Polls, Palestinians and the Path to Peace (short article)

[andyfox]

I just took a look at the first poll cited by Pipes. It states that "The recent Israeli incursion policy influenced Palestinian public opinion on various levels. The Israeli incursions caused an increase in support for Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, Fateh Movement and Hamas Movement, while causing a decrease in support for the Palestinian Authority, security agencies and negotiations."

Note that the poll shows that the recent Israeli incursion is responsible for changes in Palestinian public opinion. So how can Pipes say that what Israel does is irrelevant to the conflict?

Pipes did not mention in his article that the poll also showed that "the majority of the Palestinian people, 57.6 percent, believe the time is ripe for conducting reform within the Palestinian Authority." Pipes' portrait of an unbending, monolithic Palestinian postion, opposed to Israel's existence, is simply wrong. Such a viewpoint leads to consideration of "wiping out" the Palestinians.

It's time to stop spewing hatred, as Pipes does.

[MMMMMM]

Here's my understanding of it, nicky:

When Israel gained the upper hand in the 1973 Yom Kippur war by having surrounded the Egyptian 3rd Army and having gained control of the Suez canal, and were poised to take Cairo, the USSR threatened to intervene on behalf of the Arabs. The USA responded by saying that if the USSR intervened then so would the USA. To avoid this dangerous debacle, Kissinger went to Moscow and a deal was brokered to end the Yom Kippur War.

Ther essence of the deal was this: The Israelis agreed to pull back and relinquish the Suez canal and to not take Cairo and to spare the Egyptian 3rd Army, provided Jordan and Egypt gave Israel the right to keep the land they had won in the 1967 war. At this time the land in question was owned only by Egypt, Jordan and Syria so these countries had the legal right to negotiate it away. This was agreed upon and done by both sides.

[MMMMMM]

First of all, I wasn't intending to suggest consideration of wiping out Palestinians as a whole--only their most fanatically aggressive and violent organizations such as al-Aqsa.

Pipes apparently didn't go into enough detail on the polls. However, I didn't take his words to mean that the entire Palestinian polulace is monolithically opposed to peace--but enough apparently are to preclude any meaningful and lasting peace. I think this can be seen both from the poll and from the wide Palestinian support for suicide bombings and even teachings in many of their kindergartens and grade schools glorifying martydom.

I'm not spewing hatred. I happen to think this is a very important point.

[nicky g]

Given theUnited States', the UN's, and most of the world's commitment to theself-determination of peoples, on paper at least, I don't see that those countries had the right to simply cede those territories to Israel. Futhermore, Israel doesn't even want them with the populations that are currently in them. And several UN resolutions demand that Israel withdraw. So I don't see that they are the rightful controllers of that land. Plus, anything that Henry Kissinger is involved in is bound to be a recipe for disaster.

[MMMMMM]

Egypt, Jordan and Syria owned the lands in question at the time.

[andyfox]

Pipes is spewing hatred. His one-sided view of the conflict leads to his conclusions that diplomacy is useless and counterproductive and that Israel should "defeat" the Palestinians. His solution is a war of annihilation. It may indeed be a very important point, but it's an ugly one.

Anyway, I'm going to withdraw from this discussion now and leave it for others to elaborate. I'm glad your back posting.

It's time for this madness to stop.

[IrishHand]

The position you described there is exactly why both sides are equally guilty in that particular dispute.

[Chris Alger]

"What, pray tell, is the guarantee that if Israel withdraws from the occupied terrirtories, it won't continue to be attacked from a closer vantage point (as before)?"

This is an example of the racist double standard I keep referring to. The problem is Israel attacking the occupied territories and the Palestinians attacking Israel. The only issue you see, however, is Israel's right to security, which you apparently believe takes precendence over the Palestinian right to security. I could argue that Israel is less secure as a result of the occupation, but I'm not going to accept your premise that the rights of one side of the dispute are the fundmantal issue, although this is the ubiquitous way of addressing it in the U.S.

