What "missed opportunities"? Fifty-six years after the establishment of the state of Israel, Hassan Nafaa* explains why they hate us It has been 56 years since Israel was created. It has been a century or so since plans to create Israel were initiated. And yet, Israel's creation has triggered a conflict that is still causing immense havoc and likely to continue to do so. All attempts made to resolve that conflict, by military or peaceful means, have failed, and the prospect of final settlement is slimmer than ever. Interestingly enough, the time spent in managing this conflict militarily is almost equal to that spent in peaceful endeavours. Each stage has witnessed dramatic changes that gave one side or another hope for winning. The first stage (1948- 1973) witnessed four wars (1948, 1956, 1967, 1973). The second phase (1974-2000) witnessed several peace moves: Camp David accords (1978), the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty (1979), the Madrid conference (1991), the Oslo accords (1993), the Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty (1994), and the second Camp David talks (2000). Some of the wars boosted Israel's hopes for a military win (1948, 1967), while others dampened those hopes (1956, 1973). As for the various "peace" agreements signed so far, these were a way of managing the conflict, not of solving it once and for all. It is perhaps useful, therefore, to turn the anniversary of Israel's creation into an occasion to contemplate what has happened and what is to come. The political and intellectual scene in the Arab world at present is sadly dominated by those who see the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict as one of missed opportunities. We hear them telling us that the main reason the conflict endured is that the Arabs have been unable to utilise the opportunities that came so often along. The Arabs, we are told, have always ended up accepting things they rejected earlier. The Arabs have a bad sense of timing, it seems. Allow me to disagree. The Arabs have not been given, at any time throughout this conflict, one real chance to solve it once and for all. To think otherwise would be tantamount to self- flagellation. Would not Israel and Western countries enjoy seeing us do just that? Arab countries have erred, sometimes seriously, but their main error was not that of missing opportunities. Their main error was their failure to mobilise resources and act in unison. To reiterate, the Arabs have not been given one real chance to resolve this conflict once and for all. What I am saying this may seem odd, but bear with me. First of all, the main, and perhaps only, reason for this conflict is the existence of a project formulated by the Zionist movement and sponsored by powers wishing to dominate the region. The main goal of this project has been, and still is, the creation of a state in Palestine that any Jew in the world can "return" to, inhabit, and enjoy its citizenship. This project is not yet complete, although it started over half a century ago. And those in charge of this project have not, and will not, give it up. They have used and will continue to use all available means, legitimate and illegitimate, to push this scheme through to the final end. They will use wholesale or piecemeal tactics, according to domestic, regional, and international circumstances. As for the Palestinians, they have always been in a state of self-defence, faced with an overwhelming onslaught against their land and identity. The sympathy of some Arabs and Muslims with the Palestinian cause, for reasons related to national security or solidarity, has never, at any stage, reached the level of Israeli-Western collaboration. This is why the balance of power has been so tilted right from the start. The Arabs and Muslims have -- at least theoretically -- the power to deal with this challenge, but have never used that power effectively. Anyone contemplating the articulately choreographed process of turning the Zionist project from a dream into reality would easily see that the Zionist movement and its allies have always had the initiative. Had the Zionists and their allies truly wanted to reach a compromise or a historic reconciliation, they would have succeeded a long time ago. Because they knew time was in their favour, the Zionists took a gradual approach to the implementation of their project, seeking to strengthen themselves and weaken the enemy, building on the achievements of one phase before moving onto new ground. Throughout this effort, the Zionists kept hidden the final and complete objectives of their project, leaving others to speculate. The Zionist project, it is being said, aims to build a purely Jewish state from the Nile to the Euphrates. When the Balfour Declaration was made, the objective was to create a Jewish "homeland" in Palestine. Assurances were made that this "homeland" does not imply a "Jewish state". When the Balfour Declaration was accepted by the League of Nations, the mandate clearly stipulated that the rights of the original inhabitants, the Arabs of Palestine, were to be protected. What happened on the ground was a totally different matter. Palestinian land was seized through legitimate and illegitimate means. The new immigrants coming to Israel were armed with the knowledge of the British occupation forces, in preparation for creating a "Jewish state" by force if need be. When the vote on the proposals of the fact finding commission was taken at the UN General Assembly, immense international pressures were