Imagine No Excuses
Tony Klug, June 2004
(For Palestine-Israel Journal June/July 2004)
Things could be worse. The Al Aqsa mosque has not been blown up. The
‘Wailing Wall’ is still standing. The supreme Palestinian symbol, Yasser
Arafat, has not (at time of writing) been assassinated. The wider region
has not exploded into open warfare. Chemical, biological or nuclear attacks
have not happened. The abyss is deep and if the free fall is not checked
soon even the current grim reality may one day be viewed with a certain
nostalgia.
It is not too late to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – based on two
viable states – but time is on no one’s side. The realistic alternative is
not the alluring fantasy of one state – concealing a mass of ill-thought
out contradictions – but, more likely, perpetual conflict. If this is our
destiny, we can at least be certain of near-universal agreement on one
point – it was all the fault of someone else.
Imagine we were suddenly struck by a previously unknown virus that disabled
our capacity to blame others. No matter how hard we tried to point the
finger elsewhere, this strange bug would stubbornly force us to reflect on
our own deficiencies and misconceptions and to contemplate what we
ourselves may do to progress the situation.
Take the myth of Barak’s ‘generous offer’ (Camp David, 2000) and the
paralytic effect the mantra ‘we offered them everything and they rejected
everything’ had on the peace process (see the author’s ‘The Infernal
Scapegoat’, Palestine-Israel Journal vol. viii, no.3, 2001) and in
particular on Israeli peace activists who, without irony, blamed the
occupied Palestinians for having let them down.
Imagine, as the infection took hold, that it dawned on the Israeli people
that it was they who in fact had looked the gift-horse in the mouth – that
their leaders had scorned the very ‘generous offer’ for which the nation
had been yearning for decades: a Palestinian pledge to recognize the Jewish
state within the 1967 borders with agreed, equitable territorial
adjustments; an offer for Israel to keep all post-1967 Jewish settlements
in East Jerusalem plus a few others elsewhere in the West Bank; for it to
assume sovereignty over the ‘Wailing Wall’ and the Jewish Quarter in the
context of an open city of Jerusalem, to be recognized as the capital of
both states; and, to top it off, for the Palestinian state to act
implicitly as the principal vehicle for Israel’s integration into the wider
region which previously had isolated and boycotted it.
Then imagine the impact on the mood in the region of a public Israeli
declaration affirming a readiness to negotiate on the above basis, in
principle to withdraw from the vast bulk of the territories captured in
1967 in favour of a genuinely independent, properly contiguous peaceful
Palestinian state and to dismantle all settlements in both the West Bank
and Gaza Strip not included in the equitable land swap. As they would not
be starting from scratch – we know by now the contours of a final agreement
- negotiations could proceed to a conclusion quite quickly.
The Clinton parameters (2000), refined at Taba (2001), pointed the way. The
Nusseibeh-Ayalon joint statement (2002) has summarized many of the key
principles and the unofficial Geneva accord (2003), led by the Taba
negotiators Yossi Beilin and Yasser Abd Rabbo, has elaborated what a final
peace treaty between the two parties might look like. At the regional
level, the Saudi Initiative, endorsed at the Arab League Beirut Summit
(2002) with Palestinian blessing, has held out the prospect of
comprehensive peace and normalization of relations in exchange for
comprehensive withdrawal.
What then is holding up peace now? On the Israeli side, primarily an
ideologically driven government that still clings to the illusion that it
can enjoy the fruits of peace while hanging on to the spoils of war. We
should not be fooled by Sharon’s Gaza ‘disengagement’ plan into fantasizing
that he (or maybe later Netanyahu) is poised to do a ‘De Gaulle’. Even
assuming it proceeds, his principal purpose – as ever – is to consolidate
Israel’s hold over the greater prize of the West Bank, just as it was a key
consideration for his Likud predecessor Menachem Begin some 25 years
earlier when he agreed to a full withdrawal from Sinai as part of the peace
deal with Egypt.
