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.
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Thank you John for such a well-reasoned article. Tragically there is no peace partner for Israel to negotiate with and not for lack of trying over the years. It is hard to see there being one any time soon while the Islamic terrorist death cult Hamas is in power in Gaza. The Hamas ideology is quite upfront about their “peace plan” in their own Charter.
“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” (Preamble)
“[Peace] initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement… Those conferences are no more than a means to appoint the infidels as arbitrators in the lands of Islam… There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are but a waste of time, an exercise in futility.” (Article 13)
Good article John. Points well made.
The history of the region is a tragedy. There is no easy solution. The greatest world leaders have failed to find one.
A book, O Jerusalem! by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins was published in 1971. It was the result of five years of intensive research and many thousands of interviews. It is a vivid account of the history of the twentieth century up to the creation of the modern state of Israel in 1948. It is well worth reading and gives a good insight into the background to today’s conflict.
If I were living in Israel, what sort of response would I like to see from the Israeli government? Short term, I would like to see a proportionate military response; I emphasise this because, over and over, the Israeli response seems to be utterly disproportionate to these periodic attacks from Hamas. If Hamas on this occasion kills 1000 people, many of them women and children, I expect the Israelis will likely kill about 5000 Palestinians, many of them also women and children. In fact, I expect them to keep slaughtering Palestinians until the Americans persuade them to stop. Surely it is time for the Israeli government to realise that such disproportionate retaliation will only prolong the problem and increase the likelihood of future attacks?
Longer term. cramming more than 2 million Palestinians into a tiny enclave and doing everything possible to suppress economic development in this enclave, clearly has to stop. A more fertile breeding ground for terrorism would be hard to imagine. Surely it should be possible to restore Palestinians to some of their former territories and allow UN peacekeeping forces in to provide security?
On the other hand, if I were Palestinian, I would urge my government to accept that Israel, too, has a right to exist, and to accept UN peacekeepers within and on its borders to guarantee Israel’s security. For however long it takes. Just as the Good Friday Agreement with its international supports made the paramilitaries redundant in Northern Ireland, Hamas could be made redundant in Palestine.
Neither side is going to win outright in this conflict. Both sides must come to accept that.
Cogent arguments John but with a sense of hopelessness. There is wrong on both sides. In N Ireland we had similar problems. The brutality of hard unionists and the violence of internment and British forces were a recruiting force for the IRA and their campaign of violence (can you see a parallel with Hamas?) A 2 state solution seems to be the only way but violence must be removed from the situation for people to talk. At present the hardliners and violent ones are running the show. We can only pray for peace and encourage those who are genuine peace promoters. Sadly, many will be lost before this happens.
Nearly every argument made in this article has the same problem with it.
While threats might still remain, and borders would still require policing etc., the incentive for violence towards the Israelis would be greatly decreased if the Palestianians were being treated as human beings.
It is the day to day conditions that Palestinains are forced to live under that actually drives the militancy not, in the first instance, their historical grudge.
If Israel genuinely desires peace the most direct way to achieve it would be to alleviate the conditions Palestinians have to live under.
Did you read the article AI Joe Blog. Nothing you said makes sense.
Prior to Israel declaring independence on 14 May 1948, there was no Israel and so your talk of 1947 borders is nonsensical. Israel was established and is maintained by ethnic cleansing, the same ethnic cleansing we are seeing this very day in Gaza,. As the Israelis are now talking about a second nakba, they therefore accept they perpetraed the first nakba, one of history’s worst ever crimes against humanity and one Irish based Jews, such as the relatives of Israel’s current President, were fully complicit in. I have interviewed senior Palestinian Christians who were cleansed at gun point during that war crime and I have met relatives of those who attend Gaza’s Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius, one of the world’s oldest churches, which the Israeli Air Force recently destroyed as part of its ethnic cleaning campaign. I have interviewed Latin Catholic priests in Jenin, who are regularly strip searched at checkpoints around Jenin and I have interviewed the former Latin Catholic parish priest, who also survived the nakba by the skin of his teeth. The Israeli state is and always has been a morally bankrupt entity built on a tissue of lies and, given that ignorance is no excuse, no one who supports Israel or its crimes against Christians can claim to be a member of or a supporter of any of the mainstream Christian religions.
Contrary to what this article implies, this isn’t a conflict between two sovereign independent states. One of the sides, Israel, is a major military power with a nuclear arsenal and unconditional backing from the United States. The other side, the Palestinians are prisoners in their own land, deprived of economic and political agency and denied fundamental human rights. The imbalance of power is extreme, in Israel’s favour. We can reject Hamas and the other Islamicist fanatics and still support the Palestinians for their right to live in their homeland peacefully and with dignity. Israel is not an honest actor in this. While talking peace they wage a campaign whose goal is the destruction of the Palestinian people. The violence of Hamas has to be condemned but the indiscriminate violence that Israel is visiting upon Palestinian civilians has to be condemned also. It is within Israel’s gift to make peace with the Palestinians. Further killing of innocent civilians will only drag this conflict on and prolong the suffering of all the peoples in the Holy Land.
I am not sure that “ it is within Israel’s gift to make peace with the Palestinians”. As I understand the situation Hamas will not recognise Israel’s right to exist therefore the only peace that Israel can make with Hamas is to destroy their own State. It is clear therefore that it is not within Israel’s gift to make peace with Hamas. The question that then arises is to what extent are Hamas representative of the Palestinian people. Some people have drawn comparisons with the Northern Ireland troubles but the terrorist groups on both sides in that conflict were only supported by a small percentage of the population. I suspect, but cannot prove, that there is a much greater level of support for Hamas among the Palestinian population in Gaza. Unfortunately it is not within either sides gift to make peace unilaterally. Peace will only come when there is a massive groundswell of opinion on both sides that is prepared to accept the other’s right to exist.
Goodbye Gript.
I appreciate Gript even though I don’t agree with everything they publish. I find it refreshing that, unlike MSM, they are prepared to ask difficult questions and print opinions that may cost them readership. I won’t be going anywhere and I honestly hope they go from strength to strength.
They ask questions for their own agendas,not because those questions are truly pertinent. The culture war has to be maintained, and Gript does its duty for the right.
Gripts sits between 2 stools and does not print any thing that might upset the status quo from the mainstream.
No deep analyis is allowed only a wishy washy superficial opinion that does not frighten the lattefrati of D4 and cut off its financial sponsors support.
They do at least allow us commentators to deepen the conversation, raise important questions and provide unpopular information that would otherwise remain unpublished. And they raise the topics that other publishers would never touch – for that they are priceless, a rare light in the darkness of Irish media.