exercised to push the partition decision through. The Arab rejection of the partition was not a missed opportunity. This is because granting the Jews 56 per cent of the historic Palestine was no guarantee that the Zionist movement would stop at that. This partition decision was not merely unjust. It was made by an entity that had no power to decide unilaterally on the fate of a nation; that had no power to pass a binding decision. Israel was fully prepared for the 1967 War, a war that gave it 22 per cent more of the land of Palestine than the area specified in the partition decision. In this war, Israel drove one million Palestinians from their land and homes, creating a problem of refugees that persists to this day, complicating the search for solution. Between 1953 and 1955, when a chance for a settlement became likely through US mediation, President Gamal Abdel-Nasser seemed willing to accept a compromise solution involving recognition of Israel and normalisation of relations. Borders would have been slightly adjusted, with Israel keeping an area equal to what the partition decision mentioned, and Egypt having a corridor linking it with Arab countries to the east. Israel rejected the proposals out of hand and began looking for reasons to impose a military solution. It raided Gaza in 1955 and the next year it spearheaded the Suez campaign. Following the 1967 War, the Arabs softened their demands, expressing willingness to settle for the 1967 borders and the return of Palestinian refugees. Israel, again, torpedoed all chances for a solution along these lines. Had Israel agreed to withdraw to 1967 borders, the problem of East Jerusalem would have been automatically solved and the problem of refugees would have been sorted out somehow. But Israel insisted on regarding the occupied Palestinian territories as disputed land to be partitioned. Even after Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel, the latter went on intensifying its settlements in the West Bank and Gaza on an unprecedented scale. When one of Israel's leaders signed the Oslo accords with the PLO, the extreme right- wing in Israel had him killed. This is the same extreme right-wing that has since succeeded in demolishing the Oslo accords. The deal that Barak proposed in the second Camp David talks was not, in my opinion, one leading to a permanent solution, for it did not involve full Palestinian or Islamic sovereignty on Al-Aqsa mosque, nor did it recognise the right of return for the refugees. The solution that Sharon now presents involves a unilateral disengagement plan in Gaza. This plan would supposedly pave the way for future talks with a moderate Palestinian leadership. To be called moderate, this leadership would have to prove its eligibility through action aimed to liquidate Palestinian resistance factions, even before it is given the honour of sitting at the negotiations table with Sharon. If successful in the talks, the moderate Palestinian leadership would be given about 42 per cent of the West Bank. This would enable it, over 10 years, to create a disarmed Palestinian state over 10 per cent of historical Palestine. Sharon sees his offer as generous. And he was rewarded by Bush through a letter of guarantees endorsing Israel's position on the refugees and the 1967 borders. Amazingly enough, Likud rejected the plan, which must have been a blow to Bush who has just given Sharon unprecedented promises. Whether this was a pre-planned manoeuvre or a true difference in opinion, Likud knew that Bush will not be able to retract the guarantees that he had made, certainly not in an election year. The Zionist lobby in the US is, as always, ready to turn Sharon's proposals into a ceiling for Palestinian hopes. Henry Kissinger, in an article published in As- Sharq Al-Awsat on 9 May, claims that the Bush- Sharon initiative provides the Arabs and Palestinians with a great chance. Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, he says, would give the chance for a progressive and peaceful Palestinian entity to fill the vacuum of power. The withdrawal is more useful to coexistence in the region than any negotiations, Kissinger argues. I wonder, is this really a chance for a settlement, or is it yet another attempt to make the world and the Arabs accept Israel's vision of a settlement, a vision which revolves around the creation of a greater Israel? This region is in dire straits, not because the Arabs are not willing to seek a solution or even compromise, but because Israel has kept the conflict going, rejecting compromises, and edging ever closer to its final aims. Whenever security needs are discussed, the only security that seems to matter is that of Israel, a country that has 500 nuclear warheads, a country that has amassed an extensive arsenal of mass destruction weapons, a country that has one of the world's best trained and equipped armies. The security of the Arabs is never discussed. No one is giving any guarantees for Arab security. It is as if the violation of Arab nations and their land is the only means of achieving the security of Israel and its Western allies. When Iraq is invaded and occupied and its sanctities are so flagrantly violated, does this not give us the right to ask: why do they hate us? What happened to them on 11 September was a passing incident, perpetrated by a minority that does not represent our people or governments. What they have been doing to us for decades is policy -- official, systematic, and racist. * The writer is professor of political science at Cairo University.
