By Ira Sharkansky
JERUSALEM — U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Deal of the Century” keeps getting postponed, but it’s been revealed in pieces.
It seems to involve lots of money for Palestinians to be contributed by a number of Arab governments. And not much by way of providing the Palestinians with a state, a capital in Jerusalem, and nothing like the borders the prevailed before the 1967 war.
So far the Palestinian leadership has rejected anything identified with the United States, seemingly because Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved the US Embassy to the city.
Abba Eban’s comment, that the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity seems relevant once again.
Mahmoud Abbas is in failing health, and so far keeping possible replacements quiet, or manipulating things under the table.
There is security cooperation between the West Bank Palestinians and Israel. Much of this involves seizing mutual enemies from Hamas. And the Palestinians contributed facilities and personnel to Israel’s recent effort against a wave of fires.
There are some seven hundred thousand Israelis living over the 1967 lines, about half in Jerusalem and half elsewhere throughout the West Bank.
Israel is getting along, more or less, with both parts of Palestine. It has security cooperation with the West Bank, and more than 100,000 West Bank Palestinians enter Israel to work; and others for medical treatment and religious observances. Gaza is much different. Israel provides the bulk of fuel and consumer goods, but otherwise the borders (with Egypt as well as Israel) are pretty much closed.
There is occasional violence against Jews in the West Bank, and from Gaza.
Many national leaders, mostly elsewhere, aspire to a Two-State solution, but it’s hard to imagine borders that would appeal to Palestinians. And would Gaza be left as a Third State? Israel isn’t about to move many of those seven hundred thousand or so out of where they are.
There is a Palestinian businessman, from Hebron, Ashraf Jabari, who has created a political party, Reform and Development, in opposition to Abbas that puts the emphasis on economic benefits for Palestinians. He is saying that he’ll attend a Bahrain conference, boycotted by the Palestinian leadership. But Jabari may be making himself irrelevant by standing for a One State solution.
Abbas has indicated his abstention from the Bahrain conference, as well as his condemnation of any who would speak there in the name of Palestine.
It’s hard to find an Israeli politician willing to consider the absorption of two to four million Palestinians as citizens, who would sooner or later have the power to rule the country.
So we are stuck with Israel alongside two Palestinians, each of which has a substantial degree of autonomy, but neither of which is a state?
Can a Palestinian violate the status quo, and decades of education, by accepting something close to what exists? To be enshrined as the status quo? Or at least as the basis of negotiation?
So far such an event is not on the horizon. And while a number of Arab states have reached some kind of arrangement with Israel, none are likely to violate the posture of Palestine in Arab politics by moving clearly to conventional relations with Israel.
There were minor upsets in the recent Eurovision Song Fest, with performers exhibiting Palestinian flags. And there is some support for pressuring Israel via BDS. There’s limited enthusiasm internationally for abandoning support for a Two State solution.
It’s one of the places where Israel exists in the traditional Jewish position of discomfort. That is, not completely recognized with a Capital in Jerusalem, and with lots of Israelis living is what others see as Palestine. Despite Jews chosen to lead Ukraine.
But how bad is it really?
Depends on who’s talking.
At the extreme is MK Bezalel Smotrich. He’s a settler, and the leader of a political faction allied with Jewish Home. Some time ago he came to attention by demanding that his wife and new child not be put in a hospital room with Arabs. He opposes homosexuality and the mixing of Arabs and Jews in neighborhoods. He would not use the term, “terror” for acts of Jews against Arabs, and has advocated a “shoot to kill” policy against Arab children who throw stones.
Israel affiliates with numerous international organizations, but is often the subject of criticism or condemnation.
It is known as a startup state, with number of high tech firms, often aspiring to sell themselves to an international giant.
One doubts that individual Israeli Jews are constrained from realizing their potential, here or elsewhere.
There is a growing incidence of Israeli Arabs who study at Israeli universities, and work throughout the economy. But how integrated is Israeli society, or how penetrable is a glass ceiling are tough questions.
I’ve recently received an article written in the Wesleyan Argus about Wesleyan’s Israel Apartheid Week.
My response:
Wesleyan has an Israel Apartheid Week?
When is the French, or Belgian Apartheid Week?
You might share this article with my PhD, a Palestinian, who is teaching at Bir Zeit University. And whose Dean refused him permission to take part in an academic conference at the Hebrew University, from which he has three degrees.
Or with my neighbor and friend, also with a PhD from the Hebrew University, with whom I occasionally share ideas as we walk together in French Hill.
Or with the numerous other Arabs who study at the Hebrew University and other Israeli universities, many of whom dress just like Israelis and are difficult to tell apart from the Jews.
I find this to be an excellent article with limited exceptions. I doubt that comments about annexing the West Bank are anything more than electoral rhetoric. Settlement expansion is severely limited by the right wing government that expresses support for it. And the peace process and the Two State solution has gone away at least as much because of Palestinian as Israeli opposition.
Some time ago, when there was an increase in Arab stabbings of Jews, I was walking around French Hill and came up to a young couple who were holding hands, walking slowly, and dressed as casually as any Jewish couple. As I approached them the young man looked around suspiciously and was relieved to see it was only an old Jew walking faster. As I passed them, I heard a bit of their conversation, in Arabic.
Apartheid? Horseshit.
Inequality? Of course. More or less than among racial or ethnic groups in Europe or the United States? That’s a tough question.
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Sharkansky is professor emeritus of political science at Hebrew University. He may be contacted via ira.sharkansky@sdjewishworld.com