Whither the Peace Process?

Israeli-Palestinian Peace Must Be Imposed

By John V. Whitbeck

If all the established powers that be—the United States, the European Union, the Arab League, Israel and the Palestinian Authority—publicly profess to agree on anything, the subject of their agreement should be rigorously examined to determine whether it makes any sense. The conventional wisdom that Israeli-Palestinian violence should end and negotiations between the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships should resume makes no sense whatsoever—at least for Israelis and Palestinians.

It is, of course, unorthodox to appear to support violence (other than violence engaged in by the United States) or to oppose negotiations (other than negotiations with “terrorists”). However, the intractability and critical importance of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict calls for unorthodox thinking.

Palestinians are being urged to renounce the internationally recognized right of resistance to an illegal occupation for the opportunity to negotiate with Ariel Sharon, who has just announced his intention to lead any negotiations personally. If anyone had suggested to the leaders and people of occupied Kuwait that they should renounce resistance and negotiate with Saddam Hussain, such a suggestion would have been branded, correctly, as absurd and immoral. The conventional wisdom of the “international community” that the Palestinians should renounce resistance and negotiate with Ariel Sharon is no less absurd and immoral.

It is true that it is in the selfish interests of almost all established governments for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to “go quiet” for a while. The daily televised death and destruction are inconvenient and bothersome for the international establishment, threatening the stability of certain regimes in the region and potentially interfering with other wars deemed, for the moment, more important.

However, it should be obvious that Arafat-Sharon negotiations, if they ever happened, would provide only a very brief lull in the hostilities before they flared up again, probably even more ferociously. The Israeli and Palestinian peoples desperately need to put a definitive end to their conflict. With the occupation in its 35th year, the time to do so is ripe—and has been for a long time. It will never happen, however, if Israelis and Palestinians are left to their own devices and Washington’s traditional formulation that “whatever is acceptable to the parties is acceptable to us” (an elegant way of saying that law is irrelevant and “might makes right”) remains the framework for any “peace process.”

So long as there is a “peace process,” there is no peace.

It is now exactly 10 years since the current “peace process” began at the post-Gulf war Madrid Conference. It has, sadly, produced a great deal of “process,” but no peace. If the current conventional wisdom continues to prevail, the world will no doubt still be discussing how to revive the “peace process” 10 years from now—indeed, probably 20 and 30 years from now. By definition, so long as there is a “peace process,” there is no peace.

It should now be clear that the issues separating Israelis and Palestinians are too difficult and too emotionally charged for any Israeli leadership (let alone Ariel Sharon) and any Palestinian leadership (even Yasser Arafat) to reach a definitive peace agreement through bilateral negotiations. Indeed, on the Israeli side, this realization has already taken hold and led to much discussion of unilateralist “solutions” to be imposed by Israel on Palestine.

If negotiations are recognized to be pointless (except for producing temporary lulls in violence), what are the alternatives? The first alternative is a continuation of the status quo, with each side hoping to inflict so much pain on the other side over a sustained period of time that the other side eventually loses heart and gives them what they failed to achieve through negotiations—an end to the occupation or acquiescence in the occupation.

It is most unlikely that either side will obtain satisfaction of such hopes by such means in the foreseeable future. However, such a strategy does make somewhat more sense from a Palestinian perspective than from an Israeli one. While the chances of obtaining an end to the occupation through sustained violence are slim, the chances of obtaining an end to the occupation through bilateral negotiations alone are as non-existent as the chances of the Palestinians ever acquiescing in a permanent occupation, however restructured and relabeled.

The second alternative is for the “international community” to impose peace on the belligerents, leaving their respective leaderships no choice and thereby relieving them of the need to agree to anything (other than minor details of implementation) with the other side. To actually be implemented and to last, any peace must, of course, be perceived to be just and consistent with international law.

Updating Resolution 181

A special session of the U.N. General Assembly could be convened to put practical, up-to-date flesh on General Assembly Resolution 181 of Nov. 29, 1947, which recommended the partition of Palestine into two states. The fundamental parameters to be fixed would necessarily not be fully acceptable to either side but would be firmly rooted in international law and relevant U.N. resolutions and would not be subject to contestation or negotiation.

If the General Assembly acted wisely, these parameters would be consistent, in particular, with two fundamental principles of international law. First, the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war,” an essential principle of the post-World War II world order which is emphasized in the first recital to Security Council Resolution 242. This would confirm as the borders of the two states the lines of control existing prior to the June 1967 war. Second, the sovereign right of every state to determine who has a right of residence in that state. This would mean that only those Israelis acceptable to Palestine would have a right of residence in Palestine and only those Palestinians acceptable to Israel would have a right of residence in Israel.

These principles are clear and comprehensible. Any variation from them or effort to “compromise” on them would lead away from a durable peace and back to the swamp of a never-ending “process.” If all current Israeli settlements on Palestinian land occupied in 1967 were eventually evacuated but left intact and in good condition, then, particularly in light of the proven ability of Palestinians to live more tightly packed than Israelis, there might already be available sufficient (indeed, superior) housing for all Palestinian refugees currently outside historic Palestine who would prefer return to the State of Palestine to other alternatives for resettlement (which should be made simultaneously and generously available for their free choice), as well as for many currently living in refugee camps within historic Palestine.

