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Israel:
The
occupation blues
Robert
Jensen
Israel/Palestine:
How to End the War of 1948.
By
Tanya Reinhart
LeftWord,
2003, pp. 279. Price: Rs 150.00 / $ 5.00
While
Israel's decisive victories on the battlefield and overwhelming
advantage in military force are crucial to its dominance in the
Middle East, perhaps just as important is the success of its
propaganda campaign.
Never
has this been made clearer than in Tanya Reinhart's new book, which
offers a well-documented account of Israel's culpability for the
failure of the Oslo process and the current crisis.
Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948 explains not only how
the Israeli leadership has pulled off this public relations
achievement but the importance of that PR in bolstering support for
the Israeli project, both outside and inside the country.
Drawing
heavily on reports from the Israeli press that most US readers never
see, Reinhart accomplishes the formidable task of adding insight
into a subject that is written about endlessly, and doing so without
equivocation but also without slipping into raw polemics. There is a
refreshing bluntness and candor in her work that makes the political
analysis particularly compelling.
Reinhart's
study details the gap between Israel's mythology (the narrative of
an embattled people fighting a defensive war against intractable
enemies who will not stop until every last Israeli is pushed into
the sea) and the actual history since 1948 (Israeli leaders' drive
to keep the maximal amount of Palestinian land and water with
responsibility for the minimal number of Palestinians on that land).
She points out that it would be hard for Israel to maintain support
for its policy today, at home or abroad, if people understood the
history. The mythology, however, has long been effective at creating
sympathy, especially as it has proceeded to destroy much of
Palestinian society over the past two years. It's not necessary, of
course, that all the world believe that mythology, and most people
around the world don't. It is enough that two key
populations-Israelis themselves and Americans-have swallowed the
propaganda, for the key to a just solution to the conflict lies in
those two countries, where citizens have the capacity to bring to
bear on leadership the pressure that can make a difference.
Reinhart,
a linguistics professor at Tel Aviv University who in recent years
has increasingly turned to political analysis, does not flinch from
difficult truths about her country as she sketches the contemporary
Israeli political landscape: Since the occupation of the Palestinian
territories in 1967, Israeli leaders have debated the best way to
control those resources. The large Palestinian population made
outright annexation of all the West Bank and Gaza Strip impossible;
that would have forced the choice between a multiethnic, secular
democracy and an explicitly colonial state. So two different
approaches emerged. One was the Labor Party's Allon plan, which
envisioned annexation of up to 40 percent of the territories with
some form of self-rule allowed for the remainder. The second
approach, promoted by leaders like Ariel Sharon, aimed for more-if
possible through the "transfer" of the troublesome
Palestinian population out of the territories.
The
Oslo process meant the triumph of the Allon plan, temporarily. With
the collaboration of a politically weakened (and hence more open to
manipulation by Israel) and increasingly corrupt Yasir Arafat,
Israel embarked in the 1990s on the project of creating a
subordinate Palestinian entity. Reinhart contends that while it was
far from a just solution, the Oslo accords had broad support in an
Israeli public that was tired of war and willing to accept life on
the land Israel had won before 1967. She describes typical Israelis
(herself included) as people who lamented the horrible consequences
of the 1948 war for the Palestinians, in which some 700,000 were
expelled, but-haunted by the memory of the Holocaust-believed that
war had been necessary to establish a state for the Jewish people.
Like most Israelis, she supported the dismantling of the settlements
in the West Bank and Gaza and the end of the occupation in order to
bring peace.
But
for others-particularly those she calls the "political
generals," including former Prime Minister Ehud Barak and
Sharon-the maximalist dream never died, and the plans for more land,
and more war, went forward. Because it was difficult to convince
Israelis of the need for war, it was crucial to convince them that
the Palestinians would never live in peace. Enter Barak and the 2000
Camp David talks. Many writers have taken apart the propaganda of
Barak's so-called "generous offer" to the Palestinians,
but Reinhart adds to our understanding with a thorough and clear
account that draws extensively on information from Israeli media,
and she offers a new account of his strategy. Barak never offered
the Palestinians true control over 90 or 95 percent of the
territories, as was repeatedly reported. Because there were no maps
at those talks and the "offers" were presented as talking
points and never formalized, it's not clear just how much land was
on the table, and figures vary. Reinhart's estimate, at the low end,
is that Israel would have given back only about 60 percent, either
confiscating or retaining "temporary" authority over the
rest.
Whatever
the "real" number is, the larger point is that even after
giving up a big chunk of the territories under such a plan, Israel
would have retained effective control through what Israeli
sociologist and peace activist Jeff Halper calls the "matrix of
control"-the settlements, bypass roads, border crossings,
military facilities and checkpoints that constitute barriers to
Palestinian control over their land. Halper compares it to a prison,
in which the prisoners might "own" most of the place while
prison authorities retain control over no more than 5 percent-the
prison walls, the bars of the cells and a few control points. But
control over no more than 5 to 10 percent adds up to effective
control.
