Death as a Way of Life

Stop Mumbling

November 2000

The al-Aksa Intifada continued to gain momentum, despite a statement made by Arafat and Barak at an emergency summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, initiated by President Clinton, calling for an end to the bloodshed. Inside Israel, heated demonstrations of Arab Israelis in support of the Palestinians resulted in the killing of thirteen demonstrators — all Israeli citizens. An inquiry committee was later established to investigate the Israeli police’s excessive use of force. The Israeli public was astonished at the sights of Palestinian violence in Israel and in the occupied territories. Many members of the Israeli left found themselves angry and disappointed with the Palestinian leadership, which seemed to have completely abandoned the path of political negotiations. The “confused left” later contributed, reluctantly but without question, to the rise of a new, strong leader — Ariel Sharon.

It is hard to believe that very many Israelis will be willing to listen to the Palestinians’ claims today, especially when they are accompanied by cruel and bloodcurdling acts of terror. Still, anyone who seeks a solution, who is not willing to be a passive victim of those who sow death and hatred all around us, must listen.

Those who talk today with Palestinians in key positions, officials of the Palestinian Authority and intellectuals, must admit that there is justice in their claims. A look at the map of Palestine that the Oslo process was to create reveals why the Palestinians felt trifled with. They realized that, after a bloody struggle, they would not be granted a real state, but rather a bunch of spots of national identity, surrounded and sliced by the ongoing presence of the Israeli occupier. This, and other no less harsh claims, means that any defense of the Israeli position requires quite a bit of logical contortion, not to mention moral acrobatics.

When examining the major obstacles that now prevent, as they will in the future, any sort of agreement, you discover the centrality of the issue of the settlements. Is it entirely out of bounds to hope that, after tempers cool a bit, Israel will reopen this subject to discussion? And will it, this time, do so with an understanding that it can no longer impose a solution to this charged issue on the Palestinians? Will Israel recognize that it is in its own manifest interest to endure short-term pain, almost intolerable pain, in order to realize, over generations, its truly essential goals?

The position of official and semiofficial Palestinian spokesmen today is that Israeli settlers who wish to remain in the territories under Palestinian sovereignty will be allowed to do so. The rest must return to Israel. At the same time, the Palestinians accept, without a choice, the possibility that certain settlement blocks will be annexed to Israel, as part of a symmetrical exchange of territory.

It is hard to believe that many Israelis today will agree to trust the goodwill of future Palestinian leaders. They will not entrust their safety to them. But neither do you have to be a great expert to comprehend that no country in the world can accept the existence, deep inside it, of heavily armed and fortified enclaves protected by the soldiers of another country, linked to that other state by dozens of restricted roads. Every rational person must understand that if we do not find a quick solution to this problem, the situation will quickly deteriorate into a Bosnian one, in which Jewish and Palestinian civilians will be shooting at each other in an endless spiral of blood.

So we have no choice but to say, with no equivocation, what many Israelis have been thinking for years. To achieve a just peace, one that has a real chance of lasting, many settlements will have to be dismantled. Not only the tiny settlements that were intended for evacuation under the Oslo agreement, ones like Ganim, Kadim, and Netzarim, but also others, as large and as established as they may be, whose location is liable to prevent a future agreement. This would include Ofra, Beit El, Elon Moreh, and Kiryat Arba. The same is true of the settlements in the Jordan Valley and on Mt. Hebron, as well as the eastern part of the Gush Etzion block.

We shouldn’t feign innocence — the great majority of the settlements were located exactly where they are in order to prevent any chance of a future peace treaty or, to our detriment, to frustrate the creation of a territorially contiguous Palestinian state. Now that this goal has in fact been achieved, complicating the situation to the point of despair, the settlers are proclaiming: See? Under these conditions we can’t make peace!

So the moment has come in which all Israelis must ask themselves, honestly, if they really are prepared to be killed for the right of a few thousand settlers to live in armed and alienated enclaves in the midst of an Arab population. Are they prepared to perform reserve duty there, engaging in a Kosovo-style combat against the Palestinians? Are they prepared for their sons and daughters to die defending the settlements?

The constant clashes between Israel and the Palestinians have impelled us more than once to dig ourselves into positions that are clearly very difficult to defend — such as our eighteen-year sojourn in Lebanon. In the end, we are forced to abandon those positions, by the skin of our teeth, after painful bloodletting.

For that reason, this is the time to ask again, as if for the first time, whether the statement “We won the Six-Day War” really requires reaching the conclusion that “we will therefore remain here forever, in the midst of a conquered people.” Is this really the only way to take advantage of the great Israeli victory in that war?

For years the peace camp has been mumbling about the necessity to evacuate the settlements. Mumbling, not yelling out loud, both because it recoils at the idea of uprooting families, children who were born there, and because of the fear that such an act will create a national trauma. But we can no longer continue to mumble. Logic requires the uprooting of many settlements that cannot be defended and whose existence will destroy the all-too-fragile chance for peace. Supporters of peace must make this mental switch to the end. The events of the last month, even if they elicit fear and doubt, in fact support such a step, and reveal the great danger inherent in lacking the courage to take this decision.