Jewish Forum for Justice and Human Rights

Presentation by Tony Klug to a Jewish Forum for Justice and Human Rights public meeting, Hampstead Town Hall, London, 21 March 2005

 

I should like to put four propositions to you.

 

I donít know how youíll feel about them but I expect you will agree at least with the first, as itís really a statement of the obvious ñ that the two peoples are fated, one way or another, to live alongside each other. Whatever the past and whatever the rights and wrongs, neither is going away. If the Palestinians fail to gain their place in the sun, the Israelis will never be left in peace to enjoy theirs. Conversely, the Palestinians will never win their freedom if the Israelis are convinced it will be at their expense. Each holds the key to the otherís destiny. They will succeed or fail together. To put it another way, this conflict is the very opposite of a zero-sum game.

 

There is an important consequence to this. If we continue ñ Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians – to vilify each other: to perpetuate stereotypes, demonize whole peoples, distort their histories and ridicule their aspirations, we will for sure inoculate future generations with an abiding animosity towards each other irrespective of the shape of a notional political settlement. We really must stop spreading the poison.

 

The second proposition is that the indefinite continuation of this tragic conflict is not inevitable. It is not as if there is a fundamental ideological or religious dispute between these two small, long-suffering peoples or an endemic historical enmity. Israelis and Palestinians have clashed ñ bitterly ñ because they have simultaneously aspired to the same piece of territory on which to exercise their self-determination. This is the root of the conflict. Everything else has been artificially superimposed on top. If the geographical circumstances had been different, it would not be so hard to imagine their relationship as more of one of alliance and mutual support. And it could still be. In many respects, they have much in common.

 

On the one side, all sorts of conspiracy theories and malevolent intent have been heaped onto the Zionist movement by its detractors, some of it giving off a familiar anti-Semitic whiff, not so different from that which played the decisive role in winning so many Jews to the Zionist cause in the first place. Conceptually, Zionism was a distressed peopleís proud, if defiant, response to centuries of contempt, humiliation, discrimination and periodic bouts of murderous oppression, of which the Nazi holocaust was but the most recent and extreme. The Israeli state was the would-be phoenix to rise from the Jewish embers still smouldering in the blood-soaked earth of another continent.

 

The motive was the positive one of achieving justice and safety for one tormented people, not the negative one of doing damage to another people. Yet, in effect, this is precisely what it did do, and at some point Israelis and their supporters around the world are going to have to come fully and openly to terms with this.

 

On the other side, the Palestinians, likewise, did not set out to damage anyone. They merely wanted for themselves what ñ with considerable justification – they felt was their entitlement. While their Arab brethren were achieving independence in neighbouring countries, the Palestinians were paying a heavy price for losing out in the geo-political lottery. Dispossessed, degraded and derided, their original felony was simply to be in the way of another anguished peopleís grand enterprise. Almost everything that has happened since then is in some way a consequence of this.

 

The third proposition is that the answer to Israelís security problems is not to tighten the screw and further inflame the passions.

 

This is not to imply that Israelís security problems are fake. Threats to its existence in the past from a plurality of Arab states were common, authentic and sometimes blood-curdling. Assaults on the lives and limbs of Israeli citizens by Palestinian terror groups have been bloody and horrific. But the Israeli state can hardly claim to be an innocent victim. It has presided over a progressively oppressive occupation that has committed grave human rights violations and contravened the Geneva Convention more or less at will.

 

It will be said, fairly, that in an international league table of repressive regimes, many of Israelís detractors would be higher in the pecking order. But this is to miss the critical point that Israelís gravest misdemeanour was to extinguish hope ñ the principal cause of the Palestinian uprising. Conversely, restoring it is the key to resolving the conflict.

 

As a researcher, I used to move about virtually unhindered through the West Bank in the 1970s as, mostly, did its Palestinian inhabitants. There were few Jewish settlements, few roadblocks and few terror attacks. Even travel across the old Green Line was barely monitored. The official Israeli approach was to let the Palestinians see the Jewish state for what it was, not as it had been portrayed by the propaganda machines of Arab states for the previous two decades.

 

Once Palestinian attitudes had changed, the argument ran, the territories would be returned. Well, Palestinian attitudes did indeed go through a profound transformation over the years that followed the 1967 war, culminating in an official PLO decision in 1988 to relinquish the Palestinian claim over 78 per cent of the land ñ what you might deem a ëgenerous offerí. The original Israeli strategy was thus not unsuccessful. Peace was on the horizon – until the settlements policy started in earnest. With it, came the waning of Palestinian hope and the onset of despair.

 

The fine sentiments of the Oslo Accords in the 1990s restored expectations for a while. But the division of the West Bank into three security areas, accompanied by the construction of hundreds of Israeli checkpoints, severely curtailed the Palestiniansí freedom of movement between their own towns and villages. Humiliating searches by young Israeli recruits became commonplace, and still are. The enforced requisition of Palestinian land and other resources to accommodate the burgeoning Jewish settlement programme continued apace, as it still does. Palestinian resistance grew in tandem, at times involving murderous attacks on Israeli civilians.

