By
Fred Maroun 10-7-2016
This is part two of a two-part series. The first
part examined the mistakes that we Arabs made in our interactions with
Israel.
There is much that we can do to improve our relationship
with Israel -- if we want to -- and there is good reason to think that it would
be in both our short- and long-term interest if we did. The most critical
change is in approach. Changing that would start to repair the foundation of
the relationship and would provide a basis for mutual respect and trust,
without which any solution would remain fragile.
Understand Israel
We must see the real Israel rather than the monstrosity
that Arabs have been brainwashed to see. We are so afraid to call Israel by its
real name that we refer to it as the "Zionist entity". The name is
"Israel"; as written in Haaretz, "Israel has been the name of an
ethnic group in the Levant going back at least 3200 years".
The standard Arab narrative about Israel is that it is
the result of Western colonialism. This language has also been adopted by many,
who claim that "settler colonialism that began with the Nakba ... in
1948", implying that all of Israel is a colony. This claim is not true,
and no healthy relationship can be built while one side keeps repeating lies
about the other.
Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people, a people
with a long and complex history on that land. Attempts to kill them and exile
them came from many sources over the centuries, including the Assyrians,
Babylonians, Romans and the Crusaders. These are historical facts.
Israel's then Prime Minister Golda Meir said in 1973,
"We Jews have a secret weapon in our struggle with the Arabs -- we have no
place to go". No matter how much pressure Arabs put on Jews to leave, they
are not going anywhere; in fact, that pressure only hardens their resolve.
Israel is their home.
We must look at Israel not as foreign presence, which it
is not, but as a unique and remarkable component of the Middle East that
enriches the region.
Not our enemy
We must stop calling Israel our enemy. We deliberately
chose to make Israel our enemy when we attacked it, rather than accept the
existence of a tiny Jewish state in our midst.
Israel is only 19% of British Mandate Palestine (which
included Jordan), on which Britain promised in 1924 to build a "Jewish
National Home". Israel is so small that it would have to be duplicated 595
times to cover the entire Arab world.
We made self-defeating decisions in our relationship with
Israel, based on the belief that it is our enemy and that we can only deal with
it though force -- but the tiny state of Israel is not a threat to the Arab
world.
Every year, Palestinians hold rallies, often violent
ones, to commemorate the Nakba ("catastrophe"), which is name they
give to the Arab loss in the war of 1948/49. They carry keys, symbolizing the
keys to homes that their ancestors fled during that war. This commemoration,
like much of the Arab rhetoric about Israel, is a one-sided view that demonizes
Israel while it absolves Arabs of all responsibility for starting and
continuing a conflict that resulted in decades of violence as well as
displacements of both Arabs and Jews.
This false narrative does not leave much room for peace
with Israel. How can peace be acceptable to Arabs who are repeatedly fed the
false narrative that everything is Israel's fault, when, in fact,
"everything" is not "all Israel's fault"?
Building a positive future requires accepting that the
past is gone and cannot be restored.
Resolving the Palestinian Question
For a successful resolution of the Palestinian question,
we must understand the few fundamental issues on which Israel cannot
compromise. At present, the Arab world, and particularly the Palestinians,
shows so little understanding of Israel's fundamental issues that the Israeli
public's faith in peace negotiations is low. As reported in the Jerusalem Post,
"most Israelis (67.7%) do not believe that negotiations will bring peace in
the coming years and less than a third (29.1%) think it will ever yield such a
result".
Israel's ability to remain a Jewish state and a haven for
Jews worldwide is its most basic existential necessity. Without it, Israel
would be only a name. For this reason, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu stated unequivocally that there is "no room to maneuver" on
the Palestinian claim of a "right of return" for the descendants of
Palestinian refugees. It may be unreasonable to expect relatively small and weak
countries like Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan to absorb all the refugees residing
there, but rich Gulf countries have the ability to help. If Europe can absorb
millions of Muslim refugees, why could we not do it too?
A second existential necessity for Israel is its need for
defensible borders, as explained in an extensive report. Israel has been
defending its very existence against Arab attacks for seven decades. It has
been attacked from all sides using all methods imaginable, from missiles to
suicide belts to tunnels. Israel does not see the pre-1967 armistice lines as
defensible, as was explained as far back as 1977 by then Prime Minister Yitzhak
Rabin, widely considered a pro-peace moderate.
