met with the announcement of new settlement activity. This does violate
United States policy. It is the first thing that Arabs--Arab governments--the first thing
that Palestinians in the territories--whose situation is really quite desperate--the first
thing they raise when we talk to them. I don't think there is any greater obstacle to
peace than settlement activity that continues not only unabated but at an advanced
pace."
- Former U. S. Secretary of State James A. Baker, May 22, 1991
"A cessation of Palestinian-Israeli violence will be particularly hard to sustain
unless the Government of Israel freezes all settlement activity. The Government of Israel
should also give careful consideration to whether settlements that are the focal points
for substantial friction are valuable bargaining chips for future negotiation or
provocations likely to preclude the onset of productive talks."
- Report of the Sharm el-Sheikh Fact-Finding Committee (The Mitchell Report) May 20, 2001
"The Sharon Government, with the backing of the Labor Party, is continuing the
settlement policy in the territories. The creation of new settlements inflames the
conflict with the Palestinians and endangers more Israeli soldiers and civilians. The
settlements policy also jeopardizes Israel's position in the new world constellation
formed in the wake of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. The Settlements are an
obstacle to any future agreement, and, as in the past, the settlers are endangering
Israel's security and leading us on a suicidal path."
- Professor Arie Arnon, Peace Now Update, October 4, 2001
"The settlements established in these territories through miserable decisions by all
the governments of Israel, are draining the economy, undermining social solidarity and
creating huge and harmful gaps between the settlers--who are granted encouragement and
benefits by the government--and the citizens who live within the Green Line and carry a
heavy burden. The injuries to innocent civilians, the unbearable delays at the roadblocks,
the humiliation of hundreds of thousands of human beings, the insolent construction of new
settlements--these are the bitter fruit of the occupation of the territories. The
occupation is not only eroding the ability of the sovereign state to defend itself, and is
not only undermining its moral standing in the eyes of the world, but is also splitting
Israeli society. It is retarding its development and sowing violence and hatred within
it."
- Ha'aretz, Editorial, February 15, 2002
"The Six-Day War was forced upon us; however, the war's seventh day, which began on
June 12, 1967 and has continued to this day, is the product of our choice. We
enthusiastically chose to become a colonial society, ignoring international treaties,
expropriating lands, transferring settlers from Israel to the occupied territories,
engaging in theft and finding justification for all these activities. Passionately
desiring to keep the occupied territories, we developed two judicial systems:
one--progressive, liberal--in Israel; and the other--cruel, injurious--in the occupied
territories. In effect, we established an apartheid regime in the occupied territories
immediately following their capture. That oppressive regime exists to this day.
This is the harsh reality that is causing us to lose the moral base of our existence as a
free, just society and to jeopardize Israel's long-range survival. Israel's security
cannot be based only on the sword; it must rather be based on our principles of moral
justice and on peace with our neighbors--those living next door and those living a little
further away. An occupation regime undermines those principles of moral justice and
prevents the attainment of peace. Thus, that regime endangers Israel's existence."
- Michael Ben-Yair, Attorney General, Israel 1993-1996, Ha'aretz, March 3, 2002
"The only way for Israelis to have security is, quite simply, to end the 35-year-old
occupation of Palestinian territory. Israelis must abandon the myth that it is possible to
have peace and occupation at the same time, that peaceful coexistence is possible between
slave and master. The lack of Israeli security is born of the lack of Palestinian freedom.
Israel will have security only after the end of occupation, not before."
- Marwan Barghouti, General-Secretary of the Fateh Party (West Bank), The
Washington Post, January 16, 2002
The Zionist experience of state building in Palestine in the first half of this century led Israelis leaders to believe that civilian Jewish settlements were the building blocks upon which sovereignty was created and which defined its territorial limits. These leaders viewed security, sovereignty, and settlement as inextricably linked. For them, security achieved by settlement was an existential concept rather than a military imperative. As Moshe Dayan explained, Jewish settlements in the occupied territories are essential "not because they can ensure security better than the army, but because without them we cannot keep the army in those territories. Without them the IDF would be a foreign army ruling a foreign population."
During the first decade of occupation after the 1967 war, Labor-led governments established the infrastructure and institutions for the creation and expansion of permanent Israeli settlement in the territories. Labor's approach was incremental, but after 1977, Begin's Likud government embraced settlements as its raison d'être and the key to the Likud's political renaissance. Aside from the ideological imperative to settle the land, Begin viewed settlements as his opportunity to create a political constituency rooted in the settlements of the West Bank just as Labor had done with its kibbutz and moshav settlements in pre-state Israel.
