After Meeting with Palestinians in Bonn
Daniel J. Elazar
28 April 1985
Professor F.G. Friedmann
Munchen, GERMANY
Dear Professor Friedmann:
I much appreciated your comments on the Bonn meetings, especially
the comparison between the Israelis and the Palestinians, which I
believe is basically accurate. The Israelis are indeed very
concerned with security but the situation in Lebanon is not
parallel to that of the West Bank. Withdrawal from Lebanon still
leaves a wide, sparsely populated buffer zone in the Galilee
between the Lebanese border and the Israeli heartland as wide a
zone as exists in Israel. Moreover, as long as Syria stays where
it is, there is no enemy in southern Lebanon that aspires to annex
any of Israel's territory or is capable of mounting a serious
military offensive against Israel.
This is not the case with Judea, Samaria and Gaza. First of all,
all three are immediately adjacent to Israel's heartland, with no
buffer zone. Indeed, as you have undoubtedly heard many times,
they bring a potentially hostile Arab presence to within less than
10 miles of the sea at numerous points and no more than 15 at any.
This is an intolerable risk, especially since Israelis are
definitely not convinced that Palestinian radicals, including the
PLO, do not still seek to destroy Israel. That is to say, unlike
the Lebanese who simply want the Israelis out, the Palestinians
have parallel claims which they have not renounced.
If the situation in Lebanon had been parallel, I can assure you
that Israel would not have withdrawn, no matter how much trouble
the locals might have caused. Indeed, the Israelis would have
cracked down harder rather than withdraw. It is precisely because
Israel did not need to or intend to hold on to Lebanon that the
Israeli army confined itself to half measures or less. In Judea,
Samaria and Gaza, the Israeli army maintains full control
precisely because there is no possibility of a similar
withdrawal.
I would add that it is a mistake to assume that our argument from
history is merely an ideological justification, as you seem to do.
We are only in the land of Israel becuase of our historic rights,
otherwise we would have no claim at all. The Palestinian Arabs fo
not owe us a refuge from Hitler or any other kind of refuge. We
are there because this is the land of the Jews. We may not choose
to exercise our claims over all the land for the sake of peace,
but they are as real for Jericho as for Tel Aviv and for Nablus as
for Haifa. Indeed, they are in most respects, more real for Judea
and Samaria than for the parts that virtually all Europeans
concede to us.
I cannot agree with the comments of the two Jewish participants
which you cited about young people becoming more militaristic and
less sensitive to other peoples rights because of growing up in an
immoral status quo. I do not believe that Israel is in danger of
losing her soul. I do not see any evidence of this even though
there are some Israelis who have acted in ways repugnant to me and
to most Israelis. One must keep that small group in perspective.
Obviously, I personally thoroughly reject all acts of Jewish
terrorism against Arabs as much as I reject Arab terrorism against
Jews and I certainly have less than no use for Kahane. But, in a
world of extremists and fundamentalists, Israel is singularly
moderate, even if we, too, are beginning to have a few crazies of
our own.
I understand the Palestinians' argument and I believe that they
believe it, although I still have some trouble reconciling that
belief with the fact that it only surfaced after Israel came to
occupy the territory, not before, at which time the Palestinian
Arabs saw themselves as part of a larger Arab nation, no more and
no less. I find it particularly difficult to believe that they
need a separate state west of the Jordan, especially when the
population of Jordan, itself, is overwhelmingly Palestinian (no
less than 60 or even as many as 70 percent) and contains as many
Palestinians as the West Bank. The literature of the PLO makes it
clear that , in its view, Jordan is ultimately to be absorbed in a
PLO state just as Israel west of the green line is to be absorbed.
I do indeed sympathize with the Palestinians and strongly believe
that they should have s state, but in my opinion the heartland of
that state must be east of the river. West of the river they will
have to share rule with the Israelis, rather than demand exclusive
sovereignty. I see no reason why they need two Palestinian states
in a territory whose total area is less than the size of
Pennsylvania.