There is no avoiding the conclusion that without ‘regime change’ in Israel
- or decisive international intervention (or both) – there will be no
serious progress, certainly not beyond the limited moves in Gaza. So either
we must pray that the Israeli electorate does us all a favour when the time
comes or hope that a more resolute international community finally faces up
to the full weight of its responsibilities.
This last point will be discussed later. Meanwhile, imagine that the
Palestinian leadership was forced by the same curious bug to critically
examine its strategy and indeed to question whether it had a coherent
strategy at all. Was one even possible, it might ask itself, while it held
- or appeared to hold – to the plainly incompatible goals of two states for
two peoples and the full exercise of the Palestinian right of return to
what became Israel? What basic message did it hope to convey to the rest of
the world: that the Palestinian people were predominantly dispossessed
refugees yearning to return to their (now mostly extinct) original homes
and villages (1948 UN General Assembly Resolution 194 / 1967 Security
Council Resolution 242) or that they were a nation-in-waiting seeking
self-determination and statehood within its traditional homeland (1988 PNC
Algiers Congress / 2002 Security Council Resolution 1397)? What did the
Palestinian refugees themselves – often left out in the cold – feel about
all this?
These may be complex questions without simple answers, but for as long as
the apparent policy ambiguities are not fully and explicitly resolved, they
surely will be fodder to an Israeli government dedicated to projecting the
true Palestinian goal as Israel’s liquidation. The official aim of the PLO
and PA (Palestinian Authority) is indeed two sovereign states living
harmoniously side-by-side, but why has this message failed to come across
convincingly even to would-be sympathizers in the dormant Israeli peace
camp – a vital prospective partner ready to be re-mobilized and potentially
to make common cause with an essentially non-violent campaign of civil
resistance to the occupation? Despite its very difficult circumstances,
might not a self-critical Palestinian leadership conclude that it was time
to embark on an energetic campaign to persuade Israeli – and international
- public opinion of the sincerity of Palestinian intentions and seek
actively to recruit it to its cause?
Imagine next that Hamas was suddenly confronted with its own
contradictions. What, its leaders might ask themselves, has a strategy of
indiscriminate violence actually achieved in the face of a militarily far
stronger enemy with the means and resolve to deliver powerful retribution?
Even if the ‘martyr operations’ had helped persuade many Israelis that the
occupation must end, haven’t they simultaneously exacerbated their security
anxieties and made a genuine withdrawal less likely? What effect have these
actions had on Palestinian cohesion and popular participation in resistance
activities, compared with the mostly non-violent first intifada? How,
furthermore, may the claim that the battle is with Zionists and not Jews be
reconciled with a charter that bristles with classical antisemitic imagery
of the crudest type? Battered and bruised from recent assassinations, and
bereft of international sympathy, the organization – and the ‘Islamic
Jihad’ group – might conclude that if ever it wanted to be considered a
player in future peace moves, there were plenty of practical options for it
to contemplate other than sending in further suicidal ’suicide bombers’.
At the regional level, imagine that the Arab states, having unanimously
endorsed the Saudi Initiative more than two years ago, reflected on whether
it was essentially a public relations exercise or a serious peace move. If
the latter, why has the declaration not been followed up with a concerted
effort to convince international opinion of the earnestness of the peace
and normalization pledges? Why has there been no sustained campaign pitched
at the Israeli government and, more importantly, over its head at the
Israeli people – as President Sadat of Egypt had controversially but
successfully done in the past to demonstrate the authenticity of his peace
proposal? Why, instead, the continuing official rhetoric and propaganda
hostile to Jews as a people, to Judaism as a religion and to Israel per se?
Why still the muddle and deception of ambivalence?
Imagine that civil society in Arab countries reassessed whether shunning
all contact with Israeli civil society was the most productive way of
delivering support for the Palestinian cause and peace for the region.
