The Complexities of Israel and Palestine

Israel is in the midst of celebrating 60 years of independence. Palestinians, on the other hand, grieve the loss of their homes and lands. The papers are filled with essays, articles, and op-ed pieces that wrestle with the issue. Some from a Palestinian angle, others from an Israeli one. As I have noted elsewhere, I find myself caught in the middle of a nearly century old dispute. Part of the problem is that the parties involved have yet to come up with a solution that would be acceptable to all parties -- including within their own communities. Thee are Jews and Palestinians supportive of a two state-solution. There are others, on both sides that take an all or nothing perspective. There are still others, more Palestinian than Jewish that look to a one-state secular democratic solution. To go that route, of course, would mean abandoning the idea of a Jewish state.

Further complicating the issue are the facts on the ground. There is the idea of a right of possession. Who has claim to property -- the ones who held title sixty years ago, some who still have keys to their old houses, or the ones living three now -- who perhaps are the second or third owner since possession changed?

To get a sense of the range of possibilities, consider some of the pieces that have appeared the last couple of days.

In yesterday's LA Times Opinion section appeared two facing essays. The first, is by Saree Makdisi, a Palestinian and a Professor of English Literature at UCLA. Makdisi writes that the idea of a two state solution is no longer workable. The facts on the ground mitigate against it. There are too many settlements, checkpoints, and roadblocks. The idea that the settlers would voluntarily leave the West Bank is inconceivable.

Makdisi writes:

What room is there for the Palestinians in this vision of Jewish entitlement to the land? None. They are regarded, at best, as a demographic "problem."The idea of Palestinians as a "problem" is hardly new. Israel was created as a Jewish state in 1948 only by the premeditated and forcible removal of as much of the indigenous Palestinian population as possible, in what Palestinians call the Nakba, or catastrophe, which they commemorate this week.

If Makidisi has given up on a two-state solution and seems resigned to a de facto Israeli rule of the entire area, Benny Morris, whose book Righteous Victims I read several years ago, speaks of Israeli despair about their future as a nation -- even as they observe their 60th anniversary. Whereas Makdisi looks to the occupation as the seed of discord, Morris seems to warn of demographic changes that will eventually overrun Israel. The idea of a Jewish state is running into the problem of an increasing Palestinian birthrate -- both in the Occupied Territories and in
Israel proper.

He writes:

Israel is a sad place because its Jews have begun to lose hope, hope that the 100-year-old conflict with the surrounding Muslim Arab world will ever end, hope of ever being accepted as a legitimate presence in the Middle East, hope of ever achieving peace. Indeed, most Israeli Jews are at least dimly aware that the state founded by the Zionist movement as a safe haven for a people oppressed and murdered through the centuries in the Christian and Muslim lands of their dispersion is probably today the most unsafe place in the world for the Jews. Without doubt, the crucial, defining moment, when despair overtook at least hesitant hope, was in 2000. Before then, between Israel's founding in May 1948 and the Camp David summit of July 2000 attended by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, President Clinton and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, most Israeli Jews, and their leaders, believed in the prospect of eventual peace.

There are a number of issues that make this a complex issue -- none more problematic than the right of Palestinians to return to their pre-1948 homes and lands. Israel is adamant that they can't allow this to happen -- to do so would put their dream of a lasting Jewish state in jeopardy (on demographic grounds).

But in an article in the Washington Post, Palestinian Daoud Kuttab, whose father fled Jerusalem in 1948, taking with him the key to his house, always hoping to return, suggests that in the end, most Palestinians will trade their right of return for a truly sovereign nation of their own.

He writes:

Palestinian refugees who have lived away from their homes for 60 years have established themselves elsewhere. Few have a sincere desire to live in today's Israel. Respected Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki found in 2003 that only 10 percent of Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza Strip were willing to move to the areas that today constitute Israel.

What Palestinians want is for Israel to admit its historic and moral role in creating the refugee problem and its moral responsibility to them. Such an admission by a courageous Israeli leader would satisfy, and neutralize, many Palestinians who hold their keys and demand the literal right of return. As part of a bilateral agreement, surely Israel would allow divided Palestinian families to reunite with relatives who stayed in what became Israel after 1948.

These or similar suggestions cannot be implemented alone. They must be part of a comprehensive agreement that includes real Israeli withdrawal and the creation of a sovereign, viable Palestinian state with territorial contiguity within the 1967 borders.

Finally, even if Benny Morris is pessimistic and Makdisi has given up on a two-state solution, Shimon Peres, President of Israel, retains hope that a solution can be found. Whatever the case, the reality is complex. It is an issue that divides communities -- Jewish, Arab, and Christian.

There are Christians who support an expansive Israel -- they're called Christian Zionists, and in my mind they are dangerous, because they push unreasonable goals that aren't in the interests of any party but themselves. In other words, even as they claim to be friends of Israel, most are millennialists looking forward to a cataclysmic conflict that would bring the end of the world.

I come from a very different Christian tradition, and so I don't buy into the claims of the Christian Zionists. I recognize that there has always been a Christin community in the region, and so this isn't simply a Jewish-Muslim debate. Most of us desire to be friends with both Jew and Palestinian and grieve at the loss of life and the oppression that occurs in the region. We recognize that both sides are often at fault, and that our own nation contributes to the problems. We want to see a day when both justice and peace will reign. We're not close to that, but that is our dream.