BHA: <fwd>Wallerstein "Israel/Palestine: Can There Be Peace?"

[Jan Straathof <janstr@xxxxxxx>]

                       Commentary No. 85, Mar. 15, 2002

                   "Israel/Palestine: Can There Be Peace?"

It's getting harder and harder to believe that there is an end in sight for
the warfare. It was always a difficult political situation with no easy
solutions. It wasn't, however, inevitable that we came to where we have come
today. What we have is a situation in which two modern nationalist movements
have laid claim to the same land. It is not however merely that they have
both claimed a limited stretch of contested land. They have both claimed the
entire land area in question.

In such a situation, everyone has seen from the beginning that there were
only three possible definitive solutions: (1) the establishment of a
binational state; (2) either the one or the other side won 100% of the land
(and probably expelled or killed the others); (3) there would be a partition
to which both sides would agree.

Binational states are hard enough to keep together (Canada, Belgium,
Cyprus), but they seem virtually impossible to found when they don't already
exist historically (and the two that were founded ab initio - Czechoslovakia
and Yugoslavia - no longer exist). The now forgotten Jewish intellectual,
Judah Magnes, who was the first Chancellor of the Hebrew University,
struggled to create a binational state in the pre-1948 period, but he never
had a large audience for his views. Some Palestinian intellectuals have
proposed similar ideas recently. But they too don't have much audience for
such views. Given everything that has occurred, it doesn't seem a
politically viable option.

Then there is the idea of mutual destruction. This idea has a much larger
audience than the idea of a binational state. I would guess (there are no
opinion polls) that perhaps 30% of Israeli Jews and 30% of Palestinian Arabs
are in fact in favor of this option, even if some of them would deny it. So
this is a serious option, and there are people seriously pursuing it. Of
course, those on each side who favor this option think they would be the
victorious ones, and would give you long geopolitical analyses (not to speak
of the expected divine intervention) to show you why they would win. And who
knows? Perhaps one of them is right. Then the world could chalk up another
holocaust - of Arabs or of Jews - and move on to other matters (unless of
course one or the other managed to start a nuclear war).

That leaves the rest of us (Israelis, Palestinians, and third parties) who
do not believe a binational state is credible and who refuse to regard
sanguinely Armageddon. This might be called the camp of some kind of peace.
The problem is what kind of peace? It is not so simple, anywhere in any
situation, to be for peace. For there are two kinds of peace agreements.
There are those which cut the pie 50-50 more or less. And there are those
which cut the pie 80-20 more or less. Speak to me not of justice. Peace and
justice are not only not the same thing but quite often incompatible. So, if
you are for peace, you often have to put it ahead of justice, or at least
ahead of full justice.

The trouble with peace camps is that very few in them are really in favor of
a 50-50 solution. The majority usually are looking for solutions that are
80-20 in favor of one side or the other. This was certainly true in the
negotiations before and after Oslo in the case of Israel/Palestine. The only
difference between Sharon and Barak is that Sharon has increased the
percentage from 80-20 to 95-5. That is more or less the difference between
Arafat and Hamas. Getting a deal that is closer to 50-50 is a long way off.
And in the meantime, the war is escalating, and may be now beyond the
control of the camp of peace.

What is a 50-50 solution? I shall not answer the question, because every
reader will quibble with me about details. We have had many starting points
for a 50-50 solution in the past. Today, people are focusing on the elusive
proposals of Prince Abdullah. I guess they're as good a starting-point as
any. But no one seems to be starting. And in a year, Abdullah's proposals
may be history, like the Mitchell proposals. In any case, what is important
if one is to get to a 50-50 arrangment is not just a plan, but a certain
spirit, a certain degree of mutual exhaustion, and a certain degree of
outside pressure.

At the moment, the spirit isn't there, the exhaustion is just beginning to
be felt, and the outside pressure is simply absent. The United States is
Israel's ally, as its leaders never tire of stating publicly, and this is
more true than ever today. Its pressure is in favor of a pro-Israel 80-20
solution. The Europeans are more equitable, which is why the Israelis don't
want them to play a role. But the Europeans are also still unwilling to buck
the United States publicly on this issue. This is part of the larger
question of European-U.S. relations. And Abdullah surely cannot do it alone,
if indeed he is in favor of a 50-50 solution.

So what will happen? This is why one has every justification to be
pessimistic, even if that is a terrible thing to be. After the Israelis
reoccupy permanently the West Bank and Gaza, and someone launches biological
and/or chemical weapons, and the Mosque of Omar and the Wailing Wall are
blown up, we shall be able to see a posteriori which side has committed
suicide. It will be the subject of many a doctoral dissertation and
journalistic account. There may even be novels, great novels.

I would recommend hiding in a cave, except that I understand that there are
now these wonderful new weapons that can kill you or flush you out from the
deepest caves. It was simpler yesteryear.

Immanuel Wallerstein

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