By Ira Sharkansky
- Ira Sharkansky
JERUSALEM–Now that the Chilean miners are above ground, Israel’s media and those elsewhere will turn to other items. The drama recalls Josef Stalin’s line that one death is a tragedy, while a million are a statistic. It also makes me think about The Ballad of Ira Hays, one of my favorites in a collection of Johnny Cash. It is the story of a Marine among those who lifted the flag in that photograph from Iwo Jima. Hays survived the subsequent fighting, but not the heroic role given him by military and media managers back home.
The first interesting post-Chile headline in our media is that a Palestinian said they will agree to Israel calling itself what it wants, if Israel will agree that Palestine’s borders are those of 1967.
This is one of the possible responses to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s offer of a settlement freeze in exchange for recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. The Palestinians rejected that offer within moments of its announcement, but they do not want responsibility for ending the peace process.
This counter offer, if that is what it is, may only be something put in the wind by a second tier Palestinian. The best guess is that it reflects a crisis among the Palestinians who are faced with American pressure to make peace, and cannot bring themselves to shout back to the Americans that it is impossible as long as Hamas controls Gaza and is threatening to control the West Bank.
If Americans would elect people who take the trouble to understand a place before trying to determine its future, we’d all be better off, but that may be too much to ask of Americans.
Other signs of Palestinian crisis are the strategies reported on Israeli media in recent days during one of the pauses in reporting from Chile.
According to the report, which sounds reasonable, but who knows for sure, Mahmoud Abbas will demand that the United States recognize an independent state of Palestine in the borders of 1967.
If that doesn’t fly, he would ask the United Nations Security Council to recognize an independent state of Palestine in the borders of 1967.
And if that doesn’t fly, Abbas would resign, dissolve Palestinian acceptance of the 1993 Oslo Accords, and leave Israel with full legal responsibility for governing the West Bank and Gaza.
One can only say, “Wow, they really are in trouble.” Forced to participate in the process they did not want, the Palestinian leadership appears to be throwing extreme options in the air, in the hope that someone will do something to give them an achievement, or at least a way to save face before their own people.
Expressions of opposition to Palestinian tactics from Arab capitals came almost as fast as that Palestinian rejection of Netanyahu’s offer. This region is more complex than perceived by the White House.
The easiest course for Americans and Europeans is to demand help for the Palestinians from Israel. Reports are that Israel has received offers of more military aid in exchange for a settlement freeze. We can expect additional carrots and perhaps a few sticks.
Hillary will scream at us.
A breakthrough seems less likely.
The source of the Palestinian crisis is Barack Obama, who pushed prematurely for his place in history. B.O. (Before Obama), the Palestinians were doing well with overseas investment to develop the economy of the West Bank, and improved security forces trained by the United States and Jordan in a program began by the Bush Administration, plus the willingness of Israel to hand over more security responsibilities to Palestinian forces.
Now all those accomplishments are in danger as the obvious barriers to a peace accord are well in sight, and Palestinian violence is inching up.
Palestinian insistence on the borders of 1967 joins some other demands (such as refugee rights and full control of the Temple Mount) as sure losers.
Why 1967, or any other date in the history of a place that has had countless outlines since ancient times? The Palestinian rationale is obvious, but who in their right mind expects Israel to move several hundred thousand Jews who have been living to the east, north, and south of those lines for as much as 40 years?
Fortunately, no Israeli who has managed to acquire a position of responsibility is demanding the boundaries of the initial Balfour Declaration (that would give us control of Jordan), or any of the Biblical definitions for the Land of Israel (one of those might have us knocking on the door of Baghdad). Other options are the lines of a Crusader kingdom, or the shifting borders of various Muslim regimes from the end of the Crusades to World War I.
There is enough work here for cadres of archaeologists, historians, literary analysts, and international lawyers.
Without raising demands made archaic by population movements and the creation of other stable regimes, Israelis may win the competition for the most sane, or the least mad, in this process.
The most likely Israeli territorial demand will begin with the path of the security barrier, which departs here and there from the pre-1967 armistice line. There would still be at least 50,000 and maybe 100,000 Jews on the other side of that barrier. After Gaza, the mood is not favorable for a forced relocation.
The best thing that Americans and other self-appointed right-thinking people can do to advance peace is the Holy Land is to leave it alone. To date, they have brought us to the edge of serious violence. Silence would be better.
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Sharkansky is professor emeritus of political science