Peace versus Greed

By Toufic Barakeh

London: http://sayitonline.net 01 September 2009

The optimism shown by the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, after his talks last week with the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is unjustified and merely tactical. The same should be said about US President, Barack Obama’s expression of hopefulness (with Mr. Netanyahu responding provocatively). Neither Obama nor Brown or other officials expressing similar attitudes could have been serious. It is just to encourage spoilt Israel to inch forward towards peace; taking into consideration an Israeli’s egocentric, self-centred public opinion. Strangely, every body is behaving as though the Arab public opinion does not count or exist. To tempt Arab Regimes to agree to more concessions for nothing is dangerous and would further encourage their people, impliedly and actively, to exercise a veto. Watchers of public reaction to the latest war against Gaza would appreciate this suggestion.

The assumption that Netanyahu has at last acknowledged the need to establish a Palestinian sate is no more than a joke and humiliating to the Palestinians and their national dreams. On June 17, Jerusalem Post’s columnist Larry Derfner wrote, commenting on Netanyahu’s address at Bar-Ilan University on 14 Jun 2009:

“The demand for Palestinian demilitarization is one more example of our national egocentrism: We can have the strongest military in the Middle East, they can't have one mortar. We can fly over their country anytime we want, they can't fly over Israel without our permission. We can import F-16s, we can sign mutual defence pacts with whomever will agree, they can't import a crate of cannonballs and they will always be alone in the world. The most egocentric thing of all is that we actually consider these terms to be fair, and figure that if the Palestinians don't accept them, that prove they don't really want peace”.

And now Israel is demanding a price from the Arabs for a freeze on its colonisation of occupied Palestinian land, expanding settlements, increasing the number of  settlers and engaging in other hostile activities like evicting Palestinian families in Arab east Jerusalem to make way for Jewish families.

Israel had so far got substantial peace dividend. Some of these profit takings by Israel are summed up in a leading article published by the Financial Times on August 4 2009: “In 1992-96, at the height of the peace process, Israel reaped a peace dividend without concluding a peace. Diplomatic recognition of Israel doubled, from 85 to 161 countries, exports doubled and foreign investment increased six fold. Per capita income in the occupied territories fell in the same period by more than a third, while the number of settlers expanded by half. A broad-looking avenue led quickly to a road-block. The Arabs have not forgotten, and Mr. Obama will have to get more than a settlement freeze out of Israel to lure them down that road again”

By contrast the Arabs got only trouble from within and from without. The gap between the Arab regimes and their people expanded dangerously. The economies of the two signatories of peace treaties with Israel, Egypt and Jordan, have deteriorated leaving masses of their people impoverished and dissatisfied.

In his same address, Netanyahu referred to the settlers as “principled, pioneering and Zionist public”. Wow. Why not?! To cite an example of a settler, look no further than his foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman. You could write books on the crimes committed by the so called principled pioneering Zionists (burglars of others land and up rooters of olive and vine trees)! But, indeed, the world knows where Mr. Netanyahu comes from. On 20 April 2009, The Independent published a letter from William Garrett from which I quote: “In 1895 Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism, wrote: "We must expropriate gently the private property on the state assigned to us. We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border". In 1948 Israeli terrorists Irgun and Lehi slaughtered civilians in the village of Deir Yassin; this panicked the population into fleeing and the property of those thus ethnically cleansed was stolen by Israel.

David Ben Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, said: "We must do everything to ensure they never do return, the old will die and the young forget". In a letter to his son in 1937, Ben Gurion wrote that when a Jewish state is created "We will expel the Arabs and take their places".

In 1949 Martin Buber, a Jewish philosopher, addressed Ben Gurion on the moral character of Israel saying "... in its creation and expansion we as Jews have caused what we historically have suffered; a refugee population in Diaspora"

The Palestine that Netanyahu envisions, Washington Post wrote on June 17, 2009, must steadily shrink to accommodate the growing number of Israeli settlers in its midst. It would be a collection of barely contiguous cantons.

This writer, like the majority of Arabs and Palestinians is in want of fair and lasting peace. As for Ben Gurion’s prophecy that the old will die, true, 60 years or so on, some already died but the young did not forget and they are more determined to return.

President Obama is well placed to make historical peace. A Saudi Arabian Arab-Israeli peace plan, presented to the Arab Summit in 2002 and endorsed by other Arabs, represents the very minimum accepted by the Arabs. It is, strategically, in the interest of Israel to accept rather than spurn it.

Alternatively, it is not unreasonable for Arabs and the international community to reach to a conclusion that Israel, all of it, is a settlement.

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