Not by Elections and Negotiations Alone

by

Ami Isseroff

Israel is in the midst of an election campaign that will be decided, it seems, along one issue. The are two choices. We can not make peace with the Palestinians according to the policy of current Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. We can also not make peace according to the policies, as yet unelaborated but certainly not dovish, of Likud party leader Ariel Sharon. In Washington, U.S. President Clinton has issued a bridging proposal, and an ultimatum - he wants to hear from both sides by this Wednesday. The proposal gives Palestinians control over Arab sections of Jerusalem including the temple mount (Haram-as-Sharif) in return for giving up the right of return for Palestinian refugees. It is unlikely that either side will accept the proposal as it stands. On the Israeli side, it is even less likely that Ariel Sharon, if elected, would accept such a proposal. In any case, it is not likely that that proposal, which the Palestinians find inadequate, would pass a referendum in Israel.

Peace cannot be decided by elections and negotiations until it exists in the hearts and minds of people. This change is what is supposed to have happened since the signing of the Oslo accords. Instead however, the sides have grown farther apart in some ways. Israelis have come to accept the idea that there must be a Palestinian state, but they are unwilling to give up the real-estate that would make such a state possible. Israel is also unwilling to admit any responsibility at all for the creation of the Palestine refugee problem.

Ehud Barak, the self-styled proponent of peace, went on a tour of settlements, insisting that each one was a part of Israel eternally, and would never be ceded to the Palestinians. Settlement activity continued throughout the Oslo interim period, along with land confiscation and house demolition activity. Palestinians are willing to make a "historic compromise." The compromise, they say, consists of having a Palestinian state within the borders of June 4, 1967, a proposition many Israelis would accept. However, they have another, additional condition. Namely, that Israel would recognize the "Right of Return," implementing the repatriation of some 4.4 million Palestinian refugees to Israel. Israel as a total population of slightly over 6 million, a chronic water shortage and one of the highest population densities in the word. The influx of another 4.4 million people would be an economic and ecological disaster. It would also produce an Arab majority and mean the end of self-determination for the Jewish people. That would not be peace of course, but the surrender of one side to the other. That of course, is the purpose of insisting on Right of Return, since the proponents insist that there will be no peace as long as there is Zionism.

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