In July 1977 Begin refused President Jimmy
Carter's request to freeze settlement activity. At the time, there were about 50,000
Israelis living in annexed East Jerusalem, but only 7,000 settlers in 45 civilian outposts
in the West Bank and Gaza.
In September 1977 Begin's minister of agriculture, Ariel Sharon, unveiled "A vision
of Israel at Century's End," calling for the settlement of 2 million Jews in the
occupied territories. The Likud plan proposed settling Jews in areas of Arab habitation
and for numerous settlement points as well as large urban concentrations in three
principle areas:
-- a north-south axis running from the Golan
through the Jordan Valley and down the east coast of Sinai;
-- a widened corridor around Jerusalem; and
-- the populated western slopes of the Samarian heartland of the West Bank.
This last wedge of Jewish settlement was of
prime concern to Likud strategists, particularly Sharon, who was intent upon establishing
Israeli settlements to separate the large blocs of Arab population on either side of the
Green Line north of Tel Aviv.
Settlements under Likud were designed to bring about a "demographic
transformation" of the territories and a Jewish majority there. The co-chairman of
the World Zionist Organization's Settlement Department, Mattityahu Drobless, noted that
the Likud plan "will enable us to bring about the dispersion of the [Jewish]
population from the densely populated urban strip of the coastal plain eastward to the
presently empty [of Jews] areas of Judea and Samaria."
Likud's intention to preempt the possibility of a territorial division of the land and to strike at the basis of potential Palestinian sovereignty by destroying the continuity of Palestinian-controlled territory was stated clearly by Drobless more than twenty years ago. "The disposition of the settlements must be carried out not only around the settlements of the minorities [Arabs], but also in between them. . . ." When negotiators met during 2000 at Camp David to reach a permanent agreement on a border, they had to deal with an area in which Palestinian cities, town, and villages were often surrounded and separated by Israeli settlements and roads.
The Government of Israel has used legal ruses to confiscate Palestinian land for settlements. It has allocated hundreds of millions of dollars annually for the development and expansion of settlements in occupied territories. Settlement construction fluctuates between 2,000 and 5,000 housing units each year. By the end of 1985, the settler population in the West Bank and Gaza stood at 42,000, a 100 percent increase since 1982. By 1990, it stood at 76,000. In addition, 120,000 Israelis had settled in East Jerusalem, 10,000 more were in the Golan Heights, and 3,000 lived in Gaza.
Settlements and the Oslo Agreements
The 1993 and 1995 Oslo Agreements did not expressly prohibit expansion of settlements
and deferred negotiation of borders and settlements until final status talks to be held by
1996. However, they preserved the "integrity and status" of the West Bank and
Gaza during the interim period. Nevertheless, settlement construction continued and the
population in the West Bank and Gaza doubled again. As of February 2002, there are 400,000
Israelis living in occupied territory. In the West Bank, there are 206,000 Israeli
settlers and 2 million Palestinians, although settlements, adjacent confiscated land,
settlement roads and other land controlled by the IDF cover 59 percent of the area. In the
Gaza Strip, 7,000 settlers control 20 percent of this 140 square mile area amidst about
1.1 million Palestinians. There are 170,000 settlers in East Jerusalem and 16,000 in the
Golan Heights. Many Israeli settlements in the West Bank are strategically located to
command access to the main aquifer underlying the West Bank and Israel. Settlers consume
six times more water per capita than Palestinians.
American Policy Toward Settlements
Until the early 1980's, the U.S., like all other states except Israel, viewed Israeli
settlements as a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. After President Reagan
declared that settlements were not "illegal," in contrast to previous U.S.
policy, the U.S. took no legal position on settlements, although all subsequent
administrations have opposed settlements as an obstacle to peace. No U.S. administration
has been able to persuade Israel to halt or significantly slow settlement growth.
In December 2000, President Clinton proposed borders for a Palestinian state encompassing 94-96 percent of the West Bank that would have required abandonment of scores of settlements, but allowed the retention of large bloc settlements near the Green Line in exchange for swaps of Israeli land to the new Palestinian state. Clinton's proposals became moot after the elections of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and President George W. Bush. The Bush administration has made no proposals for resolving the problem.
