From: perlman@qso.Colorado.EDU (Eric S. Perlman)
Subject: Solutions to the problem? (was Re: Sgt-Mgr Nissim Toledano found murdered)
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1992 16:23:12 GMT

In article <1992Dec20.100942.7948@netcom.com> zmbenhal@netcom.com (Zeyd M. Ben-Halim) writes:
>In article <1992Dec19.171726.27595@ncsu.edu> hernlem@chess.ncsu.EDU (Brad Hernlem) writes:
>>
>>I believe that the best resolution of the "Israeli/Palestinian problem"
>>would be the formation of one Israel with native Palestinians living
>>side by side with Jews in peace. I do not see this likely when the
>
>This was the palestenian position for a long time, one secular state including
>jews, moslems, and christians all with equal rights.Unfortunatly, this will
>eventually lead to the country not being the "jewish state" as the arabs have
>a larger birth rate than the jews. Only mass imports of russian jewry to
>Israel has reversed this trend lately.
 
Not exactly.  This is what the PLO charter says, but the fact is that it
also says that Jews who returned to their homeland and now live in
Israel must leave.  And during the Israeli war of Independence, in 1948,
Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the Palestinian leader, had similarly draconian
ideas:  he had worked actively with the Nazis during World War II, and
shared many of their ideas concerning Jews.

>Only recently, due to various pressures, has the PLO decided to accept a two-
>state "solution". The Palestenian problem was transformed from the quest of
>justice for those disposesed by the creation of Israel to that of the search
>for a "homeland", thus the Israeli answer: "They already have a homeland and
>it is called Jordan". Statements such as "if your color the arab countries red
>and Israel blue you see that the red overwhelms the blue are supposed to be
>a justification for the continuing oppression of the palestinians.
>The question is not HOW much land this guy has got, but WHOSE land it is.

The question of justice must work both ways.  If you wish to talk about
compensation for Palestinians disposessed by the 1948 war - a war of
survival for Israel, a war which it did not start - indeed a war which
the Arab countries bear the responsibility for, one must also talk about
compensation for Jews who fled Arab countries following that war in fear
for their lives.  In fact there were more such Jewish refugees than Arab
ones.  

I don't disagree that Palestinians should get something, perhaps even a
homeland.  But the prime burden for their disposession lies with states
such as Syria, Iraq and Jordan.  Israel should help out, but it should
not bear either all or most of the burden for their compensation.

And if you want to talk about whose land it is, we're going to get into
an undying spiral, where nothing gets solved.  The fact is, Jews have a
3000 year-old claim to the land; it's our home, and contains our holiest
sites.  The fact is, we didn't leave there by choice when we were thrown
out by the Romans in AD 70.  Yet the fact also is that no Arab considers
us as native to the land, now that we've returned.  There isn't even-
handedness on the Arab side, you see; if you try to claim that that
exists in the PLO charter, you're being extremely naive.

Right now, the best hope for peace lies in the peace process, and I
think that the Palestinian representatives are being quite disingenuous
in their negotiating stance.  You can't start, and continue, aprocess by
claiming that you want it all, and then sticking to that claim, not
giving a millimeter.  Yet that is exactly what Hassam Abu Sharif et al.
have done.  The Rabin government is very serious about wanting peace,
and is almost certainly the most willing government the Arab states and
the Palestinians are likely to get in Israel to negotiate it.

>>Israeli government does not take steps to increase contact between
>>Israelis and Palestinians and indeed takes steps to increase hostility,
>>isolation and distrust. A member of Hamas was interviewed on BBC about a
>>week ago. When asked whether he was opposed to peace with Israel, he
>>answered [I am liberally paraphrasing the response] that it was not
>>peace that they were seeking to oppose but that peace talks without a
>>show of commitment by Israel to reach a settlement was an act in futility.
>
>When people talk about the peace process they don't mention the justice process.
>It is easy to talk about peace when you are occupier since you hold all the
>cards. The Israeli are prepared to offer peace in return to peace. This is
>essentially rubber-stampping the occupation and the oppression of the occupied.
I don't see how.  The occupation itself is legal, even mandated by
international law until there is a peace agreement.  Further, UNSC
resolutions 242 and 338 do not mandate the return of every inch of
territory.  They do mandate a return of territory.  But they were
deliberately written to exclude the "all territories" wording.  

Finally, let's mention that the justice process cuts both ways.  See
above.  Israel has had to fight for its life for forty-five years, and
the 1948 war caused more Jewish refugees - which were absorbed by Israel
- than Palestinian - who've been treated as political footballs by the
Arab world ever since.


-- 
"How sad to see/A model of decorum and tranquillity/become like any other sport
A battleground for rival ideologies to slug it out with glee." -Tim Rice,"Chess"
     Eric S. Perlman 				 <perlman@qso.colorado.edu> 
  Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy, University of Colorado, Boulder
Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast