Time to get real
Barbara Grant

Those who blame Israeli oppression for the violence in the Middle East are ignoring the evidence.

Monday June 30, 2003
The Guardian (United Kingdom)

It must be unusual for the MP of a leafy Surrey constituency and one of her constituents to meet each other for the first time in Israel.

But two weeks ago Dr Jenny Tonge, MP, together with Oona King MP, William Bell of Christian Aid, and two assistants, sat round a table in a flat in Jerusalem with eight ex-Brits who now live in Israel.

Dr Tonge reported on her trip to the Middle East in her article Time to get tough http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,10551,983467,00.html . I am the constituent referred to in that article.

For two hours we talked courteously and listened respectfully. I really thought we had given the visitors from Britain a deeper understanding of the reality and complexity of the situation here. I thought they understood how desperately we Israelis want peace, after 55 years of defending ourselves against surrounding Arab states, who have attacked Israel five times since it was created.

I thought they understood that there is massive suffering, physical, psychological and economic, among the Israeli population, as a result of the vicious terrorist war being waged against us. I thought they understood that nothing justifies terrorism and that there will never be even a chance of peace until the terrorist infrastructure is totally dismantled.

And so it was with sadness and disappointment that I read Dr Tonge's article and saw very little evidence that our messages had been heard.

The sadness was caused also by knowing that the Palestinians are still living in the same dire poverty that they lived in under Egyptian rule prior to 1967, in spite of the billions of dollars of international aid given to them by the EU, UN and individual countries. And also by an understanding of the connection between this poverty and the fact that Arafat recently made it to Forbes' list of the richest people in the world.

The disappointment was caused also by the realisation that Dr Tonge, like so many other good and sincere people, has been so overwhelmed by the humanitarian crisis among the Palestinians that she sees it as a prime cause of the conflict.

Please do not misunderstand me. No one denies that many Palestinians live in dreadful conditions that must urgently be alleviated. But to focus on the humanitarian crisis of the Palestinians and the counter-terrorist actions of the Israeli army, and to believe that those issues are at the core of the conflict, is to ignore the clear evidence of words and deeds, as well as of history, geography and common sense.

It ignores the fact that Israel has a proven track record in achieving peace, with two treaties signed, based on recognition in return for land. Today, Egypt and Jordan have demilitarised borders with their neighbour. In contrast, Syria and the Palestinian Authority walked out of peace talks structured on a similar premise.

But the Palestinian narrative, which Dr Tonge and many others have accepted, goes something like this: Israel, the stronger party (and therefore somehow automatically in the wrong) is oppressing the Palestinians, and must stop.

Once Israel stops oppressing the Palestinians, they will stop strapping explosive belts to themselves and blowing themselves up in Israeli buses, pizza parlours, and shopping centres. The Palestinians must have a state, and both sides will then live together in peace and harmony.

This line of reasoning is fundamentally flawed because it ignores so much. It ignores the fact that the Palestinians have been offered a state several times in the last 55 years, and have consistently refused it in favour of violence.

It ignores the fact that the Palestinians lived for years in abject poverty under Egyptian rule in Gaza and Jordanian rule in the West Bank and never claimed a state.

It ignores clear statements from the Palestinian leadership that their ultimate aim is the elimination of Israel, through the effects of terrorism or demographically through the so-called "right of return", and the overwhelming support for this aim in the Palestinian population. It ignores the messages of hatred, and incitement to violence conveyed consistently by PA media, school textbooks, sermons, street posters, exhibitions, and it ignores the effect of these messages on the next generation of Palestinians.

We in Israel see and hear the profound mismatch between the messages in Arabic and the messages in English, between the words and the deeds, and we despair.
Dr Tonge calls on us to "resist the commonly held view that the terrorists, backed by Palestinians and indeed the Arab world, will drive them into the sea". I am sure she watches BBC or Sky News, reporting Palestinian leaders as they are interviewed in English. They denounce terrorism, speak of dialogue and negotiation and talk of two states living side by side in harmony.

What Dr Tonge and many others do not see or understand are these same people talking in Arabic. They do not hear the continuous praise for suicide bombers and their barbarous acts of premeditated mass murder.

They do not see the exhibition in Nablus, complete with artificial body parts and blood, which re-enacts one of the bloodiest terrorist attacks at the Sbarro pizza parlour in Jerusalem, when a suicide bomber blew himself up among a crowd of teenagers and families, killing nearly 20 and maiming hundreds.

They do not go into a Gaza mosque and hear the imam say: "We are the nation of Palestine; our fate from Allah is to be the vanguard in the war against the Jews until the resurrection of the dead, as the Prophet Mohammed said: 'the resurrection of the dead will not come until you do battle with the Jews and kill them, you on the east side of the river, and they on the west side'. All the agreements that are made are temporary, until the command shall come from Allah, until the destiny from Allah shall be realised."
They do not see rallies where children march and tots are carried on their fathers' shoulders wearing headbands saying "Palestine from the river to the sea." and where an eight year old boy is dressed as a suicide bomber.

But these are our neighbours, and we desperately want a way forward that will enable us to live at peace with them. As Dr Tonge says, the road map is the only game in town.

The first phase of the road map calls on Israel to ease travel restrictions, improve the situation at roadblocks and gradually withdraw to allow the Palestinians to assume responsibility for security. Israel has done all this. The first day that travel restrictions were eased, four Israeli soldiers were killed at a checkpoint in a proudly proclaimed joint operation involving three terrorist groups, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.

The road map requires the Palestinians to issue an unequivocal statement reiterating Israel's right to exist in peace and security and calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire.

It also says that all official Palestinian institutions must end incitement against Israel, and that Palestinians must declare an unequivocal end to violence and terrorism, and undertake visible efforts on the ground to arrest terrorists. None of this has been done. Why, then, is Dr Tonge calling for sanctions only against Israel?

Israel's economy has already been ruined by the unrelenting terrorist campaign waged against her. Tourism and the building trade have been particularly hard hit, causing massive unemployment, which has affected the Arab sector particularly badly. (Israeli Arabs, who have full voting rights, make up 20% of the population of the country).

One of the few expanding areas of employment is the security industry: guards are now needed outside all public places including schools, places of worship, shopping centres, restaurants and cafes - all of which have been the target of terrorism launched from Gaza and the West Bank.

All that Israel wants - all that Israel has ever wanted - is to live at peace with her neighbours. We do not want to rule over the Palestinians. We do not want yet another generation of our sons to have to go into the army. But we also do not want to commit national suicide by allowing the creation of a Palestinian state dedicated to our destruction, whose borders are as far from our main centres of population as Richmond is from Trafalgar Square.

But listen to something amazing: even after years of an unrelenting terror campaign, which has affected almost every family, Jewish and Arab, in this tiny country whose population is 6 million, surveys still show that a majority of Israelis accept the creation of a Palestinian state if that results in a true and lasting peace. We are told there are moderate voices amongst the Palestinians - where are they? We want to make peace with you.

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The views above represent the personal views of the author and are not necessarily the views of the ICIC