A third fundamental point is Jewish access to holy sites,
starting with the most important one, the Old City in East Jerusalem. Jews see
their win in East Jerusalem in the war of 1967 not as a conquest, but as the
liberation and reunification of their historic home since the time of King
David, ca. 1000 BCE. Although Israeli governments, both in 2000 and in 2008,
offered to give up control over part of Jerusalem, one should not assume that a
similar offer will be likely in the future. In June of this year, PM Netanyahu
pledged that, "The idea of a divided, split, wounded city is one we will
never return to." Other issues such as borders, compensation for refugees,
removal of some settlements, and the level of Palestinian sovereignty appear to
be negotiable. Netanyahu further stated, "Israel wants peace. I want
peace. I want to renew the diplomatic process to achieve peace".
But we Arabs must understand that this can only be
possible within the constraints of the three fundamental issues.
The Arab League's Peace Initiative
A peace initiative was endorsed by the Arab League in
2002 and again in 2007, but this initiative falls short in two ways, first in
its substance and second in its form.
The initiative demands that Israel go back to the
pre-1967 armistice lines. Not only does Israel not consider those borders
defensible, but during the fifty years that elapsed since then, Israel has
built large settlement blocks in the West Bank. We Arabs had previously
expelled the Jews who were native to that land, and it is unrealistic to expect
that Israel would agree to victimize its own Jewish citizens yet again.
The initiative declares that Arab states reject "all
forms of Palestinian patriation which conflict with the special circumstances
of the Arab host countries", implying that Israel and the new Palestinian
state would be responsible for absorbing the descendants of all Palestinian
refugees. For the new Palestinian state, it would be a huge burden to add to
the task of building a new state, as it would mean an increase to its
population from 6 million to 9 million. This would leave Israel to receive the
refugees, which it will not do.
Equally unrealistic is the initiative's casual reference
to "the establishment of a Sovereign Independent Palestinian State".
The creation of such a state under today's conditions is likely to result in a
Hamas-dominated state that is violently hostile towards Israel. The Palestinian
Authority must be transitioned into a peaceful and stable entity before it can
be expected to run a state.
There was no need to write this document at all. All that
the Arab League had to do was to declare that Arab states are open to making
peace with Israel, accept Sharon's offer to attend, then send a delegation to
Israel as a sign of goodwill.
Sadat in His Own Words
We should take inspiration from and follow the lead of
Sadat, an Arab leader who took a bold step towards peace and achieved a peace
agreement that even the Muslim Brotherhood government of Egypt felt compelled
to respect 35 years later.
We should take inspiration from and follow the lead of
Sadat, an Arab leader who took a bold step towards peace and achieved a peace
agreement that even the Muslim Brotherhood government of Egypt felt compelled
to respect. Pictured: Egyptian President Anwar Sadat (left) and Israeli Prime
Minister Menachem Begin (right) acknowledge applause during a Joint Session of
Congress in which U.S. President Jimmy Carter announced the results of the Camp
David Accords, September 18, 1978. (Image source: Warren K. Leffler/Library of Congress)
Sadat knew that taking steps towards peace requires more
than simply writing documents and speaking from afar, which is why he went to
Israel to present his vision. He said to the Israeli Knesset, "There are
moments in the life of nations and peoples when it is incumbent on those known
for their wisdom and clarity of vision to overlook the past, with all its
complexities and weighing memories, in a bold drive towards new horizons".
Sadat demonstrated that he understood some of Israel's
fundamental issues when he said, "What is peace for Israel? It means that
Israel lives in the region with her Arab neighbors, in security and
safety".
A New Page
The Arab world has an abysmal record on human rights, is
mired in internal wars, and continues pointless hostility towards Israel, a
neighbor that is far ahead of us scientifically and economically, and from
which we could benefit greatly.
We must take ownership of our past actions towards
Israel, and we must make the changes needed to turn the page. In the words of
Sadat, "We must all rise above all forms of fanaticism, self-deception and
obsolete theories of superiority". It is up to us.
Fred Maroun, a left-leaning Arab based in Canada, has
authored op-eds for New Canadian Media, among other outlets. From 1961-1984, he
lived in Lebanon.
