Israel’s ‘no’ to Palestinians costing them a great deal
By
S. Nihal Singh
Even
if Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert were not on his way out in a cloud of
corruption charges, events in the occupied Palestinian territories are
inexorably moving towards a denouement few Israelis want: a one-State solution.
Logically, that would represent the end of the rationale for setting up a
Jewish State in the heart of West Asia.
After
more than seven years of malign neglect, the Bush administration finally
bestirred itself to produce a mouse in the shape of the Annapolis process,
which is nearing its preordained doom. And with both Democratic and Republican
presidential candidates swearing their undying love for Israel, the pulls of US
domestic politics ensure that Israelis can do what they like.
Israelis
are doing precisely that — expanding their illegal settlements on the West Bank
and expropriating even more land on the fringes of the Wall that replicates the
doomed apartheid experiment in South Africa. All that the energetic US
secretary of state Condoleezza Rice can do in response is to murmur her
displeasure in an undertone.
Palestinians
themselves are hopelessly divided between the Fatah and Hamas factions, the
latter controlling a Gaza Strip converted by Israel into a vast open-air
prison. The Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’ rationale for continuing his
make-believe talks with Mr Olmert on an illusory peace process is that the
alternative would be war. Arab efforts at reconciling the two Palestinian
factions have yielded little but recrimination.
The
truth is that with Americans perennially handicapped by the clout of the
American-Jewish lobby and the love of the Christian evangelical Right for
Israel, no US administration can do much to resolve the problem. Mr Barack
Obama, who flaunts his liberal credentials, was the first to pay homage to the
Israeli lobby, promoting the dubious Israeli claim to an undivided Jerusalem as
its capital.
That
leaves two options: a one-State solution is which Arabs will ultimately swamp
Jews or a sea change in the collective Israeli outlook. There have always been
divisions in Israel on the merit of occupying Palestinian land and ruling over
Palestinians indefinitely. Israel chose to give up the Gaza Strip because its
continued occupation was disproportionate to the costs involved.
The
Peace Now movement was decimated by the second Palestinian intefada and for a
time every Israeli became a hawk. But a growing number of sober Israelis are
now pondering over the central dilemma: if they do not give up their
occupation, they would constantly remain a nation at war seeking to subdue
Palestinians at great cost to themselves and peace in the region.
The
tragedy is that even as Israelis have greatly benefited by the end of the Cold
War and the unilateral phase of American supremacy, US actions in the region by
invading Iraq, diplomatically confronting Iran and ostracising Syria have made
the central Israeli-Palestinian conflict more complicated. For America’s
"war on terror" has again strengthened Israel’s case and made the
conflict more difficult to resolve.
Israel
has made attempts at breaking out of this vicious circle though they have been
half-hearted. One recent indication is the series of indirect talks with Syria
being mediated by Turkey. It is, of course, tempting to take Syria out of the
anti-Israel phalanx by giving it back the occupied Golan Heights. But Israelis
have balked in the past over returning the whole of the area, wanting to retain
a crucial strip of land adjoining the water.
A
further complicating factor is the state of the Arab world, with most countries
dependent upon the American military umbrella. The oil-rich countries have
their resources to guard even as American policymakers fret over the immense
transfer of wealth that is taking place from the developed and non
oil-producing developing countries to those endowed with natural resources. The
Bush administration’s enthusiasm for democratising the Greater Middle East has
waned considerably as it seeks to pursue policies dictated by realpolitik.
Many
Israelis realise that the only true path to ensuring peace and prosperity for
their state is to give Palestinians a viable State of their own. But each day
that passes makes this choice more difficult to achieve because more
Palestinian land is sequestered, Israeli settlements and apartheid roads
pockmark the West Bank and the Palestinians’ daily misery of negotiating Israeli
checkpoints and walls to perform normal tasks grows.
Mercifully,
no one now hears about the Quartet, composed of Russia, the European Union, the
United Nations and the United States, whose singular contribution to resolving
problems was to rubberstamp American decisions. The concept of the Quartet must
rank as the greatest American diplomatic coup in recent times for inventing a
system to legitimise its partisan actions in the Middle East. Nor is the
Quartet’s supposed envoy, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, much in
evidence these days and seems to be enjoying a sinecure.
Which
brings us back to the Israelis. There are the stirrings of a new debate on
their future but we must remember that Israelis are as disputatious as Indians
and their system of governance encourages one-man or two-men parties that tip
the balance one way or the other. An Israeli President once told me in the
Presidential Palace that whatever India did in future, it should not follow the
Israeli system of proportional representation.
The
world must wait even longer to see some clarity in the Israeli scene. A new
leader will take over the Kadima Party and will presumably call early
elections. The American presidential election will ensure that the new man in
the White House will not make a substantial move on the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict until the middle of next year. Mr Abbas will battle on as the titular
head of a movement losing steam and credibility while many of the senior
representatives of the Palestinian authority have made a career of chasing
peace.
Perhaps,
the ghost of a one-State solution will impel more and more Israelis to put
their heads together to think clearly about their future.
They
have made a holy cow of their security needs long enough, and America’s
automatic support for Israeli wishes is a double-edged sword. Israelis must
live in Israel and must seek peace with neighbours. The price of that peace is
a viable State of Palestine.
Source:
The Asian Age, New Delhi
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