Policy of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has devoted his career to expanding settlements, has
built 25 new settlement outposts since his election in January 2001. The Mitchell Plan,
which is designed to bring about a cease-fire in the current uprising and a return to
negotiations, calls for a "freeze" on settlements. Sharon has nominally accepted
a freeze, but has reserved the right to continue "natural growth," a formula
that Israel has used in the past to mask settlement expansion. Sharon has accepted the
concept of a Palestinian state, but only in 42 percent of the West Bank and Gaza, the area
that is now under Palestinian administrative control. Sharono has said that Israel will
not abandon any settlements.
Settlements vs. Peace
Today, there is no prospect for a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza
without abandonment of most Israeli settlements. Palestinian negotiators have indicated
that if there were agreement in principle that the borders of the Palestinian state are
defined by the 1967 Green Line, including East Jerusalem, they would be willing to discuss
border adjustments. Such an arrangement might cede to Israel large, heavily populated
settlements located near the Green Line in return for Palestinian annexation of equivalent
areas of land on the Israeli side of the line.
In 1980 Professor Jacob Talmon of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, a renowned Israeli authority on Zionism and nationalism, wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Begin calling for an end to Israel's policies of occupation and settlement. Foreshadowing the current violent confrontation between Palestinians and Israelis, Talmon said, "The combination of subjection, national oppression and social inferiority is a time bomb" for the future of Israel. He urged Begin: "Let us not compel the Arabs to feel that they have been humiliated until they believe that hope is gone and they must die for Palestine."
Talmon's warning was prophetic. If the settlements remain, as Sharon intends, blocking the creation of a viable Palestinian state, the outcome will be chronic civil war. Today, majorities in both societies support the concept of two states. Palestinians are unlikely to abandon their struggle for a sovereign state of their own, and no Israeli government is likely to attempt to "transfer" Palestinians, although one party in Sharon's coalition advocates this. Israeli demographers predict that the fast-growing Arab population in Israel and the territories will exceed the Jewish population by 2020. Thus, if Israel is determined to preserve both a Jewish state as well as its settlements in the territories, it must continue to use military force to repress and dominate a hostile Palestinian populace that within this century will outnumber the Jews. Such an outcome would perpetuate violence, deny security for Israel, prevent justice for Palestinians, and corrupt and destroy Israel's character as a democratic state.SETTLEMENTS AND INTERNATIONAL LAW
UN Security Council Resolution 465 of 1980:
5. Determines that all measures taken by Israel to change the physical character,
demographic composition, institutional structure or status of the Palestinian and other
Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, or any part thereof, have no
legal validity and that Israel's policy and practices of settling parts of its population
and new immigrants in those territories constitute a flagrant violation of the Fourth
Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and also
constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in
the Middle East.
The Fourth Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a signatory states that "the
Occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the
territory it occupies".
The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998) defines "the transfer
directly or indirectly by the Occupying power of parts of its own civilian population into
the territory it occupies" as a War Crime indictable by the International Criminal
Court.
Peace Through 'De-Occupation'
By
Michael Tarazi
Washington Post
June 19, 2002
After 35 years of Israeli occupation, most Palestinians roll their eyes at the mention of
the phrase "interim agreement" -- and with good reason. Interim agreements are
Israel's way of tossing the Palestinians a few bones, such as the right to design postage
stamps or issue license plates -- while Israel continues to confiscate Palestinian land
and build more illegal Israeli colonies. In other words, interim agreements are Israel's
way of prolonging its occupation of Palestinian territory, not ending it. This is why
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon keeps talking of a "long-term" interim
agreement -- and why Palestinians will have none of it.
But despite the visceral Palestinian reaction, an interim agreement could work if it
addressed Palestinian concerns over Israel's brutal and unyielding policy of colonizing
the occupied territories. Since Israel's 1967 occupation, Israel has transferred, in
flagrant violation of the fourth Geneva Convention, nearly 370,000 Israeli civilians into
those territories to live in more than 130 illegal Israeli colonies. The enterprise, which
requires confiscating Palestinian land not only for colonies but also for related roads
and infrastructure, has resulted in Israeli colonies' controlling nearly 42 percent of the
West Bank. Since the 1993 Oslo accords, the number of settlers living in the occupied
territories has nearly doubled.
While the world has been distracted by violence in the region, the very causes of that
violence have continued unabated. Sharon has constructed 34 new illegal colonies since
taking power. This is the single largest factor in undermining Palestinian confidence that
Israel will ever abide by international law and withdraw to its 1967 borders -- a lack of
trust that lies at the heart of the current wave of Palestinian resistance.
