Despite the bloody chaos in the region Bernard Wasserstein explains how peace is still possible
The United Nations Security Council resolution that talked of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side last week, secured an extraordinary 14:0 vote in support. But what are the prospects of translating this “vision” into reality? The Middle East is the cradle of prophecy, but forecasting the future there is hazardous. T E Lawrence, fresh from his exploits in the desert in the first world war, was back in his Oxford college. One day an American oil man turned up and announced: “I am here from the United States, Colonel Lawrence, to ask a single question. Do Middle Eastern conditions justify my putting any money in Arabian oil?” Lawrence barely blinked. “No,” was the reply. “That’s all I wanted to know,” said his visitor. “Thank you and good day.” If that was the quality of foresight of the greatest Middle Eastern authority of his day, what hope is there for the rest of us? Yet through the fog of this civil war some horrifying possibilities are emerging.
First, there is the threat of a complete breakdown of the last restraints that still prevent the wild men on each side from taking control. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has reached a level of violence unprecedented since the war, more than half a century ago, in which Israel was established. That followed another UN resolution, in November 1947, that also ordained a two-state solution. The Palestinians rejected that; Israel publicly accepted it while privately joining King Abdullah of Transjordan in a carve-up of British Palestine.
The 1948 war led to the exodus of the greater part of the Palestinian population from what became Israel. Many were thrown out; others fled in panic. Today, millions of elderly survivors of that flight and their descendants still squat in the miserable refugee camps in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
Israel’s recent “rolling” reoccupation of camps in Gaza and the West Bank is unlikely to achieve its declared objective of “eliminating the terrorist infrastructure”. An editorial in Ha’aretz, Israel’s most respected newspaper, complained last week that the behaviour of Israeli troops suggested that “the idea of humiliation has apparently seeped down to the soldiers from the government”. Young Palestinian males seized in the operation had numbers inked on their arms — evoking outrage from Tommy Lapid, a member of the Knesset who is a Holocaust survivor.
Even if some sort of ceasefire is patched up by Anthony Zinni, the American envoy who arrived in Israel last Thursday, the danger remains that “Islamic martyrs” will ignore it and continue their suicide bombings. The viciously inflamed mood on the Palestinian street was illustrated by the lynchings of three suspected informers last week.
These barbaric scenes may presage a generational shift whereby the “young guard” of militants could sweep aside the greying Palestinian establishment, widely seen as composed of compromisers. Terror would then intensify.
Israeli blowhards like to boast that their society is resilient enough to withstand such attacks. This is the worst sort of self-deception, flying in the face of recent evidence.
The truth is that Israeli morale, both military and civilian, is reeling. The destruction on Thursday of a second Israeli Merkava tank (the prized centrepiece of the Israeli armoured corps) underlines the inability of Israeli military strategists to cope with this new warfare. The impact of the terror bombers on the public is palpable. No democracy can endure this level of violence without reacting and changing.
Israel has moved far down the road towards a brutalised society in which security considerations are used as justification for large-scale arrests and imprisonment without trial, state-sanctioned assassinations and differential justice for occupied and occupier.
Even worse may be on the horizon. Voices within Ariel Sharon’s government are calling for the destruction of the Palestinian authority, the elimination or removal from the region of Yasser Arafat, the reimposition of Israeli military rule over the West Bank and Gaza, and ever harsher measures that will supposedly quell Arab violence and cow resistance.
Maddened by the terrorist onslaught, Israeli public opinion has moved sharply to the right. An opinion poll published last week disclosed that 46% of Israeli Jews now favour the so-called “transfer” of Palestinians out of the occupied territories. Transfer is an Israeli political codeword. Deciphered, it means expulsion. In addition, 31% favour the “transfer” of Israeli Arabs (that is, Palestinians who are Israeli citizens) out of Israel proper.
These views amount to endorsement by nearly half the Jewish population of ethnic cleansing. They are no longer the preserve of the lunatic fringe. They have moved to the centre of political debate and command vocal advocacy by politicians such as Avigdor Lieberman and Benny Elon, two far-right ministers who resigned in disgust from Sharon’s government last week.
Lurking in the wings are other even more sinister figures. Take Reserve Brigadier-General Effi Eitam, who could emerge as the standard-bearer of the ethnic cleansers. In a lecture at Bar-Ilan University in December 2000, he declared: “The Israel defence force can conquer Judaea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip . . . and expel the population overnight. It’s not a problem to do that. We have a problem of having the will to do this.”
The “Islamic martyrs” could help to bring these Israeli extremists closer to the heart of power. That is the nightmare scenario: the crazies on each side would trigger a dynamic of terrorism and expulsion that could degenerate into two-way genocide.
Is there an alternative? Zinni’s mission may yet yield a ceasefire — albeit punctuated by sporadic acts of terror and reprisal. With prompting from America, Arafat could be allowed by Sharon to attend the Arab summit in Beirut at the end of the month. There, Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia may finally present his plan for the Arab states to offer “full peace” to Israel in return for withdrawal from the occupied territories and establishment of a Palestinian state.
Israel would then come under enormous pressure to respond with proposals to enable negotiations to resume. The pressure would not come merely from the White House. The significant pressure could come from within Israel.
For, despite everything that has happened since the collapse of the Camp David talks in 2000 and the start of the Al-Aqsa intifada the following year, Israeli public opinion remains volatile. Despite the shift to the right, 49% of Israeli Jews now declare their support for a Palestinian state and the same percentage favour withdrawal from the occupied territories. The desperate yearning for a way out of the impasse could still produce a surge of support for a peace deal.
Shielded from his own extremists by the beneficent shade of Saudi and Egyptian approval, Arafat could sign an agreement to establish a Palestinian state, empty the settlements and bring near-total Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza. Such a pact could provide for the symbolic return of refugees to Israel as well. The treaty would also include an arrangement for the Jerusalem region based on the principle of Israeli rule over Jewish-inhabited districts and Palestinian rule over Arab ones. Such a deal came close to being agreed between Israel and the Palestinians in Egypt in January 2001. With a little help it could at last be signed.
Which scenario is the more probable? Armageddon may be just around the corner, but there are some grounds for optimism. The great majority of Palestinians and Israelis are desperately war-weary. America is determined to do whatever is necessary to clear the decks for action against Saddam Hussein. Finally, over the past few years Israeli pollsters have discovered that the establishment of a Saudi embassy in Jerusalem would be a key indicator to the Israeli public that the Arab world was serious about making peace.
It may be that Saudi Arabia and others are now willing to recognise Israeli sovereignty in west Jerusalem in return for Israeli recognition of Palestine ’s sovereignty over the Arab parts. If Abdullah’s initiative leads to a statement of Saudi readiness to normalise relations, this could be a turning point in Middle Eastern history that, for once, actually turns.
Divided Jerusalem by Professor Bernard Wasserstein, Profile Books, £9.99 [Wasserstein is Prof of History, U. of Glasgow and visiting Prof at the Hebrew U. of Jerusalem]