Commentary No. 85, Mar. 15, 2002
"Israel/Palestine: Can There Be Peace?"
It's getting harder and harder to believe that there is an end in sight for the warfare. It was always a difficult political situation with no easy solutions. It wasn't, however, inevitable that we came to where we have come today. What we have is a situation in which two modern nationalist movements have laid claim to the same land. It is not however merely that they have both claimed a limited stretch of contested land. They have both claimed the entire land area in question.
In such a situation, everyone has seen from the beginning that there were only three possible definitive solutions: (1) the establishment of a binational state; (2) either the one or the other side won 100% of the land (and probably expelled or killed the others); (3) there would be a partition to which both sides would agree.
Binational states are hard enough to keep together (Canada, Belgium, Cyprus), but they seem virtually impossible to found when they don't already exist historically (and the two that were founded ab initio - Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia - no longer exist). The now forgotten Jewish intellectual, Judah Magnes, who was the first Chancellor of the Hebrew University, struggled to create a binational state in the pre-1948 period, but he never had a large audience for his views. Some Palestinian intellectuals have proposed similar ideas recently. But they too don't have much audience for such views. Given everything that has occurred, it doesn't seem a politically viable option.
Then there is the idea of mutual destruction. This idea has a much larger audience than the idea of a binational state. I would guess (there are no opinion polls) that perhaps 30% of Israeli Jews and 30% of Palestinian Arabs are in fact in favor of this option, even if some of them would deny it. So this is a serious option, and there are people seriously pursuing it. Of course, those on each side who favor this option think they would be the victorious ones, and would give you long geopolitical analyses (not to speak of the expected divine intervention) to show you why they would win. And who knows? Perhaps one of them is right. Then the world could chalk up another holocaust - of Arabs or of Jews - and move on to other matters (unless of course one or the other managed to start a nuclear war).
That leaves the rest of us (Israelis, Palestinians, and third parties) who do not believe a binational state is credible and who refuse to regard sanguinely Armageddon. This might be called the camp of some kind of peace. The problem is what kind of peace? It is not so simple, anywhere in any situation, to be for peace. For there are two kinds of peace agreements. There are those which cut the pie 50-50 more or less. And there are those which cut the pie 80-20 more or less. Speak to me not of justice. Peace and justice are not only not the same thing but quite often incompatible. So, if you are for peace, you often have to put it ahead of justice, or at least ahead of full justice.
The trouble with peace camps is that very few in them are really in favor of a 50-50 solution. The majority usually are looking for solutions that are 80-20 in favor of one side or the other. This was certainly true in the negotiations before and after Oslo in the case of Israel/Palestine. The only difference between Sharon and Barak is that Sharon has increased the percentage from 80-20 to 95-5. That is more or less the difference between Arafat and Hamas. Getting a deal that is closer to 50-50 is a long way off. And in the meantime, the war is escalating, and may be now beyond the control of the camp of peace.
What is a 50-50 solution? I shall not answer the question, because every reader will quibble with me about details. We have had many starting points for a 50-50 solution in the past. Today, people are focusing on the elusive proposals of Prince Abdullah. I guess they're as good a starting-point as any. But no one seems to be starting. And in a year, Abdullah's proposals may be history, like the Mitchell proposals. In any case, what is important if one is to get to a 50-50 arrangment is not just a plan, but a certain spirit, a certain degree of mutual exhaustion, and a certain degree of outside pressure.
At the moment, the spirit isn't there, the exhaustion is just beginning to be felt, and the outside pressure is simply absent. The United States is Israel's ally, as its leaders never tire of stating publicly, and this is more true than ever today. Its pressure is in favor of a pro-Israel 80-20 solution. The Europeans are more equitable, which is why the Israelis don't want them to play a role. But the Europeans are also still unwilling to buck the United States publicly on this issue. This is part of the larger question of European-U.S. relations. And Abdullah surely cannot do it alone, if indeed he is in favor of a 50-50 solution.
So what will happen? This is why one has every justification to be pessimistic, even if that is a terrible thing to be. After the Israelis reoccupy permanently the West Bank and Gaza, and someone launches biological and/or chemical weapons, and the Mosque of Omar and the Wailing Wall are blown up, we shall be able to see a posteriori which side has committed suicide. It will be the subject of many a doctoral dissertation and journalistic account. There may even be novels, great novels.
I would recommend hiding in a cave, except that I understand that there are now these wonderful new weapons that can kill you or flush you out from the deepest caves. It was simpler yesteryear.
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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