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| Volume VIII, March 2001, Number 1 |
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| Editor's Note |
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The ink was not yet dry on the last editor's note when the Oslo
process imploded, though negotiators soldiered on for a time, Ross-less in
Taba, trying to stave off the election of Ariel Sharon as Israel's prime
minister -- or at least constrain him if he won. As we went to press on September 28, 2000, Sharon had just taken
his provocative stroll near the al-Aqsa mosque. Enraged Palestinian youths threw stones, the Israeli army reacted
disproportionately, and now it has come to this: nearly 400 mostly Palestinian
dead, two Israeli soldiers lynched, eight Palestinian officials assassinated,
thousands of mostly Palestinian wounded, millions of dollars of mostly
Palestinian assets laid waste by Israeli bombardment, and mutual confidence
pulverized.
The major U.S. media, along with (then) President Clinton,
blamed Yasser Arafat for not immediately accepting Israel's
difference-splitting terms at the July Camp David summit (as an antidote, see
the nuanced analyses of Abington, Gazit, Ben-Meir, Ron and Bleier). Finally, however, on his way out the door,
Clinton made a significant speech on a final compromise: approximately the 1967
borders and a shared Jerusalem as the capital of two states. The Bush people can, if they choose, start
here instead of recapitulating Clinton's ultimately tragic resort to
unprincipled trial and error.
Clinton's speech marked a significant rhetorical shift. An
American president, supported by the vast majority of American Jews, said the
previously unutterable: "You discovered that your land is also their land, . .
. the homeland of two states. There is no choice but to create two states and make the best of it." He also suggested that Jerusalem be "an open
and undivided city, with assured freedom of access and worship for all . . . . It should encompass the
internationally recognized capitals of two states -- Israel and Palestine." Of course, Clinton did not go back to U.N.
Security Council Resolution 242 and the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibiting
settlements and requiring refugee return. And he did not speak so honestly when it would have mattered far
more. But perhaps the words will give
courage to others.
The Bush administration comes in advertising its Realpolitik
value system at a time of increasing awareness that U.S. vital interests are at
stake in the ongoing strife between Palestinians and Israelis. All
American relationships in the Greater Middle East hang on it. Of course, there are those who would try to
separate the Levant from the Gulf, but it cannot be done. As Geoffrey Kemp remarked at our Capitol
Hill conference on Iran (see p. 1), the main issue separating Tehran and
Washington is Israel. The Iranian
government will not back away from its anti-Zionist rhetoric, and Israel won't
let the United States ignore it.
The face-off between stone throwers and tanks is not the whole
story. Eight officials of the
Palestinian Authority (PA) have been deliberately killed by the Israeli army,
the most prestigious institution in the nation. This is defined as a war crime in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva
Convention. The United States has often
labeled nations who commit such acts terrorists or "rogues." But most U.S. commentary continues to focus
on the quirks of Yasser Arafat and the unfathomable recalcitrance of
Arabs. The PA is very weak in public
relations, but on January 22 it issued a cogent critique of the Clinton administration's role in the
negotiations. Each side was allowed to
think more would be forthcoming from the other than was politically
possible. Then the Israeli and U.S.
electoral timetables forced a premature end game in which Arafat was supposed
to concede on basic principles. Many
Israelis are embittered by the Palestinians' spurning of a "generous" final
offer, the best that losers of every war they ever fought could expect.
It was always artificial, this effort to get enemies to become
friends before grievances were redressed. Confidence cannot be built between the jailer and the jailed. Many Israelis still want to keep land they
think they "won" in the Blitzkrieg of 1967, never mind the conventions of
Geneva or other artifacts of international law and practice.
Israelis also want the Palestinians to
promise they will not hold a grudge, even though the Barak government allowed
settlements to expand by 50 percent.
All this has been too much for the Arab "street," and Arafat
was pushed back to U.N. Security Council resolutions, particularly on Jerusalem
(see Gerges on the impact of the Lebanon withdrawal). Public opinion constrains those at the top of the ziggurat in
every country, but U.S. politicians, while extolling democracy, seem to expect
Gulf leaders, in particular, to ignore their people. Arabs and Muslims have noticed that the main victims of the
violence in Israel/Palestine are Palestinians, many of them children shot
point-blank in the head and chest. Not
only Arabs but Muslims world-wide have become more and more radicalized by what
they see as U.S. complicity in Israeli arrogance. A manifestation of their anger is the refusal by many countries
to keep on containing Iraq. The
suffering of a great many Arabs is being blamed on American policy choices over
the past decade, and hopes in the region are being pinned on the return to the
Executive Branch of officials less vulnerable to pro-Israel domestic pressure.
Of course, no one can predict the future.
In spite of polling data indicating a turn
to the right in Israel, there are faint glimmers of hope for the long
term. One of these was explicated in
the February 8 New York Review of Books by Henry Siegman, former
executive director of the American Jewish Congress and now senior fellow at the
Council on Foreign Relations. He cites
what he considers a ground-breaking comment by Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo
Ben-Ami at a Cabinet meeting (published in Haaretz November 28).
The context was the preparation of a list of
Palestinian offenses to be sent to the Europeans. Ben-Ami opposed sending it out, since in the West it is expected
that a people under occupation would try to subvert its occupier: "Accusations made by a well-established
society about how a people it is oppressing is breaking the rules to attain its
rights do not have much credence."
This statement of the obvious would not be noteworthy coming
from an objective observer, but Siegman says it is "the first acknowledgment by
an Israeli official that Palestinians are a people under occupation who are
struggling for their legitimate rights." Justifiable Arab rage at those who displaced them has long been
delegitimized as antisemitism, which -- by definition -- cannot be caused,
as it is inherent in the antisemite. Siegman sweeps aside the denial rhetoric, praising Ben-Ami's statement
as having potentially far-reaching significance. He exhorts all like-minded Jewish leaders to continue the work he
has started, as it is the only way forward.
It is too soon to know whether this is a watershed.
Israel is protected by the political clout
and moral monopoly of its supporters in the United States.
And one wonders what effect the election of
another extremist prime minister in Israel will have on the principal Bush
appointees, adherents of Realpolitik and balance of power (see Cordesman on the
U.S. interest in the Middle East). Will
the new team really make decisions based on U.S. vital interests, or will
Zionist die-hards and their allies on the Christian Right make it possible for
Israelis to renew the lease on their fool's paradise?
Anne Joyce
January 29, 2001
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