New York Peace Dialogue: "With Enemies Like You, Who Needs Friends?"

By Mary Barrett

Some 600 people, nearly a third of them journalists, listened to Palestine Liberation Organization officials, Israeli parliamentarians, and others who would not have appeared on the same platform a year ago, discuss a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli crisis at Columbia University March 11-13.

Cosponsored by the Palestinian newspaper, Al Fajr, and the Israeli monthly magazine, New Outlook, the New York meeting was the last of four similar events in recent months in Paris, the Hague, and at Oxford University. Entitled "The Road to Peace," the New York conference was sponsored also by two US groups, Friends of Peace Now and the American Council for Palestine Affairs.

The Israelis who participated did so in violation of Israeli law which forbids contacts with members of the PLO, thus making clear their commitment to bringing about change in official Israeli policy. They represent the most vocal elements of the 54 percent of the Israeli public who, according to a recent poll, believe their government should negotiate with the PLO under some conditions. (Since the conferences, or perhaps because of them, that number has climbed to 66 percent of Israelis.) Many of the Israeli conference participants have changed their positions dramatically in recent years, while others have maintained all along that the security of Israel is dependent upon the existence of a secure Palestinian state in the occupied territories.

Palestinian participants, however, were in a more powerful position since the meeting was sanctioned by the PLO and attended by PLO officials able to present a consistent position developed and approved in the context of the November 1988 Palestine National Council (PNC meeting in Algeria, which proclaimed Palestinian statehood, and Yasser Arafat's December speech in Geneva accepting Israel's right to exist and renouncing terrorism. In addition to about a dozen representatives from the occupied territories, there were some 15 diaspora Palestinians and several Arab Americans among the participants. While Israeli refusal of travel documents reduced the number of participants from the occupied territories, US stalling on visas for three of the PLO officials threatened cancellation of the conference until last minute negotiations by conference organizers cleared the matter through the State Department.

In opening remarks, New York attorney Peter Weiss noted the presence of four past and four current Knesset members and six members of the PNC. The purpose of the conference, he said, was "to talk, to clarify, to describe areas of agreement, as well as to delineate. . areas of disagreement."

Setting a tone of parity between the parties, Yehoshefat Harkabi, former head of intelligence in the Israeli Defense Forces, spoke candidly of the need for a Palestinian state and his frustration with the unrealistic position of his government. "Under Israeli law we are not allowed to meet," he said. " I am not a lawyer, but this seems to me an abridgement of the most elementary human rights. We need to talk to each other."

The highlight of the opening program was a statement by Nabil Sha'ath, chairman of the PNC's Political Committee. After reiterating the PLO commitment to Israel's existence and security beside a Palestinian state, Sha'ath said, " ' . . maybe together we can turn the dream into a reality, a dream of sharing Palestine based on our total commitment to each other's independence."

On the following day, Bir Zeit University Professor Hannan Ashrawi reflected a view clearly responsive to the 15-month intifada from which she came: "We come to you [Israelis] with a position of national unity and consensus, and in response we have a situation of disunity and fragmentation." Referring to Shamir's refusal to talk to the PLO she said:

The Israelis who participated did so in violation of Israeli law which forbids contacts with members of the PLO, thus making clear their commitment to bringing about change in official Israeli policy.

"Nobody can deliver peace on behalf of the Palestinians but the Palestinians themselves. . The time is right. We both want an end to the occupation: Israel, because occupation corrupts. But, for us, the occupation kills ... We need to break the deadlock. We need to establish true mutuality. There [must] be one standard for the two people and not a double standard ... We are the only people under occupation who are held responsible for the safeguarding of the occupier."

Responding to Shamir's offer of Israeli-run elections in the occupied territories following a six-month cessation of the intifada, Ashrawi commented, "All we need is an end to the occupation, and then we will take care of our own lives... It must be recognized that the intifada is not negotiable. It has become a way of life with its own dimensions."

