In another lifetime?

"THE shocking level of the last wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence, which ended with this weekend’s cease-fire, reminds us why a final resolution to the so-called Middle East crisis is so important. It is vital not just to break this cycle of destruction and injustice, but also to deny the religious extremists in the region who feed on the conflict an excuse to advance their own causes.

But everywhere one looks, among the speeches and the desperate diplomacy, there is no real way forward. A just and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians is possible, but it lies in the history of the people of this conflicted land, and not in the tired rhetoric of partition and two-state solutions.

Although it’s hard to realize after the horrors we’ve just witnessed, the state of war between the Jews and Palestinians has not always existed. In fact, many of the divisions between Jews and Palestinians are recent ones. The very name “Palestine” was commonly used to describe the whole area, even by the Jews who lived there, until 1948, when the name “Israel” came into use.

Jews and Muslims are cousins descended from Abraham. Throughout the centuries both faced cruel persecution and often found refuge with one another. Arabs sheltered Jews and protected them after maltreatment at the hands of the Romans and their expulsion from Spain in the Middle Ages.

The history of Israel/Palestine is not remarkable by regional standards — a country inhabited by different peoples, with rule passing among many tribes, nations and ethnic groups; a country that has withstood many wars and waves of peoples from all directions. This is why it gets so complicated when members of either party claims the right to assert that it is their land.

The basis for the modern State of Israel is the persecution of the Jewish people, which is undeniable. The Jews have been held captive, massacred, disadvantaged in every possible fashion by the Egyptians, the Romans, the English, the Russians, the Babylonians, the Canaanites and, most recently, the Germans under Hitler. The Jewish people want and deserve their homeland.

But the Palestinians too have a history of persecution, and they view the coastal towns of Haifa, Acre, Jaffa and others as the land of their forefathers, passed from generation to generation, until only a short time ago.

Thus the Palestinians believe that what is now called Israel forms part of their nation, even were they to secure the West Bank and Gaza. And the Jews believe that the West Bank is Samaria and Judea, part of their homeland, even if a Palestinian state were established there. Now, as Gaza still smolders, calls for a two-state solution or partition persist. But neither will work.

A two-state solution will create an unacceptable security threat to Israel. An armed Arab state, presumably in the West Bank, would give Israel less than 10 miles of strategic depth at its narrowest point. Further, a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip would do little to resolve the problem of refugees. Any situation that keeps the majority of Palestinians in refugee camps and does not offer a solution within the historical borders of Israel/Palestine is not a solution at all.

For the same reasons, the older idea of partition of the West Bank into Jewish and Arab areas, with buffer zones between them, won’t work. The Palestinian-held areas could not accommodate all of the refugees, and buffer zones symbolize exclusion and breed tension. Israelis and Palestinians have also become increasingly intertwined, economically and politically.

In absolute terms, the two movements must remain in perpetual war or a compromise must be reached. The compromise is one state for all, an “Isratine” that would allow the people in each party to feel that they live in all of the disputed land and they are not deprived of any one part of it.

A key prerequisite for peace is the right of return for Palestinian refugees to the homes their families left behind in 1948. It is an injustice that Jews who were not originally inhabitants of Palestine, nor were their ancestors, can move in from abroad while Palestinians who were displaced only a relatively short time ago should not be so permitted.

It is a fact that Palestinians inhabited the land and owned farms and homes there until recently, fleeing in fear of violence at the hands of Jews after 1948 — violence that did not occur, but rumors of which led to a mass exodus. It is important to note that the Jews did not forcibly expel Palestinians. They were never “un-welcomed.” Yet only the full territories of Isratine can accommodate all the refugees and bring about the justice that is key to peace.

Assimilation is already a fact of life in Israel. There are more than one million Muslim Arabs in Israel; they possess Israeli nationality and take part in political life with the Jews, forming political parties. On the other side, there are Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Israeli factories depend on Palestinian labor, and goods and services are exchanged. This successful assimilation can be a model for Isratine.

If the present interdependence and the historical fact of Jewish-Palestinian coexistence guide their leaders, and if they can see beyond the horizon of the recent violence and thirst for revenge toward a long-term solution, then these two peoples will come to realize, I hope sooner rather than later, that living under one roof is the only option for a lasting peace."

Tripoli; by Muammar Qaddafi [courtesy of the New York Times]

I wonder if anyone has put this on George Mitchell's desk—or Benjamin Netanyahu's—yet? Or will dare to?

Too late, it was, too late . . .