For that reason, an interim agreement could work only if it tangibly reversed Israel's
occupation rather than allowing it to continue unabated -- that is, established a
mechanism of "de-occupation." The concept is simple: Create incentives for the
settlers to move back to Israel. Many of the settlers living in the occupied territories
live there not for ideological reasons but because it makes good financial sense.
Every Israeli government, Likud or Labor, has maintained incentives to lure Israelis into
the territories. Most settlers enjoy a wide array of benefits, including subsidized
mortgages, a 7 percent reduction in income taxes and subsidized education. Given similar
incentives for doing so, many would prefer to return to Israel. De-occupation would
require Israel not only to put a freeze on all its colonization activity, including the
large loophole of "natural growth," but also to end the incentive package that
transforms innocent Israelis into political pawns. But de-occupation goes a step further
by requiring Israel to establish similar incentives to lure Israeli settlers back to
Israel.
De-occupation's advantage would be that it would reverse occupation not through a forced
and perhaps violent evacuation of Israelis but rather by allowing settlers to exercise
their own choice. Most important, by addressing the existential threat that Israeli
colonies pose to the Palestinians, successful de- occupation would inspire confidence
among a justifiably skeptical Palestinian population.
But given that Israel has historically demonstrated that it is more interested in land
than in peace, most Palestinians wonder what could possibly induce Israel to adopt such a
mechanism. First, a stick: The United States would actually live up to its stated ideal of
defending the rule of law and condition U.S. aid on Israel's implementation of such a
mechanism. Then, a carrot: Address Israel's own existential threat -- the Palestinian
refugees who have not been able to return to Israel. For each settler who returned to
Israel, a Palestinian refugee who wanted to return to the future Palestinian state would
be admitted to the occupied territories. There is, of course, no moral equivalence between
Palestinian refugees who have a legal right to return and Israeli settlers who are
residing illegally in the territories. Thus a Palestinian refugee should never be forced
to give up a right in order to induce Israel to correct its "wrongs." But if a
refugee would have chosen to return to a Palestinian state anyway, and if choosing this
option helps dispel Israelis' concerns about the existence of their country, why not allow
that refugee to exercise his or her option sooner rather than later?
The ultimate benefit is that an interim agreement addressing the existential concerns of
both sides has a greater chance of leading to a successful permanent status agreement. But
if another "transitional" phase allows Israel to continue colonizing Palestinian
territory, it will only repeat the mistakes of the Oslo process. And we have all seen how
bloody those mistakes have become.
The writer, an American attorney, is a legal adviser to the negotiations affairs
department of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=307033
Arafat is Only Interested in Saving Himself
by
Edward Said
The Independent/UK
June 20, 2002
Six distinct calls for Palestinian reform and elections are being pressed now: five of
them are, for Palestinian purposes, both useless and irrelevant. Sharon wants reform as a
way of further disabling Palestinian national life. The United States wants reform
principally as a way of combating"terrorism", a panacea of a word that takes no
account of history, context, or anything else.
Third is the Arab leaders' demand which, as far as I can tell, is a combination of several
different elements, none of them directly helpful to the Palestinians themselves. Fourth
in the chorus of reform are the Europeans. But they only scurry around sending emissaries
to Sharon and Arafat, make ringing declarations in Brussels, fund a few projects and more
or less leave it at that.
Then there is Yasser Arafat and his circle of associates, who have suddenly discovered the
virtues (theoretically at least) of democracy and reform. I know that I speak at a great
distance from the field of struggle, and I also know all the arguments about the besieged
Arafat as a potent symbol of Palestinian resistance against Israeli aggression, but I have
come to a point where I think none of that has any meaning any more.
Arafat is simply interested in saving himself. He has had almost 10 years of freedom to
run a petty kingdom, and has succeeded essentially in bringing opprobrium and scorn on
himself and most of his team. Why anyone for a moment believes that at this stage he is
capable of anything different, or that his new streamlined cabinet (dominated by the same
old faces of defeat and incompetence) is going to produce actual reform, simply defies
reason.
Finally there is the Palestinian people, who are now justifiably clamoring both for reform
and elections. As far as I am concerned, this clamor is the only legitimate one of the six
I have outlined here. It's important to point out that Arafat's present administration, as
well as the Legislative Council, have overstayed their original term, which should have
ended with a new round of elections in 1999. Moreover, the whole basis of the 1996
elections was the Oslo accords, which in effect simply licensed Arafat and his people to
run bits of the West Bank and Gaza for the Israelis, without true sovereignty or security.
Any attempt to go forward on that kind of platform is simply a wasteful ploy.
