April 1, 2002

PALESTINIAN STATE OR ISRAELI PROTECTORATE?



This installment was prepared prior to the suicide bombing in Netanya, the subsequent Israeli destruction of Arafat's headquarters, and his virtual imprisonment in his office building. Nevertheless, I am leaving the original text unimpaired because it does not conflict with the unfolding events and I shall merely add two paragraphs at the end.

The past month was an anniversary of sorts and unfortunately a sad one. Hope springs eternal and this why I had Whither Zionism? published last March and why I sent it to all the members of the Bush administration as well as to the Chairmen and members of all the relevant committees in the House and Senate. As documented previously in these pages this was, of course, a forlorn hope and the book was ignored. A few days ago I received a phone call early in the morning (we are two hours behind Washington time) from an aide to one of the senators who thanked me for the "gift" and asked me what the senator was supposed to do with it? At first, benumbed by sleep, I wasn't sure what he was talking about but then he told me that they have "just received the book" and blamed the anthrax scare for the delay. Unless it went via the North Pole and Antarctica it should certainly have arrived prior to September 11. His question also puzzled me. What is one supposed to do with a book, especially when there was an explanatory letter included, but to read and act on it?

I am not sufficiently conceited to imagine that had the suggestions contained in Whither Zionism? been taken up, and had the U.S. placed the Arab-Israeli conflict before the Security Council in the spring of last year, the tragedies of September 11 and their aftermath would have been avoided. I do believe, however, that the ever increasing spiral of violence in the Mideast could have been reduced. Still permeated by the hope that if the American people were to be told the truth about the reasons why Arafat had rejected the Camp David II plan with its "unprecedented" offer to return about 96 per cent of the West Bank to the Palestinians, I wrote in January of this year an article for the Salt Lake Tribune, in which I outlined the reasons for the rejection and a plan that could bring some semblance of sanity to the area. It took several communications with the Editor of the paper until the article was published in full (!) and unedited (!), except for a change in the headline, by the Tribune. Obviously the Tribune is neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post but the individual citizen and taxpayer have no other recourse except at the "grass roots" level. Once it was published I faxed it to our President, Secretary of State Powell, and Condoleeza Rice. It probably ended up in the proverbial circular file.

In essence the article gave the reasons why the Palestinians had to reject the Israeli-American proposal for the Final Settlement. They were abstracted from the documents section of www.mideastweb.org and the updated edition of The Israel-Arab Reader by Laqueur and Rubin. The most important features for rejection were:

1) Israeli settlements would remain in the proposed Palestinian state, albeit concentrated in three blocks; but access roads would be under Israeli control.

2) Israel would continue to control the water resources of the Jordan River and an Israeli security zone would exist along its west bank. Israel could deploy its troops in the Jordan valley at any time if it felt itself threatened from the East.

3) The proposed state would not have had contiguous borders but would have consisted essentially of a series of unconnected municipalities.

4) The Palestinian areas of Jerusalem which Israel was willing to cede would likewise not have had contiguous borders but would have remained islands within the Jewish city.

5) Border crossings with Jordan and Egypt would be under Palestinian control but under Israeli supervision.

6) The Palestinian state would be demilitarized and alliances with other countries would be subject to Israeli approval.

7) Israel would accept some refugees from previous wars but the rest would have to be absorbed elsewhere.

In sum and substance Arafat would have become the mayor of several unconnected municipalities within an Israeli protectorate. Since this plan falls far short from the creation of a viable independent state the Palestinians rejected it. If these conditions had been presented by the U.N. in 1947 to the Jews in Palestine, for their state, they would also have rejected it.

Prime Minister Sharon, with a flair for the dramatic, has recently evoked the analogy of Israel being placed into the position of Czechoslovakia because the Munich agreement which led to the dismemberment and subsequent disappearance of the state was reached over the heads of the Czech government. This is the fate, Mr. Sharon announced, which would befall Israel if it were to accede to a truly autonomous and viable Palestinian state. The irony of this statement seems to have eluded him. It is not the Palestinians who are armed to the teeth with the most modern weapons, but it is the Likud government and its sympathizers who want a "Protectorate of Judea and Samaria." It would have essentially the same rights and privileges Hitler had arrogated to himself over "rump Czechoslovakia" which became the "Reichs-protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia." Hitler's ostensible reasons were security because he didn't want Soviet planes using Czech airfields. For the Israeli government security is also the reason put forth for its demands although there is no army in the area which can succeed against Israeli conventional and nuclear might.

