Examines partition for Israel/Palestine

...This was the ground for the activity of mainstream political Zionism, the bedrock of Theodore Herzl's vision...

...Sharon's early declaration that no negotiations would take place so long as shootings and bombings go on has proved untenable...

...Or, it may produce only the mutuality of revenge and endless retaliation...

...it can and should provide them equal governmental services and individual rights...

...After all, so many Jews around the world are deeply attached to Israel, though most of them don't plan to immigrate to it...

...Israeli Arabs A partition agreement, however, cannot be a clear-cut separation...

...Moral argument on the left, in the popular sphere as well as in more articulated political debate, drifted gradually away from national liberation toward individual human rights (this was greatly facilitated by the immense influence of American culture in Israel...

...At worst, it conceals a more violent vision: the hope that under the conditions of a large enough war, massive deportation, as an ad-hoc military measure, could be carried out...

...This is a sure recipe for permanent civil war...

...Israel can and should open up its society to their full participation...

...And even if many do move, the Palestinian national movement has reached such a point that it would never give up its hope for an independent state...

...People often turn to compromise only after failing to impose their maximum demands...

...But the same instinct that drives the argument against the settlers also blinds significant parts of the left to the nature of the conflict and the way to its resolution...

...One draws on the universal right of "all peoples," as the Israeli Declaration of Independence clearly states, to self-determination...

...Often Israelis are impatient with the Israeli patriotism of diaspora Jews...

...It is less a product of goodwill than a recognition of impossibilities...

...Israel is, for these Jews, a tangible object of yearning, an emotional focus for national sentiments that are somehow split between the country in which they live and the Jewish state...

...It is unlikely that more refugees would solve the problem...

...I don't mean that war leads naturally to peace...

...The symbols of the nation became tainted with the moral stain of the occupation...

...Perhaps this renunciation is too difficult for the Palestinians...

...Presumably both sides assume that the first to lose its nerve will either despair and accept defeat or commit some awful atrocity and lose international support...

...If all this is done, then we might realistically expect that the Palestinian state will give a partial answer to their national aspirations...

...nor is it to be found in the settlers' version of national history...

...To Palestinian ears it must sound remarkably like the settlers' plan...

...The agreement at the end of this war must include an explicit and final renunciation of the right of return, which means, in essence, acknowledging the legitimacy of a Jewish nationstate alongside a Palestinian nation-state...

...The Left and National Sentiment It is therefore no surprise that the instincts of the Israeli left led it, at the eruption of violence, to blame the settlers for the uprising...

...Given the force with which national sentiments have erupted in recent months, and given the fact that Palestinian demonstrators burn the American flag, not just the Israeli flag, this solution seems strangely out of touch with the most obvious features of the conflict...

...If we strip the moral basis of Zionism to its very algebra, we find two arguments...

...But what happened on the Israeli side was not as simple as a logical deduction...

...GADI TAUB is co-editor of Mikarov, an Israeli journal of literature and society...

...The Palestinians, for their part, loudly and clearly demand recognition of their national rights, not only their individual rights...

...If Palestinians embarked on this war to win the right of return, they should come out of it with the realization that return cannot be won...

...and it can and should grant them cultural autonomy in such areas as education...

...It is no time for "unity" among Israelis in the face of the crisis...

...And so, oddly, both sides shoot on the one hand and negotiate, directly or indirectly, the scale of "legitimate" shooting on the other...

...Neither the international community nor the neighboring Arab countries would ever reconcile themselves to it...

...The Israeli left should resist return (as most of it indeed does) not as a "concession" to the hawks but for the very same reason that it opposes the settlements: both are obstacles on the way to "two states for two peoples...

...It may force the two national movements to acknowledge the limits of their aspirations—neither can take possession of the whole territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean—or it may lead to an entrenchment of maximalist fantasies...

...Arguing for personal liberty, at the expense of, rather than as a complement to, national liberty, has led a part of the left to drift away from the insistence on "two states for two peoples...

...All this seems far away...

...The objection to the occupation, from the beginning, drew much of its force from the universal right of peoples, which was at the very heart of Zionism...

...The prospect of destroying Israel seemed to these Israeli citizens unrealistic...

...So it was with the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the peace between Israel and Egypt, and so it was with the first intifada and the Oslo Accord...

...After a massive influx of Palestinians, Israel would either cease to be Jewish or cease to be democratic...

...The acknowledgment of Palestinian rights springs from empathy for national yearning, not estrangement from it...

...At best, this is what lies behind the slogan "peace in the next generation" that leaders of the settlers have begun to use...

...Arab Israelis are still considered, by themselves as well as others, to be a different case from Palestinians in the territories...

...It spells annexation, even if, ostensibly, to an American- or Western-style constitutional democracy...

...Some leftists have rewritten history in a remarkably similar way...

...In the long years of opposing settlement, two damaging beliefs have taken root among Israeli doves...

...It appears that they still accept the Green Line as the one realistic boundary for geographical partition...

