The missing peace in the Middle East puzzle

[TK-421]

NEIL MACDONALD, CBC News:

The missing peace in the Middle East puzzle

November 21, 2007

Shortly after Yitzhak Shamir lost power in Israel in 1992, back at the beginning of what people still call the Middle East peace process, he made an admission to the Tel Aviv-based newspaper Maariv.

When he attended that first peace conference in Madrid in 1991, Shamir told the reporter, he never had any real intention of allowing a Palestinian state. What he really wanted was to stall and to use the time to implant as many Israeli settlers as he could in the territories occupied by Israel since the 1967 war.

"I would have carried on autonomy talks for ten years, and meanwhile we would have reached half a million people in Judea and Samaria," said Shamir, using the Israeli term for the West Bank.

Shamir's successors haven't reached the half-million mark, at least not yet. Today, there are roughly 187,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, but that number includes an entire generation born on its stony hills who consider it their home every bit as much as the Palestinians surrounding them. (The 187,000 figure excludes Israelis living in Arab East Jerusalem, which is another story.)

Were he still in control, Shamir would undoubtedly be proud of the stalling and inertia that have thwarted any real progress since the Palestinian Authority was given limited control over the West Bank and Gaza in 1994.

The current Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is widely seen as more moderate than Shamir. But as all sides in this peace process prepare for the first "summit" in over six years, to be held next week in Annapolis, Md., movement on the five big issues — borders, water resources, refugees, settlements and the status of Jerusalem — has been sabotaged so often no one seems to know how talks will proceed.

A negotiated two-state solution — an independent Israel alongside an independent Palestine — might now be the official goal of Israel, the Palestinians and most of the rest of the world, but at this point, it's hard to imagine how that might come about.

In fact, a newspaper here in Washington quoted an unnamed Arab participant this week as saying he wasn't sure what would even be discussed.

The missing peace
Of course, a great deal of credit for today's impasse also has to go to the late Yasser Arafat, who turned out to be the greatest objective ally of Israel's stall-forever crowd.

Terrified of occupying an odious place in the Arab pantheon if he were to sign a deal with the Israelis, especially any compromise on Holy Jerusalem, Arafat instead waffled and shifted and doubled back for years, alienating even his friends in the Bill Clinton administration.
Arafat's vision for peace, if he had one, could probably best be described as permanent ambiguity.

In his book, The Missing Peace, former Clinton envoy Dennis Ross details how Arafat would lay down a list of clear conditions for one particular deal and then, when Ross reported back the next day with Israel's agreement, dismiss them as "unimportant."

Ross writes he once told Arafat that he didn't see the point in continuing if the Palestinian leader was going to deny he'd asked for the conditions under negotiation.

"Are you calling me a liar?" Ross says Arafat asked him.

"If the shoe fits," retorted Ross, flinging his binder of files across the room in frustration.

In the end, Arafat chose to encourage a second Palestinian uprising, which Israel eventually crushed and negotiations came to an end in 2001.

Is one state enough?
On the surface, it would appear that the main beneficiaries of all the years of mutual bad faith are the hard-liners in Israel. Their enemy is divided now, perhaps irreparably so.

Gaza remains essentially contained and controlled by Israel, but inside the Strip, the Islamist group Hamas is now in charge and appears to be turning the area into a harsh, veiled theocracy.

In the West Bank, what's left of the Palestinian Authority nominally administers an unconnected archipelago of cities: Jenin, Ramallah, Qalqilya, Nablus and part of Hebron.

Mahmoud Abbas, who once admitted to Dennis Ross he lacked the moral authority among his people to make any of the necessary compromises, remains, at least in title, the Palestinian president.

Confounding the problem are all those settlers and roads and security barriers Israel has built since Madrid.

"It is increasingly likely that the reality on the ground will become the form of the future," says Tony Judt, a British-born and trained historian at New York University, who famously declared the peace process dead four years ago in the New York Review of Books.

"There is only one state there, it is called Israel," says Judt, who describes himself as a former member of the Zionist left. "There isn't a Palestinian state. There is no longer any physical territory for a Palestinian state that is remotely contiguous. No one I know in Israel seriously believes we will uproot a quarter of a million settlers.

"There is a single state, with interwoven economies and populations. Even in the best scenario, a two-state solution, Israelis have been very clear: The external frontiers would be controlled by Israel. Which means that under UN rules, it would not be a sovereign state."

Beware the cradle
Judt's analysis should warm the hearts of Israel's hard-liners. But the more thoughtful, even among that group, are not rejoicing. They've had a close look at the numbers.

Israel's bureau of statistics reports that right now, roughly five and a half million Jews live in Israel and the West Bank. That's up from 4.7 million in 1997.

There hasn't been a Palestinian census in years, but the U.S. government estimates there are about four million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, up from about 2.6 million ten years ago. If you add in the 1.4 million Arabs who are Israeli citizens, that means the combined Arab population in Israel and the West Bank is already about the same as the Jewish population, but growing much faster. The average age in Gaza is 15.

At this rate, the Israeli Jews will be in the minority in just a few years, governing a much larger population of Arabs, some with fewer political rights, many with none at all, and that is a situation with serious implications for a democracy.

Judt puts it this way: If there is no negotiated two-state solution, Israel may well have to choose between being a Jewish state or a democracy. Having it both ways, he argues, will be nearly impossible once Jews are the minority.
Ariel Sharon foresaw this dilemma when he was prime minister and was alarmed enough to withdraw Israel's settlers from Gaza unilaterally.

If the Annapolis initiative fails as thoroughly as all the other past peace summits have, Olmert, the current PM, will have to consider whether to do the same in the West Bank, or to reconcile Israel to the dreary reality of essentially governing a hostile, ever-expanding population of angry enemies.
A negotiated two-state solution is "still possible because it has to be possible," says Michael Walzer, a renowned political philosopher at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton who has argued publicly with Judt.