These are no secrets but the Israeli and especially the American public have to be told that Israel is in mortal danger of being wiped off the map, by the combined Arab forces if it were to make any concessions which would be interpreted as weakness. Let's face it this is propaganda because the Arabs simply don't have the wherewithal and if they tried they would be annihilated by America. What is behind this scare-mongering? The status quo has to be retained and somehow or another the Palestinians should just disappear, or at least give up their suicidal behavior.

Even one of our currently most esteemed Newscasters endorses this principle. Bill O'Reilly repeatedly states on his "No Spin Factor" that he is "not interested in causes" he simply wants Palestinians to stop killing Israelis during suicide missions. As a physician this stance strikes me as strange. If Mr. O'Reilly, and those who think like him, were to suffer from a chronic cough and the physician would say "I don't care why you cough, just stop it because you're spreading germs," the answer would be a malpractice suit! This also reminded me of my psychiatric training at the Mayo Clinic where I was taught the principles of psychoanalytic thought. Among these was the admonition that "everything is always the opposite from what it appears to be." For instance a good natured jolly, obese person is really consumed by deep hatred and depression. In addition we were told that a patient with some type of undesirable behavior, be it alcoholism, a sexual obsession, or whatnot, would first have to give up his compulsion and then could be taken into treatment. In my naiveté I thought to myself that if the patient can do it voluntarily why does he need years of psychoanalysis?

Little did I know, in the early nineteen fifties, that psychoanalytic thought would enter world politics. Suicide bombings must stop before treatment of the reasons for these disasters can begin, is not only Israel's but America's stance! Like everybody else I don't condone suicide bombings but when young women join their ranks one really should look at the depth of despair which drives these people. What they need is not the stern words of "stop it" by our President but the ingredient without which people cannot live and that is genuine hope for a better future in freedom and dignity.

Unfortunately this may not be in the cards as the Beirut meeting has shown where they were put on the table for everybody to read. Sharon threatened Arafat with not letting him return if he said one word Israelis could disapprove of. This killed the Saudi "vision" as far as Israel was concerned. But the Arabs also tipped their hand. They did not allow Arafat to address the meeting live through remote TV hookup but only via a taped recording. Thus the Arabs showed themselves far from united in giving aid to the Palestinian cause. Finally it became clear that President Bush was not seriously interested either in a genuine attempt to resolve the conflict. He could have authorized General Zinni to put Arafat in a U.S. helicopter, take him to Beirut, and then bring him back again to Ramallah. This would have been statesmanship. But this course, which would have shown the world that America means business and is indeed an "honest broker," would have annoyed Sharon and since he is "our friend" we must not do so.

Thus the Saudi plan, is probably doomed and so is my own suggestion contained in the Tribune article. Sharon will take the Arab disarray and the tacit approval of his policies by the U.S. as a green light to go ahead with re-occupation of major portions of the West Bank and Gaza. The Palestinians will have to live under military law and those who don't like it will be shot. The Arabs are not likely to answer militarily, because they can't win, but they will use the only weapon they have - their oil. A boycott of exports to America would have serious repercussions on our economy, which still reels from the aftershocks of September 11 in form of increased defense spending both at home and abroad.

But even if the Israelis were to annex Judea and Samaria, as some like to call it, as well as the Gaza strip, what is to be done with the people? Contrary to Golda Meyer's opinion of "there are no Palestinians," they do exist and will continue to blow themselves up while taking as many Israelis as humanly possible with them. For "security" the Israelis will give up all hope for peace and will end up even more beleaguered than they are now. Even if they were able to expel the Palestinians from the occupied territories, which is not likely to be condoned by the rest of the world, they would have their own Arab citizens within Israel to deal with who may create even worse havoc in the state.