Imagine that Jewish community leaders and activists around the world woke
up to the realization that the Israel they cherished as a needy charitable
cause and as a proud nation re-born from the ashes of the Nazi holocaust
had metamorphosed into a militarily powerful state that for nearly four
decades has been oppressively occupying the land and lives of another
degraded people whose original felony was to be in the way of the Zionist
enterprise. Instead of knee-jerk solidarity with every Israeli policy and
action, however outrageous, imagine they applied the same rational and
human rights standards to Israeli conduct and the cause of peace as they
often prided themselves as favouring elsewhere and imagine that they
consistently used their influence with Israeli governments to these ends.
Imagine too that other passionate devotees around the world to the Israeli
or Palestinian causes rose above their partisan tendencies to see the
bigger picture and campaigned within their own countries, separately or
together, for a fair and equitable solution to the conflict based on two
viable states.
In sum, imagine the mysterious virus worked its magic – and no one was
making excuses. It would be a great advance, not to be underestimated. But
it would not be enough to break the deadlock on the ground. For this, we
need a coherent plan that is at once conceptually sound, addresses the
major issues head on, draws on the negotiations of recent years, reflects
the resultant international consensus and – most importantly – learns from
the failings and does not repeat the mistakes of previous peace plans from
the Oslo Accords to the Quartet’s ‘Road Map’.
One key lesson is that, if ever it were true, the parties today are unable
- or unwilling – to solve the problems themselves and that progress depends
crucially on decisive international intervention. A second is that
‘incremental progress’ in this context is a contradiction in terms as it is
an open invitation to militant factions on both sides to sabotage a process
and an outcome they vehemently oppose. A third – vital – conclusion is that
leaving the termination of the Israeli occupation to the end of the
process, while attempting to deal with other problems first, is a logical
fallacy as it is the occupation that is the root of most of the problems.
The key is to find a way of terminating Israeli rule towards the beginning
of the process. Otherwise, the plan will for sure come apart once more,
with fingers of blame being pointed all around.
This presents two major challenges. One is to reconcile a swift and
authentic end to the occupation – a basic demand not just of the
Palestinians but supported too by a clear majority of Israelis – with the
visceral Israeli fear of relinquishing the territories to the Palestinians
themselves, particularly to Arafat or Hamas. The other major challenge is
to build a stable Palestinian state able to meet the needs of its people
and willing to resolve outstanding problems with its Israeli neighbour.
The only logical way of meeting these diverse needs is for the territories
to be handed over to a third party as a transitional measure. What is
proposed is that a temporary international protectorate, under Security
Council authority, assumes formal legal jurisdiction over the whole of the
West Bank and Gaza Strip from the Israeli occupation authority. Mindful of
the Iraq experience, this would preferably be at the invitation of the
Palestinian Authority (ideally, it would be at the invitation of the
Israeli government too!). If the aim is to defuse and then end the
conflict, this is a more fitting option by far to an unsightly and
oppressive separation barrier snaking through the West Bank, even if the
latter provides a degree of short-term protection to some Israelis.
On pragmatic grounds and on an interim basis, it is envisaged that the
protectorate would in effect delegate back, in part or in full, de facto
authority over designated areas of territory or programme to either the
Israeli occupation authority or the PA, pending final-status negotiations.
In practical terms, this would entail a prompt end to the Israeli
occupation in the bulk of the territories, with phased withdrawals in
remaining areas according to an agreed timetable but without prejudice to
the final territorial arrangement.
The most urgent task of the protectorate, in conjunction with local forces,
would be its peace-enforcement role – acting vigorously against further
mutual slaughter and other acts of violence or terror. The more vital
longer-term task would be in the political arena, where it would have a
time-limited political mandate (maybe three to five years), at the end of
which it would give way to an independent, democratic Palestinian state in
the context of a peace agreement.
