The Israel-Arab Reader

by Walter Laqueur

  The fundamental realities are not going to be changed by delays. . . . We can wait until [a whole generation] and we’ve got a whole lot more bodies and a lot more funerals, a lot more crying and a lot more hatred, and I’ll swear the decisions will still be the same ones that will have to be made today. . . .

  I’m a little concerned that we could draw the wrong lessons from this tragic, still relatively brief, chapter in the history of the Middle East. The violence does not demonstrate that the quest for peace has gone too far or too fast. It demonstrates what happens when you’ve got a problem that is profoundly difficult and you never quite get to the end, so there is no settlement, no resolution, anxiety prevailed, and at least some people never get any concrete benefits out of it.

  And I believe that the last few months demonstrate the futility of force or terrorism as an ultimate solution. . . . I believe that the violence confirms the need to do more to prepare both publics for the requirements of peace, not to condition people for the so-called glory of further conflict.

  Now, what are we going to do now? The first priority, obviously, has got to be to drastically reduce the current cycle of violence. But beyond that, on the Palestinian side, there must be an end to the culture of violence and the culture of incitement that, since Oslo, has not gone unchecked. Young children still are being educated to believe in confrontation with Israel, and multiple militia-like groups carry and use weapons with impunity. Voices of reason in that kind of environment will be drowned out too often by voices of revenge.

  Such conduct is inconsistent with the Palestinian leadership’s commitment to Oslo’s nonviolent path to peace and its persistence sends the wrong message to the Israeli people, and makes it much more difficult for them to support their leaders in making the compromises necessary to get a lasting agreement.

  For their part, the Israeli people also must understand that they’re creating a few problems, too; that the settlement enterprise and building bypass roads in the heart of what they already know will one day be part of a Palestinian state is inconsistent with the Oslo commitment that both sides negotiate a compromise.

  And restoring confidence requires the Palestinians being able to lead a normal existence, and not be subject to daily, often humiliating reminders that they lack basic freedom and control over their lives.

  These, too, make it harder for the Palestinians to believe the commitments made to them will be kept. Can two peoples with this kind of present trouble and troubling history still conclude a genuine and lasting peace? . . . They share such a small piece of land with such a profound history of importance to more than a billion people around the world. So I believe with all my heart not only that they can, but that they must.

  At Camp David, I saw Israeli and Palestinian negotiators who knew how many children each other had, who knew how many grandchildren each other had, who knew how they met their spouses, who knew what their family tragedies were, who trusted each other in their word. It was almost shocking to see what could happen and how people still felt on the ground when I saw how their leaders felt about each other and the respect and the confidence they had in each other when they were talking.

  The alternative to getting this peace done is being played out before our very eyes. But amidst the agony, I will say again, there are signs of hope. And let me try to put this into what I think is a realistic context.

  Camp David was a transformative event, because the two sides faced the core issue of their dispute in a forum that was official for the first time. And they had to debate the tradeoffs required to resolve the issues. Just as Oslo forced Israelis and Palestinians to come to terms with each other’s existence, the discussions of the past six months have forced them to come to terms with each other’s needs and the contours of a peace that ultimately they will have to reach.

  That’s why Prime Minister Barak, I think, has demonstrated real courage and vision in moving toward peace in difficult circumstances while trying to find a way to continue to protect Israel’s security and vital interests.

  So that’s a fancy way of saying we know what we have to do and we’ve got a mess on our hands. So where do we go from here? Given the impasse and the tragic deterioration on the ground, a couple of weeks ago both sides asked me to present my ideas. So I put forward parameters that I wanted to be a guide toward a comprehensive agreement; parameters based on eight years of listening carefully to both sides and hearing them describe with increasing clarity their respective grievances and needs.

  Both Prime Minister Barak and Chairman Arafat have now accepted these parameters as the basis for further efforts. . . . The parameters I put forward contemplate a settlement in response to each side’s essential needs, if not to their utmost desires. A settlement based on sovereign homelands, security, peace and dignity for both Israelis and Palestinians. These parameters don’t begin to answer every question, they just narrow the questions that have to be answered.

  Here they are. First, I think there can be no genuine resolution to the conflict without a sovereign, viable, Palestinian state that accommodates Israeli’s security requirements and the demographic realities. That suggests Palestinian sovereignty over Gaza, the vast majority of the West Bank, the incorporation into Israel of settlement blocks, with the goal of maximizing the number of settlers in Israel while minimizing the land annex for Palestine to be viable must be a geographically contiguous state.

  Now, the land annexed into Israel into settlement blocks should include as few Palestinians as possible, consistent with the logic of two separate homelands. And to make the agreement durable, I think there will have to be some territorial swaps and other arrangements.

