Jeffrey Sachs sounds more reasonable all the time
[ok, he was already getting there, but this is rather amazing]
Jordan Times - June 22-23, 2007 http://www.jordantimes.com/fri/opinion/opinion5.htm
The Palestine follies By Jeffrey D. Sachs
American foreign policy in the Middle East experienced yet another
major setback this month, when Hamas, whose Palestinian government
the United States had tried to isolate, routed the rival Fateh
movement in Gaza. In response, Israel sealed Gaza’s borders, making
life even more unbearable in a place wracked by violence, poverty and
despair.
It is important that we recognise the source of America’s failure,
because it keeps recurring, making peace between Israel and Palestine
more difficult. The roots of failure lie in the US and Israeli
governments’ belief that military force and financial repression can
lead to peace on their terms, rather than accepting a compromise on
terms that the Middle East, the rest of the world and, crucially,
most Israelis and Palestinians, accepted long ago.
For 40 years, since the Six-Day War of 1967, there has been one
realistic possibility for peace: Israel’s return to its pre-1967
borders, combined with viable economic conditions for a Palestinian
state, including access to trade routes, water supplies and other
essential needs. With small and mutually acceptable adjustments to
those borders, these terms would enable peaceful co-existence of two
states side by side. Perhaps three-fourths of both Israelis and
Palestinians support this “land for peace” compromise, while one-
fourth holds out for complete victory over the other side.
Rejectionists on both sides repeatedly undermined efforts to realise
that compromise. Starting in the early 1970s, religious Israeli
settlers and hardline Israeli nationalists pushed Israel into a
disastrous policy of creating and expanding settlements on Arab lands
in the West Bank, in violation of common sense and international
diplomacy. That policy blocked peace ever since, setting the stage
for decades of bloodshed.
Nor have extremists on either side shrunk from political murder.
Islamic militants killed Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian peacemaker, while
a Jewish militant killed Yitzhak Rabin, the would-be Israeli
peacemaker. Violent extremists on both sides have ratcheted up their
actions whenever the majority succeeded in getting closer to peace.
For the past 10 years, the greatest practical barrier to peace has
been Israel’s failure to carry out any true withdrawal to its 1967
borders, owing to the political weight of hundreds of thousands of
settlers in the West Bank and the religious and secular communities
that support them. This remains the crucial truth; the rest follows
as tragedy.
Even when the US or Israel have tabled peace offers, such as at Camp
David in 2000, they have included convoluted ways to sustain the West
Bank settlements and large settler populations, while denying an
economically viable and contiguous Palestinian state.
The most recent debacle began when President George W. Bush called
for Palestinian democracy in 2004, but then refused to honour the
democratic process. Hamas, a radical movement, won the Palestinian
election in January 2006, but not before blatant pre-election
meddling by the US in favour of Fateh, which merely helped to boost
Hamas’ legitimacy. Then, after Hamas won, the US and Israel
immediately orchestrated a cutoff of finances to the newly elected
government, including even Israel’s transfer of Palestine’s own
customs revenues, which Israel collects as the occupying authority in
control of the borders.
Rather than act pragmatically, and deal with Hamas in government on
the basis of its actions vis-à-vis Israel, the US and Israel demanded
from the outset that Hamas recognise Israel’s right to exist as a
precondition for continued financial flows.
The US and Israel believed that they could force Hamas into
submission even before negotiations with the new government began.
This is the hubris of believing that brute force and threats, rather
than actual negotiation, can yield solutions. The result was
predictable, despite US and Israel expressions of shock at recent
developments. US and Israeli pressure deeply compromised
Palestinians’ access to water, food, medicines and physical safety,
especially in overcrowded Gaza.
Although Israel formally withdrew from Gaza, its complete control
over the borders, infrastructure, transport and taxation, together
with its regular military incursions in response to shelling from
Gaza and its killings and capture of senior Hamas officials, left
Palestinians there desperate. In this mix, violence escalated. Hamas
did not fold in negotiations. Instead, conflict broke out between
Hamas and Fateh, leading to Fateh’s collapse and desperate flight
from Gaza. In a near-parody of external interventions, the US and
Israel encouraged President Mahmoud Abbas of Fateh to dismiss the
Hamas-led government, and to declare a new Fateh-led government in
the West Bank.
Gaza is now under Hamas control, and the West Bank is perhaps under
nobody’s control. Israel has said that it will squeeze Gaza still
further, as if the population can be crushed into submission. But
there are far too many weapons and young men prepared to die for that
to occur. There is, alas, still only one settlement possible, based
on true compromise, not unilateral imposition. No amount of
machinations by outside powers or internal forces will impose a
settlement. Israel and Palestine will have to reach an agreement
based on the fact that they share a small and contested space.
The problem is that hatred and demographic changes are making, many
people believe, even the two-state solution impossible. A few hope
for a single secular democratic state. But many more have lost all
hope. My view is that a two-state solution of peace and mutual
respect remains possible, but perhaps for not much longer.
The writer is professor of economics and director of the Earth
Institute at Columbia University.