Better late than never? No. There are episodes of history when speaking out too late is just—too late. This is an example of one of them:

“. . .the foundation for solidarity between peoples and nations should be based not on who we are against, but on the idea of who we are and the values we share. Terrorists succeed when they render countries fearful and vindictive; when they sow division and animosity; when they force countries to respond with violence and repression. The best response is to refuse to be cowed.”

Why did no British minister say this, obvious to so very many of us, historians or not, European ministers or not, long before January 2009? Why should it only be said now, after another 'vindictive' attack by another 'fearful' country?

Because Blair, in his love affair with the US and Bush, would not, presumably, permit it amidst all the control-freakery for which his government became notorious.

And why did Blair so willingly subsume himself to the American Neocon war agenda? It puzzled a great many people eight years ago after it suddenly dawned on everyone that justifiable and explicable sympathy was about to develop into support and assistance for war.

People have searched for complex psychological and political reasons. I, too have worked my way through many of them, including one of the most obvious: that if military support for the US’s intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq was not forthcoming, then neither would the (American) replacement of Britain’s nuclear deterrent. Blackmail, after all, is in every country’s foreign policy arsenal, and for all its self-vaunted altruism, the US uses it against both its enemies and its allies.

If that is part of the explanation for engagement in wars that cost a Prime Minister his popularity, respect and finally his job, we shall not know for at least fifty more years, or probably a hundred, until a curator at Kew unties the red ribbon from the cardboard archive boxes. Or unless, of course, some forgotten carelessly unerased email between some Pentagon official to another in the State Department surfaces unexpectedly before that through a tangential Freedom of Information request.

I think there is a simpler, even banal, explanation. Some people, of little consequence in themselves, or of little talent, or eager to inflate it, seem to have a desperate need to associate themselves, however slightly, with those who are famous. I mean famous for more than fifteen minutes or for being in Big Brother.

I knew a young man like that. A newly graduated pyschologist, of all things, he would insinuate himself at every event he could find to be photographed within arm’s reach of some celebrity. He had the plausibility of the true conman: he could get through a cordon I would have had difficulty penetrating with a Scotland-Yard-issued press pass. He did it often, I think, not just to gratify his own desire, bolster his ego, but also, just like the schoolboy his behaviour resembled, to look big to his girlfriend.

The whole tenure of New Labour in Downing Street had Blair and the Blairites desperate to consort with the rich and famous. Footballers, rock stars, Indian industrialists. But anyone, if they are as persistent as that psychologist, can be photographed with them. But to be photographed with the ‘most powerful man in the world’? To appear to be his friend and confidant? ‘My’ psychologist would have creamed his jeans at the mere thought. That is the summit of the fame-seeker’s desire.

And that, I suspect, is all that led us into this disastrous ‘war on terror’. It was incidental to a politician's vanity and the furtherance of his self-image. And that is why it is very, very, late to say what Miliband* has said now.

*David Miliband's full article in the Guardian.

Who dies in this 'War on Terror'?

More people who are innocent than involve themselves in terrorist acts, that has become all too clear since George W Bush uttered that glib phrase. It has become since, not the slogan of a moral opposition against acts of terror against individuals, but one to exculpate acts by governments against peoples. The Israeli government was I think the first to seize on the new 'declaration of war' and apply it to any Palestinian resistance, and by extension, quickly to all Palestinians.

Recently, a very brave and honourable Sri Lankan journalist was murdered, an event, because he had fought valiantly against this 'War on Terror' that victimises, not the terrorist, but the population, he expected.

His last testimony upon his own death is here, and, because it raises all the questions that should be asked about the ramifications and consequences of this 'War on Terror' we are all so pressured to, if not blindly support, with one eye closed and one only half-open, accept, should be read by everyone.

I am a journalist myself; though not of the kind who might expect to be called to risk my life in a war zone, be imprisoned, assaulted, or assassinated for what I normally write. I hope, however, if it came down to it, I would also be able to show at least a portion of this man's bravery. And we should all be grateful for people like him.

Here is an edited version of so much in his last article that is relevant to all of us:

No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art save the armed forces and, in Sri Lanka, journalism. In the course of the past few years, the independent media have increasingly come under attack. Electronic and print-media institutions have been burnt, bombed, sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honour to belong to all those categories and now especially the last.

. . .we have consistently espoused the view that while separatist terrorism must be eradicated, it is more important to address the root causes of terrorism, and urged government to view Sri Lanka's ethnic strife in the context of history and not through the telescope of terrorism. We have also agitated against state terrorism in the so-called war against terror, and made no secret of our horror that Sri Lanka is the only country in the world routinely to bomb its own citizens. For these views we have been labelled traitors, and if this be treachery, we wear that label proudly.

