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Peace Process and Land Claims

Manuela Paraipan - 5/10/2005

Truth be told, there is no peace process in the Middle East today. Substantive Israeli-Palestinian and Arab-Israeli negotiations have ceased, and the George Bush administration has demonstrated neither the will nor the desire to expend political capital on a diplomatic process that would involve difficult compromises. Simply put, Bush would rather negotiate with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon about the details of an imposed, American-Israeli solution to Israeli security and settlement problems than mediate between Israelis and Palestinians. The road map, the Sharm al-Sheikh and other meetings did not change too much. t is difficult to find a way through, when the dialogue starts from different premises for both Abbas and PM Sharon.

Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have requested the following as a starting point:


1) Stop building the part-wall, part-fence barrier dividing Israel and major Jewish settlements in the West Bank from Palestinian areas; 2) withdraw from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in the next months; 3) stop building settlements on land claimed by Palestinians; 4) solve the problem of 1948 war refugees and their descendants; and 5) release all Palestinian prisoners that are being held in Israeli jails.

In response, Israeli Prime minister Ariel Sharon is asking Mahmoud Abbas to "fulfil its commitment to crack down on the terror organizations."

However, what Israel considers terrorist organizations, Abbas and the Palestinians consider legitimate resistance. Not long ago, while I have been visiting several Palestinian camps inside Lebanon, I was told that Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as other smaller factions would not have a reason to keep the ongoing fight, if the Israelis would agree with the pre-1967 borders.

Repeatedly, Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders have said that would accept the existence of Israel within pre-1967 borders with a long-term truce. The feedback they get from the Israeli senior officials, PM Sharon included was that under no circumstances will Israel accept this proposal and these organizations must be disarmed and dismantled (Moreover, the Israeli army will act with restraint if calm prevailed but reserved the right to strike at "ticking bombs" if Palestinian security services failed to take action).

If and when this demand will be fulfilled, Israel might reconsider its position towards the Palestinians. The building of the barrier, the withdrawal from 100% of West Bank and the right of the refugee to return is not on the negotiation table. That can only prove that Israel is not willing to negotiate, but rather to dictate the terms of any potential long-term agreement. I am saying long-term because an agreement without the full consent of the Palestinians, and here we need to take into consideration not only Abbas's Fatah, but also Islamic Jihad and Hamas, will not last.

What we have is two very different views for the same land. The Israelis want to keep building the barrier, to keep the large settlements that are home to most settlers, while giving Gaza to the Palestinians. In 2000, the Labor government offered 97% of West Bank, and all of Gaza, as well as Arab neighborhoods of east Jerusalem to Yassir Arafat. It is unclear if Sharon would be willing to offer anything resembling that, as he has failed to define what he means by acceptance of future "painful compromises". There are also no practical solutions for the refugees coming from Israelis, who nearly uniformly reject any thought of a Palestinian "right of return" to Israel. While, I can understand that the Israelis do not want to have the Palestinians living inside Israel, they are not willing to give them any reward either. They totally ignore this problem, hoping that Arab states, which are now sheltering the refugees, will finally accept them.

On the other hand, we have the Palestinians view of the situation. Most of them consider Israel as an intruder state, based on violence and hi-tech weapons. In their views, Jews that took all their land with the help of the wrong British and American policies. However, since there is no possibility to change the past, they seem interested to put an end to the violence and daily crimes that affect both peoples. The Palestinian solution is the returning to the pre-1967 borders with Gaza Strip and all West Bank as a Palestinian state and from that point on, they can further discuss Jerusalem's issue.

There are moderates and radicals on both sides. The moderates see with good eyes the full disengagement from Gaza strip, expect to see Sharon fulfilling his promise and evacuate the settlements from the West Bank as well.

The Israeli and Palestinian radicals want the very same thing: the land. Not a piece of it, but all of it. These are irreconcilably positions. Israeli radicals - or the Zionists as they are deragotorily called in the Arab and Muslim world - want all the land. Some religious Zionists claim the land because God supposedly promised it to them almost 4,000 years ago. Others simply mistrust Palestinians or just want the land because it belonged to them prior to the Roman exile almost 2,000 years ago. The Palestinians want the land, arguing that they deserve it because they were there in the 19th century and since as far back as the 7th century for some families.

The Arabs claim that Jews got the land as "payment" for the Holocaust and the ones who created the problem, namely the Europeans, should be the one to solve it, meaning that Jews should be removed to Europe, to establish their state, autonomy or any other entity there. What the Arabs do not understand is the feeling of guilt that will always stays with the Western community at large when discussing the Jews rights. We cannot and most probably will not do anything to harm the Jews once again, even if in this way we will harm other people.

After more than 50 years of being refugees, of living in poor conditions, without access to jobs or education, the Palestinians are following the steps of the Jews. We have not witnessed yet a holocaust of the Palestinians, thus I am not saying the situation is identical but sure it is similar.

The Palestinians first appealed to the international community and their Arab brethren for a solution. Few cared and in any event, wars led by other Arabs did not lead to a successful result. As a last resort, they started using violence to see if that will help their cause, but that failed also. More recently, they have invented a terrible weapon - the suicide bombers. That did not bring them any good either. The question is: what should they do to have their voice heard and to finally have a viable state? Why aren't the moderate leading the process? Difficult to say. Maybe because each part hopes that by using various techniques of intimidation will obtain more land, more rights in its favour.

Nonetheless, there are good signs. Not long ago, there were elections in the Palestinian Authority and from the 2,519 candidates, 399 were women sought political positions. Fatah won most of the positions in the West Bank and Gaza, in spite of Hamas and Islamic Jihad high profile on the socio-political stage.

In a region where elections were either non-existent or fraudulent won by this or that party or person, talking now about a free and independent election process in Palestine, is more than many have hoped.

The fact that people go now to vote in huge numbers, as they also did in Iraq, despite obvious risks is a clear message to all the dictators, autocrats and corrupt monarchs around the region: we want a government to represent us! And that is only the beginning. Seeing this positive turn of things, make me wonder: why some of the Westerners believe that the Arabs are not eager to live in a free, independent state where they can enjoy their rights as citizens and human beings?

It is not that they do not want to, but since they lack the experience of anything else except violent dictatorial regimes, it takes time to adjust.

The Palestinian suicide bombers and the retaliation policies of Israel is nothing other than the image of a continuous armed conflict, no matter how much we may resent either or both sides.

The solution is out there, it remains for the Israelis to want to give at least some of the land, pre-1967 back to the Palestinians, for Hamas and Islamic Jihad to keep it quiet, to do whatever they can to stop the suicide bombers and give peace a chance.

The Arab leaders, as well as the US, the UN and the European countries should help strengthen the official and non-official actors who are willing to work together to jump-start the official peace process and support it at strategic junctures.