The activists are having a field day in this tragically violent Middle Eastern sequence that began with the massacre of October 7, 2023 perpetrated on civilians in Israel by the Islamist assassins of Hamas. An academic specializing in the conflict for more than thirty years and an acknowledged humanist, the author of these lines wishes to recall the following fundamentals with a view to improving both peoples.
1) There is indeed a Jewish national consciousness, Zionism, and a Jewish people. Contesting it is as absurd as denying the right of the French, Bolivians, Togolese and… Palestinians to assert themselves as peoples. All Jews have certainly not chosen Israel, but this State is already home to more than half of the Jews and remains both legal under international law – even doubly so, since it was founded concomitantly with the State of Palestine by the UN in 1947, then recognized by the supreme body a year and a half later (despite unanimous Arab political and military rejection) – and morally legitimizes any people with the right to self-determination (chap. I, art. 1 , § 2 of the UN Charter). If there are indeed illegal settlements in the West Bank, Israel itself is not one of them, and the Israelis will not leave; those who claim the opposite are blinded by ignorance of realities or by dogmatism.
2) There is indeed a Palestinian national consciousness, and a Palestinian people. Of course, Palestine was never a state in history, but this national identity was sharpened throughout the 20th century, rubbed against Zionism, but also, alternately, with the rejection and instrumentalization of the surrounding Arab regimes and distant. It is so true that the main part of the Arab State of Palestine decided during the UN partition of 1947, the West Bank, was occupied then annexed by Jordan, while Egypt occupied… the Gaza Strip. It was only in 1967, during the Six-Day War, that Israel seized them (without annexing them, except East Jerusalem). Since then, the Israel-PLO Oslo Accords of 1993 have reaffirmed the general UN principle (resolution 242) of the exchange of peace for territory. Just like the Israelis, the Palestinians will not leave.
No alternative
3) Since there are two peoples side by side, the least bad outlook – and the only one accepted by the UN – is that of the two States. Its complexity is real, but not insurmountable. Does Hamas despise it? Obviously, but the military destruction of this terrorist movement that even Yasser Arafat described as such is imminent in Gaza. The Israeli government doesn’t want it? Certainly, but 70% of citizens consider him to have seriously failed to prevent the terrible pogrom of October 7, and reject his extremist and irresponsible wing; he is on probation.
What then of the main difficulties? Spatial disjunction (West Bank and Gaza)? Other states experience this without problem, and an autonomous road has already connected them recently (in 2000). The settlements? Twice, in 1982 in Sinai and in 2005 in… Gaza, the (yet) nationalists Begin and Sharon dismantled several dozen, supported by public opinion.
The refugees ? The Palestinian Authority had admitted during the Oslo process the principle of recognition of the right of return without its (impossible) application, subject to international compensatory support. The water ? We know how to do everything with it, including desalinating it and importing it, and his question is mainly technical. Borders ? Their route would follow the armistice lines of 1949 (the “green line”) with negotiated rectifications offering security for Israel and viability for Palestine, otherwise demilitarized. Even on Jerusalem, talks had been initiated!
4) Anyway, what would be the alternative? Maintaining the status quo, with its attendant chronic insecurity, resentment, instability and obstacles to development? The single State, way from the river to the sea, inept slogan chanted by uneducated people or anti-Semites, promise of civil war and unjust deprivation of independence for the two peoples, who also massively reject the idea? A confederation with Jordan, with the major disadvantage of the refusal of… Jordan? Nothing serious about all this. A real state border would perhaps not create peace of mind, but a cold peace is better than a hot war.
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