No peace without recognition

ANOTHER ROUND of talks between Israel and the Palestinians seems to be running out of steam. Despite the considerable diplomatic energy invested, it looks like it is ending, like its many predecessors, without a genuine breakthrough for peace. Naturally each side will blame the other for the failure. But truth be told, the concept of blame, as if it could be apportioned to either party, is virtually irrelevant to what has happened over the past eight months – or, for that matter, in all the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations over the past 20 years. Because in all those rounds, there was only one side that really wanted psychological reconciliation and a final, strategic resolution of the conflict. Indeed, the Israeli side was ready to make significant ideological and territorial concessions to achieve those goals. It was even ready to sacrifice its holiest places in Jerusalem. Two prime ministers, Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, proposed handing over the Holy Basin, including the Temple Mount but with the exception of the Western Wall, to Palestinian control. They and others also agreed to surrender vital parts of the national patrimony. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for example, gave up Hebron, apart from the Tomb of the Patriarchs and the surrounding area. He is also ready to make far-reaching concessions in Judea and Samaria, undermining one of Zionism's most cherished values – settlement of the land. Indeed, his peace policy would entail the destruction of blossoming, well-populated settlements. Moreover, Barak and Olmert also agreed to a vague formula on a “partial right of return,” which would have allowed some Palestinian refugees to settle in Israel. Yet, with all that on the table, the Palestinians refused to cut a deal. All they were asked to give in return were three verbal declarations: that they accepted “end of conflict” and “finality of claims,” recognized Israel as the national home of the Jewish people and waived a full right of return. Instead, the Palestinians destroyed Oslo in blood and fire; they rejected the Clinton parameters of 2000; let the 2003 Road Map slip; and scuttled the Annapolis understandings of 2007. Why? Why did they give up the generous aid the whole world, and especially the Americans, were ready to give them? Why did they not take the opportunity to get partial independence, which they could easily have extended over time – even without Israel's approval, because its hands would have been tied by international opinion – into full-scale independence? Why, as Abba Eban pithily put it, do the Palestinians “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity?” I don't argue that behind this rejectionist ideology lurks a radical form of anti-Semitism. It stems rather from a deep-rooted inability of the Arabs to accept the Jews as a sovereign entity in this part of the world. They believe profoundly that the Middle East, from both a religious and a territorial point of view, belongs solely to them. Even if they wanted to, and they don't, the Palestinians, the local branch of the Arab world, cannot recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people, agree to an end of the conflict with it or relinquish the right of return. On these three cardinal issues, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas does not have an Arab mandate even to negotiate. Therefore, the same pattern we have seen over the past 20 years will continue for the next 20: Eruptions of violence, in some cases real war, in others intifadas, interspersed with periods of relative quiet, like the one we have now, in a series of repetitive cycles. Israel will have to live with this reality and it will. In fact, so far it is doing so quite well. True, influential players in politics and the media are trying to get us disillusioned with life here, and to argue, as the Arabs do, that without peace Israel has no future. But the facts point to quite the reverse: Israel is blossoming, while those on the Arab side who wish it harm are in decline. They are plagued by civil wars, technological and economic backwardness and their state structures – as the “Arab Spring” shows – are disintegrating. Only steadfast Jewish patience, coupled with belief in the justice of the cause, might lead, over a very long period, to Arab acceptance of a Jewish entity in the region.  Israel Harel, a former chairman of the Judea, Samaria and Gaza Council, is the founder and chairman of the Jerusalem-based Institute for Zionist Strategies

No peace without recognition

Israel will have to live with eruptions of violence and it will. In fact, so far it is doing so quite well.

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