. . .The LTTE are among the most ruthless and bloodthirsty organisations ever to have infested the planet. There is no gainsaying that it must be eradicated. But to do so by violating the rights of Tamil citizens, bombing and shooting them mercilessly, is not only wrong but shames. . .

. . .a military occupation of the country's north and east will require the Tamil people of those regions to live eternally as second-class citizens, deprived of all self respect. Do not imagine that you can placate them by showering "development" and "reconstruction" on them in the post-war era.
The wounds of war will scar them forever, and you will also have an even more bitter and hateful Diaspora to contend with. A problem amenable to a political solution will thus become a festering wound that will yield strife for all eternity. If I seem angry and frustrated, it is only because most of my countrymen - and all of the government - cannot see this writing so plainly on the wall.

. . .As for me, I have the satisfaction of knowing that I walked tall and bowed to no man. And I have not travelled this journey alone. Fellow journalists in other branches of the media walked with me: most of them are now dead, imprisoned without trial or exiled in far-off lands. Others walk in the shadow of death.

. . .I hope my assassination will be seen not as a defeat of freedom but an inspiration for those who survive to step up their efforts. Indeed, I hope that it will help galvanise forces that will usher in a new era of human liberty. . .But if we do not speak out now, there will be no one left to speak for those who cannot, whether they be ethnic minorities, the disadvantaged or the persecuted.

[My emphasis.]

In memoriam Lasantha Wickrematunge and very many others.

In Gaza, a Ceasefire is not a Truce

To silence a gun, or even hundreds or thousands of them, in Gaza is not a truce. It is only a ceasefire. And it occurs to me that I with many others have come close to confusing the two.

The Israeli Prime Minister, however, has not. This unilateral ceasefire is only the offer of a calm before another potential storm threatening the Gazan population.

At some point, if Hamas has not run out of rockets to fire at Israel, or men to fire them, then the onslaught, replenished perhaps with the containers from the Wehr Elbe, will inevitably begin again.

We do not yet know what conditions the Israelis will impose in return for a truce. But they have achieved almost total military control of the lives and health of the Gazan population. no oil, petrol, gas, water, food, will flow without their consent. If the blockade they have insisted upon is controlled by them, then they can starve the entire population at will. And will.

At some point, no doubt, they will hope that Gazans will flee their country by the hundreds of thousands, perhaps to an unwilling but fearful and compromised Egypt, finally worn down and beaten violently in submission. Whether that can be achieved is doubtful. The UN, after all, cannot establish artificial refugee islands in the only other exit, the Mediterranean.

We return, yet again, to ask, if the ‘military goals’ have been fulfilled as the Israelis say, of what use is that without political ones? Except, once more, an example of the eagerness of some militaries to begin a war while paying attention to nothing more than the logistics of moving troops this way and that. To invade; to destroy; to kill; to withdraw. It is the Duke of York, but using his firepower as well as his men’s boots.

There has been mention of somehow installing, in a shattered society and over a submissive and psychologically shattered people, some form of outpost of the Palestinian Authority with Abbas as leader . . . If I were Gazan, and was able to laugh instead of weeping, I would laugh at the patent absurdity of the idea of re-imposing a political leader who had already long ago lost the confidence of the people of Gaza and in this war (and for long before) has been entirely impotent and ineffective.

There is only one real solution, and that is a truly viable state with both the West Bank and Gaza physically connected. The one, in fact, that Israel has spent thirty years making impossible. And now, by demonstrating yet again—Olmet actually threatening on as many words even as he announced the ceasefire—that it has the will, the power, a disregard for the world, and the ironmongery to devastate any neighbouring country (providing the US stays silent and continues to supply it with the materials) Israel has made a statement that it will never allow it.

‘Carthago delenda est.” I chose the harsh and bitter war cry of Cicero deliberately. Israelis would insert ‘Palestine’ , the ‘West Bank’ or ‘Gaza’ for ‘Carthage’. History, however, if there is ever to be a Palestinian State (which I for one now doubt), will have to replace that north African city with ‘Israel’.

Perhaps the Palestinians are destined before this decade is out, finally to become the itinerant successors to the Jews. Once a population is dispersed in a diaspora, then unification strong enough to regain a homeland is almost impossible. As Israelis know perfectly well. It is a part of their mythology. It took the distractions of colonialism and its jealousies, and two world wars, to create a situation in which a Jewish state could be founded.

But I see no appreciation of irony in the Israelis that that is where their policies and actions lead.