The author is a retired professor of philosophy and former representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Jerusalem
As someone who is a year younger than Israel and has lived in Jerusalem for a longer period of time, I feel alienated from the horrors being conveyed now about the suffering of Israeli civilians and the destruction of entire residential areas in Gaza.
I grew up believing that we Palestinians surrendered much of our country to Jewish settlers in 1947-48 because of conspiracy and betrayal, not strength or planning. So I was shocked in 1967 to discover that what I thought was a weak Israel, largely dependent on foreign powers, turned out to be able to crush the armies of three major Arab countries in six days.
My shock soon turned into curiosity about the secret power Israel possessed. I decided to take a look inside the enemy myself, just in case I could discover the secret. One thing that shocked me was that even their leaders lived very frugally. Another discovery was the government’s care for its people from the outset – including health, housing and national insurance – and its proud self-identity as Jews who care for each other.
I spent time on the kibbutz, listening to the voices of young and old, and hearing their raw love for what they believed to be an ideal future state. I couldn’t help but feel awe. My Enemy is an admirable human experiment. I decided that the Palestinian tragedy with which I had grown up was relegated to my irrevocable past and that it must be replaced by a shared future for Palestinians and Israelis.
Later, I held a teaching position at Birzeit University in the occupied West Bank. I am filled with hope and determination. My students at the time—all Palestinians—came from all over Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel itself. Many were not much younger than me and were already in prison for resisting the Israeli occupation.
A favorite topic of discussion was the Melian Dialogue—the difficult choice forced by the Athenians on the islanders, submission or death. Is history on the side of the powerful or on the side of the righteous? It’s not hard for most students to come up with their own formula: Fight for justice to the best of your ability.
As Israel saw at the time, universities in the occupied territories became “hotbeds of nationalism” that were shut down (interestingly, Israel’s recent bombing of Gaza also hit places of study). But the resolve only grew stronger. By the late 1980s, a popular movement broke out against the occupation, which these students and colleagues saw as a struggle for freedom and independence.
Israeli intelligence quickly realized that this was a political fight that required a political solution, as did many who believed in a two-state solution. Eventually, Israeli leaders, including Yitzhak Rabin, were convinced by the idea that the Palestinians must be negotiated rather than repressed. The Palestinian Authority was established nearly thirty years ago as a potential government for a Palestinian state.
Since then, prospects for an end to the occupation and the establishment of a Palestinian state in peace with Israel have deteriorated rapidly. The real reason is a conflict between two irreconcilable doctrines—a twisted version of the horse-drawn carriage dilemma of which horse to put in front: Israeli “security, then Palestinian freedom,” or Palestinian of “our freedom and then the security of Palestinians”. all”.
Does this conflict conceal a deeper denial of the reality that two peoples must share the same land—a denial of the basic formula 1+1=2? Maybe. Can it be said that a blind emphasis on security kills the chance for peace? perhaps. Regardless, it paralyzed the negotiation process and aggravated radicals and skeptics on both sides.
In Israel, this manifests itself as a tectonic shift in favor of extremists bent on “taking everything”, a shift that rears its ugly head in the struggle for judicial reform (and democratic values). In Palestine, it manifests itself in failed plans for power, a struggle against growing disillusionment with peace and a losing battle with the long-abandoned option of military struggle, now embodied in the Hamas-ruled pressure cooker called Gaza. So last Saturday was a shock not of “if” but of “when” and “how”. If you haven’t mastered this basic formula, you will always be like this.
This week, I have in mind a long list of former students and colleagues who are committed to the prospect of a just peace, as well as a long list of friends and acquaintances in Israel who share the same dream and strive for it. I remember our allies on the Gaza border shaking hands with us in the early 1980s. I remember Israeli academics participating in a protest against another wall on the campus of Al-Quds University. I remember colleagues driving to the hills south of Hebron on Shabbat to stand next to a community of shepherds being harassed by Israeli settlers.
I think of the good people from all walks of life on the other side of the divide who believe that we can and must work together to build an ideal future for our two peoples—and I cannot help but feel that our dreams are victims of betrayal. This tragedy. Reports once again reduce us all to perpetrators and victims, and the endless shifts from one to the other reflect a blindness to the unresolved shared human tragedy that was born in 1948 and that seems determined to continue to haunt us.
Svlook
