ON
"ISRAEL'S
RIGHT TO
EXIST"
By
John V.
Whitbeck 2006
As
Palestine
teeters on the
brink of the
civil war long
sought by
Israel, the
U.S. and the
EU, with
Israel and the
U.S. sending
arms and funds
to the side
perceived as
responsive to
Israeli and
Western wishes
for use
against the
side perceived
as
representing
Palestinian
interests, it
may be timely
to examine the
justification
put forward by
Israel, the
U.S. and the
EU for their
collective
punishment of
the
Palestinian
people in
retaliation
for their
having made
the "wrong"
choice in
their
democratic
election in
January 2006
-- the refusal
of Hamas to
"recognize
Israel" or to
"recognize
Israel's
existence" or
to "recognize
Israel's right
to exist".
These
three verbal
formulations
have been used
by media,
politicians
and even
diplomats
interchangeably,
as though they
mean the same
thing. They do
not.
"Recognizing
Israel" or any
other state is
a formal legal
and diplomatic
act by a state
with respect
to another
state. It is
inappropriate
-- indeed,
nonsensical --
to talk about
a political
party or
movement
extending
diplomatic
recognition to
a state. To
talk of Hamas
"recognizing
Israel" is
simply to use
sloppy,
confusing and
deceptive
shorthand for
the real
demand being
made.
"Recognizing
Israel's
existence"
appears on
first
impression to
involve a
relatively
straightforward
acknowledgement of a fact of life. Yet there are serious practical
problems with
this
formulation.
What Israel,
within what
borders, is
involved? Is
it the 55% of
historical
Palestine
recommended
for a Jewish
state by the
UN General
Assembly in
1947? The 78%
of historical
Palestine
occupied by
the Zionist
movement in
1948 and now
viewed by most
of the world
as "Israel" or
"Israel
proper"? The
100% of
historical
Palestine
occupied by
Israel since
June 1967 and
shown as
"Israel"
(without any
"Green Line")
on maps in
Israeli
schoolbooks?
Israel has
never defined
its own
borders, since
doing so would
necessarily
place limits
on them.
Still, if this
were all that
was being
demanded of
Hamas, it
might be
possible for
it to
acknowledge,
as a fact of
life, that a
State of
Israel exists
today within
some specified
borders.
"Recognizing
Israel's right
to exist", the
actual demand,
is in an
entirely
different
league. This
formulation
does not
address
diplomatic
formalities or
a simple
acceptance of
present
realities. It
calls for a
moral
judgment.
There
is an enormous
difference
between
"recognizing
Israel's
existence" and
"recognizing
Israel's right
to exist".
From a
Palestinian
perspective,
the difference
is in the same
league as the
difference
between asking
a Jew to
acknowledge
that the
Holocaust
happened and
asking him to
concede that
the Holocaust
was morally
justified. For
Palestinians
to acknowledge
the occurrence
of the Nakba
-- the
expulsion of
the great
majority of
Palestinians
from their
homeland
between 1947
and 1949 -- is
one thing. For
them to
publicly
concede that
it was "right"
for the Nakba
to have
happened is
something else
entirely. For
the Jewish and
Palestinian
peoples, the
Holocaust and
the Nakba,
respectively,
represent
catastrophes
and injustices
on an
unimaginable
scale that can
neither be
forgotten nor
forgiven.
To
demand that
Palestinians
recognize
"Israel's
right to
exist" is to
demand that a
people who
have for
almost 60
years been
treated, and
continue to be
treated, as
subhumans
unworthy of
basic human
rights
publicly
proclaim that
they are
subhumans --
and, at least
implicitly,
that they
deserve what
has been done,
and continues
to be done, to
them. Even
19th century
U.S.
governments
did not
require the
surviving
Native
Americans to
publicly
proclaim the
"rightness" of
their ethnic
cleansing by
the European
colonists as a
condition
precedent to
even
discussing
what sort of
reservation
might be set
aside for them
-- under
economic
blockade and
threat of
starvation
until they
shed whatever
pride they had
left and
conceded the
point.
Some
believe that
Yasser Arafat
did concede
the point in
order to buy
his ticket out
of the
wilderness of
demonization
and earn the
right to be
lectured
directly by
the Americans.
In fact, in
his famous
statement in
Stockholm in
late 1988, he
accepted
"Israel's
right to exist
in peace and
security".
This
formulation,
significantly,
addresses the
conditions
of
existence of a
state which,
as a matter of
fact, exists.
It does not
address the
existential
question of
the
"rightness" of
the
dispossession
and dispersal
of the
Palestinian
people from
their homeland
to make way
for another
people coming
from abroad.
The
original
conception of
the
formulation
"Israel's
right to
exist" and of
its utility as
an excuse for
not talking
with any
Palestinian
leadership
which still
stood up for
the
fundamental
rights of the
Palestinian
people is
attributed to
Henry
Kissinger, the
grand master
of diplomatic
cynicism.
There can be
little doubt
that those
states which
still employ
this
formulation do
so in full
consciousness
of what it
entails,
morally and
psychologically,
for the
Palestinian
people and for
the same
cynical
purpose -- as
a roadblock
against any
progress
toward peace
and justice in
Israel/Palestine and as a way of helping to buy more time for Israel to
create more
"facts on the
ground" while
blaming the
Palestinians
for their own
suffering.
However,
many private
citizens of
good will and
decent values
may well be
taken in by
the surface
simplicity of
the words
"Israel's
right to
exist" (and
even more
easily by the
other two
shorthand
formulations)
into believing
that they
constitute a
self-evidently
reasonable
demand and
that refusing
such a
reasonable
demand must
represent
perversity (or
a "terrorist
ideology")
rather than a
need to cling
to their
self-respect
and dignity as
full-fledged
human beings
which is
deeply felt
and thoroughly
understandable
in the hearts
and minds of a
long-abused
people who
have been
stripped of
almost
everything
else that
makes life
worth living.
That
this is so is
evidenced by
polls showing
that the
percentage of
the
Palestinian
population
which approves
of Hamas'
steadfastness
in refusing to
bow to this
humiliating
demand by the
enemies of the
Palestinian
people,
notwithstanding
the intensity
of the
economic pain
and suffering
inflicted on
them by the
Israeli and
Western siege,
substantially
exceeds the
percentage of
the population
which voted
for Hamas in
January 2006.
Those
who recognize
the critical
importance of
Israeli-Palestinian peace and truly seek a decent future for both
peoples must
recognize that
the demand
that Hamas
recognize
"Israel's
right to
exist" is
unreasonable,
immoral and
impossible to
meet. Then
they must
insist that
this roadblock
to peace be
removed, that
the ecomomic
siege of the
Palestinian
territories be
lifted and
that the
pursuit of
peace with
some measure
of justice be
resumed with
the urgency it
deserves.
John
V. Whitbeck,
an
international
lawyer, is
author of "The
World
According to
Whitbeck".