  Second, a solution will have to be found for the Palestinian refugees who have suffered a great deal—particularly some of them. A solution that allows them to return to a Palestinian state that will provide all Palestinians with a place they can safely and proudly call home. All Palestinian refugees who wish to live in this homeland should have the right to do so. All others who want to find new homes, whether in their current locations or in third countries, should be able to do so, consistent with those countries’ sovereign decisions. And that includes Israel.

  All refugees should receive compensation from the international community for their losses, and assistance in building new lives.

  Now, you all know what the rub is. That was a lot of artful language for saying that you cannot expect Israel to acknowledge an unlimited right of return to present day Israel, and at the same time, to give up Gaza and the West Bank and have the settlement blocks as compact as possible, because of where a lot of these refugees came from. We cannot expect Israel to make a decision that would threaten the very foundations of the state of Israel, and would undermine the whole logic of peace. And it shouldn’t be done.

  But I have made it very clear that the refugees will be a high priority, and that the United States will take a lead in raising the money necessary to relocate them in the most appropriate manner. . . . But there cannot be an unlimited language in an agreement that would undermine the very foundations of the Israeli state or the whole reason for creating the Palestinian state. So that’s what we’re working on.

  Third, there will be no peace, and no peace agreement, unless the Israeli people have lasting security guarantees. These need not and should not come at the expense of Palestinian sovereignty, or interfere with Palestinian territorial integrity. So my parameters rely on an international presence in Palestine to provide border security along the Jordan Valley and to monitor implementation of the final agreement. They rely on a non-militarized Palestine, a phased Israeli withdrawal, to address Israeli security needs in the Jordan Valley, and other essential arrangements to ensure Israel’s ability to defend itself.

  Fourth, I come to the issue of Jerusalem, perhaps the most emotional and sensitive of all. It is a historic, cultural and political center for both Israelis and Palestinians, a unique city sacred to all three monotheistic religions. And I beli
eve the parameters I have established flow from four fair and logical propositions.

  First, Jerusalem should be an open and undivided city, with assured freedom of access and worship for all. It should encompass the internationally recognized capitals of two states, Israel and Palestine. Second, what is Arab should be Palestinian, for why would Israel want to govern in perpetuity the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians? Third, what is Jewish should be Israeli. That would give rise to a Jewish Jerusalem, larger and more vibrant than any in history. Fourth, what is holy to both requires a special care to meet the needs of all. I was glad to hear what the Speaker said about that. No peace agreement will last if not premised on mutual respect for the religious beliefs and holy shrines of Jews, Muslims and Christians.

  I have offered formulations on the Haram Ash-Shareef, and the area holy to the Jewish people, an area which for 2,000 years, as I said at Camp David, has been the focus of Jewish yearning, that I believed fairly addressed the concerns of both sides.

  Fifth and, finally, any agreement will have to mark the decision to end the conflict, for neither side can afford to make these painful compromises, only to be subjected to further demands. They are both entitled to know that if they take the last drop of blood out of each other’s turnip, that’s it. It really will have to be the end of the struggle that has pitted Palestinians and Israelis against one another for too long. And the end of the conflict must manifest itself with concrete acts that demonstrate a new attitude and a new approach by Palestinians and Israelis toward each other, and by other states in the region toward Israel, and by the entire region toward Palestine, to help it get off to a good start.

  The parties’ experience with interim accords has not always been happy—too many deadlines missed, too many commitments unfulfilled on both sides. So for this to signify a real end of the conflict, there must be effective mechanisms to provide guarantees of implementation. . . .

  Now, I still think the benefits of the agreement, based on these parameters, far outweigh the burdens. For the people of Israel, they are an end to conflict, secure and defensible borders, the incorporation of most of the settlers into Israel, and the Jewish capital of Jerusalem, recognized by all, not just the United States, by everybody in the world. It’s a big deal, and it needs to be done.

  For the Palestinian people, it means the freedom to determine their own future on their own land, a new life for the refugees, an independent and sovereign state with al-Quds as its capital, recognized by all. And for America, it means that we could have new flags flying over new embassies in both these capitals. . . .

  Let me say those who believe that my ideas can be altered to one party’s exclusive benefit are mistaken. I think to press for more will produce less. There can be no peace without compromise. . . . I have said what I have out of a profound lifetime commitment to and love for the state of Israel, out of a conviction that the Palestinian people have been ignored or used as political footballs by others for long enough, and they ought to have a chance to make their own life with dignity. And out of a belief that in the homeland of the world’s three great religions that believe we are all the creatures of one God, we ought to be able to prove that one person’s win is not, by definition, another’s loss; that one person’s dignity is not, by definition, another’s humiliation; that one person’s work of God is not, by definition, another’s heresy. There has to be a way for us to find a truth we can share. There has to be a way for us to reach those young Palestinian kids who . . . don’t imagine a future in which they would ever put on clothes like this and sit at a dinner like this.

