A friend of mine sent me the following, a piece entitled “Overlapping Realities” by the Israeli novelist Amis Oz, founder of the “Peace Now” movement :
Two Palestinian-Israeli wars have erupted in this region. One is the Palestinian nation’s war for its freedom from occupation and for its right to independent statehood. Any decent person ought to support this cause. The second war is waged by fanatical Islam, from Iran to Gaza and from Lebanon to Ramallah, to destroy Israel and drive the Jews out of their land. Any decent person ought to abhor this cause.
Yasser Arafat and his men are running both wars simultaneously, pretending they are one. The suicide killers evidently make no distinction. Much of the worldwide bafflement about the Middle East, much of the confusion among the Israelis themselves, stem from the overlap between these two wars.
Decent peace seekers, in Israel and elsewhere, are often drawn into simplistic positions. They either defend Israel’s continued occupation of the West Bank and Gaza by claiming that Israel has been targeted by Muslim holy war ever since its foundation in 1948, or else they vilify Israel on the grounds that nothing but the occupation prevents a just and lasting peace.
One simplistic argument allows Palestinians to kill all Israelis on the basis of their natural right to resist occupation. An equally simplistic counter-argument allows Israelis to oppress all Palestinians because an all-out Islamic jihad has been launched against them.
I can appreciate the sentiment in Mr. Oz’s arguments, but I think that in the end he, too, falls victim to the very reductionist rhetorical strategy he employs. After all, it’s easy for Israelis to believe in the scenario that Oz invokes — that the vast majority of Palestinians are involved in the all-out Islamic jihad against them — when 10-year old boys and betrothed teenaged girls keep blowing themselves up all over the country, in malls, pizza parlors, Bat Mitzvah halls, buses, hotel banquet rooms during holiday celebrations…
And it is the belief that they are indeed under seige — together with the historical fact that Arab nations have on many occasions attacked their country — that fosters suspicions among Israelis, and so promotes the culture of barbed wire and checkpoints which outside observers tend to find so objectionable.
Ignoring this variable simply allows Mr. Oz to pen a more urbane version of the “cycle of violence” meditation so prevalent among the chin-rubbing class.
Remember that Oz was once an ultra-dove who has moved way, way to the center, which is a fair barometer of the political situation in Israel, where a maligned figure like Sharon now has 70%+ approval ratings, and the Peace Now crowd, once prominent in the heady days of Rabin and Oslo, is barely heard from anymore. Most Israelis I know, on the left and right, feel that the Palestinians deserve their state (preferably with an electric fence around it), and must have one, the sooner the better; that the “cycle,” no matter how or why it started, must be broken; and as a step in that direction would be willing (as happened in the Sinai following the Camp David agreement with Egypt) to dismantle the settlements (and absorb into Israel proper the fanatical, resource-hoarding occupants), which they see as a needless provocation and an inevitable obstacle to negotiations. I say, let the Israelis finish their West Bank operations (and let the international observers gather their war crimes evidence), and then, to show good faith to the world, put those unfortunate settlements on the bargaining table. I think the Israelis would be well-served, morally and politically, by making the first move. Somebody has to.
…another “first move,” you mean.
One of the problems the Israelis have right now (vis-a-vis “peace negotiations”) is that they absolutely <i>cannot</i> make concessions as a result of terror attacks. Such a sign of weakness would doom them to more attacks, and they know it.
Which is why an extended cease fire is always a condition with the Israelis, I suspect.