What then is to be done if the old basis of Palestinian legitimacy no longer really
exists? The major interests in Palestinian society, those that have kept life going, from
the trade unions to health workers, teachers, farmers, lawyers, doctors, in addition to
all the many NGOs, must now become the basis on which Palestinian reform - despite
Israel's incursions and the occupation - is to be constructed. It seems to me useless to
wait for Arafat, or Europe, or the US, or the Arabs to do this: it must absolutely be done
by Palestinians themselves by way of a Constituent Assembly that contains all major
elements of Palestinian society.
It must keep Palestinian life going in an orderly way with full participation for all
concerned. It should also choose an emergency executive committee whose mandate is to end
the occupation, not negotiate with it. It is quite obvious that militarily we are no match
for Israel. What is needed is a creative method of struggle that mobilizes all the human
resources at our disposal to highlight, isolate and gradually make untenable the main
aspects of Israeli occupation, e.g. settlements, settlement roads, roadblocks and house
demolitions.
For such a Palestinian strategy to work there has to be an Israeli component made up of
individuals and groups with whom a common basis of struggle against occupation can, and
indeed must, be established. This is the great lesson of the South African struggle: that
it proposed the vision of a multiracial society from which neither individuals nor groups
and leaders were ever deflected. The only vision coming out of Israel today is violence,
forcible separation and the continued subordination of Palestinians to an idea of Jewish
supremacy. Not every Israeli believes in these things, of course, but it must be up to us
to project the idea of coexistence in two states that have natural relations with each
other on the basis of sovereignty and equality.
We have never faced a worse or, at the same time, a more seminal moment. The Arab order is
in total disarray; the US administration is effectively controlled by the Christian right
and the Israeli lobby, and our society has been nearly wrecked by poor leadership and the
insanity of thinking that suicide bombing will lead directly to an Islamic Palestinian
state. There is always hope for the future, but one has to able to look for it and find it
in the right place. It is quite clear that in the absence of any serious Palestinian or
Arab information policy in the United States (especially in Congress), we cannot for a
moment delude ourselves that Powell and Bush are about to set a real agenda for
Palestinian rehabilitation. That's why I keep saying that the effort must come from us, by
us, for us.
Who else but the Palestinian people can construct the legitimacy they need to rule
themselves and fight the occupation with weapons that don't kill innocents and lose us
more support than ever before?
The writer is Professor of Comparative Literature at Columbia University, New York
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn20020617.shtml
townhall.com
June 17, 2002
Sharon & the Senators
By
Robert Novak
WASHINGTON -- "We need many more Jews to come to Israel, a million more Jews,"
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee behind
closed doors last week. Here was something entirely new even for well-informed senators,
and their facial expressions conveyed surprise. Massive immigration to a country of 6
million signified no interest by Sharon in negotiating a settlement with the Palestinians.
Indeed, speaking off the record to mostly uncritical American politicians, the old
soldier-statesman was even more blunt than he is in public. Sharon pointed to no
Israeli-Palestinian deal for at least 10 years and talked of a hundred years struggle with
Arabs. Warning of Egyptian and Saudi duplicity, he informed the senators that removal of
Saddam Hussein from Iraq would be the best way to deal with Palestinians.
Senators new to Sharon and senators who have known him for more than 20 years were equally
impressed by his self-assured calm. Consigned a short time ago to the Israeli political
trash heap, he now has status in Washington denied preceding prime ministers. He enjoys
popular American support, bipartisan political backing, reluctance by President Bush to
contradict him and a degraded adversary in Yasser Arafat. As demonstrated in meeting the
senators, he sees no need to temper his views.
Sharon claimed the ancient boundaries of the "Land of Israel" are guaranteed to
the Jewish people by Holy Scripture. "The Pope told me so," Sharon added. That
sent freshman Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island home to search the Bible for
justification. Sharon added he was prepared to compromise anyway but was not specific and
stressed he never would compromise Israeli security.
With all this land claimed and Palestinians exceeding the Israeli birth rate, he raised
the prospect of 1 million Jewish immigrants bulwarking the nation's security. Jaws visibly
were dropped by senators, including Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry of
Massachusetts. Sharon specified emigration from France (where anti-Semitism has erupted),
Russia (where age-old anti-Semitism is reflected in recent incidents) and Argentina
(apparently because of the poor economy).
Foreign Relations Chairman Joseph Biden asked Sharon his vision of Israel five years from
now. The 74-year-old prime minister replied that the realistic time frame is 10 years
(though he was not explicit about what would happen then). In short: no peace in my time.