...The other is the unique right of Jews to the land of Israel...

...It may bring the dreams of fanatics on both sides—greater Israel and no Israel at all— up against the rock of reality, forcing the protagonists, in exhaustion, toward a middle ground...

...After the 1967 war, the argument for Zionism's moral legitimacy was split into its two component parts, which had co-existed previously in uneasy peace: the universal right of peoples led us, on the political left, to oppose the occupation...

...It may well lead to more wars...

...But the reduction of Zionism to the unique-right argument is by no means restricted to the political right...

...In the long run, the feasibility of physical partition is what stands between us—Israelis and Palestinians together— and a repetition of Bosnia or Lebanon...

...Another acre, another goat—as in the old Zionist creed—or, better, another caravan, another settlement, would gradually tilt the demographic balance in such a way as to enable Israel to annex the territories without endangering its Jewish majority...

...The effort of the settlers to erase the Green Line, psychologically as well as physically, is the most clear and present danger to this separation...

...There is merit in such a critique...

...So, taking the long view, I will discuss here four of the factors that threaten partition and blur the possible boundary between the two nations: the settlers' movement for a greater Israel, the growing tendency on the Israeli left to misunderstand national aspiration, the Palestinian demand for a "right of return," and the presence in Israel of a large minority of Arab citizens...

...Because we grounded our own independence on the right of national selfdetermination, our very commitment to Zionism was what forced us to recognize the Palestinian right to independence...

...Because the settlers have co-opted the Jewish national aspiration, pronounced themselves its true bearers, and dressed their cause in its symbols, the left has tended to eschew it...

...Short of massive immigration from the Diaspora, which is not going to happen, the total balance of populations between the Jordan River and the sea will not change if Israelis move to the territories...

...Such a separation will not be neat, but if there is a critical mass of the population on either side of the 1967 "Green Line" that can view itself as the core of the nation, that will be enough for stability...

...Diplomacy, in this sense, is the continuation of war by other means, but (so we hope) aimed at ends cut to realistic size...

...No right-wing government has ever dared to suggest the annexation of the Occupied Territories...

...Ultimately, however, it will be the strategic elements of partition— settlement policy, the national parameters of the conflict, the right of return, and the position of Arab Israelis—that will determine the final outcome of the clashes, that will determine, indeed, whether or not the century-long conflict between Arabs and Jews can ever be resolved...

...So far, neither side is seeking a definitive military victory...

...Should he commit to the mundane business of compromise, the crest of popular anger that he is now riding is likely to overwhelm him...

...The most disturbing thing about the current eruption of violence was the fact that for the first time Israeli Arabs participated in the Palestinian intifada...

...It is also not a realistic option in the current international context...

...the unique right of the Jews led others, on the political right, to support it...

...The settlers' attempt to thwart partition and compromise, under the guise of "postponing" agreements while at the same time enlarging the settlements, should be vigorously rejected...

...The first is that one should resist national sentiment everywhere and always...

...The danger of cutting off all security cooperation is just too great...

...N RECENT YEARS we have witnessed an attempt by public figures on both the right and the left to rewrite the history of Zionism to obliterate the centrality of the universal right to self-determination and replace it with the unique right of Jews to the land...

...As a result, some leftists lost sight of the national nature of the conflict and of its only resolution: "two states for two peoples...

...Still, this is a very dangerous kind of negotiation...

...Both, however, produce the same historical distortion...

...The truth is that the left's objection to the occupation, which hardened over more than thirty years, was never rooted in individual human rights alone...

...But they understand its origins and importance...

...Still, there isn't going to be a winner in this war, and the long, bloody stalemate (if we can sustain the stalemate) may force on us all the necessity of territorial compromise...

...The assumption that the Oslo peace process would lead to the resolution of the conflict by peaceful means indeed exploded in our faces, and the left seemed paralyzed by self22 n DISSENT / Summer 2001 POLITICS ABROAD doubt—as if the right had another plan for resolving the conflict...

...But creating "a state of all its citizens" means frustrating the national aspirations of the Palestinians as well as the Israelis...

...Even the leaders of the settlers' movement dared not pronounce what may well be their secret hope: to suffocate the Palestinian national movement by creating a Jewish majority in the territories...

...The murderous response of the Israeli authorities—thirteen Arab citizens were shot to death—is not just a moral outrage, it is also a piece of political folly...

...despite their unequal status within Israel, they have too much to lose from a permanent civil war...

...But massive deportation is a crime that Israelis, or at least the majority of them, could not tolerate...

...The cry that rose from the hawkish right—We told you so!—Seemed to have caught the dovish left without an answer...

...He thrives on apocalyptic rhetoric...

...The stability of any separation along the Green Line (with whatever adjustments) requires that Israel grant its Arab citizens in fact the equality it has been promising them in principle...

...But the emerging Palestinian state, if it ever emerges, will be of crucial importance in ameliorating their predicament...

...To be sure, Israel has violated human rights in the territories for many years, and there is much force in this moral argument...

