True friends of Israel oppose Sharon's war
By Yossi Beilin
The Boston Globe
4/9/2002
GOOD FRIENDS can not only disagree from time to time, but are actually better friends for their willingness to offer frank advice, as President Bush demonstrated with his recent speech on the Israeli-Palestinian crisis.
When the world was simpler and based on a bipolar political system, friendship was also simpler. Friends of Israel were those who understood that Jews, too, deserved to have a state of their own after the Holocaust and the terrible sufferings they had endured. These friends were proud that Israel was a democratic state and understood its need to defend itself against Arab states that refused to recognize it. They largely attributed the Palestinian refugee problem that was created in 1948 to a Palestinian leadership that encouraged the Arabs to leave their homes only to return later together with the victorious Arab armies that would destroy the new State of Israel.
The friends of the Arab states viewed Israel as a foreign body existing within the Middle East. They did not understand why the Palestinians had to pay the price of the European Jews' Holocaust and viewed Zionist immigration as part of a colonialist process driving another people into oppression. They viewed the Palestinian refugee problem as resulting exclusively from their eviction by the Israelis and from brutalities committed against the refugees in some villages.
The world has changed. It is now a multipolar world dominated by one superpower - the United States. The process that was triggered by the Israeli-Egyptian agreement of 1978 and continued with the Madrid Conference of 1991, the Oslo accords of 1993, and the Israeli-Jordanian peace agreement of 1994 has generated a completely new situation.
Friendship with the Arab side is compatible with friendship with Israel and vice versa. True friendship with Israel and true friendship with the Arab side means true support for peace, which can save both Israel and the Arabs from continued violence and even more victims.
Rob Malley, an adviser to former President Clinton, recently noted that Clinton was Israel's greatest friend and the Palestinians' greatest friend. He was right. President Carter, too, was a great friend of Israel and Egypt, while President George H.W. Bush was equally a friend of Israel and of the Arab states.
A friend who tells Israel, you are right in all respects, keep on fighting, you have no real partner for negotiation, and you are doomed to live by the sword, is no real friend. This is the worst message that Israel could receive. The hope of Israel is to live a normal and safe life not as a foreign body surrounded by enemies who wish its destruction but as an integral part of the Middle East. Anyone who can help us achieve this goal is our true friend.
Palestinian terror is indeed cruel and horrible. Israel's desire to respond to it is understandable. However, the war that the Sharon government has embarked upon cannot succeed in subduing the terror. Terror begins in minds and hearts, and it can be uprooted only by Israeli-Palestinian cooperation, not by force.
The quietest periods in recent years have been during close cooperation between the Israeli and Palestinian security establishments to the benefit of both sides. Destroying the Palestinian Authority's infrastructure is a terrible error because, although it is tainted by terror, it contains within it the potential of renewed cooperation for which there is no better alternative.
The war against the Palestinians is one that will increase the hatred and desire for revenge. It will weaken moderate Arab regimes and undermine existing agreements between Israel and the states that made peace with it. The war will create a new focus of danger in the world.
True support of Israel does not mean support for continuing a purposeless war but rather support for its quick termination. The objectives of Israel's true friends are: quieting things down, rehabilitating the Palestinian Authority, marking a distinction between those whose purpose is terrorism and the pragmatic groups that aligned themselves with terrorism as part of this terrible escalation but who will be prepared to disavow it, a cease-fire agreement that the Palestinian Authority is capable of implementing, and a speedy return to the negotiating table toward a permanent status agreement.
The hope is that President Bush's speech is a first step in this direction. Time is running out, and real friendship is needed more than ever.
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Yossi Beilin is a former Israeli justice minister.
This story ran on page A19 of the Boston Globe on 4/9/2002.
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