The Comment Factory

The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians can be a difficult one to understand from afar. Indeed, I think the only way to grasp the nature of the war is to travel there and see it firsthand.

I was lucky enough to have an opportunity to see Israel and Palestine myself this spring, when I went to study the effect of climate change on water conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. In addition to this issue, I also became familiar with some of the engines that drive the ongoing conflict.

The main engine is fear. Whenever I would go into the West Bank to conduct research, Israelis would tell me to be cautious. In fact, one Israeli said that I would be in “constant danger” when I was in the West Bank. However, when I went there I found myself surrounded by some of the friendliest people I’ve ever met. Of course, they expressed their displeasure with U.S. policies but they never held it against me personally.  Indeed, the word I heard most often in the West Bank was “ahlan,” which means “welcome.”
But here’s the funny thing. I heard Israelis, who I found just as welcoming and friendly as I found the Palestinians, say the word “ahlan” as well. And I heard them say “khalas” (“it’s finished”) and “nana” (“mint”) and other words that share the same sound and same meaning in Arabic. After a while, I realized that what I was seeing in the region was not so much a war between two civilizations, one Western and one Islamic, but rather a civil war between two Semitic peoples. For all the things Israelis and Palestinians have in common, including words, food, and revered prophets and places, both put up huge obstacles to working together and resolving their on-going dispute. Perhaps, I feel, it’s because the two sides are so similar that they refuse to make peace.

When I look to history, I see how wars between dissimilar societies seem to end and enjoy a lasting peace more easily than wars between societies with similarities. The United States, for its part, dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan, killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians after years of firebombing Japanese cities, but just a few decades later, even after occupying Japan, the United States and Japan came to an understanding not just between armies and governments but between two cultures as well despite the brutal war we fought. I believe it has something to do with the fact that we never had much in common in the first place and, hence, less to fight over.

But Israelis and Palestinians do share much in common so they have plenty to fight over.  Today, there is a new diplomatic push by President Obama to bring both sides back to the negotiating table. However, the negotiations will take the form of deciding the shape, literally and figuratively, of a new Palestinian state in the West Bank and, theoretically, in the Gaza Strip, still suffering under an Israeli blockade so stringent it determines the daily calorie intake of Palestinians there.

I do not believe these negotiations will ultimately find success, but it is not for lack of good intentions on the part of the Obama administration. Unlike Bush and Clinton before him, President Obama has brought a new emphasis to the dismantling of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, a fact that deeply disturbs both settlers but also the current Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Today, about 300,000 Israelis live in settlements in the West Bank. According to current sentiment in Israel, “final status” peace agreement will have to accommodate these settlers somehow, many of whom live in established cities; one, Ariel, with its own university and hospital. The accommodation of the settlers might come in the form of redrawing the map of the West Bank, giving Palestinians land in Israel in exchange for keeping large settlements around Jerusalem and near the annexation wall, which is also known as the separation fence or, by some, as the apartheid wall.

Leaving the issue of the wall aside (from what I’ve seen with my own eyes the wall encourages support of Hamas, which does not accept the existence of Israel, in the cities and towns through which it cuts) and the placement of settlements, I don’t see a viable Palestinian state emerging from the West Bank. Already, Prime Minister Netanyahu, even as he accepted the concept of a Palestinian state, demanded that it exist without an army and be content to accept that Jerusalem will never be its capital.

This isn’t a deal the Palestinians should have to swallow. It will surely not represent a “final status” agreement. There will be continuing disagreements, disputes, and conflict will restart anew.  Moreover, the Israeli settlements that remain will deform the contours of the Palestinian state in the West Bank which, in theory, should conform to the 1949 Armistice Line. The only other option is to grant all the remaining settlers lifetime residency permits in the newly created Palestinian state. And, finally, another reason the Palestinian state will fail to emerge stems from the billions of dollars Israel has poured into the concrete and asphalt infrastructure in the West Bank, from the wall itself to the settler access roads.
The only lasting option for peace, I feel, is one state for two peoples. Two states for two peoples, the current mantra, won’t work. It puts an impossible burden on Israel and won’t leave the Palestinians with anything approaching what we consider sovereignty.  The only lasting solution, I feel, is a single state. Indeed, under occupation, Israel and the West Bank and The Gaza Strip have already been a single state since 1967, when Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territory began. It is much easier to go forward on the path both peoples are on today.

However, while it is a de facto single state, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip count as fifth class citizens. What should happen, I feel, is that Palestinians should have the same rights Israelis do. The settlements can remain while Palestinians will be able to work and live and vote in Israel proper.  Of course, this comes with its own obstacles. For one thing, Israelis fear that allowing millions of Palestinians to become voting Israeli citizens will destroy the idea of Jewish state and undermine the security  of the long persecuted Jewish people and the very existence of the Jewish state.  These issues are important and demand a redefinition of what it means to be Israeli. It will also demand a redefining of what it means to be Palestinians. What’s necessary is to emphasize their commonalities and forge a new national identity.  I feel it is time to abandon the delusion that two states for two peoples will end their fighting forever. Only respect and recognition of all they have in common will.