- As the war goes on in Iraq toward a likely but costly
victory for US and British forces, a cloud of pessimism grows over Palestine.
The thought on one hand is that the war, however it turns out, will bring
a storm of instability and violence to the region. This scenario is based
on the belief of many Muslims that the Bush team notion of setting off
a flowering of democracy is in reality a pipedream, because differences
that have existed among regional groups and societies for centuries will
not suddenly disappear. Rather, as demonstrated in the 1990s by the collapse
of the Soviet Union, ethnic, cultural and religious groups will spin off
on their own, while any separations themselves will be rife with conflict.
Somewhere in the future there may be a new stability, but the path is likely
to be long and stormy. On the other hand, even if those side effects are
absent from a post Iraq war future, those pessimistic about Middle East
peace see a victory in Iraq as redounding mainly to the benefit of Israel.
As the Palestinians see it, that outcome virtually guarantees further Israeli
repression, because the Israeli Zionist hardliners in close cooperation
with the Bush team hawks will frustrate any settlement that assures Palestinian
independence.
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- The accuracy of the Palestinian view is clear in recent
developments around the so-called Bush "Road Map". While that
map so far has appeared only in skeletal form, a firestorm has erupted
around it that bodes ill for its future. When the Road Map was announced
by President Bush just before a scheduled Blair/Bush meeting, it was assumed
by various commentators to be a way to bolster Blair's standing at home
as well as a sop to Middle East peace advocates who saw their goals obscured
by focus on the Iraq war. Blair dispelled that interpretation by coming
out quickly and strongly in favor of implementing the Road Map. Ariel Sharon
took immediate issue with Blair's position, protested through diplomatic
channels, and no doubt called President Bush to complain.
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- The reasons for Sharon's agitation are at the heart of
the Palestine problem. As reported, notably in The Guardian, Sharon thought
he had the peace process under control. In the shadow of strong differences
among them over the Iraq war, he did not believe that the quartet of the
US, the European Union, the United Nations, and Russia who put together
the Road Map was cohesive enough to focus on Middle East peace. Therefore,
under the protective umbrella of uncritical US support, Sharon appears
to have thought he could largely define the terms of any Palestine settlement.
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- What Sharon has in mind is shocking but hardly surprising
to close observers of the Zionist agenda. Based on a variety of sources,
including his own statements, Sharon would concede a smaller territory
to the Palestinians than originally defined in the Camp David and Oslo
Accords. He would not commit to removal of settlements nor even to terminating
the creation of new settlements. Under pressure from his hardliner supporters,
and catering to the sense of insecurity of many Israelis, he would continue
to build the fence around Palestinian territory. He would cede limited
authority to any new Palestinian leadership cadre, however selected, and
he would retain an Israeli veto over Palestinian decisions. The short form
of this proposition is that the Palestinian people would remain subjects
of the Israelis, and the Palestinian state would be a sham.
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- That is only the beginning. Even if that happens, from
the first day all of the disparities that have plagued the Palestinian
situation for more than half a century will remain on the table. The Palestinians
will be nominally in a Jewish state, but not part of it and partitioned
off from it. The probability that the most frustrated Palestinians will
continue acts of terrorism will remain high. Israeli retaliation for acts
of terrorism will continue to involve destruction of Palestinian homes,
businesses and infrastructure on the pretext of going after activists and
potential terrorists. That is an effective means to clear the way for additional
Jewish settlements, and that is one reason the bulldozers are there with
the tanks. Social, political and economic discrimination will continue
as now with European Jews and their offspring at the top, Sephardic Jews
as second-class citizens, Christians, Muslims and Palestinians of all persuasions
on the bottom. Efforts to expel the Palestinians will continue and probably
will increase as settlement density continues to grow. This whole scenario
will work best if the region, as many predict, becomes very unstable after
war with Iraq, and if the United States does not insist on implementing
a real Road Map to Palestinian independence.
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- How can anyone be sure that the future will be like this?
Experience repeatedly shows that the future will be like the present unless
critical changes are made. The kinds of changes needed in Palestine are
obvious, even to the hard-line Zionists and sympathizers who resist such
changes. But the lessons appear not easily learned.
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- The tragedy here is that the Children of Israel spent
400 years in Egyptian bondage, and Moses spent much of his life trying
to persuade Pharoah to let them go. But it is worth recalling that to convince
Pharoah to do it required an escalating pattern of disasters, acts of God.
Perhaps the least of those was release of a toxic substance that caused
boils. That was followed by various plagues and ended with the mass deaths
of firstborn Egyptian children and cattle and the sparing of Israeli children
that is remembered in the Passover. God drove a hard bargain.
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- Those chapters and verses of the Exodus story read like
a series of attacks with weapons of mass destruction that, by providence,
worked only against Egyptians. But those weapons are now in the hands of
men, and the weapons do not discriminate. Nor is it necessarily so that
the carrier of such a plague would be a Palestinian. Any policy that continues
repression of the Palestinian people, therefore, is both inhumane and dangerous,
and the smart as well as the human choice for the Israelis is to let the
Palestinians have their state. The smart choice for the United States is
to help diligently to bring that about.
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- The writer is a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer
of the US Department of State. He will welcome your comments at wecanstopit@hotmail.com
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