The Palestinian Point Of View

An "advertiser's link" on the NYT Web site led me recently to this slide show prepared by the "American Task Force on Palestine" . It is an interesting -- and for the most part fairly balanced -- presentation on the merits of the "two-state solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As such, I think it is well worth reviewing regardless of your preconceptions about this conflict. However, in the end, it falls short (perhaps well short) of being the "non-partisan" exposition it purports to be. To me, that is disappointing, because this failure makes it possible to dismiss an otherwise good piece of work as just so much Palestinian propaganda.

The problems start with this map, which defines "Palestine" that as that part of the British Mandate lying west of the Jordan River. What this eventually enables the authors to do is to argue that the Palestinian State they propose (comprised what is now known as the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem) would amount to only 22% of "historic Palestine". In fact, though, the original British Mandate included not just the area west of the Jordan, but the area east of it as well -- i.e. the land that now comprises the country of Jordan. Palestinians comprised a significant majority of the population in that area and that area can, with considerable justification, also be classified as a part of "historic Palestine." As readers of the "debates with Yuval" posted below will know, many or at least some Israelis take the position that, in computing the percentage of "Palestine" allocated between Jews and Palestinians, the eastern part of the British Mandate must also be considered. In this view, then, creating another Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza further compounds the original injustice of giving all of what is now Jordan to the Palestinians.

I do not take sides in this debate. Frankly, in terms of what is feasible today, it could not matter less what the borders of "historic Palestine" were -- even if it were possible to delineate those borders with precision. The point here is simply this: a presentation purporting to be non-partisan has to recognize the existence of this alternative view of history.

The more serious problems with the presentation arise in connection with what the presentation describes as the "challenges" to the two-state solution. Certainly the issues identified -- Israeli settlements, the Israeli barrier, the Bush letter to Sharon recognizing that it would be "unrealistic" to return completely to the 1967 boundaries, and violence by both sides against civilians -- all do pose significant challenges to further progress. But, there are a number of other challenges that go unmentioned and the treatment of the issue of violence against civilians fails to recognize, much less try to address, the widespread perception -- especially within the American audience that is its primary target -- that Palestinian violence against Israel is a fundamentally different from Israeli violence against Palestinians.

Taking the violence issue first, I agree that labeling Palestinian violence against civilians as "terrorism" while calling Israeli counter-violence self-defense is not helpful. Yet, it seems to me that there are two differences that need to be acknowledged by supporters of the Palestinians. First, Israeli violence is, for the most part, responsive. That is, if Palestinian violence ceased, then it seems clear that at least overt Israeli violence would also cease. Second, while civilians are certainly victims of Israeli violence, they are not, generally at least, consciously and explicitly targeted. To me, these distinctions do not make much of a difference. This is a war of resistance, and, as with any such, the stronger party can afford to be largely reactive because it is seeking to preserve rather than change the status quo. And, the weaker party targets civilians because those are, quite literally, the only targets it has. Because of the enormous asymmetry in military power (in deed in power of all types) abandoning attacks on civilians would be to effectively abandon the resistance altogether. In the end, the ATFP is right to condemn the violence of both parties equally. However, if its message is to be effective with respect to its target audience it must directly acknowledge and address the differences that exist.

The most serious defects in the presentation relate to the challenges that are not identified. Perhaps the most important of these is what is politely (and euphemisitcally) referred to as "incitement": the vitriolic, racial hatred of Jews and calls for their extermination (as a sacred requirement no less) that spews forth nearly daily from mosques, schools, the Palestinian media and even the Palestinian leadership. (If you doubt the tone, intensity or the ubiquity of these polemics, spend some time cruising around this site -- bit be prepared to be sickened. If this sort of blatant hate speech is not a "challenge" to what ATFP claims is their goal, then it is hard to imagine what might be. Yet this challenge is not even mentioned.

A second omission is the failure of the various organizations purporting to represent the Palestinian people to amend their founding documents. See, e.g.,The Palestinian National Charter 1968 and Hamas Covenant 1988. These documents deny even the existence of Israel and reject categorically any compromise with it. Rather, they maintain that "The partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of the state of Israel are entirely illegal," that "Zionism is a political movement organically associated with international imperialism, ... is racist and fanatic in its nature, aggressive, expansionist, and colonial in its aims, and fascist in its methods," that "Israel is the instrument of the Zionist movement, and the geographical base for world imperialism placed strategically in the midst of the Arab homeland to combat the hopes of the Arab nation for liberation, unity, and progress," that "Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine" and that the Palestinian people "reject all solutions which are substitutes for the total liberation of Palestine [and] all proposals aiming at the liquidation of the Palestinian problem, or its internationalization." Is this not also a "challenge" to progress toward a two-state solution?

A third omission is the ineptness and corruption of the Palestinian leadership. Has ever a leadership talked more and delivered less for its people?

And a fourth, though probably not final, omission is the perfidy of other Arab governments. Has ever a people been so badly treated by those who claim to be its friends and even champions?

I do not mean by all of this to be overly critical of the presentation. To the contrary, as I said at the outset, there is a lot to recommend it to anyone interested in hearing a somewhat more reasoned exposition of the Palestinian views on an ultimate solution to the problem. But it is, perhaps inevitably biased by its de-emphasis the challenges being posed to progress by the Palestinians, and more generally the Arabs.