  There has to be a way for us to say to them, struggle and pain and destruction and self-destruction are way overrated, and not the only option. There has to be a way for us to reach those people in Israel who have paid such a high price and believe, frankly, that people who embrace the ideas I just outlined are nuts, because Israel is a little country and this agreement would make it smaller; to understand that the world in which we live and the technology of modern weaponry no longer make defense primarily a matter of geography and of politics and the human feeling and the interdependence and the cooperation and the shared values and the shared interests are more important and worth the considered risk, especially if the United States remains committed to the military capacity of the state of Israel.

  So I say to the Palestinians: there will always be those who are sitting outside . . . urging you to hold out for more, or to plant one more bomb. But all the people who do that, they’re not the refugees languishing in those camps—you are. They’re not the ones with children growing up in poverty whose income is lower today than it was the day we had the signing on the White House Lawn in 1993—you are.

  All the people that are saying to the Palestinian people: Stay on the path of no, are people that have a vested interest in the failure of the peace process that has nothing to do with how those kids in Gaza and the West Bank are going to grow up and live and raise their own children.

  To the citizens of Israel who have returned to an ancient homeland after 2,000 years, whose hopes and dreams almost vanished in the Holocaust, who have hardly had one day of peace and quiet since the state of Israel was created, I understand, I believe, something of the disillusionment, the anger, the frustration that so many feel when, just at the moment peace seemed within reach, all this violence broke out and raised the question of whether it is ever possible.

  The fact is that the people of Israel dreamed of a homeland. The dream came through; but when they came home, the land was not all vacant. Your land is also their land, it is the homeland of two people. And, therefore, there is no choice but to create two states and make the best of it.

  If it happens today, it will be better than if it happens tomorrow, because fewer people will die. And after it happens, the motives of those who continue the violence will be clearer to all than they are today. . . . New York has its own high-tech corridor called “Silicon Alley.” The number one foreign recipient of venture capital from Silicon Alley is Israel. Palestinians who have come to the United States, to Chile, to Canada, to Europe, have done fabulously well—in business, in the sciences, in academia.

  If we could ever let a lot of this stuff go and realize that . . . the enemies of peace in the Middle East are overlooking . . . what has happened to the state of Israel since its birth, and how fabulously well the people of Palestinian descent have done everywhere else in the world except in their homeland—where they are in the grip of forces that have not permitted them to reconcile with one another and with the people of Israel—listen, if you guys ever got together, ten years from now we would all wonder what the heck happened for thirty years before.

  And the center of energy and creativity and economic power and political influence in the entire region would be with the Israelis and the Palestinians because of their gifts. It could happen. But somebody has got to take the long leap, and they have to be somebodies on both sides. . . .

  Part V

  Conflict Renewed

  Arab League Summit: “Beirut Declaration” (March 28, 2002)

  Reaffirming the resolution taken in June 1996 at the Cairo Extraordinary Arab Summit that a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East is the strategic option of the Arab Countries, to be achieved in accordance with international legality, and which would require a comparable commitment on the part of the Israeli Government. . . .

  Emanating from the conviction of the Arab countries that a military solution to the conflict will not achieve peace or provide security for the parties, the council: 1. Requests Israel to reconsider its policies and declare that a just peace is its strategic option as well.

  2. Further calls upon Israel to affirm: a. Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights to the lines of June 4, 1967 as well as the remaining occupied Lebanese territories in the south of Lebanon.

  b. Achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee
problem to be agreed upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194.

  c. The acceptance of the establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian State on the Palestinian territories occupied since the 4th of June 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

  3. Consequently, the Arab Countries affirm the following: a. Consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended, and enter into a peace agreement with Israel, and provide security for all the states of the region.

  b. Establish normal relations with Israel in the context of this comprehensive peace.

  4. Assures the rejection of all forms of Palestinian repatriation which conflict with the special circumstances of the Arab host countries.

  5. Calls upon the Government of Israel and all Israelis to accept this initiative in order to safeguard the prospects for peace and stop the further shedding of blood, enabling the Arab Countries and Israel to live in peace and good neighborliness and provide future generations with security, stability, and prosperity.

  6. Invites the international community and all countries and Organizations to support this initiative. . . .

  U.S. President George W. Bush: A New Palestinian Leadership (June 24, 2002)

  For too long, the citizens of the Middle East have lived in the midst of death and fear. The hatred of a few holds the hopes of many hostage. The forces of extremism and terror are attempting to kill progress and peace by killing the innocent. And this casts a dark shadow over an entire region. For the sake of all humanity, things must change in the Middle East.