Some Thoughts on the Geneva Initiative
By Stephen J. Kohn

For many Israelis the point of departure for the analysis of the Geneva Initiative is not the Initiative itself, but the appropriateness of private citizens negotiating, in fact or appearance, foreign treaties.

Mr. Beilin, his unelectable Israeli colleagues and many foreign "has beens", such as Jimmy Carter, have established a not so new form of governmental structure. "When not in power act as if you are." This totalitarian approach proclaims, "We know it all, dumb people. And if you are not smart enough to vote us in we will try to run the country anyway." This is not a loyal opposition. A loyal opposition certainly has the right to criticize, but not the right to govern. This is a disloyal cabal. Unhappy with the voice of the people, it views its desire to govern as far more important than the vote of the majority.

The issue is not the Geneva Initiative. The issue at hand is the attempt to expropriate the powers of elected leadership. Finding flaws with opposing ideas is normal, healthy and indicative of a vibrant democracy. Usurping the role of elected leadership is either delusional or seditious.

Foreign leaders who support these actions should declare openly, for the sake of consistency, that they encourage the same rebellious actions in their own countries, including support of foreign powers to bring down a standing government.

Some studies show that Israelis reject these illegitimate actions by a ratio of two to one. Israel is a vibrant democracy. We have elections (and energetic Arab parties participate) but the Israeli politicians proposing this plan were losers, big losers with the electorate and in their own parties. There is no restriction on what they say or do and the left-leaning press here gives their position ample, in fact, disproportionate coverage.

While this may seem like quibbling, in this morning's news, Palestinian sources started to measure Israel's actions against the Œtreaty'. No country would tolerate citizens creating intellectual ammunition for its enemy, and frankly, many would be pained to accept outside interference, such as funding by the Swiss government of this whole activity. This is a matter of principal and hypocrisy. During the administrations of Prime Ministers Rabin and Peres, when right wing Israeli politicians and American Jews tried to block actions of the Israeli government through lobbying in Washington, the current proponents of Geneva castigated them. My position is that I live in a democracy. I vote for elected officials. My party is elected or is in the loyal opposition. I respect each side, but those out of power do not have the right to try to assume power or the trappings of it. In the US, this is taken for granted. Not necessarily in Israel. And certainly not by those seeking a photo-op and willing to fly to Geneva for some Israel bashing.

In most countries disloyal activity is not tolerated. During Prime Minister Sharon's tenure there have been dozens of proposals and endless criticism regarding his policies, all within the context of his being the elected leader. I may agree with them or not, but they are all part of a process of democracy in which the majority and the minority factions suggest, even forcefully, but that is the dynamic stability of democracy. The Geneva Initiative is an attempt by a group individuals and foreign governments to create the appearance of government without the authority to do so. Even more important, is that the electorate doesn‚t want or respect what they are doing.

Think of Viet Nam. If during those terrible days of the 1960s, under Presidents Kennedy, Johnson or Nixon, the minority party met with and negotiated its own Œtreaty' with the North Vietnamese" would a line have been crossed? Absolutely. No Logan Act is needed to tell me that! Discussion. Street protests. Even the Ellsberg Papers (with some punishment) can be tolerated, but creating a pseudo government does not fly.

We Know the Solution
The vast majority of the Israeli public supports peace and knows that there will be major territorial compromise and painful steps ahead. Where the line falls and the pain stops is debatable. That a solution is necessary is obvious. We are waiting for the Palestinians to sign and stick with a peace treaty. And we have been waiting since even before the founding of the Jewish state, 55 years ago.

Virtually all Israelis insist on three key points in any agreement:

Territory

Borders. Borders, based on UN Resolution 242, must remove Israel from risk. Despite bad reporting and diplomats' errors, 242 does not demand Israel's total withdrawal to the 1967 line.Withdrawal yes; to the 1967 line no. Two forty two states:

Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories [My emphasis] occupied in the recent conflict;

Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force [my emphasis]

In the Security Council debate following the Six-Day War, the wording "from territories' not "from the territory' was recognized as meaning that territorial adjustments are necessary. And Œlive in peace' clearly means just that and not the deaths of 1,000 Israelis in terror attacks during this peace denying Oslo period. As former Prime Minister Barak stated and as Prime Minister Sharon reiterated last week, painful territorial compromises will be necessary.

Jerusalem has a special meaning to Jews. Jerusalem, long before the advent of Islam, was the holy city for Jews. It is where Jesus, the Jew, preached. It's the city whose downfall 2,000 years ago is memorialized in Rome's Arch of Titus. It is the direction in which Jews have prayed during the Diaspora, for two millennia. It is a city where there has been an ongoing Jewish presence. It is the city where, after the Six Day War, Israel's magnanimity, allowed Moslem worship on the Temple Mount to continue unabated. Abandoning major parts of it and ignoring Jewish history does not work. Arrangements can be very clever, such as the Barak scheme in which the Jews would have been given subterranean rights on the Temple Mount and the Moslems would occupy the surface. (In fact, most rabbinical authorities ban Jews from being atop the Temple Mount.) But cutting out our spiritual heart by ceding major portions of Jerusalem does not increase our chances of survival or willingness to accept a treaty that tampers with this point.

