Maybe There Is No “Solution” 1991 Article Re-Printed in JPost 2017
Maybe There Is No “Solution”
By Aryeh Green
[Plus ca change, as the French say. It is
extraordinary how little things change in this region. A little over
twenty five years ago I penned an op-ed in the Washington Jewish Week about
President George H. W. Bush and James Baker's intention to "solve"
the 100-year-long Arab rejection of Jews' claim to our homeland. This
was just at the start of the round of Palestinian violence that became known as
the "first intifada". With minor edits this is what was true 25
years ago... and frighteningly still holds true today. Jared Kushner may
be on to something… though he might learn a thing or two from history, rather
than ignoring it.]
------ Original Article from 1991 ------
Once again attention is focused on our small strip of land
on the Mediterranean. Talk of various “peace initiatives” is in the
air. Despite the declaration by president Bush [I] that “the time has
come to find a solution to the Arab-Israel conflict”, two realities of our
Middle East predicament must be understood to prevent expectations from being
overly optimist.
The history of violence in the region, and its role in
political culture, may mean the dispute is not open to ‘peaceful’ resolution –
however much it pains us to admit. The intractable nature of the issues
leaves little hope for an all-encompassing “solution” in the foreseeable
future.
The violent ‘intifada’ [since December 1988] is not a
frustrated escalation of non-violent earlier protests; it is a cultural
phenomenon reflecting a prevailing attitude in the Arab world that problems can
be solved primarily by force. To say “violence is the only language Arabs
understand” would be racist; it is merely accurate to note the frequency of violence
in Arab communal and political life.
This obsession with violence explains the continued
unwillingness of the Arabs to enter into negotiations with Israelis, whether in
the famous “Three Nos” at Khartoum, in the PLO and other terrorist
organizations’ insistence on what they call “armed struggle”, or in the current
uprising and recurring bloodshed across the region.
Otherwise, one would expect this ‘uprising’ to give way to
some articulation of grievances aside from the general demand for a
‘Palestinian’ state, and a willingness to compromise and work towards real
peace. Israel is still awaiting such an approach. In the meantime,
people are being stabbed and shot.
Given the events of the past few months, the western world
might now recognize the Middle East is a hostile and violent region, instead of
continuing to view matters according to western rules and values.
Political discourse here owes more to the Bedouin sword than to Jefferson’s (or
Martin Luther King’s, or Gandhi’s) nonviolence and democratic moderation –
whether Muslim vs Christian, Sunni vs Shiite, Arab vs Arab, or Arab vs Jew.
But understanding that here, war is not merely a means but
an end in itself, is only one side of the coin. It reflects the continued
hostile rejection of the Jews’ connection to our ancestral homeland, and thus
the legitimacy of Israel’s very existence. The intractable nature of this
ideological/religious approach virtually guarantees a continued stalemate, in
what has become a civilizational conflict.
Three aspects of this historic struggle stand out. First, the ‘Palestinians’ aspire to a state in “all of Palestine” (excluding Jordan). Israelis across the political spectrum – even those who support Palestinian statehood – demand the Arabs renounce the goal of destroying Israel, and agree that the establishment of such a state, wherever located and however structured, will fulfill their national aspirations.
Yet even ‘moderate’ Arabs are unwilling to give up their
dream of returning to Jaffa, Haifa and Lod. In 1947, the Jews/Israelis
agreed to Partition because, even though it was not what we wanted, we were
willing to take what we could get. This willingness to compromise is
lacking in the Palestinian community and has always been the main weakness of
the Arab attitude towards Israel.
Second, Israel cannot accommodate a fully armed entity,
whether autonomous or federated with Jordan; the Palestinians decry this as a
limitation of their sovereignty. They insist that Jews/Israelis residing
in the disputed territories of Judea & Samaria/the “west bank” must be
evicted; Israelis insist some must remain. And most realistic scenarios
give Israel a right to maintain military installations in the territories,
while this has already been denounced as unacceptable by Palestinian leaders.
And third, the status of Jerusalem continues to be
disputed. Arabs and Jews, Jordanians, Palestinians and Israelis all lay
claim to the city. No one has legal title to the eastern section of the
city, including the “Holy Basin”, under international law. Left
undetermined by the UN, Jordan’s illegal occupation was never recognized over
any of the territory west of the river, and most nations have not recognized
Israel’s historic, legal or political claim to date. Yet across the
political spectrum in Israel, and in most western governments, it is agreed
that Israel we will never surrender Jerusalem or the Old City; while Jordan,
the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world continually maintain that a
“return” to Palestine without “Al Kuds” is unthinkable.
These three issues may perhaps be resolvable through
negotiations. Yet few people publicly acknowledge these and other
difficult aspects of the conflict for fear of upsetting whatever ‘peace
process’ may be in progress. We should not delude ourselves. Due to
the passions and inflexibility involved, these disputes are likely to remain
unsettled for some time. [Jared Kushner’s statement should be welcomed
precisely for its honesty and wisdom.]
This need not be depressing. France and German were at
war for centuries. Our conflict is far too serious to be “solved” in a
few weeks of shuttle diplomacy or a few years of one US administration or even
a few decades of one generation. Once the hatred cools over the course of
generations, perhaps a power-sharing arrangement and cross-national residency
can be arranged. But that first step is the most crucial – a change in
the decades of anti-Israel, anti-Jewish (anti-Christian and anti-western)
culture of hatred in Palestinian society and the broader Arab and Muslim
world. Just as a European Community would have seemed ludicrous to an 18th Century
Frenchman, until that occurs, discussing such “solutions” is unrealistic and
counter-productive.
------------------
Aryeh Green is the author of the forthcoming book My
Israel Trail: Finding Peace in the Land of Milk and Honey (www.myisraeltrail.com), a business executive
and consultant, and was a senior advisor to minister Natan Sharansky in
Israel’s Prime Minister’s office.
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Maybe-there-is-no-solution-502614
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