...Accepting return means renouncing Israel's national existence...

...the proposed non-national state would be a state of all its warring citizens...

...Settlements In the first days of violence following Sharon's pilgrimage to the Temple Mount, there was much talk of "shock" among the supporters of territorial compromise...

...Israel is no more able to hold the territories than France was able to hold Algeria or Indochina, or England India...

...The political logic of Zionism led us—not easily, not immediately—to acknowledge the legitimacy of the Palestinian demand for a national state...

...All that the further enlarging of settlements can achieve is a permanent civil war...

...But if this is the case, or as long as it is the case, Israel can only meet force with force...

...The refugees of 1948, despite the fact that "transferring" populations was a more common practice everywhere at that time, still haunt the conflict...

...Herzl's famous "Uganda" proposal— his plan to create a Jewish state on territory that is now part of Kenya—is, of course, not discussed in the book...

...First and foremost, there is a large Arab minority among the citizens of Israel...

...The left tended to identify nationalism as the source of all evil and to blur the distinction the Hebrew language offers between national and chauvinist aspiration (leumiyut/ leumanut...

...But the fact is that the violence, as long as it remains limited and DISSENT / Summer 2001 n 25 POLITICS ABROAD controlled, is also a form of negotiation...

...AGRADUAL INCREASE in the Jewish population of the territories is no more realistic...

...The reasons for these almost identical versions of historical revisionism are obviously not the same: the right wishes to sanctify the occupation by linking it backward in time to early Zionism, and post-Zionists wish to delegitimize early Zionism by linking it forward in time to the occupation...

...The leaders now in power are unlikely to promote compromise...

...The unique right to the land and the negation of the "Other" have become the cornerstone of the post-Zionist version of Zionist history...

...Right now, it is too early to tell which way the IsraeliPalestinian war will lead...

...It is, in other words, a dangerously volatile war of brinksmanship...

...Both the logic of Zionism and the logic of peace require the sober recognition of the power of DISSENT / Summer 2001 n 23 POLITICS ABROAD national aspiration...

...Israel's very existence provides them with the option of immigration, should they need it, as well as with a source of pride and sense of security...

...Indeed, it turned many Arab votes away from Ehud Barak and helped deliver victory to Sharon...

...But it has never stood alone...

...Otherwise, there will be no resolution of the conflict, no partition of the land...

...First, it is not clear where a Jewish majority would come from...

...Theodor Herzl as he appears, for instance, in Yoram Hazony's book The Jewish State: The Struggle for Israel's Soul, has turned into the prophet of the unique right...

...To be sure, in a Jewish nation-state, they will never be able to share the national sentiment...

...26 n DISSENT / Summer 2001...

...It should, in other words, make them feel at home as best it can under the existing conditions...

...IN THE EVENT, Israeli Arabs suspended their own riotous demonstrations only a few days after the intifada began—despite the justified anger that has been building up for so many years...

...Ariel Sharon was elected because of, not despite, his violent reputation, and Yasir Arafat proves himself again and again a permanent eve-of-the-revolution leader...

...But the fact is that the right has never had a plan...

...But, more important, if Israel is to reach an agreement that would create a Palestinian state, it must also reach an accommodation with its Arab citizens...

...Measures are therefore calculated to be painful and provocative, yet limited and controlled...

...BUT VIOLENCE does not operate in a void...

...The current violence may promote de facto separation of the two peoples or it may lead to a Bosnian entanglement...

...In an optimal scenario—far from perfect, but nevertheless realistic—full civil rights, political equality, a measure of autonomy, and the existence of a Palestinian state, taken together, will make the unique situation of Arab Israelis tolerable, perhaps even fairly comfortable, both morally and emotionally...

...Instead, the two seem to have the same double purpose in mind: exhausting the other side and winning over international public opinion...

...The crucial division that will determine which way the conflict turns is between the forces that promote territorial partition and the forces that threaten or inhibit it...

...But as this split unfolded, a part of the left, in the heat of the struggle, let the right determine what Zionism "really" is, blinding itself to the actual nature of the conflict...

...Abandoning the national logic of the conflict would deprive the Palestinian people of their rights...

...24 n DISSENT / Summer 2001 POLITICS ABROAD Return For the same reasons, the left must firmly oppose the Palestinian demand for the right of the 1948 refugees to return to Israel itself (as opposed to the West Bank and Gaza...

...At the margin it led post-Zionists, much like "post-colonial" intellectuals—Edward Said comes to mind here—to the folly of "a state of all its citizens": a single state between the Jordan and the sea, a "pure" democracy with no national character at all...

...Prospects for peace, as I am writing, seem bleak...

...A school bus going up in flames or a slaughter at a mosque could send the whole region into a convulsion of violence, even into total war...

...Israelis, of all people, should understand such imperfect solutions...

...So long as there is a clear line along which partition is possible—in the minds of Israelis and Palestinians as well as on the ground—the two populations can still divide into two sovereign states, each containing a large enough majority to fulfill its national aspirations...