Member of Knesset (MK) Shulamit Aloni (formerly of Labor, but presently of the Citizen's Rights Movement, which she founded), bemoaned Israel's paralysis in the face of the dramatic Palestinian initiatives. "I want you to know that the Israeli people are more advanced, more open-minded, and more sober than [their] government. Fifty-four percent of the people say, 'Yes, let's talk to the PLO. . 'So it will come from the grassroots, if not from this funny two-headed government of ours."

“I want you to know that the Israeli people are more advanced, more open-minded, and more sober than [their] government. Fifty-four percent of the people say, ‘Yes, let's talk to the PLO. . ‘So it will come from the grassroots, if not from this funny two-headed government of ours.”—Shulamit Aloni, Citizen's Rights Movement

MK Yair Tzaban, of Israel's Mapam party, praised the "serious, courageous and balanced policies" expressed by Nabil Sha'ath, and urged movement toward an international conference. Concerned by the Bush administration's recommendations to the Israeli government to reopen schools, release some administrative detainees, and hold interim elections, Tzaban pleaded: "Mr. [Secretary of State James] Baker, do not delay the process... [A] missed opportunity is the real danger. Whoever can extend a hand but refuses to do it should be held responsible for the grave consequences."

Walter Ruby, New York correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, using his question opportunity to read an op-ed which he had written, set a tone new to the conference. Stopping to scold Palestinian-American Professor Edward Said of Columbia University for having mentioned the name of anti-Zionist writer Rabbi Elmer Berger, Ruby repeatedly cautioned the Palestinians that it was up to them to "convince the Israeli people that it's safe to make peace." In another panel, Esther Leah Ritz, a member of the board of governors of the Jewish Agency and a veteran activist in the American-Jewish community spoke of a dangerous assumption on the part of American Jewry concerning the security of Israel.

"Borders are not the guarantor or the symbol of security or of the peace of Israel," Ritz explained. While noting American-Jewish rubber stamping of US government policy toward Israel, she indicated that most Jews here do have serious reservations about the relationship. "in fact they know that... there must be ... a two-state solution to the problem in the Middle East. Most of that silent majority has not taken that final step, [but] they know that the Israelis and the Palestinians must talk to each other." Addressing the need for their input, she asked, "How can we move that silent majority of American Jews who hope for peace into action that will impact the American political arena? "

In a later panel, author and professor of political science Ibrahim Abu Lughod explained, "My presence in America is directly related to my expulsion from Palestine.. . We have a very difficult task as Palestinian Americans. On a daily basis we... testify to the horrors of Israel's occupation of our people and our land, the expulsion, the killing ... And we testify to the commitment of the two people[s] to reach an agreement that will make it possible for Palestinian Arab and Israeli individuals to coexist on the land of Palestine on a footing of equality ... We are bringing a message of hope to the American people, and we are asking them to assist us in the process of making peace."

"I salute the struggling Palestinian woman. I am not as strong as she. She sings when they tell her of her son's martyrdom. She says, I have seven children. I will sacrifice six of them so that the seventh will live in freedom and dignity."—Faisal Husseini, Arab Studies Center

Noting the asymmetry in which Israel and the Palestinians were perceived for decades in the US, Abu Lughod credited the recent enormous transformation of public opinion to the ability of Palestinians throughout the world to create a cohesive dialogue and a literature, and to engage Americans in the process of sorting out the rights and wrongs of the issue. He included Noarm Chomsky, Rabbi Elmer Berger, and other Jews in the pioneering of this effort.

Bristling at Abu Lughod's reference to anti-Zionist writers Chomsky and Berger, Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg requested permission to make a short statement: "Just as we Zionists are learning ... that peace is going to be made not with three little old ladies from Bethlehem, who might accept autonomy [but] that is going to be only with Palestinian nationalists, I think it is most important to understand that peace will be made only with Zionist nationalists."

