Posted on 30-1-2003

Labor Looses, Peace?
By Gadi Taub*

Amram Mitzna, the leader of the Labor Party, offered Israelis the most
realistic solution to the Palestinian conflict. With Labor's defeat in
yesterday's elections, prospects for peace are now even more remote and
once again rest with the two men — Ariel Sharon and Yasir Arafat — whose
unspoken alliance has frustrated the hopes of Israelis and Palestinians alike.

The cornerstone of Mr. Mitzna's plan was that if negotiations fail to yield
agreement within one year, Israel should unilaterally withdraw from the
territories and impose independence on a reluctant Palestinian leadership.
This plan is not just different from that of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
It is an utter reversal of the basic assumptions of Israel's prevailing
political discourse. According to Mr. Mitzna, leaving the territories is
not a concession to the Palestinians; it is in Israel's most vital and
urgent self-interest. If they do not withdraw, Jews will soon be a minority
in their own country.

Mr. Arafat, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, surely knows this. He
does not explicitly support Mr. Sharon. But the uncompromising positions of
Mr. Sharon's party, Likud, better suit his purposes than Labor's.

Mr. Arafat condemns terrorism just enough — and in English — to keep
himself from becoming a political leper in the West. And he fails to
condemn terrorism just enough — and in Arabic — to let Palestinians know he
will not move to stop it. Had he moved decisively to limit suicide bombings
to the territories, Israelis might have concluded he favors partition.
Instead, terrorism in Tel Aviv shows the Israeli public that he seeks to
replace Israel with Palestine.

Suicide bombings also enable Mr. Sharon to get away with his own
doublespeak: talk peace but build up the settlements. Mr. Sharon, like Mr.
Arafat, talks of negotiations just enough to maintain the support of
America and some of Israel's moderate center. And he raises the specter of
terrorism more than enough to foment Israeli anger and conceal the actual
thrust of his policy, which is strengthening Israel's hold on the territories.

Thus Mr. Sharon's inexcusable delays in the construction of Israel's most
effective defense against terrorists — a fence. Building a fence around the
West Bank would help stop terrorists from entering Israel. The fence
already in place around the Gaza Strip is an almost foolproof barrier
against suicide bombers. From the West Bank, in contrast, Palestinians can
take what some call "Bus No. 11" to inner Israel: their own two legs.

A fence, however, will eventually become a border, and any settlements on
the other side of that border would have to be abandoned. This Mr. Sharon
will not do.

Mr. Sharon and Mr. Arafat reinforce each other's positions in an even more
important way. Terrorism merely conceals the crucial questions of
demographics and partition. On these issues, Mr. Sharon and Mr. Arafat
share something far more essential. Both want to blur the Green Line, the
pre-1967 border, thereby undermining the prospect of territorial partition.

If there were any doubts about this, Camp David should have dispelled them.
The two-state solution presented at Camp David in 2000 would have given
Palestinians control of almost all of the West Bank and the entire Gaza
Strip, in addition to other benefits. Yet Mr. Arafat rejected it. His
assumption seems to be what the Israeli left has long believed: Israel
cannot survive a prolonged occupation. Only partition can save the Jewish
state.

The problem is demographics. A Jewish democratic state can survive only
with a Jewish majority. Without the territories, Jews are about 80 percent
of Israel's population. With the territories, Jews are just barely a
majority. With Palestinian birthrates in the territories among the highest
in the world, an Arab majority in a Jewish state that includes the
territories is all but inevitable.

So if Israel does not give up the territories, it will face a choice:
relinquish either democracy or the ideal of a Jewish state. Granting
Palestinians in the territories the right to vote would turn Israel into an
Arab state with a Jewish minority. Not allowing them to vote would result
in a form of permanent apartheid. Either way, Zionism will perish.

Each leader thinks he can eventually grab the whole territory between the
Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Mr. Sharon is right to think that
his settlement and road-building policies will prevent the emergence of a
viable Palestinian state. Mr. Arafat is right to assume that, in the long
run, these same policies will bring Israel's downfall. Yet both are also
wrong: without partition, neither people will have its own state.

The alternative to partition is civil war. The rejection of Mr. Mitzna's
plan, coupled with Mr. Sharon's clear victory, could be one more step
toward turning Israel into another Lebanon.

Gadi Taub, author of "A Dispirited Rebellion: Essays on Contemporary Israel
Culture," teaches communications at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.