There cannot be a right of return. The Palestinian refugees˜those who left in 1947 should be considered the same as all the other refugees from wars in this century. All the others have long since been resettled. And they certainly are unlike the 800,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries who left their homes during the same period and who were welcomed in Israel. First, when we talk of refugees, only the people who fled are refugees˜as is the case in every other UN refugee program, not each new generation. Secondly, there is one Jewish state. Even thinking of altering the balance of demographics that has prevailed since the liberation of the state cannot be allowed to happen. The Arab countries could have taken in these refugees as citizens. None, excepting Jordan, have granted them citizenship. It just does not work to allow them to return to Israel. And even Mr. Beilin, the key proponent of the Geneva initiative has said this.

Security

An end to terrorism. That must be adhered to by all countries and factions in the region. An Iranian nuclear bomb and a Palestinian Peace Treaty cannot be served up at the same time! Terrorism must be ended and its armed forces disarmed and disbanded. Oslo said that. The Road Map's demands of the Palestinian Authority that it halt terrorism. But they did not stop a bomb laden homicidal terrorist on his way to blow-up a school with 1000 students, in Israel proper yesterday. It was the Israel Defense Forces that did!

There must be limitations on armaments in the emerging Palestinian state. We have been at war, out of necessity, since our liberation. Wars in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1983 and since October 2000 have shown us that this not a peaceful part of the world, in case any had doubts about that. "Beating swords into ploughshares" is our goal, but we have no partners to join us in this task. Arms smuggling tunnels from Egypt; weapons ships from Iran; arms brought in the trunk of Chairman Arafat's car and local weapons factories must stop.

The Palestinian state must be an viable economic entity. The economic history of the first half of the 20th century shows that the Jewish occupied area in this part if the world attracted ten of thousands of Arabs who wished to benefit from the far more advanced economy that even pre-state Israel was. Recent studies under UN sponsorship show that the bulk of the Arab nations have fallen even further behind in their development. One of the prices of the terror war that started almost concomitantly with the signing of the Oslo accords has been a reduction of Palestinian labor in Israel, because of the bomb laden vests too many wore. The Palestinians need a viable economy. If only a fraction of the anti-Israeli reporting had instead been used to cover the thievery of Arafat and his henchman, the impoverished Palestinians would have been in far better financial shape. I want the government of Palestine to accept the responsibility for its economy and residents, not only for security, but for economic reasons. Israel need not provide jobs for the Palestinians, unless it is in its interest. There may be certain accommodations, like providing power or a major port, but there should not be an unnatural dependence. Canada, for example is very rigid about allowing Americans in to work, even for a day. American has a higher and more dangerous fence along its border with Mexico than Israel has built. If the Canadians can do this to the Americans and the Americans to the Mexicans, that is what should be doing with the Palestinians. Letting foreign nationals work here is our decision.


Acceptance

Israel is the Jewish state but does not restrict the rights of non-Jews. There can be no equivocation on this point. We Jews have spent 2,000 years waiting for our return here. But more important, until 1945, Jews were told, "You are not loyal and a true part of the country in which you are living." And in fact, much of Europe has been saying this to Jews since 1967, with the largest anti-Semitic attacks since Hitler currently taking place. The world's nations cannot have it both ways. We are a nation and we will not deny that. And we will not be content until Israel's being "The Jewish State" is accepted, with the non-Jewish minority accepted and respected. That virtually no Arab state will accept us as The Jewish State is not a trivial point. That many Arab states prevent Jewish visitors and citizens seems to always be ignored.

This must be declared, for once and for all, the end of the conflict. Israel must have an end of this conflict, not a cease-fire, which we have had since 1948, but an end, in every respect. This cannot be like the Lebanese withdrawal in which the Hezbollah unilaterally declared all UN and Syrian maps wrong. One and all must say that this is over. And this means all parties, governments and organizations promoting terrorism..

The carefully orchestrated program of anti-Semitism that is reaching 1939 proportions must stop. We Jews are a nervous lot. A third of us were killed in World War II. We have been expelled from most European countries and many Moslem lands, even when our heritage there predated many of the inhabitants. And now, we have become the target not only for Moslems, but any leftist or rightist looking for a villain.

But, Is Geneva the Way?

Any study of the Geneva initiative must examine these nine points. It falls a bit short on some and not very tall on any. So that means we need to look a bit further at the proponents and initiators and why there is such skepticism in Israel, not only on the extra-governmental initiative but about the pedigrees of the Israeli team that shaped its thinking.

