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TechnoratiWhy Israel Does Not Engage With The Saudi Initiative
One of the most puzzling aspects of Israeli policy over the last five years is that neither the Sharon nor the Olmert governments have given the Saudi peace initiative any serious consideration. For most of its existence, Israel could only dream of an offer that explicitly includes peace, recognition of Israel's right to exist and normalization of its relationship with the Arab world. Why, then, has Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered nothing but lip service to the Saudi initiative, and why did former prime minister Ariel Sharon never even indicate that he took it seriously at all?
There are good reasons to believe that the Saudi initiative, ratified by the Arab League, stems from solid and tangible interests on the Arab side. The Saudis and other regimes in the area are afraid that the Middle East could disintegrate into chaotic disarray if the tide of sectarianism and the surge of Islamist movements are not hemmed in. They believe that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most powerful destabilizing factors in the area, and they have good reasons to think that it fuels Islamic extremism. The Arab world has come to a point where it is joining the international legitimizing of Israel provided by the 1947 UN resolution that endorsed the partition plan, because it no longer believes that it is in its interest to reject Israel's existence.
Why, then, does Israel not engage with the Saudi peace initiative? This initiative, like any Arab proposal that will ever come up, demands a "just solution of the refugee problem." The deep-seated fear in Israel is that the Arab insistence on a solution for the Palestinian refugee problem is ultimately a ploy to wipe Israel as a Jewish state off the map, not through military means, but through demographic means, by flooding Israel with millions of Palestinians.
But there are models for the resolution of the problem. In private conversations, influential Palestinians often say that for them, an acceptance of the Palestinian right of return is far more about Israel accepting moral responsibility for the Nakba (literally, "catastrophe," the Palestinian term for Israel's establishment and the subsequent refugee crisis) than it is about the physical return of Palestinians to their homes within the 1967 borders, and the Beilin-Abu Mazen agreement of 1995 has given semi-official expression to this view.
Here, I believe, resides the deepest reason for Israel's reluctance to actively engage with the Saudi initiative. Israeli public discourse and national consciousness have never come to terms with the idea, accepted by historians of all venues today, that Israel actively drove 750,000 Palestinians from their homes in 1947/8 and hence has at least partial responsibility for the Palestinian Nakba.
This has not happened to this very day because this idea is seen as undermining the foundation of the Zionist enterprise and the legitimacy of Israel's existence. It is as if we were locked into an insoluble dilemma: Either we deny responsibility for the Nakba, or we need to accept that we have no right to be here.
This is the source of the deep fear that prevents Israel from meeting the Arab world face to face and saying "we are here, and we believe that you accept our existence." Since Israel has not come to terms with its part in the historical responsibility for the Palestinian Nakba, it cannot truly believe that Arabs could accept our presence in the Middle East. We are locked into a vacillation between self-images of either all-good or all-bad, and hence continue the occupation of the territories, with all the horrors it includes, because the idea of Israel being guilty of anything is still equated with the denial of our right to be here.
The only way out of this deadlock is to raise the question of how Israel can live with its responsibility for the Nakba into public discourse. The dilemma of "either we are morally impeccable, or we have no right to be here" needs to be replaced with a narrative that accepts that Israel's moral, historical and political reality is as complex and multilayered as that of most nations.
In the best of all possible worlds, an Israeli statesman (a rare commodity in an age of mere politicians) would arise and tell the Palestinians: "Israel came into existence in tragic circumstances that inflicted great suffering and injustice on your people. We accept responsibility for our part in this tragedy, even though we cannot fully rectify it. Let us sit together and see how we can end the vicious cycle of violence and suffering and live side by side."
This is not likely to happen in the immediate future. A Jewish Israeli politician who would say such a thing would become unelectable. Hence it is up to the citizenry to bring this issue into the public consciousness. Otherwise, Israeli policies will continue to be devoid of any creativity and political horizon, and we will miss historic opportunities that may not return.
The author is a professor of psychology at Tel Aviv University.
© 2007 Haaretz
12 Comments so far
Show AllI'm sick and tired of hearing about whiny damn Israel's stubborn refusal to negotiate in good faith with their neighbors in the Middle East to get a comprehensive diplomatic settlement of their differences. Israel is known to have started the 1967 war with their neighbors which has got us all into so much trouble, and it did so with the intention of bringing the USA to side with it by attacking the USS Liberty with the notion that this could be used as a Middle Eastern version of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. It almost happened, and cost too many sailors on that ship their lives or blood. It's way past time to have an article on this incident which was so important at its 40th anniversary, and with the veterans of that Israeli atrocity, saying that Israel deliberately attacked the Liberty. Furthermore, a independent panel of high ranking government officials and military officers reached the same conclusion.
The cover up by Lyndon B Johnson's administration began right after the attack.
Alexander Cockburn could write an outstanding article on this event for Common Dreams. Let's get him or someone else write this up. As a first rate journalist, I'd be willing to make the "sacrifice."
