Israeli and Palestinian leaders must
come up with a new vision of the future which allows both sides to fulfill
their people's national aspirations.
By Bassam Abu-Sharif in Ramallah
(IWPR Conflict Report: Middle East, January 2002)
The State of Israel defines itself as a Jewish state, whose purpose is to serve as a haven for Jews from around the world. As such, the Israeli government and Jewish citizenry have consistently rejected the idea that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict be resolved within the framework of a single state for both Jews and Arabs - what the Palestinian national movement calls a "secular democratic state in Palestine".
In the late Eighties, after years of struggling for a secular democratic state, the Palestinian national movement finally accepted the idea of a "two-state solution" whereby Israelis and Palestinians would live separately, side-by-side in peace.
This huge compromise for Palestinians was translated into formal agreements in Oslo in 1993, accompanied by the exchange of letters of mutual recognition between President Yasser Arafat and the late Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.
On the basis of these understandings, the State of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation embarked on the Oslo peace process, which was hailed as an act of historic reconciliation.
The Oslo peace process should have concluded with the establishment of a Palestinian state in the territories of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem - land occupied by Israel since 1967. The two sides were to enter into cooperation agreements concerning water, environment, economics and security. Jerusalem would have become a shared capital for the two states with open borders and joint management of the city.
The issue of Palestinian refugees was to be resolved within the framework of an agreement based on UN Resolution 194, which calls for them to have the right of return, or to be compensated.
In this way, both the Jewish people and the Palestinians would have seen their right to self-determination realised. But instead, the Olso peace process collapsed and violence followed. So it is important to understand the main reasons for that failure.
Throughout the seven years of the Oslo peace process, successive Israeli governments continued to build and expand illegal settlements on the territories which were meant to form a Palestinian state under the terms of the agreement. The pace of building reached a peak during Ehud Barak's term as prime minister of Israel.
In this way, the Israelis created new "facts on the ground", which made the accords practically impossible to implement. This was done in flagrant breach of agreements signed by both sides, in the full knowledge that settlement activities are forbidden under the Geneva Convention. The process was further stalled as the Israelis set extra conditions and pre-conditions.
A series of misconceptions have convinced the Israeli public that Palestinians do not want to find a solution to the conflict.
Chief among these is the notion that during the Camp David talks, Barak made a "generous offer" which the Palestinian camp spurned. It was an offer based on independence, but Barak insisted on many conditions which were unacceptable to the Palestinians.
He demanded, for instance, that illegal Jewish settlements remain under Israeli control and that its army take charge of the borders, the airspace and the territorial waters of the Palestinian state.
Another misconception is the view held by many Israelis that the intifada was a premeditated event aimed at destroying the State of Israel. They seem unaware that Ariel Sharon's incursion into the al-Aqsa mosque in September 2000, and the subsequent use of live ammunition to kill Palestinian demonstrators, ignited years of frustration and indignation caused by unabated settlement activity, ongoing land confiscation, demolition of Palestinian homes and the routine humiliation of Palestinians at Israeli military road-blocks in the occupied territories.
The Israeli public perception of Palestinians as aggressors and Israelis as victims is the product of ignorance: they are simply unaware of the daily reality of life in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories have evolved into military bases used to attack Palestinians. The Palestinian reaction came in the form of an uprising aimed at defending themselves and ending 34 years of occupation.
If misconceptions such as these persist in moulding Israeli public opinion, then violence will continue to escalate and the death toll will continue to rise.
Following a bloody year that has seen hundreds of deaths, the vast majority among Palestinian civilians, the Israeli government refuses to resume negotiations from the point they were at in the resort town of Taba - where leaders of both sides came close to agreement on several key issues - choosing instead to continue provocative occupation measures in the Palestinian territories.
Palestinian extremists have responded with terrorist acts that are condemned by the Palestinian mainstream and the Palestinian Authority. In this way, the cycle of violence continues.
It is time the people of Israel and Palestine become peace activists, instead of mere vassals of misconception and incitement. We need draw up a new solution, beginning with a vision of the form peaceful coexistence will eventually take. From there, we need to seek out the means and mechanisms to make that vision a reality. A joint Israeli-Palestinian vision must offer real answers to genuine Israeli and Palestinian security concerns.
The vision must be one which allows each side to fulfill its national aspirations and offer dignity to its people. There must be provisions for direct international involvement on the ground to guarantee the full implementation of agreements. There must be credible mechanisms for verification and implementation of mutual commitments. The vision must foster confidence and trust between the peoples of Israel and Palestine and remove the misconceptions which each side holds about the other.
This process can be initiated by Israeli and Palestinian public figures who should sign a document outlining such a vision and appear together in public and in the media to explain it to their people.
They must clearly state the following:
One - we condemn terrorism and violence whether carried out by Israeli soldiers or Palestinian extremists; we believe that terrorist acts against civilians erode the chances of peace and any potential agreement, and tarnish the image of both sides, turning the Holy Land into land soaked in blood.
Two - we do not seek or plan to destroy the State of Israel nor to prevent the Palestinian people from achieving statehood and international legitimacy. We recognise both the State of Israel and the State of Palestine and are committed to enable both states to exist within safe and recognised borders.
Three - we are committed to the establishment of the State of Palestine in the territories of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.
Four - Jerusalem must be a shared capital with open borders and free access to all holy places by people of all faiths.
Five - both states will enjoy independence and sovereignty and will enter into agreements for mutually beneficial economic cooperation, mechanisms for security and defence provision and guarantees, plus other cooperative endeavors in fields such as the environment and water management.
Six - the Palestinian right of return will be resolved through an agreement reached with other regional states and international authorities. Under this accord, Israel would be reassured that its Jewish majority would be preserved. It would allow, for example, Palestinian family members living in Lebanon and northern Israel to be reunited.
Israeli and Palestinian public figures should also call for: =B7 an immediate Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza. =B7 an immediate and total freeze of settlement construction, land confiscation and demolitions. =B7 an immediate ceasefire, to create conditions conducive for negotiating the clauses of a peace treaty between the State of Israel and the State of Palestine. =B7 the establishment of an international peacemaking and peacekeeping force to be sent to the region with a clear mandate to intervene and prevent acts of violence. Such a force, established under the auspices of the United States and the European Union, would be accepted by both sides and serve as an immediate buffer between them.
It will take some time before these proposals can form the basis of an official peace process. In the meantime, both sides need to work in a transparent fashion for public acceptance of the vision outlined above. We must work together to build a public movement for peace from the ground up, so that the people of Israel and the people of Palestine will end up insisting that their governments join the process and subscribe to the vision in the form of a final, lasting and comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace for this and future generations.
Bassem Abu Sharif is a special adviser to Yasser Arafat and a member of both the Palestinian parliament and the Palestinian National Council.
