I know not what joys await us there, what Radiancy of glory, what light beyond compare. Those are words from a Latin Benedictine hymn heaping praises upon the biblical city of Jerusalem. Today, this promised land of gold sits silently atop mounting frustrations and misconstrued faiths. The Mount Herzl State Cemetery, found within the confines of Jerusalem, serves as the final resting place to the haunting vestiges of the city’s past: of wars fought, of lands conquered with a swift brutality, of violent acts of terror that celebrate dying for one’s people rather than living for them, of old friendships and new animus. Arabs and Jews have lived here for many centuries but for the last hundred years, they have fought many a war, both on the battlefield and in their hearts and minds. Understanding the complexity of the Israel-Palestinian conflict is a herculean task. Some of the worst antagonists on both sides exploit this fact by appealing to dangerously simplistic and demagogic solutions and have thus become the biggest obstacle to peace.
The political situation as it stands today is nothing short of dire. On one side, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded tepidly to the call for freezing settlements in the West Bank; on the other, the Palestinian leadership continues to drag its feet on sitting down for negotiations. In the meantime, the citizens of Gaza suffer from a crippling Israeli blockade and those in the West Bank and East Jerusalem face expansion of settlements that already infringe on their sovereignty. All the while, Israeli families in surrounding border towns and elsewhere live in continuous fear of rocket attacks and suicide bombers from Hamas. Ian Gallagher, a Rutgers Alumnus and Graduate Student at Boston University, majoring in Political Science, says:
I think that the issue is a centerpiece in America’s geopolitical strategy for the world and in particular the Middle East. It is obvious to Arabs living in the region that the occupation of Palestine is looked upon as a colonial settler state in the nature of Algeria or South Africa, backed by the US”, he contends.
After the Second World War, the Arabs in the region did have a relatively favorable view of the United States due to its history of anti-imperialist advocacy. However, geopolitics is not the only issue at hand, argues Lauren Sheppard*, a senior at School of Arts and Sciences, majoring in Political Science.
While it takes a toll on US with regard to its relationships with the Arab countries, it is worth it. America can condemn Israel’s actions on a regular basis but when it comes down to it, the US has no bigger supporter than Israel in the region.
In the past, both the Israeli Government and Palestinian society have made serious strategic and moral errors, for which they pay the price today. Over the years, they mirrored each other’s hostility, adding fuel to fire with bouts of retaliation. Under such circumstances, it is not hard to understand the extent of aggravation and despair.
I visited Israel for only three months. I do not know that many people who live in Israel and I wonder what it is like for those people. How many countries have to constantly defend themselves and always be ready to fight a war?
At times, Palestinian society does tend to lend credence to violent uprising and anti-Semitism. Their misplaced faith in the morality and efficacy of such tactics took a lot of credibility away from their movement in the seventies, as witnessed by the aftermath to the Munich Olympics Massacre. Feverish calls for overthrowing the Israeli government are only surpassed by their penchant for praising martyrdom through suicide bombing. Ian Gallagher disagrees:
There may be instances of anti-Semitism, but they are very few. I spent months in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, telling everyone I met that I was Jewish and I never experienced a single instance of racism. It shows that the disputes are obviously political and anti-colonial in nature. Suicide terrorism was an effect of harsh repression of non-violent resistance during the first Intifada
So, is violence, as Gallagher posits, merely a response to past injustices inflicted on the Palestinians? Does Israel share some of the blame? Prior to its recent incursion into the Gaza strip, surrounding towns in Israel were showered with rockets almost every day.
The city of Sderot was attacked on a daily basis, but that fact was ignored because there were no casualties, the reason being the Israeli government takes care of its people; most Israelis have a bomb shelter that they can go to. In any form of war, civilians need to be protected. That being said, Hamas uses civilians, specifically women and children, as human shields, which is an atrocity.
The truth is both sides are guilty of crossing the line. The UN sanctioned Goldstone report accused Hamas, which controls the Gaza strip and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) of breaching the rules of engagement and even committing war crimes during the Gaza War of 2008. Israel claims to try to prevent civilian casualties, but often, their response to attacks is disproportionate.
Military errors aside, one of the biggest Israeli policy errors in the seventies was the decision to marginalize the moderate factions of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), which was largely a secular entity advocating for Palestinian sovereignty. Hoping to destroy Palestinian nationalism, Israel cynically exploited the divisions within the PLO, ultimately giving prominence and political influence to the more religious Hamas. As a result, the Palestinian Authority (PA) today derives its capacity entirely from Israel.
The PA is completely corrupt. It is precisely so because of the conditions of the occupation and because they rely on the Israelis for their positions. The Israelis necessitate their participation and as Noam Chomsky has said the PA has become a function of “indigenization of repression.