 

And now, in apparent response, we have the monstrous ëwallí, weaving its way around settlement blocs deep into the West Bank, effectively annexing huge chunks of Palestinian land and separating Palestinians from their fields, schools, universities, places of worship, hospitals, families and friends. This is the other side of Sharonís ìGaza withdrawalî plan. An entire population is being brutalized and alienated beyond endurance, and the future welfare of the Israeli people and state is being put at risk, to indulge a dangerous ideological urge and gratify a militant settler constituency. Yet, the more the Israelis incarcerate the Palestinians, the more they encage themselves. There is no escaping the symbiosis.

 

The fourth proposition is that the two-state framework remains the key to a solution – but time is fast running out.

 

As one of the early advocates of this proposal, 30-plus years ago, I am conscious that this might explain my continuing attachment to the idea. But I have never regarded two states as either an ideal or an ultimate solution. This is for the parties themselves freely to decide. But I do hold that in an era of nation states, the vital missing parameter ñ the lack of Palestinian statehood ñ must first be rectified. Until such a time, all dealings between the parties will continue to be fundamentally inequitable and thus incapable of achieving a fair, mutually acceptable, outcome.

 

ëTwo statesí is code for the end of occupation, for Palestinian independence, for Israel to survive and prosper, and for both peoples to determine their own destinies, including on whether or not to merge their sovereignties over time. Once there is peace and people no longer live in daily fear of each other, all sorts of possibilities open up.

 

Weíre running out of time because the settlements, the land seizures, the by-pass roads and the barrier are daily gobbling up the measly 22 per cent left for a Palestinian state. The key is to freeze all these activities and then start rolling them back. A viable, contiguous, independent Palestinian state with ample territory to accommodate its growing population as well as to absorb returning refugees is as vital an Israeli interest as it is a Palestinian interest. How then may this be achieved? Here are three ideas to consider. Others would be most welcome.

 

The simplest and most effective way would be a public declaration on the part of the Israeli government of its willingness in principle to terminate its occupation of all Palestinian territories, subject to mutually agreed equitable land swaps and appropriate assurances on security. The repercussions of an Israeli invitation to its neighbours to agree the modalities of such a withdrawal in the context of a full peace arrangement would almost certainly be swift and profound and trigger a new momentum. Iím afraid the absence of such a declaration, even in principle, speaks for itself.

 

Secondly, I would suggest to the Palestinian leadership, without minimizing the difficulties, that it consider taking two specific policy initiatives. The first would be to declare an extended ceasefire – unilateral if necessary – for a minimum period of say two years, as part of a broader strategy of non-violent resistance to the occupation, capable of arousing not just popular Palestinian backing but also the support of the still largely dormant Israeli peace camp.

 

A prolonged suspension of Palestinian violence would undermine the security rationale for the separation barrier ñ which is the official rationale. A dynamic relationship could be established between the barrier and the ceasefire, whereby the international community would require the barrierís construction to be frozen for as long as the ceasefire held. By the same reasoning, there would be no security justification for not leaving the existing gates permanently open.

 

The other policy initiative relates to the mountainous problem of the Jewish settlers on the West Bank. To cut right through it, I would suggest that the Palestinian Authority consider publicly declaring that the settlers are welcome to stay, with their settlements becoming villages or towns within Palestine. The settlers could become full citizens of the Palestinian state – as over a million Palestinian Arabs are citizens of Israel – or they could remain Israeli nationals with Palestinian residency.

 

Naturally, as residents of Palestine, the settlers would have to abide by its laws and the settlements would necessarily cease to be armed outposts of Israel. Such an initiative would not only help mitigate the fearsome challenge of forcefully evacuating hundreds of thousands of settlers but it would also sweep away the emotive ñ albeit selective – argument that Israel needs to annex territory in order to prevent whole families from being evacuated from their homes. Most importantly, it would help to preserve the territorial integrity of the prospective Palestinian state. Of course, the settlers would also have the option of returning to Israel if they prefer.

 

Finally, I should say I am not wildly optimistic about any of this happening. Whether or not this eminently resolvable conflict is resolved depends in good part on which of the fruits of peace or the spoils of war the Israeli leadership values more. The two-state solution is ñ just ñ still obtainable. The alternative, I fear, is not the alluring fantasy of one happy united state ñ certainly not in the short-term – but the nightmare of endless conflict. We surely must do whatever we can to avoid such a prospect before time finally does run out.

 

==============================

Dr Tony Klug is a veteran Middle East analyst and Vice-Chair of the Arab-Jewish Forum.

 

tonyklug@compuserve.com