Under
this plan, Arafat was expected to give up claims to effective
sovereignty, without a clear concession from Israel, which would
have been politically impossible no matter what the situation
regarding the even more difficult issues of Jerusalem and the right
of return for refugees. Reinhart argues convincingly that Barak
"was neither aiming for reconciliation nor genuinely attempting
to move closer to an end of conflict." She points out that
there was a precedent for Barak's strategy, going back to his
1999-2000 negotiations with Syria over the Golan Heights. In that
case, Barak pursued a negotiating strategy designed to derail real
progress and frustrate Syria, allowing him to paint Syrian leader
Hafez Assad as the rejectionist and to convince Israelis-and
Americans-that the Syrians would never make peace.
Reinhart's
analysis of the second intifada is also clear and compelling. She
points out that from the moment of Sharon's provocative visit in
September 2000 to Jerusalem's Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif, Israel's
violent reaction to Palestinian protest (which was unarmed at first)
was grossly out of proportion. Despite the disparity in force,
Israel has successfully defined its military actions as a necessary
defense against terrorism, which has resonated particularly well in
the United States since 9/11. The result is increasingly common talk
in Israel of "the second half of 1948"-finishing the
ethnic cleansing that has long been the dream of the maximalists.
That
process is already in progress, Reinhart argues, through Israeli
actions aimed at destroying (1) the economic infrastructure of the
territories, (2) the ability of the Palestinian Authority to provide
any security for its people and (3) the Palestinians' political
leadership. Could this "slow ethnic cleansing," as
Reinhart terms it, be transformed into a military campaign of
outright expulsion? Even in the militaristic climate created by
Washington's so-called "war on terrorism," Reinhart
contends that such a campaign could happen only "under the
umbrella of an extensive regional war." That sentence is
perhaps the most chilling in the book.
Reinhart's
work is important for US readers because of its extensive use of
Israeli news sources (many translated from Hebrew), which often are
more honest and certainly more complete than US media reports.
Reinhart has pointed out that this is not because Israeli
journalists are, as a group, any less subordinated to power than
commercial journalists in the United States. Instead, she suggests
that Israeli journalists are less inhibited in covering some of the
brutality of the occupation and the politics behind it simply
because the situation has become routine; what would seem outrageous
to outsiders is simply normal in Israel, and hence reported more
bluntly. Another of Reinhart's distinctive contributions for a US
audience is the description and analysis of the role of the Israeli
military. Increasingly seen as "not a state with an army, but
an army with a state," Israel has militarized in ways that do
not bode well for hopes of a peaceful political settlement.
Describing the military as "the driving force behind Israel's
politics," she speculates that the real goal of top officers is
this ethnic cleansing-finishing the job of 1948-no matter what the
political leadership of the country decides.
The
picture Reinhart paints of the contemporary situation is honest,
realistic and extremely harsh. Yet she remains hopeful about the
possibility of real peace and reconciliation. She points out that
most of the Israelis in the isolated settlements are willing to
leave (according to polls) and that an immediate withdrawal from at
least 90 percent of the occupied territories is politically
feasible. After such a move, serious negotiations could begin over
the large West Bank settlements, the status of Jerusalem and the
right of return for refugees. After so many years of failure, not
only to achieve peace but to create a framework in which peace is
imaginable, it's difficult for many to believe in the possibility of
progress, let alone a solution. Yet Reinhart does not come off as
naïve about the obstacles. Indeed, because of her unflinching
review of the problems, her hope seems not only authentic but
sensible. In more recent writing, Reinhart has suggested that the
only hope for real peace is for new Labor Party chairman Amram
Mitzna to provide Israelis with a true alternative by sticking to
his initial plan of unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and much of the
West Bank. As the January 28 elections approach and Labor talks more
and more of positioning itself as the center, the short-term
prospects don't look good. Still, Reinhart's hopes aren't
necessarily misplaced. As the comparison of Israel's policy to the
apartheid system in white-ruled South Africa becomes more common, we
might remember that in the 1980s it appeared that that system could
continue for some time, and many thought the eventual demise of
apartheid would be bathed in far more blood than it was. But within
a decade, apartheid was over. Perhaps we should keep that in mind
when assessing Reinhart's claim that the grimness of the current
situation is not a death sentence for a just solution.
Whether
that path is possible depends on whether the Israeli and American
people put pressure on the leadership in both countries. That has
long been the case, and is only clearer after 9/11. But before there
can be the will to act, there must be the will to know, to go beyond
the propaganda. Reinhart's book-written for a general audience, with
a coherent analysis and a compelling call to action-is a good
starting place for people who want to know. Her example, that of a
citizen of a powerful country willing to contest the conventional
wisdom and speak out in public for justice, is a good model for
acting on what we learn.
This
book-review first appeared in the January 6, 2003 issue of the Nation
Magazine -- courtesy of which this piece appears here.
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