By Ira Sharkansky
JERUSALEM–We all know that the devil is in the details, and that the language of politics is hyperbole.
Those two platitudes will come together in the “proximity talks” between Israel and Palestine that the Americans are reminding us that they worked so hard to create. They may well doom the talks, assuming there was any chance that they could succeed. They may also foul the air between Israel and the White House and add to the problems between Israel and Palestine.
A hint of air pollution is surrounding the announcement that Israeli authorities are about to destroy some houses in East Jerusalem built “illegally.” The word in quotation marks is part of the problem. Does it mean some of the many houses built without the proper permits, or only some of those, that were built on public land meant for other purposes? The details will be lost in the shouting about the failure of Israeli authorities to issue building permits for Arabs in East Jerusalem, and counter shouting that Arab families build where they wish, without concern for roads or land claimed by others.
From the highest levels of the American government, we are hearing that neither side should take provocative steps in Jerusalem, and that the side that causes the talks to fail will pay the consequences.
That sounds like what I heard from the principal at the Highland School more than 60 years ago, shortly before she demanded that I hold out my hand and whacked it with a ruler.
This is not a calm period, right after Jerusalem Day when the hyperbole of Israeli politicians was at its height, matched by equally assertive Palestinians insisting on their rights in Jerusalem, and organizing tours in Hebrew, English, and Arabic for those wanting to see the city through their eyes.
In competing for decisions of the American umpire, the Palestinians have an advantage. Not only are they the weaker party with claims of long suffering, but the actions of Israel are easy to see. Building new homes for Jews or destroying Arab structures are exposed to satellites, as well as to Israeli and other organizations doing their best to publicize them.
Palestinian provocations have a much smaller profile, and may defy the willingness of Americans and others to look. While the Palestinians have promised, for the nth time, to avoid incitement, there is no one to my knowledge prowling their school rooms looking for maps that do not show Israel, or listening to the lessons taught under headings of geography or history.
There was an American comment about naming that place in Ramallah after a terrorist.
Was that comment of greater volume, length, or impact than that directed at the Israeli minister who spoke about destroying illegal Arab structures?
Here we are in the messy details of who said what. Charges and hurt feelings may provide the reasons for deciding that the talks have no future.
Israel has a case, but also dirty hands, when it complains about Palestinians honoring terrorists. Those we call terrorists are the people Palestinians call freedom fighters. Israel’s dirty hands appear in the cases of two prime ministers who respectable others used to call terrorists.
Are Palestinian terrorists dirtier than Israeli terrorists? There is no answer that will gain agreement outside of those already committed to one side or another.
Brave and honest people will admit that there is dirt in every national history, and get on with the job of deciding how to move forward without going backward with accusations.
But that isn’t politics.
Show me a politician who operates without hyperbole and I’ll show you a distinguished and cultured loser.
On one side of the continuing performance involving Palestine, Israel, and now the United States we see Palestinian leaders refusing to educate their people on the need for compromise, and demanding that powerful others make Israel give them what they want.
That strategy plays well among Palestinians and assures them support from Muslims and a host of international organizations. Palestinians may actually hope that Israel will cave in, and they will get more than they could from an up front offer to compromise.
Israelis are considerably more flexible. They have offered to share the West Bank and Jerusalem, and to allow a symbolic number of refugees into Israel. It has never been enough for the Palestinians. Their rejections, as well as continued efforts at violence, have weakened Israelis who supported those offers, and have brought to government Israelis who are making a point about not dividing Jerusalem.
Some say that is the language of negotiations, and previous offers may return to the table if Palestinians show enough signs of flexibility.
Others are saying that an uncompromising position on Jerusalem and the settlements, has become the Israeli reality.
There are Israelis who dream that Palestinian nationalism will go the way of the Dodo bird, just as there are Palestinians who dream that someone else will give them what they want.
The occupants of the White House may also dreaming when they imagine that the talks they have worked so hard to produce will deliver anything other than mutually antagonistic hyperbole.
We won’t know for some time, but the noise is already at a level that should wake everybody up and set them to serious work. But that overlooks the nature of politics, as well as the knotty problems of Jerusalem, refugees, incitement, settlements, water, sewage, and a few others. And that only covers the relatively easy case of the West Bank.
My own guess is that problems of a century or more will not bow to the hard work of the American president.
He has come on the scene when Hamas rules Gaza, those in charge of the West Bank are widely viewed by Palestinians as aged and corrupt, and the Israeli left has virtually disappeared.
Maybe we should applaud his efforts. Or pity his naiveté, and hope that he quietly sneaks back to his several other problems, without raising the already high temperature in this region by condemning one or another side for not doing what he wants.
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Sharkansky is professor emeritus of political science at Hebrew University