"My sense is that there is greater acceptance in Israel today of the fact that withdrawal is inevitable, though it is not clear when. And even Jerusalem is going to be divided. Most Israelis know that.

"It can be done, and since it has to be done, it will be done."

When — or if — a peace deal will be done, of course, remains to be seen. But unless Israelis start to have larger families soon, time would appear to be on the side of the Arabs.

[Lith]

Judt puts it this way: If there is no negotiated two-state solution, Israel may well have to choose between being a Jewish state or a democracy.

The way things are going, I don't even see democracy as feasible. It requires the majority of people support democracy, and we have NO assurances that Palestinians want this. And they haven't exactly developed a democracy within their self-governed zone.

And I just want to say that having an average of 8 children per woman is a very short-sighted way of waging war. How many people can a desert support?

[iansales]

Palestine isn't a desert. And wouldn't if be fair to give the Palestinians their land back before you started discussing whether or not they'll form a democracy?

[Falsteed]

Originally Posted by TK-421

When — or if — a peace deal will be done, of course, remains to be seen. But unless Israelis start to have larger families soon, time would appear to be on the side of the Arabs.

Time, it seems, is more pertinent to the problem than justice is. Give Palestine their land back and stop promoting war.

[mosaix]

iansales, falsteed - two good posts.

[Parson]

Originally Posted by Lith

And I just want to say that having an average of 8 children per woman is a very short-sighted way of waging war. How many people can a desert support?

I would suggest that it is a way to wage war that takes a very long range view indeed and a devastatingly powerful one. History clearly teaches that in conflict a minority can hold a majority in check, but only for relatively short periods of time. Given sufficient time and no "ultimate" solution from the Jewish side there will only be a more or less Palestinian state in what we now call Israel.

For an idea of this works read "The Mote in God's Eye" by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.

[TK-421]

Some would call that potentially akin to Ian Smith's Rhodesia or the Afrikaaner-dominated apartheid governments of South Africa.

Or, could a Palestinian ever become PM of Israel?

[iansales]

There have been, and are, Arab members of the Knesset. Emil Habibi was one. In fact, there are currently 12 Arabs in the Knesset.

[Lith]

Palestine isn't a desert. And wouldn't if be fair to give the Palestinians their land back before you started discussing whether or not they'll form a democracy?

Give whose country back to whom? Both sides have valid historical claims to the area.

(And semi-arid counts as a desert to me.)

Gaza remains essentially contained and controlled by Israel, but inside the Strip, the Islamist group Hamas is now in charge and appears to be turning the area into a harsh, veiled theocracy.

They used democracy to elect Hamas. And now that they have a walled area all their own, they're not exactly implementing free elections. Thus, I say we have no assurances they will form a democracy, given their own state, or even the entire current state.

I would suggest that it is a way to wage war that takes a very long range view indeed and a devastatingly powerful one.

But not long enough. If the Jews start having as many children as the Palestinians, then it solves nothing but pushes the problem back several generations, until ultimately the area has a greater population than the land will support. It's a tactic that works only in small areas, but if it was widely implemented the whole world would be hurting.

[iansales]

Originally Posted by Lith

Give whose country back to whom? Both sides have valid historical claims to the area.

(And semi-arid counts as a desert to me.)

It looks pretty damn green to me.

Until 1948, Israel last existed as a nation in 722 BC. The Arabs ruled the area from the 7th Century up until the Ottomans seized it in 1516 (bar a brief period when Crusaders were actually in charge). After WWI, it was handed over to the British as part of a Mandate from the League of Nations. I fail to see how that gives the Zionists a "valid historical" claim.

[iansales]

Oh, and look up the Ottoman Land Code and Registration Act of 1858, in which unscrupulous Ottomans registered land belonging to Palestinian peasants, and then sold that land under them to Jewish immigrants.

From 'Palestinian Private Property Rights in Israel and the Occupied Territories' on the Vanderbilt University Law School web site:
"Unfortunately, the Ottomans instituted a land registration system in the late nineteenth century that led to wealthy Turks gaining legal title to land in Palestine through questionable means. Consequently, the Arab family farmer who may have owned the land for generations retained possession, but became a tenant of the wealthy absentee owner. “The Fund” usually bought property from the wealthy absentee owners, giving the farmer no choice but dispossession. Sometimes, Palestinian Arabs refused to leave their land, so Turkish authorities would physically evict them at “The Fund’s” request."

[andrew.v.spencer]

If you believe in the Christian or Jewish god, and in the books relating to those gods, indeed in some instances supposed to be the word of god, then you'll think the Jewish claim is absolutely valid and unquestionable.

[iansales]

Originally Posted by andrew.v.spencer

If you believe in the Christian or Jewish god, and in the books relating to those gods, indeed in some instances supposed to be the word of god, then you'll think the Jewish claim is absolutely valid and unquestionable.

The British Israelites believe we Brits are the descendants of the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel, which arguably makes the land ours as well.

[andrew.v.spencer]

Yes arguably. If that is their faith then they will believe that without reservation.

When one is up against the absolute faith in the word of a god, arguments of logic, and legal precedent go out of the window. You or I might not believe in this god, but they do. Hence their absolute faith needs to be included in any posited solution. To not do so guarantees failure.

[Ursa major]

I thought that some of the more "devout" Jewish sects living in their Holy land do not recognise the State of Israel, at least in some respects.

As to the general situation there.... Frankly, I can't see a solution, given the history, both recent and otherwise. I fervently wish to be wrong about this, for all those directly concerned, not to mention the rest of us.