http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/scripts/article.asp?mador=4&datee=10/16/00&id=96603
An existential exercise
By Gideon Levy, Ha'aretz, 10/16/2000
The right was right again: There is no one to talk to. There is truly
no partner for peace. But - and this is the difficult bit to swallow -
it is on our side that there is no one. The recent events have proven,
even more convincingly, that Israel is still not ripe for a peace
agreement with the Palestinians. Supercilious jargon on the part of
the prime minister about the lack of "readiness" on the other side and
the cliches about the lack of suitable partners are a perfectly
accurate description of Israel. Concentrating solely on itself and
its own needs, Israel - both right and left - has been struck, perhaps
more than ever, by a terrible blindness as to what is happening to the
other side.
For most Israelis, the Palestinians are almost non-existent. They're
like thin air. Likud Chair Ariel Sharon did not go up to the Temple
Mount in order to harm the Palestinians; he went up ignoring their
existence completely. He went up for internal political reasons,
without giving a thought to how his behavior might affect them.
For many Palestinians, this disregard is worse than deliberate harm;
it is even more humiliating. They know that their needs, their
distress, their fears and their problems are of very little interest
to most Israelis. Israel demanded that the Palestinians learn about
the Holocaust in order to understand the motives and roots of the
Jews, but the fate and history of the Palestinians is of no interest
to the average Israeli whatsoever.
For the overwhelming majority of Israelis - again, both the right and
left wing - the desired solution is separation: They want the
Palestinians to play their parts in the form of thin air and not get
in our way. There's only one small problem with this solution, aside
from the whiff of racism that emanates from it: It's not possible.
It's easy to argue that each side has to concentrate on its own needs.
We are Israelis and our needs are our foremost concern; let them take
care of their own. Really? We have been running their lives for the
past 33 years, with no little cruelty; and since this state of affairs
is far from over, how can we now make them responsible for their
needs?
More than 100 Palestinians, some 20 of them children, have been killed
over the past two weeks; around 3,500 were injured and many of these
wounded will remain crippled for life. But Israel is once again the
victim, and in its own eyes, the only victim. Three Israel soldiers
are being held captive; two soldiers were cruelly lynched; one settler
was murdered in Nablus; and one citizen was stoned to death in his
car. These are all terrible tragedies. But what about the other side?
What about its victims? Are they unimportant? Are they not victims?
Not as far as we are concerned.
A few, major traffic arteries blocked in Israel for a few days,
settlers forbidden from driving at night, shooting at settlements -
there is a strong feeling of unpleasantness among Israelis. But what
about the losses on the other side, which are a thousand times worse?
Two weeks of tension and fear, a feeling of insecurity when leaving
the house in the morning, a fear of traveling on a Succot vacation to
Sinai or the Galilee - but what of the other side's fears, which have
caused no less lost hours of sleep? Whose lives are in greater danger
today? Who lives in fear? Who has buried more dead? Who has not been
able to move freely for 33 years?
The other side is far worse off. One can argue that the Palestinians
deserve what they got; one can even believe that they are to blame;
but how can one ignore their plight? Ramallah, where two soldiers were
cruelly slaughtered, has been under siege for two weeks and under
occupation for 33 years. Over the past two weeks, the city has buried
12 dead and has rushed 424 injured to hospitals.
Does this justify a lynching? No. Does it explain the anger and the
hatred? Yes. And the conclusion is: We must recognize the sources of
the anger and work toward change. Nothing justifies a lynching, but
there are reasons for the anger, the hatred and the frustration.
Ignoring the fate of the Palestinians begins, of course, from above.
Many Israelis, even on the left, cannot understand how the violence
erupted soon after Prime Minister Ehud Barak made his generous offers
at Camp David. Barak presented Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser
Arafat with an offer that the prime minister and many Israelis
considered generous, but was impossible for any Palestinian leader to
accept. In fact, by disregarding the needs of the other side and
almost ignoring its existence - Barak hardly discussed things with
Arafat - the prime minister offered either peace according to Israeli
terms, or war. The only thing that remained for Arafat to do was to
choose the only one of the two options open to him.
Now the right is rejoicing at having been right, while the left is
seemingly mourning the loss of its way. However, the right was not
right and the left has not lost its way, if it ever had one at all.
The Israelis have simply continued doing the same old wrong thing -
ignoring the other side, not seeing it, not understanding what a
painful and historic concession the Palestinians have already made.
Unfortunately, the Palestinians are here, and until Israel recognizes
their existence and their needs, they will have to occasionally remind
us of this fact by the only means at their disposal, until we
recognize the truth, until we understand
