It was
never really about the timing. Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu’s apology to US Vice President Joseph Biden enabled
the Tel Aviv University speech to conclude the visit on an up
note. The ice-cold water from Washington came only after the
prime minister thought that he had successfully passed through
the storm.
The current government has excelled at putting the country on a
collision course with the rest of the world. Unfortunately, the
government and the media are focusing attention on the
relationship with the US and completely missing the real point
of our predicament. It is not about our relationship with
Washington, it is about our existence in the region and our
relationship with our direct neighbors. It is time for the
Israeli public to wake up from the hibernation of a long spring
of calm and comfort. The hot summer is approaching and with it
disaster.
The country needs to make a choice; there is no escape from
making tough decisions. The clock is ticking and soon the choice
will be made for us, if we don’t decide on our own. The “status
quo” of business as usual, a sense of personal security and the
illusion that we can keep the territories and make peace with
our neighbors is about to end.
SINCE THE signing of the Oslo agreement in 1993 the Jewish
population living over the Green Line has increased by 300
percent. Even as Netanyahu repeats the “two states for two
peoples” mantra, we continue to build more housing units over
the Green Line. The so-called building freeze is no more than an
exercise in self-delusion. The binational reality of life over
the Green Line is apparent to anyone who crosses it.
The Palestinian leadership remains firmly committed to the
two-state solution, but it too knows that the chances of
partition based on the Green Line are rapidly fading away. Yes,
the Gaza disengagement proved that settlements can be removed,
but Israel is so deeply entrenched over the Green Line that a
vision of peace based on an independent Palestinian state on
those territories seems virtually impossible.
The country has apparently made its choice – it prefers
territories to peace. By our own hands, we are putting an end to
the Zionist enterprise. A people that occupies another and
denies it self-determination, liberation and freedom cannot be a
free people in its lands.
THE AVERAGE Palestinian and more so the intellectuals are
voicing a new understanding: There is no longer a chance to
establish an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza with
east Jerusalem as its capital. A new strategy is developing and
Israelis should be worried about what this strategy will mean
for them.
Phase one of the strategy will be what is already being termed a
“white intifada.” This is a strategy for massive civil
disobedience and a refusal to cooperate with the occupation.
This strategy is based on non-violent confrontation with the
occupation authorities. We have seen evidence of this in Bil’in,
Ni’lin, Budrus, Masara and other places that are so far
unfamiliar to Israeli consciousness. The Palestinian Authority
is actively advancing the boycott of settlement products and
will soon encourage Palestinian workers to stop working in
settlements.
The challenge will be to stick to non-violence and to finetune
their message. The political purpose of the struggle will be to
give the two-state solution a final chance. The Palestinians
will seek to gain international support as they will capture the
higher moral ground. The world will see images of IDF soldiers
shooting at unarmed crowds, including women and children, in
points of confrontation at roadblocks and checkpoints, and
around settlements.
Palestinians will design symbolic acts of removing roadblocks,
building in Area C controlled by Israel, setting up roadblocks
on settlement roads to stop and check Israeli drivers and more.
Thousands will be arrested, many shot and possibly killed. Every
use of force against Palestinian defiance will result in
increasing support for them around the world and the continued
rapid deterioration of support for Israel.
IF THE strategy of nonviolent confrontation fails, if the price
is too high to pay or if, God forbid, it turns to violence, the
Palestinian national movement will drop the strategy of seeking
an independent state and will call openly for full democracy
within Israel – one person, one vote. This strategy will
eventually be embraced by the international community as the
growing delegitimizing of Israel gains strength.
This year there were 40 university campuses around the world
taking part in the “Israel Apartheid Week” campaign; next year
it might be 400 or more. Once the Palestinians adopt the
strategy of “democracy” as their solution, they cannot lose. It
will only be a matter of time before the world treats Israel
like it treated the last white government of South Africa.
Most of the world, and certainly the entire Arab world, has
never really comprehended that the State of Israel is a
nation-state of the Jewish people. Most of the world thinks of
Jews as a religion and not a people. The opportunity to support
a “democratic” solution to the conflict will be warmly embraced
and supported because it makes more sense than partition, which
gives the Palestinians only 22 percent of historic Palestine.
Israel will lose the battle. There is no longer a way to prevent
the Palestinians from becoming a free people in their land. The
only way to ensure that the Jewish people will remain a free
people in our land is by making the decision to end its
occupation over the Palestinian people. All settlement building
must end now, not because of our relationship with the US but
because we cannot advance peace until we do so. If we want to
continue to build in those areas that will eventually be annexed
to Israel, we must first negotiate an agreed border and
territorial swaps.
The days of unilateralism are numbered. Israel will not be able
to annex more than 3% of the West Bank, which would accommodate
some 80% of the settlers. There simply is not more than that in
equal territory to swap. Jerusalem must become a shared capital
– if we don’t share it, we will surely lose it as the eternal
capital of the Jewish people.
The realities of a need for an immediate course change are so
unambiguous that without it our survival as a Jewish and
democratic state is sure to end.
The writer is the co-CEO of the
Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information (www.ipcri.org)
and an elected member of the leadership of the Green Movement
political party.
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