Imprimir

Since the beginning of the current confrontation with the Palestinians, Israelis have been debating whether a military or a political program should be pursued to end the violence.

• Advocates of the military option claim that the only way to crush the «cycle of violence» (in diplomatic parlance) is through might. In other words, destroy the Palestinian Authority or make it realize that, should it continue along the path of rejectionism, the price to be paid significantly will overshadow any potential political benefit.
• Subscribers to the political option argue that the only realistic way to achieve a durable peace is by way of political negotiations among the leaders. A military victory, they say, may buy calm for a while but could never bring peace.

Those who claim that there is no military solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict are right. Israel won all its wars – in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973 and 1982 – and yet, peace has not arrived. Not only have the Arabs never reconciled themselves to the presence of an independent Jewish state in the Middle East, but they have even rejected the outcome of the many wars they have launched. Harvard University Professor Ruth Wisse has observed that war is generally the final arbiter of international disputes; in the absence of a political agreement, war settles the score in otherwise intractable conflicts. However, Israel’s victories over several Arab armies were never accepted by the aggressors. What’s more, the Arabs are still waiting for the next round.

This derives from a fundamental asymmetry: Whereas the Arab states can impose a military solution on the conflict (e.g., the destruction of Israel), the Jewish state cannot correspond; that is, unless Israel is ready to annihilate the entire Middle East. Unfortunately, this does not mean that a political solution therefore exists by default.

Consider this: The Palestinians rejected the most generous Israeli offer imaginable during the Camp David talks. Are they going to settle for something less now, after so much pain? And will the Israelis offer even more than what they did at Camp David, knowing that they effectively would be rewarding Palestinian intransigence by doing so?

In the current circumstances, peace will remain elusive for Palestinians and Israelis alike. A feasible plan will aim at reaching a state of «no war» at best, a cease-fire at worst. If this can be achieved politically, fine. If not, a military option should be applied. Some continue to talk of peace, but sadly, it is not a realistic option in this arena.

Those who advocate a political solution should stop calling for it and start presenting it. And they’d better lay out a political program that is not premised on the same ill-fated assumptions of the Oslo accords, for Oslo has brought nothing but wanton disaster.

There is no magical solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The reason is rooted in a harsh fact of life aptly captured by Albert Einstein: «Peace cannot be kept by force; it can be achieved only through understanding.» In the absence of such understanding, peace will remain unreachable. Israelis will never be able to impose peace on terminal enemies.

The Arab-Israeli conflict was never a normal territorial dispute. Arab opposition to Israel was never — as Palestinians claim – predicated on a normal rejection to «occupation» but rather, to quote Wisse, «an ideological assault on the legitimacy of an independent Jewish polity» in the region. Which brings us to the core flaw of the now-defunct peace process: By reducing the conflict to a land dispute, Oslo’s framers ignored the existential nature of that dispute. Israeli academic Arieh Stav once explained Oslo’s initiative as a «paradox where a minuscule democracy is being forced to provide to its totalitarian enemies — scores of times its size — the only thing that it lacks: territory. In exchange, these dictatorial regimes promise to provide the one and only thing that they lack: peace.»

The Oslo process failed not only because it was a poorly designed and badly implemented program but essentially because there has never been a real peace partner on the Arab side. Any realistic approach to this question should be premised on this cold fact.

Julián Schvindlerman is a political analyst and journalist in Jerusalem.