An American Jewish Peace Activist

Though Belated and Lopsided, With Help It Could Work

By Rachelle Marshall

The peace plan signed in Washington on Sept. 13 by Israeli and Palestinian leaders may be the last best hope for peace in the Middle East and as such is to be welcomed. Despite the agreement's shortcomings, the joy it aroused among Palestinians and Israelis makes it clear that rejection by either side would have been unthinkable. But the fact that only the PLO, and not the Israeli government, was obliged to renounce violence before the two sides could agree to mutual recognition symbolizes the lopsidedness of the bargain.

In accepting the plan, Palestinians agreed to defer consideration of the three demands that have been central to their struggle: creation of a Palestinian state, return of the Palestinian refugees expelled by Israel in 1948 and 1967, and sovereignty over East Jerusalem. What they gain from the agreement is control of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank city of Jericho; if all remains peaceful, Israeli troops will withdraw from those areas but continue to surround them. Elsewhere on the West Bank, Palestinians will take over such local functions as health, education and tourism, with Israel retaining responsibility for "security. " Israeli forces will continue to control the borders and provide protection for the 130,000 Jewish settlers in the occupied territories.

On paper at least, the plan offers hope as a first step toward Palestinian nationhood and the peaceful coexistence of both peoples. But if it does not soon result in better living conditions for the people of the occupied territories, violent protests by its opponents are likely to increase. If Palestinian authorities are unable to control the protesters, Israeli hard-liners could point to the failure of Palestinian self-rule and progress toward Palestinian statehood would suffer a severe setback. Unfortunately, the terms of the agreement provide no assurance that living conditions in the West Bank and Gaza will quickly improve.

Gaza is known as the "Soweto of the Middle East," a vastly overcrowded area where open sewers run in the streets and the inhabitants—now barred from working in Israel—are reportedly on the verge of starvation. The new agreement continues to deny Gazans access to the coast, where they once carried on a thriving fishing industry, or to the scarce portions of arable land now inhabited by some 3,500 Jewish settlers. The Palestinian population will benefit from the absence of Israeli sharpshooters on their rooftops, but given the area's monumental economic and social problems, Gaza is not likely to become a model of Palestinian self-rule.

On the West Bank, where the closing of Israel's borders has cost the jobs of tens of thousands of wage earners, conditions are hardly more promising. Palestinians will be allowed to assess taxes and collect their own garbage, but without control of the land and water they have no hope of restoring their once prosperous agricultural sector or building the infrastructure necessary for a healthy economy. Another obstacle to development is the severe shortage of capital, the result of crippling restrictions on production, trade and other economic activity imposed on Palestinians under Israeli rule. According to a New York Times report of Sept. 9, per capita income in the occupied territories is $1,350 a year, one-eighth the level in Israel. (Palestinian economists estimate that over the next eight years the need for new housing, improved water treatment and health care, and the development of Palestinian industry will require about $9 billion—little more than Israel receives in U. S. aid every year.)

The most positive aspect of the new agreement is the fact that Israel and the PLO are at last talking to each other. For nearly 20 years, peace activists on both sides have warned that no lasting peace could be achieved without the participation of the Palestinians' chosen representatives the PLO, and that if Israel continued to shun the PLO and reject its efforts at conciliation, the Palestinians would turn to more militant leaders. Israeli leaders have finally learned this lesson, but only after 25 years of unnecessary bloodshed. Had Israel been less unyielding, the handshake between Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin could have taken place years ago.

Although successive Israeli governments have insisted that the PLO's true goal was to destroy Israel, in fact, since at least 1977 Palestinian leaders have repeatedly offered to negotiate peace with Israel in exchange for a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. In October 1977, the PLO welcomed a joint U.S.-Soviet statement that referred to Israel's right to security as well as to the legitimate rights of the Palestinians. Israel condemned the statement and nothing more was heard of it. In 1978, Arafat told Paul Findley, then a Republican congressman from Illinois, that the PLO would recognize Israel if an independent Palestinian state were established in the West Bank and Gaza. In January 1979, Farouk Kaddoumi, political director of the PLO, repeated Arafat's message, promising "As soon as we have a state, we shall recognize Israel's secure borders and Israel's right to live in peace. " (The Nation, Nov. 3, 1979.)

Although the Israeli government remained deaf to such statements, there were some Israelis who listened and responded. Members of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Council, which had long advocated a two state solution, began meeting with PLO officials in London in 1975 and, along with other Israeli peace activists, have met frequently with Arafat since then—in defiance of an Israeli law that was only recently repealed. Contrary to most press reports, dialogue between Israelis and the PLO is not a recent phenomenon.

In 1981 and 1982, the PLO supported proposals by Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev and French President Francois Mitterand calling for a Palestinian state along with guaranteed security for Israel. During the same period the PLO also backed the Fahd and Fez peace plans, originating with Saudi Arabia and approved by Arab League member states, that contained similar provisions. In fact, the PLO's increasingly successful efforts during the early 1980s to convince the international community of its desire for peace may have motivated Israel to invade Lebanon in June 1982. A major purpose of the invasion was to destroy the PLO leadership, then headquartered in Beirut, and with it the Palestinians' ability to press their claim for an independent nation. Retired Israeli Gen. Matti Peled said at the time that the Israeli leaders who plotted the invasion "have a strong interest in seeing political leadership of the PLO transferred to extremists. That will help them depict Palestinians as people who don't want to coexist with Israel."

