Behind an Iron Wall

By: Menachem Klein

This is an un-authorized translation of an article that only appeared in the Hebrew addition of 10.12.2002. Dr. Klein is a senior lecturer in political science at Bar-Ilan University. Prior and during the CD2 negotiations M.K. served as a special counciler to Barak on the issue of Jerusalem. He was present in CD2 in July 2000 (trans.) 

Leftists who support unilateral separation reveal a world view reminiscent of Jabotinsky.

The legacy of Ehud Barak and the intifada have produced an Israeli left wracked by three crises: a crisis of leadership, a crisis of strategy, and a crisis of consciousness. The leadership crisis began with Barak’s government, which consisted of a “dream team” of "dovish" ministers. At least some of them knew in real time what Barak’s true positions were in the course of the negotiations with the Palestinians. But the hope that the talented man who had proclaimed a new dawn would reach the right conclusions, fear of angering the prime minister and personal considerations prevented them from standing up to Barak. As a result, the “dovish” ministers did not report his positions to the peace camp and did not urge their people to go into the streets to compel Barak to abandon his basic stance.

 
The crisis of strategy has expressed itself in several ways. Most of the Zionist left stands firm on three no's: no to a return to 1967 borders or to the Palestinian map drawn at Taba, no to loss of Israeli sovereignty over the Temple Mount and/or the Wailing Wall, and no to any concessions on the right of return of the ‘48 refugees to Israel. Insisting that these three no's are inseparable is the equivalent of saying no to a permanent settlement, and it is important to recognize this. The left has found solace by measuring the distance between itself and the right. But this has done nothing to close the gap between it and the Palestinians.

 

Those who want to avoid any decision on this question and those who do not want to pay the necessary price find an escape in the unilateral separation plan. It is very doubtful whether this problematic plan will fulfill the expectations of its supporters and replace a political settlement. Critics of the idea have said quite a few sensible things about what the separation fence will evoke on the Palestinian side of that fence.

 

But both its supporters and its detractors avoid the fact that dismantling a substantial number of settlements might lead to an armed conflict on the part of the extremist settlers.

 

It is hard to guess how many of the 200,000 settlers [the author is not counting the East Jerusalem settlers - trans] will  react in this way, two thousand or two hundred. In any case, we should not take lightly the settlers' ideological commitment, their economic and emotional investment and the price in blood they have paid, nor the extent to which they are interwoven with the public and the establishment, especially the military ["security" - trans] establishment. In other parts of the world, civil wars and rebellions have started under similar circumstances.  The farce of the "evacuation" of the outposts and what happened at Gilead Farms [where several hundred settlers refused an army order to evacuate a small settlement near Nablus in October 2002 - trans] are a telling sign. What good will the fence be, if the confrontation ignites Israel? Would it be worthwhile to take such a risk for anything less than a peace settlement ?

 

The enthusiasm for unilateral separation is an expression not only of a crisis of means, but also a crisis of consciousness. This project depends on a consciousness composed of Zionist voluntarism and unilateral action, of retrenchment behind an "iron wall", to use Jabotinsky's phrase, and the exercise of force outside of it. "A voluntary agreement is impossible", wrote Jabotinsky in 1923. "Accordingly, settlement can develop ... behind an iron wall that the local population lacks the strength to breach." What does this consciousness mean to the left, whose logic is political rather than the logic of force, a left that relates to the Palestinians as equals and seeks partnership with them, not their subjugation?

 

The conviction that there is no Palestinian partner is the escape-route of those on the left who adhere to the three no's. In doing so they are making the left irrelevant to reaching an agreement, a wheel in the wagon of the right. Suspending the veto power of any one of those three clauses will open the way to an agreement along the following lines: the geographic map will be determined on the basis of demographic concentration and international legitimacy (the 1967 lines); the map of the holy places will be determined on the basis of present places of worship (an equitable agreement on the Temple Mount and the Wall that is part of it); the map of national traumas (the uprooting of the 1948 refugees and the Jewish-Israeli fear of loss of identity if the refugees and their descendants return to the territory of the state) will give legitimacy to  both the past and the future.

 

A political settlement cannot erase national traumas, but it can limit them. The collective memory of a crying injustice to the Palestinians will continue to exist, but it will be toothless. The concern that it may grow teeth will continue to exist in Israel, the nuclear power in the Middle East, but a political settlement will allow the two traumatized peoples to live side by side.