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Issue: February, 1989

By saying the State of Israel has a right to exist, one also says that it has the right to all the Palestinian land on which it squats, all the Palestinian homes and resources it has stolen and legitimates the hundreds of thousands of expulsions it has carried out.

The last six months of1988 has witnessed more peace activity in the Middle East than we have seen in the past twenty years. Now that the Palestine Liberation Organization has renounced terrorism and recognized the State of Israel; now that the U.S. is formally talking with the PLO; now that several dozen nations have recognized the newly declared State of Palestine; now that the Palestinian Intifada ("uprising" or "awakening") has entered its second year unabated, is peace at hand?

Ah, if it were only so simple!

Central to all this attention and movement are the Palestinians themselves, the roughly one-and-one-half-million militarily occupied Palestinians who are continuing their Intifada, liberating their own land and creating their own state in the face of enormous odds, enormous casualties—all rather oblivious to world machinations.

In "renouncing terrorism and recognizing the State of Israel," the Palestine National Council (PNC) this past November only formalized what the PLO offered informally as early as 1974. Since 1974, the PLO never received the slightest favorable response—from the U.S. or Israel—requisite to formalizing its offer. The important difference today is that the United States is finally talking with and thereby implicitly recognizing the PLO, to the greatest consternation in Israel.

Renouncing terrorism (defined as attacks upon civilian, not military targets) was much less a problem for the PLO than was the recognition of Israel. Implicit in the recognition of Israel is the recognition of its right to exist which, in turn, validates all that has been done to Palestinians. (Interestingly, before Israel, no nation has ever demanded recognition of its right to exist). By saying the State of Israel has a right to exist, one also says that it has the right to all the Palestinian land on which it squats, all the Palestinian homes and resources it has stolen and legitimates the hundreds of thousands of expulsions it has carried out. Consequently, the PNC's recognition of Israel's existence ultimately concedes Israel's right to exist, even though the resolutions were carefully worded to avoid exactly that. These resolutions are the most ground the PLO has ever given in its history. The important question is what will the PLO get in return?

Perhaps the most puzzling question is why the apparent U.S. change of heart, following but days after it refused to allow Yasser Arafat to address the United Nations in New York?

We have a number of clues that the incoming Bush administration may view the special U.S.-Israel relationship with slightly less reverence than his predessors. For one thing, Bush owes little or nothing to the American-Israeli lobby which heavily backed Dukakis. Bush appointed a Lebanese-American, New Hampshire Governor John Sununu, his Chief of Staff, possibly the most important post in the executive branch. His ethnic heritage and conservative politics aside, Sununu was the only U.S. Governor not to sign the protest against the United Nations' declaration equating Zionism with racism. Bush appointed Clayton Yeutter to head the Department of Agriculture. As U.S. Trade Representative, Yeutter has taken the unprecedented step of actually hearing a claim that Israel be disqualified from its status as most-favored-trading-nation due to its treatment of Palestinian labor. And from the published memoirs of an outgoing Reagan aide we learn that the only concern Bush raised in discussions of the Iran-Contra affair was of Israel's role in it, specifically, whether Israel or the U.S. was really running the show.

U.S.-Soviet detènte may be another reason to hope for a peaceful solution in Palestine. The principal reason for exhorbitant U.S. subsidization of Israel has always been as a counter to Soviet influence (real or imagined) in the region. The rationalization was best put by Richard Nixon: "It's cheaper than the Sixth Fleet." With arms reductions pacts in place and the potential for more of the same in the foreseeable future, U.S. strategists may not see as great a need for the Sixth Fleet or its "cheaper" proxy. Then, too, are budget realities. Can we afford them?

Attitudes of increasingly important American allies in the Middle East are another factor in the equation. For the largely autocratic, upopular regimes like Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states, the ongoing Intifada is more than merely an embarrassment. It's a bloody bad example for their own dissatisfied populations! As it is no secret in the Arab world that the repression of their Palestinian brethern is the direct result of U.S. aid, U.S. alliances are increasingly difficult for these governments to justify to their own populations.

The Intifada has also prioritized Middle East peace on the international agenda, particularly now that the Iran-Iraq war seems at an end and oil is again safely flowing from the Persian Gulf. The European community, in particular, has been very active on the diplomatic front, encouraging the PNC resolutions and gaining U.S. assurances in exchange. Also responding to the Intifada, the European Common Market has suspended trade talks with Israel and encouraged duty-free importation of Palestinian products. Armed with the prestige of winning the 1988 Nobel Peace Prize, United Nations officials have also applied tremendous pressure on the U.S. to facilitate a settlement. Yasser Arafat, too, has been a whirlwind of diplomatic initiative in December, 1988.

In Israel proper, the bill for the Intifada is coming due. For Israeli military reservists, the tour of duty is now two months a year instead of one. Increasing numbers of soldiers are opting for jail rather than serve in the Territories. Israel peace activists are being prosecuted and imprisoned for meeting with PLO representatives. Israeli media is being censored and closed, and Israeli journalists prosecuted for reporting on the Intifada. Israeli construction, agriculture and many service industries are at a virtual standstill due to the absence or irregularity of Palestinian labor. Tourism is commensurately in extremis. In 1988, all the king's horses and all the king's men could not put Christmas back in Bethlehem.

Despite this, the Israeli electorate recently voted for a military solution, for harsher repression, more beatings, more killings, more deportations, more religious fundamentalism. In early November 1988, newly victorious Prime Minister Shamir declared the first task of his new government would be the dispersal of the Palestinian refugee camps, begining with Jabaliya in Gaza. To the resolutions of the PNC, Shamir responded with skepticism and distrust, asserting repeatedly that he would never negotiate with the PLO and that there would never exist a Palestinian state. Shamir has been equally negative to the idea of a United Nations sponsored peace conference.

Apart from dreams of Eretz Israel, (an Israel that includes all of Jordan and much of Lebanon and Syria), the economic costs of relinquishing control over the Territories portends loss of water from the West Bank (of the Jordan River) and the loss of cheap Palestinian labor. Furthermore, the Territories represent Israel's second largest export market (after the U.S.), literally a captive market, and a principal source of taxation revenues. Contrary to Geneva Convention laws and United Nations resolutions, scores of Jewish settlements were installed in the Territories years ago precisely in order to "cleanse" the area (of Palestinians) and claim the Territories as Israel's own. Inclusion of the Territories have long ago been built into the Israeli psyche, together with Eretz Israel.

What pressures can force Israel to the negotiating table? Beginning with the premise that Israeli autonomy and Palestinian repression are functions of U.S. funding, we need examine the source of that funding, namely Congress. From the American Jewish Congress we learn that more than a majority of Democratic funds on a national level, and as much as a quarter of Republican funds have come from Jewish (pro-Israel) sources. Given that nearly every Democratic Congressperson and Senator (and most important Republicans as well) are either in the pockets of the American-Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC) or deathly afraid of its power, funding for Israel is hardly a question. The real question is Bush's willingness and ability to interdict that funding. Can he slow it, impede it, go around it, and at what cost?

Finally, the Intifada has had its impact on American public opinion, a majority of which now supports the right of Palestine to exist and objects to massive US funding for Israel. In 1984, only one Palestinian-related issue appeared on the American electoral ballot. In 1988, there were four and, despite heavily-funded AIPAC opposition, one of them (favoring an end to the Occupation) won. Even the Democratic Party felt the heat at its Atlanta convention where Jesse's platform plank calling for Palestinian rights was among the most contentious. Translating public opinion into mainstream political action is a long and arduous task, but the seeds are definitely sown.

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