The Writings of Israel Shamir
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The elusive
peace
EDITORIAL: THE DAILY STAR
For right-minded people everywhere, the quest for peace is the first
thing that comes to mind whenever the subject of the Middle East is
broached. Some of the best intellects in the world have been applied to
this quest, constantly probing in a decades-old expedition to arrive at
the solution for one of the world's most compelling conflicts. But the
reason they have been unsuccessful so far is because they have failed to
accurately define that which they so avidly seek: They know full what
they want for the region but have absolutely no idea what it will look
like when and if they find it. This unfortunate state of affairs was
made almost inevitable by the nature of the Zionist dream and by the
massive resources required of the Zionist project. The belief that God
himself promised Palestine to the Jews was troublesome enough, implying
as it does that non-Jews were somehow inferior. To make matters worse,
though, "building the Land of Israel" would have been impossible without
heavy funding from international Jewry, and it was determined very early
on that attracting such donations could best be accomplished by selling
the process as a venture allowing "pioneers" to "make the desert bloom."
The prime obstacle to this scenario was the inconvenient presence of a
people, the Palestinians, on the land in question and so they were
ascribed the role of "savages" whose lack of civilization justified
Jewish claims to be "taming a hostile climate" in "uncharted territory."
From this troublesome seed came all that has followed, so that even
today, many Israelis advocate what amounts to apartheid as a means to
achieve the "peace" that has been so elusive. They don't call it
apartheid, of course, but the term "separation" fools no one, especially
when one considers the collective fate of those Palestinians who have
accepted Israeli citizenship. Their "separate" villages, "separate"
municipal councils, "separate" schools, and "separate" state services
all have in common that they pale in comparison to those enjoyed by
Israel's Jewish citizens: The Arab-Israeli community has horrendous
unemployment, grossly under-funded municipalities, a comparatively
dilapidated educational system, and paltry access to household and
irrigation water. To make matters worse, they are banned from certain
types of employment, and their political representation has been
deliberately diluted. This sprawling collection of economic and
socio-political depredations cannot help but fuel distress when one
considers that so far, official Israeli visions of peace whether they
contemplate a "final-status" agreement or unilateral "separation" must
of necessity have an even worse fate in store for the Palestinians, who
would not enjoy the "benefits" of Israeli citizenship.
On top of all these temporal issues sits the Holy City of Jerusalem, one
held dear by all of the monotheistic religions but illegally annexed
politically and steadily devoured culturally by a state that freely
admits to speaking only for one: Judaism.
Against this backdrop of institutionalized racism has grown up an Arab
response whose sorrows have been outnumbered only by its failures. US
aid to Israel made military victory impossible, but that was never the
most essential front in the first place: The key venue was the
ideological one, the one that decided the outcome of the propaganda
struggle, the one that determined the two sides' claims to credibility
the one on which the Arab world has failed more spectacularly than on
any battlefield because its leaders lack the cloak of legitimacy that
democracy alone can provide. The Arabs have not fallen behind in this
all-important race because they are stupid, but because their
governments have ranged from the benignly dictatorial to the
unforgivably despotic.
Principal among the failures of these graft-ridden and incompetent
regimes has been their refusal to accept that Israel is home to more
than just the Ariel Sharons of this world. It also features people like
Israel Shamir, whose passionate and eloquent words in defense of Arab
rights graced this page yesterday. This is hardly the first time Shamir
has expressed such enlightened opinions, and his views carry
considerable influence on public opinion in the Jewish state. If Arab
countries were competently ruled, this man would have more invitations
than would be possible for him to accept. Anyone who can help the Arab
cause is ipso facto a friend, be he Israeli or Martian, Jew or
fire-worshipper. What sort of entity rules out the possibility of making
new friends and therefore the chance to change the thinking of its
enemies? One whose faculties are clouded by the laughable notion that
governments know best and must therefore prevent their citizens from
mixing with their opposite numbers on the other side of the great
divide; one whose outmoded dogma seeks to further a siege mentality by
keeping its people from discovering how much they have in common with
those whom they have been told to despise; one whose greatest fear is
that "peace," whatever it looks like, will make tyranny that much more
untenable and therefore jeopardize its own ability to retain power.
Israel Shamir should be warmly invited to visit Arab countries such as
Lebanon, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, where he would no doubt find that the
great majority of people harbor no intrinsic hatred for him or his
religion: After all, Jews lived among Arabs Muslims and Christians both
for an awfully long time before all of the tragedies engendered by
Zionism. The resentments that exist in Lebanon, for example, are the
result of what his governments have done to our country, not of anything
that he as an individual has ever done to any one of us.
After all the stops and starts, after all the conflicting effects of
local and world wars, Arab nationalism, Arab socialism, the Cold War,
and the staggering peace process, the principals Arab and Jew are still
the same. Much of the clutter has been lifted, but we still cannot see
what peace looks like. That's why bringing people like Shamir here would
be so helpful. Real peace looks like him but only if we are willing to
take him by the hand and look him in the eye.
DS: 21/02/01
Copyright© 2001 The Daily Star. All rights reserved. |
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