There Can Be No Peace Without Two States Existing Side By Side

By Salah Khalaf (Abu Iyad)

(Following is the text of a videotaped address by Salah Khalaf smuggled into Israel and shown to participants in a symposium at the International Center for Peace in the Middle East in Jerusalem, Feb. 22, 1989. Participants included Israeli members of the Knesset and Palestinians from Israeli occupied territories known to support the PLO. Mr. Khalaf, a principal deputy to PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, is a member of the Al Fatah Central Committee and in the past has been considered a hard-liner within both Al Fatah and the PLO. He spoke in Arabic, noting that Israelis have accused PLO officials of making conciliatory statements in English and hard-line statements in Arabic. The Arabic version has been widely reported in Middle Eastern newspapers. An English-language text was provided by the Foundation for Middle East Peace in Washington, DC)

I look forward to a future in which our meetings will be face to face, and we can discuss directly the future of our two peoples as well as the future of real peace. Although circumstances have prevented this on this occasion, I hope that in the near future we will address each other neither via the newspapers nor through video but through such personal contacts.

When I say these words, I say them on the basis of a fixed strategy according to which we now work after painful experience, and so that we may not deceive you. In the past we believed that this land is ours alone. We did not believe in the idea of coexistence between two states, although we used to believe in the idea of coexistence as religions, or rather as people belonging to different religions. This kind of co-existence between Muslims, Christians, and Jews has been practiced by our people in this land. However, the idea of coexistence between two states was, in the past, remote.

Everything that has happened to the Palestinian people and to the Israeli people—the blood which has been spilled, the victims, the maimed—all this has moved us to react naturally to the call of every Palestinian and Israeli child, so that we can take a serious step toward peace. Thus came the resolutions adopted in Algiers. These resolutions were not passed just by a leadership. They proceeded from a legislative council which represents the Palestinian people in its entirety. The council passed these resolutions after an arduous process of dialogue and discussion, and everybody was convinced that there is no path but the path of peace.

What is important is that our Palestinian people and the Israeli people feel that the Palestinian leadership has responded to the widely supported call by our people for peace.

Some people asked us whether the Israeli leadership would respond to our call for peace and to our resolutions. We replied that this is not what is most important. What is important is that our Palestinian people and the Israeli people feel that the Palestinian leadership has responded to the widely supported call by our people for peace. What is important is that this call touch the heart and mind of every Israeli child, woman, and man, because it is inevitable that peace will prevail, and that the two-state solution will be achieved.

So why the agony and the procrastination? The disagreement really is over the price. Are we prepared to pay the price of proceeding with courage and strength, inspired by the agony and suffering of our people? Or, would we rather drag our feet until there are more killed, more children who are subjected to terror, and until there are more disfigured and crippled victims, in this useless war?

It is on this basis that I address you, and say to you that the Algiers resolutions, and Arafat's statements at the press conference in Geneva, reflect the heartfelt convictions of every Palestinian. We would remind you, however, that just as you have some extremists, we also have many such people. The test of courage is when such extremism is countered head on, rather than surrendered to.

Does any Israeli really believe in his heart that it is possible to destroy 5 million Palestinians? We have asked a similar question of ourselves and have concluded that we cannot destroy the Israeli people. The realistic solution, therefore, is that we live side by side, and that we walk the path of peace.

Some people wonder whether this coexistence is only a first stage. We answer, no. We want a definitive settlement. But a definitive settlement will only come if its peace is just. Peace is not a piece of paper. All questions connected with peace and security have to be discussed in negotiations. The important thing is that the two peoples, the Palestinians and the Israelis, come to believe in the necessity of coexistence between two states. We are ready to reach any security arrangements through meetings but, believe me, real security lies only in the real belief in peace.

The real issue is not negotiations in which Israel seeks this piece of land or in which we seek that piece of land. This is a small geographic area, without much elbow room. We do not seek to have a Berlin Wall or any other wall separating us. We want there to be openness. The only thing we seek is that there be real—as opposed to verbal—normalization. I am confident that peace has now come to settle in the heart and conscience of every Palestinian. I am confident that if we search deeply in the hearts and minds of Israelis, we shall find peace there, too.

However, it is important to take stock at some point and to admit that the ill-feelings that have accumulated in the past cannot be destroyed over night. We must live with the idea of peace ourselves first if we are to transmit it to others. Without accepting it ourselves, and living with it, we cannot transmit these ideas and beliefs to others.