Furthermore, if the only real issue is Israel's unlimited right to "security," then we have decided by the very terms of the debate that it cannot be resolved except on whatever terms Israel wants. It makes no difference what the Palestinians do or say, as long as they exist anywhere Israel will be able to justify anything it does in the name of self-defense. For example, let's say the Israelis transfer the Palestinians to Jordan. It could then claim the right to occupy Jordan if the Palestinians resist and attack Israel in the West Bank. And so on across the fertile crescent. If most Palestinians refrain from terror, it makes no difference because not all of them do. If all Palestinians refrain form terror, it makes no difference because, as Pipes contends, at least some of them will deny Isreal's right to do what it has done to them, thus denying Israel's "legitimacy," and being a threat for that reason. And on ad on, without end.

I think what's driving your bias is the assumption that Israel is the victim of Palestinian aggression. Let's recap some basic facts. Zionism amounted to the foreign conquest and expropriation of most of the Palestinian homeland. The Palestinians understandably rejected this, and took up arms to prevent it. When they lost -- in 1947 and prior to the 1948 creation of Israel and invasion by other Arab states -- Israel refused to entertain peace terms but continued with a policy of grabbing land from the area designated as "Palestine" and colluded with King Abdullah of Jordan to prevent a Palestinian state from coming into existence. The result was the forced creation of 700,000 - 800,000 Palestinian refugees and their loss of livelihoods and property in what is now Israel. Afterward, in the 1950's, Israel embarked on a campaign of terror (duly labeled as such by the U.S. and other countries) to keep the refugees from returning to claim their land, their houses, their crops. The Palestinians also engaged in piecemeal terror, but with less loss of lives and property as the destruction inflicted by Israel (some 500 Israeli civilians were killed by terror raids from 1949 through 1956. Israel killed some 2,700 -- 5,000 Palestinians during the same period, according to Israeli historian Benny Morris, based on a detailed examination of the archival data). Since then, Israel has refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of any Palestinian right to sovereignty in their former homeland, has created yet more refugees and acquired more Palestinian territory, over which it exerts more and more control every day. Israel is therefore in no position to claim that Palestinian attacks on Israel are unprovoked to the point where Israel's "security" warrants exclusive or even primary consideration.

Of course, if we accept the racist premise that Israel has a superior claim to the former Palestine because of the religous, national or cultural superiority of Israelis, as the Hamas counterparts in Israel and the U.S. believe, then your position makes perfect sense.

[MMMMMM]

Look, either you accept Israel's right to exist--in which case you would favor, I expect, two nations living side by side in peace--or you don't.

From the tone of your posts, my impression is that you side with Hamas and favor the elimination of Israel over the idea of two separate nations in peace. Please correct me if I'm mistaken in this impression of your views.

[Chris Alger]

This is not a "key question" at all. As I've patiently explained, Israels "right to exist" as a precondition to diplomacy or to the exclusion of comparable rights of Palestinians is racist, internally contradictory[1] and not relevant to any process leading to peace or justice. It is a propaganda tactic and nothing more.

As for the purported "tone" of my posts, why don't you focus instead on their substance?

In fact, I agree that two states are the best solution that is politically feasible. A better solution would have been a bi-national state instead of "Jewish" state, so that one country could serve as homeland to both Jews and Palestinians with neither being second class citizens in a country unfairly dominated by the other. OTOH, given the much better treatment of second-class citizen Arabs within Israel compared to 10th-class Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank, and given the trend in recent years to treat them a bit better in Israel, to court them politically and so forth, many Palestinians wouldn't mind having the territories annexed as part of Israel. If the parties would agree to this under reasonable terms I'd be for that too. It's doubtful that Israel would ever consider this, however, because it could lead to the loss of the ethnic supremacy of Jews in Israel. (This is usually phrased about Israel's concern about losing it's democratic character, often without any remark about why Israelis should prefer ethnic supremacy over democracy).

[1] Another way of phrasing the "right to exist" demand is this: if the Palestinians acknowledge that Israel's deprivation of their homeland was right, then Israel will consider providing redress for whatever it did that was wrong. Whatever that could be.