Commentary No. 45, August 1, 2000
"Israel-Palestine: Can There Be Peace?"
Whenever there are long-lasting politico-military struggles about basic political structures, it often seems that peace (that is, a more or less lasting constitutional compromise) is not merely elusive but virtually impossible. In the last 50 years, we have had four such continuing struggles that have been painful, bloody, quite visible on the world scene, and seemingly impossible to resolve. They are not the only ones, but a comparative look at the so-called peace processes of these four might be helpful. The latest talks between the government of Israel and the Palestinians that took place in July 2000 seemed to have failed. It might be worth looking at this failure in the light of three other struggles: South Africa, Northern Ireland, and Korea. In none of these cases was an outright military victory of one side over the other achieved, although of course each side in each struggle has tried that path.
Today, South Africa is everyone's comparative success story. In fact, the story is remarkable in that, in the 1980's, most observers would have guessed that this was the most intractable conflict of all. It seemed there was no way to bridge the gap between the Afrikaner minority who wished to continue to rule under a system in which the majority were excluded from political rights and the African National Congress (ANC) who insisted on one person, one vote. Although. right up to the end, the apartheid regime was undoubtedly much stronger militarily, it seemed suddenly to give in entirely. What was the compromise and what was the context? The most important element of the context was the fact that world public opinion was totally hostile to the apartheid regime. It is exceptional in such struggles that one side is so unequivocably favored by outsiders over the other. It has certainly not been true in the other three cases in question here.
The final compromise was quite straightforward. The ANC got its political objective: one person, one vote, and therefore of course an ANC government. What did the White minority get in return? Three things: guarantees in the economic arena for existing business structures (including land rights); de facto amnesty for all those officials in the apartheid regime who committed atrocities; relegitimization in the world arena of Whites in their professional activities. Will the compromise hold over time? It seems probable for the moment.
In the case of northern Ireland, the compromise solution is not yet totally consummated, but a framework has been established. What did the IRA get? They got political rights for Catholics within a northern Ireland structure. They got symbolic gestures towards greater inter-Irish collaborative structures. And what did the so-called Unionists, representing the Protestant half of the population, get? They got de facto assurances that northern Ireland would not become part of Ireland, but would remain in relationship with Great Britain, and they got a process of disarming the IRA. In short, the IRA seemed to get a less good deal from its point of view (since its objective was a reunified Ireland) than the ANC in South Africa did from its point of view. But the demographics are different. In South Africa, the Black Africans are 80% of the population. In northern Ireland, the Catholics are about half.
And Korea? Here the peace process has just begun. It is not in the least clear what would be the basis of a lasting political compromise. However, the very fact of starting down this path just this year has startled the world. The eventual outcome will probably be closer to the northern Irish type of compromise than to the South African. It is too early to envisage the real terms of a deal.
Israel/Palestine today presents a picture that is somewhere between South Africa and northern Ireland. The compromise towards which both sides are inching (and of course may never achieve) seems to be the following: There will be a Palestinian state, with most of the land Israel conquered in the 1967 war, and there will be some kind of division of Jerusalem. The Israelis will have given up their long insistence on no Palestinian state and no division of Jerusalem. The Palestinians will have given up their claims to the rest of Israel and the repatriation of a substantial number of Palestinian refugees.
Are these solutions just? Justice is not merely in the eye of the beholder, but is something whose definition changes with fatigue. There is no question that fatigue plays a large role in these compromises. People get tired of the carnage of continual struggle, and a majority comes to swallow de facto solutions that once seemed unthinkable. Fatigue is of course the outcome of failed military prowess. And fatigue is abetted by the impatience of the rest of the world, which also gets tired of these struggles, even when they have been long committed to one side or the other.
Do such compromises last? It all depends on what happens in the larger world scene in the 50 years following. The passionate struggles between the Dutch and the Spanish in the sixteenth century ended in a truce in 1579, whose lines have held, more or less, until today. Who today is passionate about this struggle? More close to the present, the Franco-German struggles of more than a century seem today a story of the dim past. But other compromises have been more fragile, for example, that between India and Pakistan. And historic compromises can get unstuck in spectacular ways. The compromise of Yugoslavia in two successive versions (monarchical and Communist), which seemed to work so well, fell apart totally after 70 years.
So, will Israel and Palestine come to terms in the next two months or so? The odds are at best 50-50. The problem seems to be, for the moment, that the fatigue factor is not sufficiently high for the two political leaders to carry their own sides on a compromise solution. But it is also true that the window of opportunity for compromise can easily pass, and knowing that can often get both sides to some last-minute dramatic arrangement.
Are such last-minute arrangements good for the people involved and for the larger world? One's answer usually depends on how fatigued one is. There are certainly no solid objective criteria by which we can judge these so-called solutions.
Immanuel Wallerstein
[Copyright by Immanuel Wallerstein. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to download, forward electronically or e-mail to others and to post this text on non-commercial community Internet sites, provided the essay remains intact and the copyright note is displayed. To translate this text, publish it in printed and/or other forms, including commercial Internet sites and excerpts, contact the author at iwaller@binghamton.edu; fax: 1-607-777-4315.
These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen
from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]
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