I say truly that the Palestinian leadership and the Palestinian people want peace. The steps taken in Algiers and in Geneva reflect this conviction of the need for peace. So that peace may be achieved, however, it is necessary that the Israeli leadership change its mentality of rejectionism, obdurancy, the constant addition of further conditions, and seeking to win time.

I do not know why time should be won. Is it so that yet more conditions may be imposed on the Palestinians? This is absurd and will lead to nothing.

It is important that we capitalize on this historic opportunity. Each time our people hear of martyrs and of more wounded, the chances for peace will inevitably be pushed further away. This now is the opportunity that we must take. Let us be courageous and grasp it firmly. Let us put all the issues on the table. We believe in direct meetings; we are ready for such meetings, and we say it publicly, on any level. Let the Israelis come and meet us secretly, openly, or any other way. We are anxious for such meetings, not because we are in despair. Quite the contrary, it is because we are strong, because we have confidence in ourselves and in the need for peace, because we seek this peace and have every faith in it, that we have arrived at a truth that we hope the Israeli leaders will also arrive at before it is too late. This is the truth which says that two peoples and two states must coexist on this land.

All other matters are open to discussion. Our convenant and yours can be discussed. All security arrangements and guarantees can be discussed in direct meetings. Then, if we reach an agreement, as I am sure we shall, we can take this agreement to an international conference where the entire world can be a witness to these security arrangements, and so that not a single loophole will be left to spoil it.

Thus, we do not see the international conference as an end in itself, but as a means to guarantee the safety of the two states in the context of an international agreement. And what is important for us is that these meetings and contacts and dialogues take place in advance of the conference, so that the conference itself becomes the forum in which to bring our agreement to fruition. Those who stand in the way of peace want the river of blood to continue to flow. Instead of seeking to achieve peace in order to avoid more victims, they seek more victims in order to achieve peace. I don't know what kind of peace it would be which is built on a mountain of corpses and skulls, and crippled, wounded, and killed. It would be a peace that is useless.

Genuine Desire for a Strategic Peace

There aremany peace movements, large and small, in Israel. To those I say, in the name of the Palestinian people, the PLO, and the Palestinian leadership: to every child in Israel, to every woman and every man, through you, that we are genuine in our desire for a strategic peace. A peace through which we shall bring security and stability to this region. A peace in which people can begin to devote their time and energy to making their lives prosperous and genuinely peaceful.

Why do the Palestinians and Israelis have to live in fear? How can we put an end to this fear, this state of mutual terror in which both Israelis and Palestinians live? There is no way out except through peace with the Palestinian people, whose suffering is the root of the problem.

Perhaps I need not mention the peace agreement with Egypt or any other attempts at agreements with others. Perhaps all these agreements were good from the Israeli leadership's point of view. But you should ask yourselves, why do these agreements not produce real peace? The answer is that the basic element required for such a peace was missing, namely, the Palestinian people.

As I said earlier, everything can be discussed with complete reassurance. We say this because, as I also said earlier, we are confident that our call for peace is a strategic call, and not just a call for useless talks. But we must note that a real peace is a just peace. When peace is just, it can be lasting. And a just peace, now that we live in an age of rockets and long-distance artillery, cannot be tied to technicalities and armaments. Rather, the condition for real peace is that there be a genuine desire to coexist. We must work on our people to develop this desire, and you must equally work on yours. This is the road to real security and real peace.

The final question I wish to raise at this symposium in this context is, if this historic opportunity following the Algiers resolutions is missed, then what will the alternative be? Israel may be able to survive this situation for one more year, or two, or even 10. But believe me, after these 10 years, and after hundreds and maybe thousands of other victims, we shall find ourselves back at this point: there can be no peace without the Palestinians. There can be no peace without coexistence with the Palestinians. There can be no peace without two states which will coexist side by side, and which will be able to say to the entire world: the war in the Middle East has ended, and the tragedy is over.

Thank you.

Salah Khalaf, a co-founder with and second in command to Yasser Arafat as leader of Al Fatah, the largest component of the Palestine Liberation Organization, was born in 1933 in Jaffa, now in Israel. His association with the PLO chairman goes back to their student days in Cairo and early organization work in Kuwait. He is regarded as the most militant of the Al Fatah inner circle and, in the early 1970s, was said to be associated with armed activities of the Black September group.