Furthermore, by providing foreign aid to unpopular leaders in the neighboring countries, such as Egypt and Lebanon, American leaders are finding it increasingly hard to obtain popular support for peace.
For decades, the West has attempted to control valuable oil resources in the region. To accomplish this it had to put its hopes in “friendly” despots in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, and Iran. If the US were to sever its ties with dictators in the region and to cut its military backing of Israel, it would benefit from an immense change in attitude from the tens of millions of Arabs living under subjugation.
The involvement of the religious right further complicates matters. What began as a historically secular conflict over land has conflagrated into a religious war with extremists on both sides hijacking the debate. Whether it’s the Hamas preaching destruction of Israel, or ultra-orthodox Jews advocating violence in the West Bank, the potent and deadly mix of political dispute and fundamentalist religion has set aflame this dispute to a dangerous level.
The right-wing fundamentalists in Israel are absolutely detrimental to the peace process. When people think about Jews, they do not realize the deep divide between the different sects and how it influences the Israeli political process.
But despite past failures, the fact remains that most Israelis and Palestinians are disenchanted with the policies of their own governments and seek a peaceful resolution. The Middle East is no stranger to the concept of sacrifice. On behalf of their country and people, families, both Jewish and Arab, have suffered too many corpses. However, the greatest and most courageous sacrifices are those that have made a lasting impact towards the goal of peace. Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a right-wing Israeli extremist when he signed the Declarations of the Principles of Self-Government in Oslo. The peace process may have died with him, but today he is an iconic figure in Israel, celebrated as a hero by the pro-peace movement. When Anwar Sadat, President of Egypt, signed an historic peace treaty with Israel in 1979, his country was ousted from the Arab League and he was assassinated by a terrorist organization. Yet that agreement of peace between two ancient enemies has survived the test of time.For peace to be a reality in the near future, both Israelis and Palestinians should wholly embrace what true sacrifice means.
Sacrifice from the Israelis involves acknowledging the legitimate aspirations of Palestinians to obtain statehood. In the past, it was all too common for them to dismiss Palestinian nationalism as a faux and reactionary phenomenon. However, history shows that it has existed since the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The old phrase that once referred to Palestine as “a land without a people for a people without a land” no longer rings true.
Sacrifice from the Palestinians entails the recognition that Israel, as a sovereign state and a regional superpower, will always remain. For more than 60 years, it has flourished as a vital democracy in a region that is sorely devoid of democratic values. There is much that Israel can offer to a future state of Palestine in terms of cultural exchanges, billions of dollars in economic investment and an opportunity to become a self-made republic. The goal of “driving the Jews into the sea”, a phrase very prominent during the Palestinian intifada, is as bigoted as it is unrealistic.
Speaking about the effects of this conflict, Pulitzer Prize winning author David Shipler once eloquently wrote, “War is the soil that nourishes those tangled weeds of hatred.” This war, born at the pinnacle of Israel’s independence movement has culminated today in a clarion call for Palestinian self-determination. For all their differences, both Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs share a historical memory that is filled with oppression and persecution. As these sons and daughters of Abraham attempt to find their places in the holy land, an immutable truth lingers in their presence: there are far more things that unite than divide them.
Vanessa
Very cool article! I always admire when someone steps boldly into a thorny issue, and this issue has got to be one of the thorniest out there. So kudos. That said, I am going to proceed to critique just a bit.
at risk of sounding a bit harsh, there is no point in talking about this conflict without presenting plausible, doable, incremental steps towards a solution. never has a topic been saturated with so much talk and dialogue and discussion – without concrete goals to work for, even the very concepts of ‘peace’ or ‘unity’ become pretty meaningless. vagueness has caused a lot of bloodshed for both israelis and palestinians. i would present more specific policy goals – because an introduction to this is something most people that will read this article already have. we’ve all heard the wishy-washy stuff about common heritage and common ground and that rhetoric has never been what has changed anyone’s life. i’m glad you mention some of the peacemakers specifically, for they are the ones who should be looked to and emulated when we think about this issue.
March 28, 2010 at 1:13 AM
Bharat
Great Point Vanessa. I think from a policy stand point, my article was not that substantive. Even in the policy realm, the debate is extensive and can’t be covered by one article or I daresay even a whole book. The history is too complicated. I wanted a Rutgers Perspective and mostly wanted the readers to know that this is an incredibly complex issue and hence all the more reason that demagoguery reigns supreme. This should get people to stop thinking about whose side to take and start getting them to think about why both sides lose if the debate is looked from a ‘zero sum game’ mentality.
March 28, 2010 at 2:25 AM