Palestinians
Should Abandon Suicide Bombings
Once
upon a time, there was a movement called Revisionist
Zionism, also known as right-wing Zionism. Its basic
view was that all the land of Palestine belonged
to Jews only, and there was no legitimate place
for Muslims or Christians in the land. This movement
took hold in the 1930’s under the leadership
of Vladimir Jabotinsky, and after the creation of
Israel was championed by the Likud party. The Likud
came to power in the 1970’s under Menachem
Begin and Ariel Sharon, and set out on a vigorous
path of colonizing the Palestinian territories captured
in the 1967 war.
For 15 years, this process of stealing land and
building settlements went on. But the first Intifada
showed to many Israelis that it could not work in
the long run. Farsighted liberal Israeli leaders
realized that the demographic balance was shifting
in favor of the Palestinians, and there were insufficient
numbers of Jews to actually absorb the Palestinian
territories into Israel. Hence, Israel entered the
Oslo peace process, and allowed a Palestinian Authority
to be born, with Arafat in charge. However, the
Revisionists did not accept this. The Labor party
was attacked for selling-out the land of Israel,
and in this climate of incitement, Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish fanatic.
Likud came back into power with the hope of derailing
Oslo. They almost destroyed the process, and along
with that, built many more settlements. They had
not given up on the dream.
Likud lost the 1999 election, and Barak became the
Prime Minister. The negotiations at Camp David in
the summer of 2000 failed to get an agreement. The
consequence was the second Initifada which began
in September, the election of the Revisionist standard-bearer
Ariel Sharon as Prime Minister in January 2001.
Sharon proceeded to destroy and reoccupy the Palestinian
Authority, and restarted building more settlements.
But as the Intifada wore on, there appeared a surprising
change in his thinking. Two things happened to create
this.
First was the suicide bombings, which were morally
reprehensible, but did have the practical effect
of removing the last of the Revisionist illusions
that the Palestinians could be ruled permanently
by Israel and they would remain docile, as they
had for the first 20 years of the occupation. The
second was the Geneva Accords, which were negotiated
by leading Israelis and Palestinians, and were endorsed
by the many world leaders as a settlement of the
conflict. What the Geneva Accords showed was that
a reasonable compromise that was acceptable to a
good portion of both sides could be had. This put
tremendous pressure on Sharon to do something.
What he came up with was “disengagement”.
In this plan, the Israelis would pull out of most
Palestinian population centers permanently and retreat
behind a wall. The plan called for a complete removal
of all settlers from Gaza, but intended to build
such a constricting barrier in the West Bank as
to grab half of the land for Israel.
This plan was rejected by many of the Revisionists
in Israel, and several right wing parties left the
government. But when he tried to implement the plan,
the wall he was building came under attack. Last
year the World Court ruled it illegal. In addition,
the Bush Administration rejected the original route
as too much of a land grab. Finally, Israel’s
Supreme Court accepted the petition of Palestinians
and forced the wall to be moved further back. Last
week, Israel announced its redesigned wall route,
and what is striking is that it now only grabs 7%
of the West Bank. The fate of two major settlements,
Ariel and Maale Adumim, and the fate of East Jerusalem,
remain undecided. But the upshot is that Sharon
has basically given up on most of the West Bank
and all of Gaza, and in doing so has made public
the defeat of Revisionist Zionism. Sharon has accepted
that the land from the Jordan River to the sea will
be mostly Palestinian Muslim. There is still much
work left to do before we have an independent and
viable Palestine, but the outlines of that state
are getting clearer. The Palestinians need to mobilize
the global public opinion on their behalf to ensure
that Israel fully withdraws to the 1967 border.
To do so requires that they pursue a political strategy
and abandon the use of violence, particularly suicide
bombings against civilians.
