|
Posted by Spike Driver on November 27, 2007, 10:47 pm
A lot to think on here Mirjam.
Dennis
Mirjam Bruck-Cohen wrote:
>
> ON THE JEWISH QUESTION
>
> By BERNARD
>
LEWIS;http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB119604260214503526-lMyQjAxMDE3OTI2NjAyNDYyWj.h
>
> tml; November 26, 2007; Page A21
>
> Herewith some thoughts about tomorrow's Annapolis peace conference, and the
> larger problem of how to approach the Israel-Palestine conflict. The first
> question (one might think it is obvious but apparently not) is, "What is
> the
> conflict about?" There are basically two possibilities: that it is about
> the
> size of Israel, or about its existence.
>
> If the issue is about the size of Israel, then we have a straightforward
> border problem, like Alsace-Lorraine or Texas. That is to say, not easy,
> but
> possible to solve in the long run, and to live with in the meantime.
>
> If, on the other hand, the issue is the existence of Israel, then
> clearly it
> is insoluble by negotiation. There is no compromise position between
> existing
> and not existing, and no conceivable government of Israel is going to
> negotiate on whether that country should or should not exist.
>
> PLO and other Palestinian spokesmen have, from time to time, given formal
> indications of recognition of Israel in their diplomatic discourse in
> foreign
> languages. But that's not the message delivered at home in Arabic, in
> everything from primary school textbooks to political speeches and
> religious
> sermons. Here the terms used in Arabic denote, not the end of hostilities,
> but an armistice or truce, until such time that the war against Israel
> can be
> resumed with better prospects for success. Without genuine acceptance of
> Israel's right to exist as a Jewish State, as the more than 20 members
> of the
> Arab League exist as Arab States, or the much larger number of members
> of the
> Organization of the Islamic Conference exist as Islamic states, peace
> cannot
> be negotiated.
>
> A good example of how this problem affects negotiation is the
> much-discussed
> refugee question. During the fighting in 1947-1948, about three-fourths
> of a
> million Arabs fled or were driven (both are true in different places) from
> Israel and found refuge in the neighboring Arab countries. In the same
> period
> and after, a slightly greater number of Jews fled or were driven from Arab
> countries, first from the Arab-controlled part of mandatory Palestine
> (where
> not a single Jew was permitted to remain), then from the Arab countries
> where
> they and their ancestors had lived for centuries, or in some places for
> millennia. Most Jewish refugees found their way to Israel.
>
> What happened was thus, in effect, an exchange of populations not unlike
> that
> which took place in the Indian subcontinent in the previous year, when
> British India was split into India and Pakistan. Millions of refugees
> fled or
> were driven both ways -- Hindus and others from Pakistan to India, Muslims
> from India to Pakistan. Another example was Eastern Europe at the end of
> World War II, when the Soviets annexed a large piece of eastern Poland and
> compensated the Poles with a slice of eastern Germany. This too led to a
> massive refugee movement -- Poles fled or were driven from the Soviet Union
> into Poland, Germans fled or were driven from Poland into Germany.
>
> The Poles and the Germans, the Hindus and the Muslims, the Jewish refugees
> from Arab lands, all were resettled in their new homes and accorded the
> normal rights of citizenship. More remarkably, this was done without
> international aid. The one exception was the Palestinian Arabs in
> neighboring
> Arab countries.
>
> The government of Jordan granted Palestinian Arabs a form of
> citizenship, but
> kept them in refugee camps. In the other Arab countries, they were and
> remained stateless aliens without rights or opportunities, maintained by
> U.N.
> funding. Paradoxically, if a Palestinian fled to Britain or America, he was
> eligible for naturalization after five years, and his locally-born children
> were citizens by birth. If he went to Syria, Lebanon or Iraq, he and his
> descendants remained stateless, now entering the fourth or fifth
> generation.
>
> The reason for this has been stated by various Arab spokesmen. It is the
> need
> to preserve the Palestinians as a separate entity until the time when they
> will return and reclaim the whole of Palestine; that is to say, all of the
> West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Israel. The demand for the "return" of the
> refugees, in other words, means the destruction of Israel. This is highly
> unlikely to be approved by any Israeli government.
>
> There are signs of change in some Arab circles, of a willingness to accept
> Israel and even to see the possibility of a positive Israeli
> contribution to
> the public life of the region. But such opinions are only furtively
> expressed. Sometimes, those who dare to express them are jailed or worse.
> These opinions have as yet little or no impact on the leadership.
>
> Which brings us back to the Annapolis summit. If the issue is not the
> size of
> Israel, but its existence, negotiations are foredoomed. And in light of the
> past record, it is clear that is and will remain the issue, until the Arab
> leadership either achieves or renounces its purpose -- to destroy Israel.
> Both seem equally unlikely for the time being.
>
> Mr. Lewis, professor emeritus at Princeton, is the author, most
> recently, of
> "From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East" (Oxford University
> Press, 2004).
>
| 
Yahoo! 
Google 
Windows Live 
del.icio.us 
digg 
Netscape 
XML Sitemap