To this end, the protectorate would assist the Palestinians in restoring
basic services, reviving civil society and rebuilding national
institutions. It would help train security and civil personnel, monitor
elections, facilitate and mediate final-status negotiations, initiate and
supervise the rehabilitation of incoming willing refugees to the nascent
Palestinian state and generally co-ordinate an array of internationally
sponsored projects that the drive towards independence is likely to
generate.
The protectorate would rest on three tiers. The upper tier would confer
international legitimacy and legality on the protectorate and its scope of
authority through a UN Security Council resolution which, based on the
negotiations of recent years, would chart the broad parameters of a
projected final settlement. The resolution would designate, as the second
tier, a ‘mandate authority’ to oversee the work of the protectorate. A
likely candidate would be the ‘Quartet’ of the US, EU, Russia and the UN,
possibly expanded to include other appropriate powers.
The third tier, the protectorate administration, would be divided between
the civil and security tasks. Responsibility for security could fall to a
‘coalition of the willing and acceptable’ – requiring the assent of both
the Palestinians and the Israelis – which may include troops from the US,
the UK, Canada, Australia, possibly Turkey, Egypt, Jordan or others. It is
hard to imagine this working without the US playing a prominent role
although – in the light of its current overstretched and controversial
commitments in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere – this could be confined
largely to the command levels. One proponent, the New York Times columnist
Thomas Friedman, has suggested designating the security task to NATO.
It may be expected that this proposal would meet vehement opposition from
the current Israeli government and that considerable international pressure
would be needed to win its compliance. But this would be true for any
serious proposal. What matters is that the focus of any pressure relates to
the end-game, not to side issues or procedural questions. The repercussions
for Israeli society of an end to a prolonged occupation and the return of
settlers would inevitably be mixed and profound. Naturally, there would be
dislocations. But the continuation of the occupation is itself causing
severe internal rifts and intense economic distress. Of course, these would
be a lot worse without the current huge US annual subventions – something
not to be taken for granted for the future.
In some Palestinian circles, the proposal may be regarded initially as yet
another device for delaying independence. But in reality, far from
statehood lurking around the corner, the drift is in the opposite
direction. The Palestinians of the occupied territories are today
effectively a nation incarcerated. The virtual end of the Israeli
occupation and the dismantling of the entire paraphernalia of repression
coupled with a robust international security presence and the active
participation of the Palestinians in building their future state are all
reasons to suppose there would be a progressive reduction in the level of
violence. The Palestinians would at last have a tangible stake and a
restored hope in the future. It would mean a new start, commencing the day
the protectorate takes over.
A major drawback is that George Bush has neither the vision of an
Eisenhower nor the grasp of a Clinton. Again, hope may be pinned on the
future good sense of an electorate to return a more cerebral administration
at the appointed hour. For its part, the EU – Israel’s biggest trading
partner and the largest non-Arab provider of direct aid to the PA – could
be considerably more assertive, along with other powers, in laying the
political and practical groundwork. It is simply a matter of intelligent
self-interest and determined political will.
In sum, there is a solution, waiting to be grasped. But time is precious.
We cannot rely on governments to act spontaneously wisely, so it is
important that a constituency of support is built among ordinary citizens
around the world to agitate nationally and globally in favour of a decisive
international role along the lines outlined here to end this pernicious
conflict before it becomes irresolvable.
Or we could imagine that none of the above happens. The abyss beckons.
That doesn’t bear imagining.
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Dr Tony Klug is an international relations specialist and a veteran Middle
East analyst. His ‘A Tale of Two Peoples’ (Fabian Society, London, 1973)
was one of the first cogent arguments for a two-state solution. His ‘The
Only Way Out’ (Fabian Society, London, 1977) advocated a unilateral Israeli
withdrawal from the West Bank. He developed the current proposal for a
transitional international protectorate for the occupied Palestinian
territories in conjunction with the UK-based Middle East Policy Initiative
Forum.