Committing himself to a hundred years war against Arabs, Sharon warned the senators not to
trust his adversaries -- including moderate states closely aligned with the U.S. He
expressed nothing but contempt for Egypt's Hosni Mubarak. The royal rulers of Saudi
Arabia, he said, are liars. The only Arab leader spoken of favorably was Jordan's King
Abdullah. Sophisticated senators perceived Sharon pointing to the Kingdom of Jordan as the
only Palestinian state, take it or leave it.
Voices of Arab caution should be disregarded, said the former Israeli general, when it
comes to ousting Saddam Hussein. Sharon contended U.S. military action against Iraq,
instead of exacerbating the Palestinian problem, would end it. No senator disputed this
judgment.
A few Foreign Relations Committee members left this remarkable session with Sharon deeply
disturbed about the outlook for peace in the Middle East. They include Biden, Kerry,
Chafee and Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. However, the current political climate
precludes overt criticism of Israel or even so controversial a figure as Arik Sharon.
Hagel did go to the Senate floor Friday to send a message to Sharon (without mentioning
him): "Israel must make some hard choices for peace. It knows that military means
alone will not end terrorism. Settlements in the occupied West Bank and Gaza must
end." He then asked Israel to develop "a coalition of common interests"
with the U.S. and "our Arab allies," adding: "Israel should move closer to
this coalition and away from isolation and reliance on only the military option to ending
the crisis."
Those words dispute the prime minister and probably most senators who heard him. They
surely reflect the views of Secretary of State Colin Powell and the administration
official closest to him, CIA Director George Tenet. It remains to be seen whether
President Bush will take a position so different from Sharon's.
Israel's Occupation Turns 35:
Avi Shlaim on History and the Current Impasse
Middle East Report 223, Summer 2002
http://www.merip.org/mer/mer223/223_shlaim_interview.html
Avi Shlaim, a well-known Israeli historian, teaches international relations at
St. Antony's College, Oxford. His most recent work focusing on the Arab-Israeli conflict
is titled The Iron Wall (W.W. Norton, 1999). Shlaim spoke with Elliott Colla in Oxford on
May 10, 2002.
Q: In the US-led peace negotiations of the last few years, there has been an insistent
denial that the past has, or should have, any bearing on the present. What do you, as an
historian, think of the prospects of negotiations which declare that the past is off
limits?
A: Americans in positions of power, like the American public, don't know history. One of
my American students in a discussion of this conflict said, "This is past
history." As if history could be anything other than past. But his point was:
"Let's talk about the here and now, and not what happened in the past." Not
knowing history, Americans cannot make any sense of the situation in the Middle East.
Edward Said has pointed out that [the 1993 Oslo agreement] only addresses the problems and
issues raised by the Israeli victory of 1967. It doesn't touch the root of the problem,
which is what happened in 1948, or the rights of the original refugees. Now, other
Americans don't want to raise the problems raised in 1967, let alone the problems going
back to 1948.
There are consequences to this. Because Americans rarely make any reference to 1948 or
1967, it's very difficult for them to understand what a huge compromise the Palestinians
made in signing Oslo and agreeing to a two-state solution. They don't really grasp that
the Palestinians have already given up their claim to 78 percent of mandatory Palestine
and are only insisting that they get the remaining 22 percent, the West Bank and Gaza.
Even there, they're prepared to compromise even further, but not much further than this.
Q: New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman complains to us twice a week about how Arab
culture, and especially Palestinian culture, dwells too much on the past. How would you
reply?
A: Thomas Friedman was a student here at St. Antony's and we're very proud of him. But
that doesn't mean I agree with everything that he writes. It's absurd for him to say that
the Arabs won't forget the past. How can anyone be asked to forget the past? Do the Jews
forget the past? Can the Jews forget the Holocaust? Of course not. So why should the
Palestinians be asked to forget the nakba [the forced flight of Palestinians from their
homes in 1948]?
History plays an important role -- and not because it looks only toward the past. Edward
Said has written about the significance of revisionist history in Israel. Not only does it
offer a better understanding of the past, but it also helps to create the right climate
for moving both sides forward in the peace process.
Q: Is there a pattern in Israeli society for what gets remembered and what gets forgotten?
