July 1989, Page 11

What They Said

The following are excerpts from addresses delivered by Abba Eban, former Israeli foreign minister, and Nabeel Shaath, chairman of the Palestine National Council's Political Committee, at a conference sponsored by Princeton University on May 31, 1989 in Washington, DC. In his remarks, Eban describes the self-destructive nature of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, noting that it "brings the erosion of values" among Israelis. Nabeel Shaath admits to past Palestinian mistakes, but stresses the Palestinian "vision" of a two-state solution and cooperation "that will bring the fruits of integration without sacrificing the fruits of independence and self-expression."

Abba Eban: Occupation Erodes Values

I believe that there is a general belief that the status quo will not do, that the present territorial and administrative situation in the West Bank and Gaza cannot and should not endure and that it cannot possibly, by itself and without change, develop into a harmonious reality There is a mutual interest of the Israelis, Palestinians, and the surrounding states to change the present status quo.

For Israel, the maintenance of the present status quo has the following results. It is weakening our economy. It is destroying our tourism. It is distorting our image. It is complicating our relations with Europe. It is undermining our relations with the United States. It cuts across our own society like a dividing scar. It agitates the Jewish dispersion. It consumes resources, physical, material and intellectual; it is not conducive to our logistic security and, in the ominous words of an Israeli think tank, the Tel Aviv Jaffa Research Center of International Studies, a group composed of mainstream experts on Israeli security, the finding is that it makes the likelihood of general war much more probable than any other option. Therefore, what was once regarded as a crowning glory, an asset, now appears as something that our society cannot endure. It also brings about an erosion of values. It has given birth to a rhetoric of exclusivism and self-assertion, mostly on the outer fringes of our society, but creeping ominously also toward the center.

The situation in the West Bank and Gaza... is weakening our economy, distorting our image, cutting across our own society like a dividing scar, consuming resources—physical, material and intellectual—and eroding our values.

Therefore, there are many fewer people in Israel today who will go around saying, "Well, since we've had this 22 years, we can have it for another 22 years, or even another 22 months." And the sense of terminality of the status quo is now sharper than before. That's important because you're not going to get a successful negotiation unless both parties want to change the existing status quo. If it's agreeable to one party and not to the other, why should the party to which it is agreeable want to change, unless you are thinking of altruism. But I'm talking about diplomacy, in whose lexicon the word "altruism" does not occur.

What about the fate of the proposal for an election; will it succeed? It will only succeed if the US understands its responsibilities. If the US persists in a rather prudish evasion of political activism, if it doesn't go back to the activist period of 1974 to 1979, when by American mediation, five separate agreements were signed between Israel and an Arab state, I believe an opportunity will have been wasted.

And therefore, asking myself whether this election gambit is feasible, my question is not so much to the parties who are constrained by their interests and their domestic policies, this is really a question for the United States, and the age of its activism has arisen. And if there is any degree of optimism in what I have said, it's for two reasons.

I am an optimist because I find the alternatives so depressing, but also because there is something in the spirit of the times and in the interests of the parties, which teaches us this lesson: It is in time of peril and danger, it is when people are at the edge of a precipice, that they are often driven to unexpected acts of innovation. And in the last resort, nations can find security only by doing what their mutual interests dictate.

Nabeel Shaath: New Vision For Peace

The Palestinians—and we are very cognizant of that—have committed several mistakes. We allowed ourselves some methods of struggle that simply created greater fear in the hearts of the people we eventually had to win in order to live in one country.

The Palestinians took a new form of struggle, the intifada; they moved from Guevara to Ghandi. For a Palestinian, the word "stages" took a totally different form. Stage one would be to set a Palestinian state on the part of Palestine occupied in 1967. Stage two would be to set a new vision for cooperation between the two states, a new vision of dreaming that will bring the fruits of integration without sacrificing the fruits of independence and self-expression.

And it is this vision that brought about the Palestinian peace plan in Algiers in November 1988. It brought about a very concrete peace plan that outlined the future as well as tactics, that outlined final stages as well as interim stages, that talked about an international conference as a method, that talked about Israeli evacuation and an interim period in which UN troops would be sent in and in which elections and self-determination would be exercised by democratic means, and in which all contractual means of reaching a final peace can be made, including all kinds of guarantees for the security and peace of the two states side by side.

For Palestinians, the word "stages" has taken on a new meaning. Step one would be the establishment of a Palestinian state. Step two would offer a new vision of cooperation that will bring the fruits of integration without sacrificing the fruits of independence and self-expression.

But the other side is doing its very best to discredit that vision. To discredit that vision, they discredit our words and our deeds. Every Palestinian word and every Palestinian word to the world is a word also to the Arabic world every word we say in English is translated to Arabic. Every word we say in Arabic is translated into English.

The Palestinians will engage in any form of discussion, any form of discourse, but they will not accept the form that will make them give away and give up their intifada, which is the tool, the basic tool, the mother of their peace plan.

But, they will accept all ideas that will overcome the resistance of the other party. The idea of elections is totally acceptable. The Palestinian would certainly prefer the voting booth to the interrogation booth. Elections have to define the context, and the context to us is a total Palestinian context. The context of the Israeli-Palestinian peace is the Palestinians inside and outside the territory. And Israelis, wherever they may be—the context of the Israeli peace is a commitment to international legitimacy, commitment to UN Resolutions 242 and 338, which really means an exchange of that land occupied in 1967 for a guaranteed contractual peace. A context that will bring Israelis and Palestinians together can go through elections as a step. But those elected freely and democratically will have to join with their Palestinian brothers outside within the political context that the Palestinians have chosen, which is the PLO. Eventually, those elected will have to discuss, will have to negotiate, a final peace.

Interim arrangements can be discussed once the final peace is discussed, once the end status is clarified, once the context is clarified. Like "Alice in Wonderland," we have to really know where we are going before deciding how to get there.