Apparently also unnerved by Abu Lughod's comments, as well as earlier remarks by Chicago history Professor Rashid Khalidi, Moshe Amirav, a member of the Executive Committee of the Shinui-Liberal Central My, spoke passionately about the issue of the right to return. Amirav, who immigrated to Israel from the Soviet Union in 1949, said, "The right that Mr. Rashid Khalidi and Mr. Abu Lughod have in Jaffa [a city now in Israel from which Abu Lughod and his family were forced to flee by boat in 1948] is not less than the right I have in Nablus [a city in the West Bank]. The love he had for the mountains of the Galil might be not less than the love I have for the mountains of Judea ... That's why I think we shouldn't speak about the right of return to Jaffa without mentioning the right of return to Nablus because then we get into the problems and the fears of the Israelis, and that's why the Palestinians . . will not be able to go back to their houses in Haifa ... We cannot speak about the return, al awdah, because this really frightens Israelis."

Like Amirav, PNC member Professor Hatem Husseini also expressed attachment to all of historic Palestine, but he did not reveal a fear of the "other" notable in Amirav's presentation. In fact, Husseini expressed a belief that statehood does not fulfill the needs of either people. Unperturbed at being out of step with the conference consensus, Husseini stated, "I am against a two-state solution. I am against states. I don't want a state. I want a homeland. " While acknowledging that it is unlikely to become reality at least until after the existence of two states has stabilized the area, he described what he called his dream of a future, secular democratic state in which Jews and Palestinians together could share all of Palestine, with equal rights of return.

“A democracy must lie when it holds a whole Palestinian people in Its cellar and does not let it emerge from there for 21 years. But the spirit of these people comes up from the cellar and haunts the whole house. . .”—Yossi Sarid, Knesset member

MK Ron Cohen of the Citizen's Rights Movement, angered by Husseini's "dream," denounced his audacity in referring to the anti-Zionist writings of Albert Einstein and Noam Chomsky. "I have to ask the Palestinian people to forget the time, forget the people who [were] anti-Zionists." Speaking of the struggle between the Israeli peace camp and the government, Cohen said, "We came from a very, very difficult situation in Israel where we had the courage to go against the whole Israeli public to come to speak with PLO fighters [because] we want peace, and you mention Chomsky? You have to speak with Israeli fighters. You have to speak with the people who come from the central half of the Israeli society ... So, please, you have to change your mind."

By contrast, in a panel called "Resolving Conflicts:' chaired by long-time US human rights activist Stanley Sheinbaum and addressed by Professor Johan Galtung, Professor Naomi Chazen, and Afif Safieh, director of the PLO Mission to the Netherlands, Safleh was so impressed by the tone of the proceedings as to comment, "With enemies like you, who needs friends?"

Safieb noted earlier the presence of State Department officials and the apparent impact of the conference on the visit to Washington of Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Arens. In answer to a question about reducing "unrest" in the occupied territories, he responded, "The target is not ending the intifada, but ending the occupation ... It is the intifada which allows us to undertake this audacious step of offering, and not begging for, peace."

Speaking on the last day of the conference, Faisal Husseini, director of the Arab Studies Center in Jerusalem, focused on the role of women in creating the environment which made possible a meeting of this sort. "I salute the struggling Palestinian woman:' he said. "I am not as strong as she. She sings when they tell her of her son's martyrdom. She says, 'I have seven children. I will sacrifice six of them so that the seventh will live in freedom and dignity."

The Arab Studies Center, a research facility and library, was shut down by the Israeli government in 1988. Husseini himself is recovering from his most recent incarceration, a six-month administrative detention sentence in Ketziot, a prison camp in the Negev Desert.

During the same panel, former MK Yossi Sarid, who left the Labor party to join the Citizen's Rights Movement, expressed horror at the killings and maimings of Palestinian children in the occupied territories and warned of their effect on Israel. "A democracy must lie when it holds a whole Palestinian people in its cellar and does not let it emerge from there for 21 years. But the spirit of these people comes up from the cellar and haunts the whole house... Story by story, room by room ... with all the self-told lies the nightmare will send the democracy out of its mind. It will end up by taking leave of its soul." He implored American Jews to speak out ... when ... deeds [are] committed which do not correspond with the norms and values of democratic societies and with Jewish morality."