A: In a sense, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is, on the psychological level, a contest
over who is the victim. The Israelis would never concede to the Palestinians the status of
victims, this they insist on keeping for themselves. One example of this is the case of
the 1948 refugees, which Benny Morris demonstrated was the result of Israeli pressure and
outright expulsions. And yet no Israeli leader would ever accept the moral responsibility,
let alone the political responsibility, for creating the refugee problem. They wouldn't
even accept a share of the moral responsibility for this problem. Ehud Barak at Camp David
wasn't asked to accept the right of return for refugees. He was asked to accept that
Israel bear merely a part of the moral responsibility for this problem, which would then
be tackled by the international community. And he refused.
Israelis have a certain collective memory, which is reflected in the old history of this
conflict: Israel is in the right, Israel is pure, the Arabs are wrong. That's what the old
history says, the version that is still taught in Israeli schools about the history of
this conflict.
The Israelis are undoubtedly victors, and yet they insist that they're victims as well.
This has always been a paradox within Israeli society. On the one hand, they have so much
military capability, and on the other hand, they have so much psychological vulnerability,
and a self-image that they're weak and under threat.
Q: Is this collective memory selective?
A: What's been called "the lachrymose version of Jewish history" is an Ashkenazi
[European Jewish] version of Jewish and Israeli history which is not supported by the
experience of the Jews in Arab countries until 1948. We come from Iraq. For my parents,
Iraq was the Garden of Eden. They were very nostalgic about it. There weren't any real
problems between Jews and Arabs until the state of Israel was established. So the broad
experience of Jews under Arab rule does not support what has been called "the
lachrymose version of Jewish history." In a sense, Arab Jews are asked to forget
their past in order to conform with the commemoration of an Ashkenazi past, because the
political, military, economic and above all the cultural elite in Israel has always been
and still is an Ashkenazi elite. Radical, dissenting non-European discourse is marginal.
There are a few minority voices, but they don't effect the climate of opinion in Israel.
The history which is taught at school is an Ashkenazi history.
Q: You seem to have a real optimism about the value of history. But what if the connection
between knowing historical information and acting on that information has been broken?
A: There used to be three new historians: Benny Morris, Ilan Pappé and myself. Benny
Morris has veered to the extreme right and defected. That leaves two of us. But there was
always a disagreement between the three of us on the nature of history. E.H. Carr says the
fundamental task of the historian is not to record but to evaluate. Benny Morris has
always believed that this is not so, that the fundamental task of the historian is to
record, not to pass judgment. Ilan Pappé and I still believe that the task is to do both.
But the emphasis is on evaluation. And some of my Israeli friends say to me: "Why are
you always passing judgment?" My reply to them is: "That's my job as a
historian." My view is that the historian is a judge, and above all a hanging judge.
And therefore I sit in judgment on Israeli leaders.
My job is to provide new information, new insights and a better balanced, more critical
understanding of the causes and the course of the Arab-Israeli conflict. I've never been
involved in politics. And I don't have any great illusions I can influence politics. But
that doesn't matter. My job is to do the research, and to write the history books and to
comment on the conflict in ways of resolving it. And that's where my job ends as a
historian.
In the past, I didn't feel any moral responsibility to speak up. But today, because of
what is happening to the Palestinians, I do have a sense of moral responsibility. I cannot
stay in my study at home and deal with history. I have to be involved in current
affairs.because as an expert on this conflict I feel a moral responsibility to stand up
and be counted at this moment when Israel, under the leadership of Ariel Sharon, is trying
to sweep away the remnants of Oslo and destroy the basis of a two-state solution.
I used to be very optimistic about the long-term prospects of resolving this conflict. My
early optimism was based on a comment that Abba Eban used to make: "Nations are
capable of acting rationally after they've exhausted all the other alternatives." I
once thought that Israelis and Palestinians had exhausted all the other alternatives, and
that finally, they were acting rationally, but now I am a pessimist.
Q: A professor once told me that what matters in Israeli society is not facts, but rather
feeling, a feeling of community. Would you agree?
A: In Israel feelings do count for more than facts. A sense of solidarity, of community.
But I would qualify that, by saying that in the last decade or so, the national consensus,
the perception of a single, straightforward, bipolar conflict between Israel on the one
side and all the Arabs on the other side, has been breaking down. And it's been replaced
by a number of subcultures in Israel who no longer share this broad consensus of being one
nation against the Arab world. You have six million people in Israel. One million are
Israeli Arabs. They did their best to be integrated, but they were rebuffed and rejected
and now they are becoming, especially the young ones, much more militant and radical, and
they identify much more openly with their Palestinian brothers on the West Bank and Gaza.
