Can Israel Risk Apartheid?
The prospects for a peace agreement based on a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians have never seemed bleaker.
In the decade following the failure of Bill Clinton’s mediation effort between Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak in 2000, the Israelis have been subjected to suicide bombers, random shootings and more recently to unguided rockets from Gaza that targeted innocent civilians. And an organization that is sworn to destroy the State of Israel now controls half of the Palestinian territories.
If Israeli dead and injured number in the hundreds, those of the Palestinians are counted in thousands as Israel has unleashed its military might, sometimes brutally, to crush first the Intifada and more recently the Hamas rocket barrage. Gaza is beleaguered and in ruins, a testament to the callousness of both Hamas towards its own people, and of the Israelis who seem to think that not targeting civilians absolves them of moral responsibility when they’re killed “collaterally.”
The Palestinians in the West Bank have yet to see much concrete benefit from choosing the more moderate Fatah party of Mahmoud Abbas. They are, as ever, subjected to daily humiliations by Israeli military roadblocks; they see extreme right-wing Jewish zealots building new and expanding existing settlements on the West Bank often on the best available land. There are roads the Palestinians are not permitted to use and water sources that are for the Jewish settlers alone.
A recent devastating segment on the CBS network’s 60 Minutes highlighted the reality of the second-class status of Palestinians in the West Bank. In one part it showed a Palestinian family whose house was regularly occupied without warning by Israeli troops because it happened to be situated on a rise affording good observation over the surrounding area. During these temporary expropriations, the homeowner (a bank manager) and his wife are kicked out of their bedroom for the duration, and must live with their children downstairs. The Israeli soldiers refused to be filmed or to answer questions; perhaps they were ashamed, as well they should be, but probably not. When the 60 Minutes crew arrived a second time at the house coincidentally with the children returning from school, they were told the latter would not be admitted until the film crew departed. Such is the daily life of one Palestinian family.
CBS showed a lot of courage airing this piece because it was sympathetic to the Palestinians. Unlike in the rest of the world, that’s not a popular thing to do in the United States. Despite the fact that Israelis have the strongest military in the region, Americans perpetually labour under the illusion that it’s the former and not the Palestinians who are the underdogs. The plight of the Palestinians receives short shift in the media and American public opinion; and politicians of both parties take note.
A few years back, Jimmy Carter received a good deal of flak here for using the word “apartheid” in the title of his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. In the book, Carter made a compelling case that Israel had essentially imposed a sort of apartheid on the Palestinians of the West Bank. Although pilloried in America, his opinion is widely shared throughout the rest of the world, and for good reason as anyone who saw the 60 Minutes segment would see.
The Bush administration did virtually nothing to reconcile the two sides in eight years. On its watch the bitterness and hatred between Israelis and Palestinians after so much violence has only hardened attitudes. Politically, the Palestinians are now disastrously split with the dreadful Hamas in control in Gaza; Israelis meanwhile have now given the hard-line Benyamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud a better than even shot at forming a government. The prospects for a lasting peace have surely never seemed worse.
Yet there is hope even in the very hopelessness of it all. Israel is faced with three unpalatable choices in its relationship with the Palestinians. If the two-state solution is rejected, it has two other choices: It can drive the Palestinians out of the territories or at least try to make life for them so unbearable they that will leave of their own accord to go… where? Jordan? Egypt? In the alternative, it can continue on its present course towards an apartheid state in which its Jewish citizens enjoy a privileged existence whilst Arab and Palestinian inhabitants live as second-class nobodies with few rights. In either case it is Israel’s soul that will be destroyed.
Sooner or later Israel and the Palestinians must come back to the table because the status quo is simply not sustainable. And in the Obama administration, let’s hope Israel finds it has a true friend and not one that sycophantically tells it only what it wishes to hear.
Always love your posts NJB.
President Carter’s book you reference, to me, the definitive book on this subject (at least that is available and accessible to us normal folk). As a starting point, I think he is spot on his assertion that a return to the pre-’67 boundaries is a necessary condition to any solution. In addition, the Palestinians must be pulled out of their third world conditions and their “state” must be enabled to develop necessary elements such as a local economy and trade, normal international diplomacy, the ability to defend its citizens from internal and external threat, etc. Their condition is despicable and, in my view, anyone who is not mortified by the modern Palestinian plight and cannot see how it can only lead to increased hate generation-to-generation is heartless, racist or ignorant (or all three).
I guess I’m Pagan or agnostic, but I’ve been lucky in my life to have the opportunity to listen to Israelis – particularly young Israelis – on planes to and from Israel and in their country, in times of optimism and times more like now. Many are relatively secular or are people I would call more progressive Jews. I’ve also has the chance to talk to progressive “Persians” and Christian Palestinian (the ultimate “lost Christian tribe”) about the same things. They talk about what they think should be done to solve this problem.. And regardless of the prevailing political climate, these moderate and thinkers agree that they are willing to commit to a solution. Go ahead and close the Jewish settlements. Surrender the cause of trying to kick the Jews out of “Palestine”. Surrender the absolute ownership that each has been taught they are divinely entitled to. There is a way.
Ther is a reason why things won’t work in their current state. The strength Israel has is that it is an educated, independent, truly democratic country with free thinking and security (yes security) and great cities and is supported by nations who – while steadfast in their support – desire resolution to this conflict. The weakness of “Palestine” it is isoloated, its people have terrible living conditions and little education, there is a justifiable absence of hope in its population, lack of a critical mass of land or government and it is supported by many countries and many outside parties (not all) who are hell bent on the annihilation of Israel. Why else would the Hamas feel empowered to and think it was a good idea to lob rockets into Israel – there can be no outcome except what occurred (retaliation).
In both cases it is the orthodox and the religious zealots inside and outside of Israel and Palestine that are the root of the problem. To be successful, the world must change the point of view of those who enable the Hamas, the Al Qaeda, the “evil-doers”.
Zippy,
Thanks for the compliment but I think you said it all much better than I did. I would add that among Arabs at least, Palestinians have a relatively high education level with more of them with a university degree or similar. They also are generally secular in their outlook. It was a tragic sign of their genuine despair and desperation that these people turned to suicide bombing during the Intifada earlier in the decade.
A closing comment: Many in Israel and the US point to the Israeli abandonment of Gaza and the violence that followed as evidence of Israel’s willingness to compromise and the Palestinians’ inability to live independently, as though Gaza could even survive let alone thrive as an economic entity. Any agreement has to recognise, as you point out, that Palestinians must be allowed a state that is economically viable otherwise lasting peace will never be possible.