My own suggestion as to how to prevent the disasters, we seem to be inexorably sliding into, was quite simple. Only a complete separation of Jews from Arabs in separate states with internationally guaranteed borders has any chance of preventing future catastrophes. There are about five million Jews in Israel at this time and about 15 million in the world. Even if one were to assume a phenomenal birth and immigration rate, which is not likely, and the country's population were to swell to about ten million in the next decades this would still amount only to the population of Rio de Janeiro. Furthermore, how much land do ten million people who are predominantly urban in character really need? Theoretically it would be entirely feasible to create a purely Jewish state as a garden megalopolis which extends along the Mediterranean shore from Nahariya in the North to the Gaza strip in the South. The eastern border could be fixed along the hill country. This would still give the Jewish state the high ground for defensive positions and the state would receive international guarantees for its existence. The settlements would have to be disbanded because they will always be a point of friction. The Dimona nuclear plant could be reconfigured to peaceful atomic energy production which would make Israel largely independent of Arab oil and desalination plants on the Mediterranean could provide the needed water resources. For Jerusalem the initial U.N. idea of a corpus separatum could be enacted. The rest of the current state of Israel could become the Palestinian state which could under those circumstances absorb the refugees from the previous wars. A connection between the Gaza strip and the rest of the Palestinian state could be established by the creation of a tunnel from the south end of the West bank to the north end of the Gaza strip. A tunnel is preferable to a road which would have to traverse Israeli land and could be disrupted at any time. With a tunnel entry as well as exit would be under Palestinian control and contiguity of territory would be preserved. Although a tunnel would present an engineering challenge a precedent exists in form of the "chunnel" which connects Calais with Dover. The Golan Heights would return to Syria and the remaining enclaves of Lebanese territory which are still held by Israel would go back to Lebanon. This would immediately produce peace treaties with Syria as well as Lebanon and the major friction points, which threaten to ignite the Mideast would disappear. There is little doubt that all the Arab states as well as the Palestinians would accept a solution of this type. Israel will oppose it because it involves significant concessions. Neither Israel nor the Arabs can be expected to come to a meaningful lasting agreement. The car is stuck in the mud of mutual hatred and it needs AAA to pull it out. Only the United States can do so. If the Bush administration were to bring a plan of this type, with appropriate input from experts for details, to the Security Council it would in all probability be adopted because the rest of the world wants an end to this conflict, which threatens the welfare of all of us.

Could America bring about a genuine peace solution as suggested above? Yes, if the will were there. But the will is obviously lacking!

As mentioned in the beginning, the situation in the West Bank is currently in flux. Nevertheless a picture begins to emerge. Arafat may not survive very long and we may never hear the truth as to how he died. The Palestinians will probably say that he was murdered by the Israelis, while the Israelis may announce that he has committed suicide. But that does not matter. With his death Sharon will have achieved his goal of plunging the Palestinian Authority into chaos, which will foreclose any peace negotiations. He does not want a Palestinian state, and neither does his likely successor Netanyahu. By creating chaos in the occupied territories the Israeli government can then appoint "Quisling" type mayors of the various municipalities in the West Bank and Gaza who will cooperate with the occupation. This, of course, will not stop fanatic young Palestinians of either sex to continue with guerilla warfare against the "Quislings" as well as the Israelis. Terrorism will abound and since America not only has done nothing to prevent this situation, but obviously supports Sharon, we will be targets also. This much seems reasonably predictable.

In the United States there is currently only hand wringing by the media with "but what can we do?" The signals Secretary Powell and President Bush are sending are inane. To tell Sharon that his actions are correct and Arafat, who is virtually imprisoned, must call off suicide attacks is not a serious policy. These statements are designed to placate the media and the American public, but are otherwise useless. The U.N. Resolution which calls on Israel to withdraw its forces has no teeth and can be complied with, on a token basis, by Sharon. The United States need to introduce a Resolution which in principle conforms to the Saudi plan, or to that of the mentioned Tribune article, and subsequently tell the Israeli government that if they do not accept it, there will be no further aid from the United States or NATO countries. An action of this type seems to be the only way to prevent further disasters and is in the long run the best chance for Israelis to live in peace with their neighbors. The reason why America is not taking constructive action will be discussed in the next installment.
 
 
 
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