In recent days, the calls for a “lasting peace” between the state of Israel and the Palestinians who live in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have been as plentiful as they have been predictable, and as well intentioned as they have been naïve. We can, one would hope, all agree that a lasting peace between two sovereign and independent states in the region would be the best outcome for all concerned. The basic problem is that it takes two sides to make peace, and there is no particular evidence that either side is willing to compromise with the other.
The blame for this state of affairs tends to fall, in the west – and in particular in Ireland – on the Israelis. Ask an Irish politician about a lasting peace in Israel, and you will immediately get a list of concessions that the Israelis must be prepared to make in order to achieve it: Ending the “siege” of Gaza. Demolishing illegal settlements in the West Bank. Withdrawing, some argue, to its 1967 borders, or even it’s 1947 borders. Allowing a so-called “right of return” to Israel for some few million Palestinians with historic claims to land presently inside Israel.
We will address those concessions in turn, but it is notable that when you ask them what concessions the Palestinians should make to Israel in order to achieve a lasting peace, you will tend to get blank stares, followed by something something about providing security guarantees to Israel.
But back to the concessions often sought from Israel. We will begin with the so-called “siege of Gaza”. This refers to the fact that both Israel and Egypt (which tends to get a pass for this) have enormous border walls and security infrastructure on their borders with Gaza, and that residents of Gaza are not allowed to leave freely and enter Israel, unless they have work permits. The events of this past weekend might perhaps have made clear to most reasonable people why Israel does not permit free movement into its territory from Gaza.
In any case, a sovereign Palestinian state will have borders – that much is certain. And it is also certain that those borders will be walled, and manned, and secured tightly on the Israeli side. Expecting Israel to accept a peace deal that does not allow it to defend its borders is so absurd as to be a fantasy, especially when a great many Palestinians appear to subscribe to the religious notion that it is their duty to kill Jews.
What about the idea that Israel should withdraw to its 1967 or 1947 borders? Well the first thing to note is that those borders provide no guarantee of peace. The borders were only changed because in 1947, on the day after it declared independence, Israel was simultaneously attacked by all of its neighbours at once in an attempt to destroy the nascent state. Then again in 1967, Israel was attacked by a coalition of Arab States who had, as their openly stated intention, the destruction of the Israeli state in mind. The idea that returning to those borders is some guarantee of peace is therefore misguided, because there are precisely zero in the Arab world or the Palestinian community who regard Israel’s 1947 or 1967 borders as legitimate. From an Israeli perspective, giving up the land it currently occupies would result only in bringing enemy fighters and missiles closer to towns and villages in Israel. It would also involve forcibly uprooting and effectively dispossessing hundreds of thousands of Israelis who live – fairly or unfairly – in those occupied territories. And again, in return for what, precisely?
But even that is not enough: The last major effort to secure peace between Israel and Palestine – the Oslo accords – fell apart over the question of the “right to return”.
In the first instance, this is a one-way street: There is no talk amongst Arab countries about a right to return for the 900,000 Israelis and their descendants who were forcibly expelled from Arab countries and Iran between 1948 and 1970, and who settled in Israel as the only country who would have them. In the second instance, that right of return would admit 5 million descendants of the original claimed Palestinians to land inside Israel’s borders. Again, given the events of this weekend, and of the last 20 years in general, there is little prospect of any Israeli ever agreeing to this idea.
That is just some idea of the concessions demanded of Israel by those who say peace should be a priority. So what concessions are demanded of the Palestinians, and their allies in the Arab world? When you ask that question, you tend to get very vague responses: “An end to violence”, for example.
But first, no Government of any Palestinian state could guarantee an end to violence. There will always be those hardliners who demand “from the river to the sea”, and an end to the entire territory of Israel. There is the very likely chance that Israeli concessions would not placate those people, but embolden them. The record of Palestinian Governments when it comes to controlling their own hardliners is hardly something to marvel at.
Second, some suggest formal recognition of the Jewish state as legitimate and inviolable. But again, what leads anyone to believe that a Palestinian Authority that agreed to this would survive its next election? In every case, the concessions required from Israel are concrete, and the concessions required from the Palestinians are entirely vague.
Peace is, of course, desirable. But realism is also desirable. And there is precious little of it about, in western academia and politics, where this subject is concerned.