Sarid's tone changed when he addressed the Palestinians. "The PLO must search its own soul," he stated. Evoking the words "evasive," "fickle," and "double-faced," he declared that the "PLO's most important and urgent task today is to prove its credibility." Of remarks made previously by Hatem Husseini, Sarid said, "Let us forget about dreams, your dreams and our dreams ... On behalf of the Israeli delegation here I would like to state very openly and clearly that no Israeli, nobody, is going to accept the right of return."

Near the end of the meetings retired Gen. Matti Peled, a professor of Arabic studies and a former Knesset member, took an opportunity to distance himself from certain Israeli viewpoints expressed at the conference. Speaking to Mordechai Bar-On, a former chief education officer in the Israeli army who is active in Peace Now, Peled referred to the cultural program of the previous evening during which Palestinians performed folk dances and sang patriotic songs, described at the time by the outraged Bar-On as "a betrayal:' Peled commented, "I don't understand why any Israeli should have felt offended. " Then, referring as well to remarks by Amirav, Cohen, and others, he said, "I think there is something very wrong with this tendency on the part of some Israelis to tell the Palestinians what they should sing, what they should play, which Jewish speakers they should like, and which Jewish speakers they should dislike, as was tried yesterday." Finally, addressing himself to the most divisive issue among the Israelis at the conference, he commented: "Yossi Sarid made a statement in the name of the Israeli delegation, and I am not aware that there is an Israeli delegation. There are participants, and I for one disassociate myself from what he said with regard to the right of return. I think to deny the right of return is preposterous, It is a right recognized internationally ... to start off by denying that right is ridiculous."

In a final statement to the conference, PLO diplomat Sha'ath said issues to be negotiated at an international peace conference include refugees, security arrangements, disarmament, international guarantees, borders, water, Jewish settlements, and the status of East and West Jerusalem. He sought to "demystify" the issue of return, which he said had been misinterpreted as "the sudden influx of 3-1/2 million Palestinians into their very homes which have been since occupied by others in order to change the demographic structure of Israel and deprive it of its Jewishness. This is not what we are talking about. We are talking about the solution to the refugee problem."

Presuming that most Palestinians would opt for and be welcomed into the new Palestinian state, Shiath spoke of an orderly process, responsive to the needs and feelings of all parties. He described the existing 750,000 Palestinian Israelis as a bridge between the populations, whose best interests would be served by a sensitive transition. "Who is talking about an exclusively Jewish state, and who is talking about an exclusively Arab-Palestinian state? We are talking about a predominantly Jewish state and a predominantly Palestinian Arab state. But there should always be room for exchange. . "

Speaking of the role of love in this struggle of two peoples to accommodate each other's needs, Sha'ath appealed "to my Israeli brothers in the peace camp [to] stand by our people in the occupied territories. We want you to hold their hands ... to stop the breaking of the arms of our children, and to try to be with them because that stand of yours is worth a million words."

Sha'ath continued, "We are here in America because we feel that there is also a sense of justice deep down in the heart of every American; and it is the sense of justice that will eventually have to prevail ... American, Jewish Israeli, and Palestinian Arab, we will conquer the world in peace and love; and there is going to be peace in Palestine-Israel."

Columbia Professor Edward Said was typical of the upbeat Palestinians who seem to have left behind every trace of paranoia. While warning against the common, almost romanticized view of the Middle East as the site of apocalyptic battles involving Jewish, Muslim, and Christian fundamentalist claims of religious primacy, Said perceived a stabilizing influence in an emerging secularism likely with the ascension of two mutually supportive states, Palestine-Israel. "The appeal should not be to exclusiveness," he noted, but a "transformation of national consciousness into ... political and moral consciousness." In an appeal to let human values temper national and religious imperatives, Said closed his remarks by quoting from black Martiniquan poet, Aime Cesaire, "...and no race has a monopoly on beauty or intelligence or strength—and there is room for everyone at the rendezvous of victory."

Mary Barrett is a free-lance writer based in Boston. She is currently completing a book entitled View From Below: Palestinian Stories of Occupation and Rebellion.