Israel's plans for the Palestinians are best illustrated by what they do, not what they say. Very few American politicians have the courage to stand against whatever Israel wants to do in the Middle East. Remember all of George's claims about Iraq terrorism were linked to Saddam's support of the Palestinians. Yet, no Israelis are dying to liberate Iraq.
Given the U.S.'s blind support of Israel, the only hope for justice for the Palestinians lies with the ability of the islamic extremists to create a huge destabilization of the status quo. And this instability is the unintended consequences of the Bush abandonment of the U.S. role as an honest broker in the region.
Israel's foreign policy goal of creating an U.S./Israel alliance against the rest of the world is fast becoming a reality. The U.S. does not have the political ability to extricate itself from the course chosen by Sharon and Bush. It is easy to imagine that the political power of Islamic centered groups within the entire Middle East could force a reduction of the production of oil, either by a change of regimes or by sabotage.
Oil as a weapon, makes Iran's nuclear threat very insignificant by comparison. But, how much does Israel think the U.S. will actually do to protect them? Will we institute a draft to create the military that would be large enough to occupy and pacify the entire Middle East? Do the warmongers running for President think we can really achieve a military victory on the cheap and win Bush's war between of civilizations, as some of the Republicans call it. Can we really bomb them into submission? Can we continue to make America fear the muslim faith enough to pursue Bush's holy war?
Of course, oil can be bought for a lot less than it will cost to guarantee God's gift of land to Israel. And there are many buyers for that oil, many of whom the U.S need as allies, in a peaceful world. But maybe, Israel will luck out, and the United States will continue to elect warmongers who have all the money they need from the military industrial complex to fool enough to people to vote against their economic interest to go along with the terminally faithful. Maybe things have to get much, much worse before reason can prevail.
the legitimacy of bush, blair, olmert and their ilk is based on the continued existence of "terrorism"(which has replaced the "red menace" that gave credibility to previous regimes like nixon/reagan).
if "terrorism" didn't exist, they'd have to invent it...wait, maybe they did.
I've wondered about the ethno-religious "Jewish State of Israel". In the US, the only folks calling for a "White Christian USA" are the ultra right-wing sepremacists, even more extreme (overtly, anyway) than Bush & Co. No ethno-religious state can qualify as being a democracy. Quite the contrary, ethnicity/religion (in addition to the oldest standby: class) have been the greatest stumbling blocks.
I've also wondered why prominent US christians haven't booted the likes of Pat "Let's Assassinate Chavez" Robertson and Fallwell (when they had the chance) from the fold, to make a vocal protest, distancing themselves, etc. Seems that orthodoxical/militant communities, even if not speaking for everyone, have an awful lot of power over others -- enough to silence them?
I'm sure there are many good people in Israel that feel their government is just as stinking sour as we do in the US. Those people need to rise together, and for one, don't follow the mandatory military requirement.
Without the financial, political, economic, and military support by the U.S., Israel is Nothing, Zilch, Naught, Nada, Nix, Cipher, Zero. Put the blame where it really belongs. Take all that support away, lo and behold, Israel will act like a good member of the international community.
While we're on the subject......
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/israel_9-11_truth.html
and the Saudi hijackers......
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/hijackers.html
its not a theory unless it can be proved.......
Very good article - helped me to understand a little bit more why Israel can act so intolerably towards its neighbours, even though for all appearances, the country is a modern democracy with a liberal, well educated people. This inability of Israel to resolve its violent, and for many unjust, beginnings, unfortunately continues to fuel more violence and injustices from both sides of the conflict.
With radical fundamentalist Islam on the rise (as well as with radical fundamentalist Christianity potentially influencing US military intervention in the region), Arabs and Israelis are advised to resolve their conflict, and face their common enemies together to avoid political instability, or even a catastrophic societal melt-down, which usually accompanies the bloodshed and suffering in ongoing and escalating wars.
Zsolt Sary
Kamloops, BC
The Israeli government doesnt want peace. It wants to be top dog there forever. It sees itself as a European colony among savages(who gave us mathematics).
For Israel the Peace Process might as well be titled "How to Delay Things and Create Facts on the Ground".
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~ssfc0005/Confessions%20of%20a%20Stone-waller.html
The Saudi initiative offers much the same reasonable steps as "alternatives" offered repeatedly by the Palestinians; an Israeli withdrawl to 1967 boundaries, sharing a capital in Jerusalem, and recognition of Israel's right to exist within those boundaries in exchange for recognition of a Palestinian State in the West Bank and Gaza.
Israel clearly has no intention of giving up it's settlements in the West Bank much less recognizing the right of Palestine to exist.
In other words, Israel is afraid of democracy. Zionism or democracy -- Israel has to choose one or the other. Just as the US can't maintain both a republic and an empire, Israel can't have it both ways.
And let us not forget that we Americans are complicit with the Israeli abuse of Palestinians. We fund this tragedy with our tax-payer dollars.
But, of course, our current leaders are only too happy to stoke the flames of terrorism, Arab or otherwise. Our leaders need reflections of themselves in the world to maintain the illusion of their relevance.
this is so pathetic