Rabbi Moshe Reiss
May we all
have a Blessed and Peaceful Year.
But what
will happen Now!
The Israeli
- Palestinian conflict: Part A
“What appeared to be inconsistencies in
Mr. Sharon's positions was often merely a reflection of his ability to
sense
out the preferences of the Israeli mainstream. When it became clear
that the
majority of Israelis would no longer fight to defend 8,000 Jewish
settlers in Gaza and were no longer
willing to occupy the strip, he
evacuated settlements and left the Gaza
Palestinians to shoot at one another. When Israelis overwhelmingly
supported
the construction of a West Bank
fence, Mr.
Sharon, who originally opposed the barrier, began to build it. When
most
Israelis despaired of the status quo with the Palestinians but gave up
on the
possibility of finding a Palestinian leadership able to negotiate
Israel's
borders, Mr. Sharon broke away from the status quo Likud and founded
Kadima, a
party capable of redrawing Israel's borders unilaterally.” (Michael
Oren, Wall
St. Journal Jan. 6, 2006)
“We are tired of fighting. We are tired
of being courageous. We are tired of winning. We are tired of defeating
our
enemies. We want that we will be able to live in an entirely different
environment of relations with our enemies. We want them to be our
friends, our
partners, our good neighbors. And I believe that this is not
impossible."
(Ariel Sharon)
“www.moshereiss.org”
The world seems obsessed with the State
of Israel and with
the ‘occupied
territories’ in Palestine.
The number of civilian deaths in Bosnia
(175,000 deaths), Sudan
(over one million deaths), Algeria
(50,000 deaths) the Turks and the Kurds 50,000 deaths) and Chechnya (over 50,000 deaths) far
outweigh the
number of civilian deaths in the entire Israel
– Palestine
conflict for 100 years. Since the birth of Israel
in 1948, there have been almost two dozen wars in the Middle East
(variously
involving Egypt, Yemen, Lebanon,
Syria, Iran and Iraq that have had nothing
whatever
to do with the Jewish state, or with the Palestinians. In one of these
alone--the
Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88--more lives – over one million deaths occurred
more than
in all the wars involving Israel
put together. Other ‘occupied territories’ exist in Tibet
and Lebanon (whoops
Lebanon
has become unoccupied after 30 years) with little world concern. Why is
the
‘Indian administered Jammu
and Kashmir’ (50,000 deaths), overwhelmingly
Muslim, not
called ‘occupied’? India
and
Pakistan
have publicly noted nuclear capabilities. The neighborhood of Pakistan with its ‘Islamic bomb’
includes Afghanistan,
Iran,
China, India and Bangladesh. These countries
comprise 40% of the world’s population. Pakistan is full of
Jihadist
insurgents and borders on being a ‘failed state’. Shortly after
September 11
terrorists suicide bombed the Indian Parliament almost creating a state
of war.
Everyone considered the almost certainty that they came from Pakistan.
Several Pakistanis
including Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan and his proliferation network have
already sold
nuclear secrets and components to troublesome characters and states for
which
we garnered tens of millions of dollars. (After Khan’s criminal
activity became
evident President Pervez Musharraf denied any Pakistani government
involvement,
refused to allow international agencies the right to investigate and
pardoned
the ‘hero of Pakistan’
of any potential crime.) There have been several wars between these two
very
populace states. America
has
now agreed to sell Pakistan
the world’s best fighter planes the F-16 as a reward. Is this conflict
not more
alarming to the world than the conflict between Israel
and Palestine?
For Muslims it is understandable that Israel
is the most emotionally and violently charged issue. For Europe who
helped
create the State of Israel
as a result of their responsibility for the Shoah it requires a willing
suspension of logic.
Despite the common interest by both the
Government of Israel
and the Palestinian Authority this conflict has continued for such a
long time
because on both sides there are intractable identities. On the Israeli
side
some believe the land belongs to Jewish people because God promised it
to them.
Ariel Sharon with his Gaza
disengagement changed that situation
radically. Others believe that the Palestinians do not and never will
agree to
peace. On the Palestinian side some believe the land belongs to Arab
people
because Allah promised it to them. They believe Israel is a surrogate for
the
Imperialist West.
The PLO and Zionism are both secular
movements who recast their conflict in religious terms.
For many Arabs the very right of a
Jewish-democratic state to exist in Arab-Muslim land is the problem.
Israelis
have come to understand that the conflict is not about borders or about
Jerusalem or about the right to return;
it is the very
existence of a free, democratic, non-Arab society in the Middle East. Who will convince Hamas and the
Jihadists that their Greater
Palestinian thesis is not more valid than the Greater Israel
thesis?
There are other reasons. Israel, the
only stable democracy in the Middle East is surrounded by five Arabs
nations –
Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Jordan and Palestine not yet a
nation -
all to one degree or other unstable. No one can rightfully predict the
nature
of these nations in the next ten or twenty years. The Palestinians to
whom the
Israeli’s are to make peace is the most unstable of all. The
Palestinian
Authority is currently controlled by Fatah whose members come from the
Palestinian diaspora (like Arafat, Abbas and Ahmed Qurei) who developed
their
skills in exile; they are all secularists and their government is
mostly
corrupt. Within the home grown and
younger generation are leaders like Marwan Barghouti in Israeli prisons
for
life, Ami Makbul, Mohammad Dahlan, Jabril Rajoub and others. Which of
these
will gain power is unknown. Then there is Hamas; the primary religious
Jihadist
organization. The latter group thinks Israel
ought not to exist; that all Jews should go back to Europe or America
where they presume they all
came from. The fact that 65% of Jewish Israeli’s were born in Israel
and no more than 10-15% have
foreign passports is irrelevant to these ideologues. Given these
existential
threats to Israel’s
existence Israeli’s need to protect themselves becomes obvious.
However the threats have lessened. Iraq
and Saddam Hussein no longer exist as a threat. Syria
no longer occupies Lebanon
and the Assad regime is tottering. Egypt
and Jordan have a
peace
treaty with Israel.
Saudi Arabia
has troubles of its own with terrorists versus reformers and a
leadership with a
generation gap is less a concern than previously. The Palestinian
problem is
more isolated that in the past.
A majority of Israelis understand that
as a result the prospects for peace with the Palestinians in this
generation
are not good but Israel’s survival seems less existential than in
decades past.