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The last electoral campaign for the Knesset, Israel's parliament, held in January, had a curious feature. The topic of Palestine, which has been constantly talked about in the country for the last 65 years, was not on the agenda. None of the major parties seemed to know what to do and which direction to go in with the peace negotiations with the Palestinians.
The most plausible explanation can be found in the opinion polls. A survey conducted by Gallup in September 2012 indicated that 70% of Jewish Israelis firmly or moderately supported any agreement with the Palestinians. But 64% simply disbelieved that possibility. Among non-Jews, 89% gave their support to peace, while those who were pessimistic about its success represented only 39%.
Mikhail Frunze/Opera Mundi
Palestinian children climbing wall in Hebron, a city in the West Bank with Jewish and Arab population under Israeli occupation
The heads of the parties might have understood this situation as if they were dealing with a customer that likes the goods he sees in the display window, but doesn´t think he can buy them. To avoid the risk of colliding with those dubious feelings, there was silence. But few doubt that this issue persists as a major watershed in the country.
Since then, the leaders of the right, such as the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, began to speak of a two-state solution, and many analysts see four large blocks battling for the direction to be followed on this agenda.
The most conservative block has its roots among the settlers in the occupied territories and is voiced by the ultra-right parties such as the Jewish Home of Naftali Bennett, and sectors of the Likud Beiteinu list aligned with former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. Although they have mitigated their claim to fix the boundaries of Israel from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean, they oppose the creation of a Palestinian state and want the annexation of large areas of what they call Judea and Samaria, known in the rest of the world as the West Bank.
“There is no solution to this problem in the short and medium terms,” says Danny Dayan, a Jewish Argentine who arrived more than 40 years ago in Israel and is one of the main leaders of the settlements. “The best way is to maintain the status quo, with the Palestinians controlling certain cities and Israel helping to improve their living conditions. This land is ours, we came back after two thousand years, but we can accept to coexist with other people, as long as they respect our sovereignty.”
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Yigal Palmor, spokesman of the Foreign Ministry: “measures we have adopted are related to the security problem”
People like Dayan advocate the incorporation of 60% of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, occupied since the 1967 war. The Jewish Home's leader himself has made it clear that he considers the city a nonnegotiable bastion. A 1980 law, by the way, formally unified the city as the capital of the state, although the international community considers this decision a violation of UN resolutions.
Two States
A wide range of forces, including the leftmost sectors of Zionism to the Israeli-Arab leaders, form the block very favorable to the two states, with Israel retreating to the pre-1967 borders and Jerusalem being divided. Prominent participants in the negotiations with the Palestinians give public face to this option.
Alon Liel is one of these people. He was the Israeli ambassador in South Africa and general director of the Foreign Ministry. His house, on a hill near Jerusalem, is filled with photos of him in the company of Nelson Mandela. “Israel has organized a system of apartheid in the occupied territories”, he says. “The model is the South African Bantustans, without any real opportunities for autonomy and subordinated to military control. The situation is shameful. We are submitting the Palestinians to discrimination and exclusion measures which, in the past, victimized Jewish people.”
The former diplomat refers to the terms the Palestinian Authority existence, which has six cities under its jurisdiction, but without territorial continuity. Furthermore, the protocols of Paris, signed in 1994, limited financial and trade movements, stating that the region is part of the Israeli economic area. Among other determinations, it can´t issue its own currency. Imports and exports flow through the occupying country, which it is obliged to pass on taxes, but the taxes can´t be applied to goods and service transactions between the two signatories. If there’s no reduction of fees, the Palestinian sector can go beyond 2% below the aliquot practiced by Israel in each category.
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“We practice a colonial policy,” said Menachem Klein, a professor of political science at Bar Ilan University and former adviser to the Labour government of Ehud Barak (1999-2001). “The occupation of the Palestinian territories in 1967 changed the Zionist culture and we started working with the same characteristics of an arrogant invading country. This behavior also affected the internal life of Israel. The two-state solution is not just the only solution for a lasting peace, but also to meet again our roots.”
Process
The third block has Netanyahu as its main interpreter, though it faces difficulties among more virulent peers. The key word in their work is process. Simply put: they want to move towards the two states, but without abrupt resolutions, understanding that it will be a long walk during which the most important thing is the willingness to negotiate.
Mikhail Frunze/Opera Mundi
Michel Warschavski, supporter of the Palestinian cause: Israel wants to “cripple two-state solution”
The spokesman of the Foreign Ministry, Yigal Palmor, rejects accusations of apartheid and colonialism. “The measures we have adopted are related to the security problem, to block the terrorist attacks against Israel,” he says. “There are not permanent policies, but we are exercising our right to self-defense as the two parts can’t reach a lasting and solid peace agreement. The situation is still of conflict and we can´t stop defending our integrity.”
The diplomat didn’t leave any doubts about the government's intentions, when asked whether the prime minister would be willing to negotiate using as a reference the pre-1967 borders. “We have no preconditions and will not accept them,” he says. “What matters is the willingness to sit down and hear the other side. We already made it clear that the Palestinians can discuss whatever they want, including withdrawal from the West Bank and the division of Jerusalem. But they can´t impose that the negotiations have to resume only when we give in to their demands.”
The French-Israeli Michel Warschawski, known as Mikado, leads the Alternative Information Center in Jerusalem, and considers the government's position as a “farce”. Son of a Rabbi and born in France, he is a well-known activist in favor of the Palestinian cause. “All they want is to make time to cripple the two-state solution,” he says. “Ariel Sharon, the last great strategist of Israel, made it clear that it was too early to determine the final borders of the country, one might expect another 50 or 100 years. Small concessions and gestures would be appropriate to avoid pressure and isolation, giving conditions to expand the Jewish presence throughout the West Bank, through the settlements. The construction of the wall is the physical expression of that strategy.”
Palmor answers the suspicion. “Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, forcing the evacuation of settlers,” he says. “We will do the same in other areas when we reach a mutually acceptable agreement. The wall is also not definitive, but it will exist as long as our citizens are threatened by terror.”
The Palestinian Jamal Jumá, from the non-governmental organization “Stop the Wall”, reacts with irony to this justification. “If security was the reason why the wall was not built exactly on the 1967 borders?” he asks. “The fact that they are entering the occupied territories and protecting the settlement blocs reveals the real intentions of Israel.”
Binational State
A fourth block, however, is formed by those who believe that the two-state solution is dead, due to the fact that process of colonization has sliced the territory where there would be the future Palestinian state. “What political or military force will remove the hundreds of thousands who have been helped by the government to build settlements in the occupied territories?”, asks the journalist Gideon Levy, a columnist for Haaretz, the most important opposition newspaper. “Apartheid against the Palestinians will only be dismantled in a binational state, with civil and electoral rights for all. A man, or woman, one vote.”
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Gideon Levy, columnist of Haaretz: “Apartheid against the Palestinians will only be dismantled in a binational state
Seen before as a less than remote possibility, the binational state is starting to gain followers. Deputy Ibrahim Sarsur, from the United Arab List, of Muslim faith, is among its supporters. “If we have a secular state, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean, there is peace,” he says. “The confessional character of Israel is the source of racism, oppression and colonialism.”
President Shimon Peres recently revealed this to be his biggest nightmare, when he emphasized that the absence of an agreement to create a Palestinian state could lead to an exit as both Levy and Sarsur propose. Peres drew the appropriate demographic conclusions, in a region already divided almost in half between the two ethnic groups. “It would be the biggest risk to the survival of the Jewish state in its history,” he said.
Translation: Kelly Cristina Spinelli