Then you have another subculture which revolves around Shas, which has 17 seats in the
Knesset. Their culture is not democratic, nor do they believe in the rule of law. And then
you have religious nationalist parties, the Ashkenazi parties. They combine religious
messianism with Jewish nationalism. Then you have a million Russian immigrants. So you no
longer have the single cohesive polity that you used to have in Israel, but a breakdown
into subcultures.
Q: If "group feeling" is what matters, what hope does the historian have in
producing facts which run contrary to the feelings and communities that exist?
A: The revisionist history did make an impact in the teaching of history in Israeli high
schools. But this has been reversed by a counterattack on us by Ariel Sharon's right-wing
Minister of Education. She has sacked her liberal director general of the office and
ordered that all the history books that incorporate the findings of the New History be
junked and old history books be reassigned. But I can't give up the battle now. It's a
long-term struggle for the hearts and minds of people. Now Sharon's people are on the
offensive and the New History is in retreat. But this could change when he leaves office.
The New History will still be there.
But as for the impact of the new history, or history more generally, there are really two
Israels. There is the majority of Israelis who are not interested in history and who think
they have a God-given right to Eretz Israel. They have a charter from God that they own
this land and they don't want to be confused with facts. And there is a shrinking minority
open to history and even the New History.
Q: There is talk of a boycott of Israeli intellectuals and academic institutions. What do
you think of this? Ilan Pappé has sounded off in favor of it.
A: I'm for a boycott of Israeli goods and against a boycott of Israeli academics. Israel
does 40 percent of its trade with the EU and very little of its trade with the US, so EU
economic sanctions against Israel would be effective and I'm in favor of them, as well as
an arms embargo. Britain to its credit has implemented an embargo on arms sales because
Israel has violated the rule it purchased British military equipment.
A cultural and academic boycott is an entirely different proposition: that wouldn't hurt
the government. On the contrary, it would play into the hands of the government, because
the government would say, "You see, there is anti-Semitism, there is hostility
towards us as a people. We are all in the same boat, so you should rally behind the
flag." Most Israel academics are liberal. Or they used to be anyway. You don't want
to discourage them from dialogue and contact.
But the real problem is America's relationship to Israel, which is so partial and so
biased. America gives overwhelming support to Israel, to the tune of billions of dollars a
year. Never in the annals of human history have so few owed so much to so many. This
introduces a fatal contradiction into America's position in the peace process. On the one
hand, America sets itself up as the honest broker, and on the other, it's completely
beholden to one side in this dispute. So it can't be an honest broker. Along these lines,
Moshe Dayan used to say: "Our American friends give us money, they give us arms and
they give us advice. We take their money, we take their arms and we reject their
advice."
So it's up to you as Americans to make sure that Israel doesn't take you money and arms
and completely dismiss the advice you give. It's up to Americans to put some leverage on
Israel to behave itself, to go forward in the peace process.
What really annoys me about America is that it has done nothing to promote the resolution
of this conflict and yet it excludes everyone else from playing a constructive part in
bringing about a resolution. Since 1967, the US has insisted on a monopoly on the
diplomacy surrounding the Arab-Israeli conflict and excluded the EU and the UN. But it
hasn't produced a settlement. So why is America excluding everyone else?
Q: "The Iron Wall," combining military might with territorial conquest, was once
a strategy designed to force the Palestinians and Arabs to accept a settlement with
Israel, at which point it could be dismantled. In other words, it was a means to an end.
Lately you've been arguing that the Iron Wall has become an ideology, an end in itself.
A: In the last year, Ariel Sharon has set up 34 new settlement outposts. This is leading
the whole region to disaster. The international community has a responsibility to protect
the Palestinians and to rein in the Israelis. The trouble is that the Bush administration
has accepted the Sharon thesis that Arafat is a terrorist who should be removed and the PA
is a terrorist organization. There should be an international insistence on the principles
and negotiations on this basis a two-state solution. And the Arab side has offered to
negotiate on this basis. Prince Abdallah's plan, endorsed by the Beirut Arab League
summit, offers Israel not just peace, but normalization, not just with its neighbors, but
with the whole Arab world, based on Israeli withdrawal from most of the territories it
captured in 1967, not all of them. So there is an Arab agreement on this settlement, there
is an international agreement on this plan and these principles. The international
community needs to pressure Israel back to the political track, to force Sharon to stop
shooting and start talking.
ISRAEL - PALESTINE CONFLICT 2002 INDEX
FIRE THIS TIME INDEX THE WORLD AFTER 9-11 INDEX