Despite the invasion, Arafat and other PLO leaders reaffirmed their offer to recognize Israel—a stipulation that the United States insisted on before it would talk with the PLO if Israel in turn agreed to recognize Palestinian national rights. When Israel adamantly refused to make any concession, the PLO took a further unilateral step toward peace. In November 1988, the Palestinian National Council voted formally to recognize Israel. Arafat announced the decision in December before a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly (which had to be moved to Geneva because the United States refused to let Arafat attend the U.N. General Assembly session in New York). The vote to recognize Israel was a conciliatory gesture that Arafat and his supporters had convinced more hard-line Palestinians to accept by promising that it would bring the PLO into the negotiating process.

But the hope proved false; Israel refused to budge. The United States did hold inconclusive talks with the PLO over several months but abruptly cancelled them in June 1990, on grounds that Arafat had refused to condemn an abortive raid on Israel by a Palestinian splinter group headed by Abul Abbas. It was a flimsy excuse, since Arafat had disavowed any responsibility for the raid and was known to be sharply at odds with Abul Abbas. Shortly afterwards, U.S. journalist Milton Viorst commented in The New York Times (June 16, 1990) that in recognizing Israel, Arafat had "gambled that the positive results he would get from Washington would enable him to keep the hard-liners under control. To his dismay, the U.S. delivered nothing . . . Mr. Arafat's political judgment is discredited."

Twelve years earlier, in December 1978, Paul Findley had expressed the same thought to a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor: "The pity is that our executive branch has given no recognition to the advance toward moderation which has occurred within the PLO," he said. "This puts the moderates in the PLO out on a limb...If they get no recognition, they must ask themselves, 'Why take a chance?"'

Israeli authorities have not only painted a false picture of Palestinian leaders and their policies, they have actively tried to silence the moderates among them by means of censorship, expulsion and imprisonment. Outspoken supporters of a two-state solution such as Faisal Husseini and Sari Nusseibeh have spent long periods in prison without charges being brought. Occupation authorities have similarly arrested hundreds of journalists, writers, labor organizers and other professionals and intellectuals who might provide potential leadership. Hanna Nasser, the distinguished president of Bir Zeit University, was dumped across the Lebanese border in the middle of the night in 1974 and only recently allowed to return.

In 1977, the Israeli government refused permission for Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza to attend a meeting of the Palestine National Council in Cairo, where many of them were expected to support PLO endorsement of U.N. Resolution 242, which calls for Israel's withdrawal from the occupied territories in exchange for peace. The PNC's approval of the resolution would have amounted to recognition of Israel. The April 1977 newsletter of Breira, a short-lived Jewish-American peace group, charged that in preventing in habitants of the occupied territories from going to the meeting, Israel had "strengthened the Rejection Front and other forces opposing a settlement based on mutual recognition. By preventing their participation in the Cairo conference, the Israeli government weakened substantially the strength of moderates fighting courageously for their position within the PLO."

Israel repeated the tactic seven years later. On Nov. 2O, 1984, New York Times correspondent Thomas Friedman reported that then-Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin had refused to let 160 West Bank and Gaza delegates attend a PNC meeting in Amman, "even though," according to Friedman, "they would for the most part provide an important moderating influence."

Despite Israel's effort over the years to punish, ignore, suppress or distort every sign of the Palestinians' willingness to compromise, the people of the occupied territories have continued to support leaders who favor peaceful coexistence with Israel. But the hardships of the occupation, grown increasingly severe under the Rabin government, have reportedly brought the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza to the breaking point. As families see their livelihoods destroyed by the loss of jobs in Israel; their day-to-day existence made maddening by house searches, checkpoints, and travel restrictions; their husbands and sons beaten and jailed; and their children shot by Israeli soldiers, they are bound to give up on leaders who can bring no relief from their plight.

The popularity of militant fundamentalist groups such as Hamas, and the controversy over negotiating policy that took place last June between the PLO leadership in Tunis and the negotiating team from the occupied territories, indicate that Palestinian leaders will face a difficult task in preserving unity. The peace agreement with Israel must have sufficient support among the Palestinian people to be workable, and this can only happen if they are relieved of the twin burdens of the occupation—extreme deprivation and lack of freedom. Otherwise, growing bitterness and frustration in the occupied territories, and the factionalism among Palestinians that is bound to result, could undermine any interim autonomy arrangement and with it the hope of a stable Palestinian nation.

In accepting the current peace agreement, Palestinians have made major concessions to Israel. Now it is Israel's turn. The first step should be a reopening of Israel's borders so that Palestinians can work and feed their families. There must be an immediate end to the torture of Palestinian prisoners and other human rights abuses by Israeli authorities. At the same time, Israel's leaders must work to convince ordinary Israeli citizens, who will determine the outcome of future elections, that the Palestinians are people like themselves, with the same desire for security and a national identity. This will mean undoing the damage done by Israeli governments over the past 40 years in portraying the Palestinians as less than human and the PLO as a group of murderous thugs.

For its part, the U.S. can play a major role in demonstrating to the Palestinians and the rest of the world that the signing of the agreement was more than a symbolic event. Washington must not only come up with a substantial portion of the funds needed to develop the Palestinian economy, it must also keep pressure on Israel to move toward full withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza.

There are obviously enormous obstacles in the path of Middle East peace, but if the current effort fails, the only winners will be Israeli zealots who prefer endless bloodshed to giving up an inch of territory, and Arab extremists who would like to see Israel disappear. Fortunately, at this point a clear majority of Palestinians and Israelis are willing to make the peace plan succeed, and with enough help they can do it.

Rachelle Marshall is a free-lance editor living in Stanford, CA. A member of New Jewish Agenda, she writes frequently on the Mideast.