The United States has no veto in the General Assembly, so its leverage to water down any resolution there so as to make it unjust and inconsistent with international law (and thus to ensure that it would not produce peace) would be limited. If a constructive and principled General Assembly resolution along the above lines were passed on to the Security Council, the body capable of transforming recommendations into binding international law, for its ratification, the United States would know that a veto would cost it all remaining regional support for its war against Afghanistan. This just might motivate the United States, if only for the wrong reason, to do the right thing.

Further Israeli-Palestinian negotiations are a dead end, not a viable option for peace. The only alternatives are continuing violence and a just peace imposed on the parties to the conflict by the United Nations. The latter alternative is much the better one, and it is urgent.

John V. Whitbeck is an international lawyer who writes frequently on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Rights Not a Reward for Good Behavior, But a Basic Entitlement of All Human Beings

By John Gee

Following the Sept. 11 attacks, many in the U.S. and other Western countries asked questions about the grievances of the Muslim world upon which the perpetrators of those murderous actions had sought to capitalize. Well to the fore was the issue of the violated rights of the Palestinian people. Some realized that a serious effort to halt Israeli human rights violations in Palestine and bring about a just peace settlement would be warmly welcomed by Arabs and Muslims everywhere. It could also deprive political and religious extremists in their countries of one of their most powerful propaganda weapons. It was to be expected that the pro-Israel fundamentalists would leap into action to try to frustrate such a development—just as they did in the wake of the 1990-91 Gulf conflict, when a similar awakening took place. And so, once again, they have.

One ploy has been to seek to widen the scope of Washington’s proclaimed war on terrorism to a list of countries which bears a striking resemblance to Israel’s own enemies list—Iran, Iraq, Libya and Syria, as well as the Palestinian Authority—claiming that these are state sponsors of terrorism. This is nothing but a transparent attempt to deflect criticism from Israeli state terror and to push the U.S. into conflicts that would lock its relations with the Arab and Muslim worlds into a downward spiral of increasing hostility and violence. At least some in the Bush administration, most notably Colin Powell, appear to recognize this danger.

Another tactic has been to declare that Israel must not be put under pressure to make concessions to the Palestinians following Sept. 11 because that would be seen as “rewarding terrorism,” a view expressed by some in the U.S. Congress as early as Sept. 12 (See Rep. Brad Sherman’s statement in “Congress Watch,” November 2001 Washington Report, p. 24). This is hypocritical: those who advance this argument were against putting pressure upon Israel to do things its government disliked long before Sept. 11. It is not as if these Israel-firsters uphold the rights of the Palestinian people in principle, and see this as just an inopportune time to seek to have them realized.

This argument also reveals the very selective concern for democratic values of its proponents. In the West, there is a strong and widespread belief that democracy is the best form of government. A democratically elected government is seen as having a legitimate authority that a non-elected one lacks. Its legitimacy comes, not from accidents of birth that place monarchs upon thrones, or the claimed ability of those who have taken power by force to determine what is best for a nation, but from a people’s free exercise of their right to choose who represents them. When they exercise this right unwisely, few would argue that it should therefore be denied them.

So it is with many other rights, such as the right to freedom of speech and assembly or the right of individuals to a fair trial, even when accused of the worst of crimes. Such rights are not a privilege or a reward: whether they are enshrined in international law, written in declarations of rights or simply endorsed by the common consent of humanity at large, it is generally accepted that people, individually or collectively, should be able to exercise certain rights simply because they are the entitlement of all human beings.

This should hold good for the rights of the Palestinian people, both their human and their national rights, including self-determination and the right to live in peace in their homeland. The call for a viable, independent Palestinian state derives its legitimacy not only from widely accepted principles and U.N. resolutions, but from the same source that makes so many in the West laud the superiority of their political systems: the will of the people.

“Put down your guns, or the Palestinian gets it!”

Those who argue that Israel should not be pressured to respect the rights of the Palestinians because this would seem like a victory for terrorism choose to trample these rights underfoot. They treat them as if they are something that others, from their lofty positions of power, are entitled to confer or deny, as they see fit. According to this perspective, the Palestinians have neither rights nor a valid claim to them: they may be awarded rights if they behave themselves in a way that Israel decides is acceptable. This long has been the attitude of Israel’s apologists. Now, however, because of Sept. 11, the Palestinians are also to be held hostage for the good behavior of any organization or group in the world that claims to support them.

This should be rejected not only by everyone who supports the Palestinians, but by all who believe that peoples and individuals are entitled to certain basic rights, irrespective of who they are, or where they live. The Palestinians do not become deserving or undeserving of respect for their rights according to how they or people who say they sympathize with them behave. The fact that they are human beings means that they should have these rights respected.

John Gee is a free-lance journalist based in Singapore and the author of Unequal Conflict: The Palestinians and Israel, available from the AET Book Club.