And the pedigrees do not give comfort. For many of us, who started out favoring Oslo and Rabin, the Geneva team is not the team to bet on. Why? We did bet on them before, and we lost not only our shirts, but our souls. And in two ways.

One is that we had hoped and prayed that Oslo represented the Œend of war' for us. It has not. Every Israeli is reminded every day that we are under attack. The guard at every school, super market or sporting event˜any place crowds gather˜reminds us that we are the hunted. And I doubt strongly if similar Palestinian institutions are guarded this way.

And souls in another way. There is an unending and unfathomable amount of anti-Israel propaganda (which has now reverted to pure, old fashioned anti-Semitism) about our conduct of this war. This may seem like a lie to the uninitiated, but most Israelis and our soldiers hate what we have to do to protect ourselves. With all due respect to the US Armed Forces, we just would never allow ourselves to conduct a war with the type of bombing of civilian areas that has been necessary and even perhaps justified in Afghanistan, Iraq or Vietnam. The code of conduct we use and the punishment meted out to violators, is rarely reported, and is as good as an army gets. But we also know that many soldiers, because of the ingrained morality here feel that parts of their souls have been lost in this fighting.

And we think about who got us into this mess, the top name on the list is Mr. Beilin. He first forced the hand of Shimon Peres and then they forced the hand of Yitzchak Rabin and they passed the Oslo Accords with a minority of Jewish members of the Knesset (and the bribe of a sub-cabinet seat and car for the one vote margin of victory). This group knew the violations started the day Arafat's car entered Gaza with illegal weapons and known terrorists inside of it. Any questioning of the treaty was viewed as close to treason and taking a position for reconsideration was held to ridicule. Beilin, working during the waning days of the Barak administration tried desperately to get an agreement signed by giving more and more away, and he failed. Not because of the Israeli public or Prime Minister Barak, but because of Arafat.

So not only is the initiative's team known for its incompetence and lack of judgment, but to too many of us they are repeating the same mistakes. And we all know that a person's record should always considered along with his proposed deeds.

If an elected government here, regardless of who was in it, came up with this agreement, it probably would have more support. For a group with no mandate and a terrible track record to come up with such an agreement explains why it is so unpopular. And the leaders of the initiative group, before this, managed to become disliked by most Israelis.

And that means that rather than pushing peace, they squandered their opportunity when in office legitimately. Good politicians always look for the right front man. The inability of the egos sponsoring this to do that damned it from the start.

Israel is a Country, Not a Poodle

And there is one more issue. Jews are very sensitive about being treated differently. Any objective study of the world will tell us that the list of bad countries is quite long and of totally terrorized countries very short˜and we think we are on the top of the list of the terrorized. No sovereign country wants to be lectured to. And as President Bush explained, the Arab countries were coddled for 60 years while too often we were cursed. Were there any statesmen who stood up against Saudi Arabian funding of terrorism and public beheadings, Sudan's murdering of a million Christians, Libya's bombing a 747, Iraq's killing its own, and the countless sins of the dictatorships and tyrants around the world? Somehow, finding fault, in truth and in error with Israel has become the pastime of the UN Secretary General, the Pope, European snobs, Moslem prime ministers and journalists worldwide.

And when this group gathers in Geneva and places most of the blame for the Palestinian crisis on Israel's shoulders, as former President Carter did this week, then you can be sure that a finely developed sense of the unfair and absurd is set alight. It is the sense finely honed in the Jew, who had thought for a few brief years that his survival was not questioned. If Mr. Beilin lit the match, Mr. Carter fanned the flames and we do not want to be the scorched bones that remain.

So, is the Geneva Initiative good? Not so bad I would say. But I do not have to say anything, because in several years I can vote based on the performance of Prime Minister Sharon, or sooner, if the Knesset so moves. I do not believe in sedition and that is what the Geneva Initiative is. No Western democracy would take easily to sedition on its shores and atop its mountains. And no mid-Eastern dictator would allow the seditious to survive. Mr. Beilin lives in a free and thriving democracy and it is a shame he did not give it a chance. He did give the voters a chance last year and he failed to be nominated in his party and failed to be elected by another party he ran with.

We Israelis want peace and do not want to subjugate another people. Its day will come and we will dance in the streets without fearing the shrapnel studded bombs loved by Palestinian terrorists. We probably would have given far more to achieve it, even three years ago. A mendacious Palestinian leader, cowardly terrorists, biased journalists, statesmen that love the limelight but not responsibility and Israeli politicians who it find easier to demonize their follow citizens rather than the rogues living down the coast and atop the mountains looking down on us in this tiny land have made us very suspicious.

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Stephen J. Kohn is a former American business executive who moved to Israel 12 years ago, enough time to see the few ups and the many downs of the Oslo Accords.

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