Your description of the views of the Israelis and Palestinians
was, to me, good and accurate reporting. My response is a
response to them, first and foremost. The question of Jerusalem,
however, seems to be a comment of yours. It seems difficult to me
to argue that Jerusalem does not mean more for Jews than Mecca
does for Arabs. Mecca, for Arabs, after all, has but one role --
it is the place of pilgrimage. It has no association with Arab
national sovereignty or for that matter, reinvigoration as a
result of building a strong Mecca. It is strictly a place of
pilgrimage. It is not to be denigrated for that, but it cannot be
compared to Jerusalem which for Jews, is the embodiment of
national reconstruction, political independence and messianic hope
as well as a holy place of pilgrimage. It is precisely because we
are Jews that the holy places are sufficient. For us it is the
city itself. The fact that it is a living city, not a museum or
simply a place of pilgrimage is what is important.
Incidentally, the Muslim claim for Jerusalem is almost entirely
manufactured since the rise of Zionism. Jerusalem was an utterly
neglected city to which no Muslim came on pilgrimage or for any
other purpose unless he had to, for all the centuries from the
time of the Arab conquest to the time of the British conquest --
that is to say, close to 1300 years. At no point and in no place
is there any reference to Jerusalem as other than as part of a
legendary triad of holy cities. It meant nothing. Only after the
Zionist revival led Jews to emphasize their claim to Jerusalem,
did Arabs pull out the appropriate passages from the Koran and
seek to build a counter claim. It just won't wash.
I quite agree with you that fundamentalism is an almost universal
phenomenon of our time and not necessarily one to be blessed,
although it takes different forms among Christians, Jews, Muslims,
Buddhists, Hindus or whatever. Christian fundamentalists in the
United States may not be particularly attractive to liberals, but
they are far different from followers of Khomeini in Iran. Still,
it is a universal phenomenon. What is characteristic of Jewish
fundamentalism, it seems to me, is that while it has the "back to
the Bible" characteristics of fundamentalism, it does not fight
technology but mobilizes it for fundamentalist purposes. This
keeps Jewish fundamentalists in the real world. How much more so
should Jewish nationalism not be thought of as being the same as
Islamic fundamentalism.
One can have different opinions about nationalism. As a Jewish
nationalist, my opinion is that it is because of the revival of
Jewish nationalism that the Jewish people has been able to stay
alive as a people in our times. Having lost our autonomous
existence in the diaspora and achieved the right of individual
integration into our respective territorial states, which is
something we would quite rightly not give up, the only way to
survive as a group is to have a territory, a Jewish "turf", where
a Jewish community can maintain the full range of Jewish
civilization. The only way to do so in our times is through a
national territorial home and the only way to preserve a national
territorial home is through statehood and politically sovereign
statehood at that. As one who is personally committed to the
federalist ideal, and who is constantly critizing certain Israelis
for exaggerated notions of what national political soveregnity and
statehood means, as one who firmly believes that no nation or
state is politically sovereign today in the way that classic
political theorists presented the case for soverign statehood
three and four centuries ago, I am not certain that I would have
designed a world in which political sovereignty is so important,
but that is the world we have and I would rather not lose the
Jewish people and its civilization by being the only ones to
abjure political sovereignty or its necessity.
As to the Palestinian Arabs, not every people can have political
sovereignty over exactly the territory it claims. We Jews have
already given up a good share of our territorial claims through a
series of partitions and I believe are even prepared to give up
exclusive exercise of of sovereign powers in part of the territory
that remains, namely Judea, Samaria and Gaza. The Palestinians
must be prepared to make a similar accommodation -- to build their
state east of the Jordan River and to share rule with Israel in
those territories to the west known today as the West Bank.
Once again, it was good meeting you. I look forward to other
opportunities to be together, perhaps in Israel.
