It is a curious phrase this "right to exist". Israel wants the world to
accept its "right to exist" as a state, but it denies the indigenous
Palestinians their right to exist as a people in their own land.
International relations only acknowledges the rights of people, not states. [1]
States exist because of the formal recognition afforded them by other
states, and now that Israel is recognised as a state, it in fact exists.
It makes no sense to demand that a political party recognise Israel's "right
to exist", much less punish 4 million Palestinians because a majority voted
the Hamas Party into government. Yet, these are the very words that are
holding the Palestinians, particularly those in Gaza, to an impossible
ransom.
For the outside world, Israel's demand for the "right to exist" seems a
natural enough request and easy enough words to say. However, most people
have no idea of the real import of those words for the Palestinians. For
them to accept the "right to exist", effectively means that they accept
their own dispossession. That dispossession is still going on after 60
years and there are now some 6 million Palestinian refugees who are refused
their right to return home or even a modicum of compensation. And, that is
not counting the 4 million Palestinians under Israel's occupation who daily
see more of their land taken from them while they are squeezed and contained
in what remains, or the 1.5 million Palestinian citizens in Israel whose
rights are being increasingly compromised and denied. As long as the
Palestinians exist, Israel will always see them as an obstacle to its
ultimate quest for an exclusively "Jewish state" in a greater Israel.
Israel's demand that its "right to exist" be recognised, is constantly
fluid. Israel refuses to accept any demarcated borders and certainly not the
internationally-recognised Green Line of 1967 and is the only nation in the
world without declared borders. [2] As far back as 1948, Israel determined
that its territory had to be more than the 55 per cent given it by the UN
partition and wasted no time in its ruthless expropriation of Palestinian
land – driving out the Palestinians or simply forcing them to live under
Israel's occupation. The 78 per cent of Palestinian land that it amassed is
now recognised as Israel, and it is that area that was painfully
acknowledged by Palestinian Chairman Arafat in 1988 as "the right of the
State of Israel to exist in peace and security". His crucial mistake was to
ask for nothing in return. He should have demanded that Israel recognise
the right of Palestinians to exist as a free people in the remaining 22 per
cent. Israel, of course, accorded no such right to the Palestinians who
continued to live – and still do - without any peace or security under
Israel's occupation. Before, then and since, the grave injustice of
Palestinian dispossession has never been redressed.
When Arafat held up the olive branch and said "do not let the olive branch
fall from my hand', that was the moment that Israel could have freed the
Palestinians from its occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and allowed a
Palestinian state to exist side by side with Israel. Edward Said saw it
clearly when he stated "only the Palestinians explicitly recognised the
notion of partition. Israel never has." [3] Instead, Israel intensified
its illegal settlement enterprise and continued with its mass immigration
program of Jews from around the world to settle them inside occupied
Palestinian territory. By the time Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak made
his fallacious "generous offer" of land to the Palestinians at Camp David in
2000, [4] the Palestinians had barely 12 per cent left of their historic
homeland, and seven years later, it has been whittled down to around 7 per
cent. So, it is perfectly legitimate for the Palestinians to ask – on how
much of the land does Israel want to exist?
Every policy and action undertaken by Israel is focused on creating an
exclusively Jewish state in all of Palestine. From the very beginning,
Zionist leaders made sure that all land taken would be held in trust on
behalf of "the Jewish people in perpetuity". [5] Through a process of
confiscation and transfer – known as "redeeming the land" – Jews worldwide
have available to them land for lease in Israel. This discriminates
outrageously against the 1.5 million Palestinian citizens living inside
Israel who are not given equal rights with the immigrant Jews and who are
allowed to live on only 3 per cent of the land while the rest is available
solely to Israel's Jewish citizens. They are finding themselves more and
more isolated from the rest of Israeli society with none of the privileges
as Israel finds even more fiendish ways to contain its demographic problem.
It is a real problem because Israel wants a "Jewish" state, not a "state for
all its citizens"; it wants a democracy for "Jews only", not a democracy for
all its citizens. This should give pause to anyone holding up Israel's
"beacon of democracy" as something to admire.
Furthermore, when Israel insists on the Palestinians accepting its "right to
exist", it has everything to do with the Palestinians signing off on their
own dispossession and nothing to do with Israel's fear of an existential
threat. Israel's survival is guaranteed because of its overwhelming
military might and not by the Palestinians recognising its "right to exist".
It is the fourth most powerful army in the world [6] and there is not an
Arab nation today that would challenge Israel's war machine. If Israel
allowed a Palestinian state to exist, Israel knows very well that it would
never have the military capacity to threaten Israel's existence. However,
demanding that "right" makes for powerful propaganda as the world is still
held in thrall by the David and Goliath illusion.
A worrying development for the Palestinians in the past week has been the
report that Palestinian President Abbas has already given Israeli Prime
Minister Olmert a commitment to recognise Israel as "a state for the Jews".
If true, it would really give free rein to Israel's already racist policies
and practices. The Palestinians living inside Israel would find themselves
not only discriminated against, but very likely in danger of being
ethnically cleansed from the Jewish state. It would also absolutely negate
the inalienable right of Palestinians to return home, and all the rights the
Palestinians have under international law would suddenly become irrelevant.
Needless to say, such reports (if indeed they are true) leave the
Palestinians wondering what is left to them after all the years of sacrifice
and struggle. Despite the 67 United Nations resolutions that have been
passed acknowledging their rights, despite Israel flagrantly breaching
international law and continuing to violate their very person and property,
despite the meticulously documented evidence of Palestinians having been
massacred and terrorised into fleeing so Israel can appropriate their land,
despite the voices of respected world figures exposing Israel's apartheid
practices, despite Jewish voices increasingly raised in protest against
Israel's racist policies, despite internationals risking and losing their
own lives to help the Palestinians in non-violent acts of resistance, the
Palestinians are staring at a future that refuses to recognise the gross
injustices done to them, much less provide any protection for their
existence: that is, if Israel has its way.
No other nation in the world demands a "right to exist". The notion most
likely arose in international relations because former US Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger said in 1975 that the US "will not recognise or negotiate
with the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) as long as the PLO does
not recognise Israel's right to exist and does not accept Security Council
Resolutions 242 and 338". [7] The international community took up the
refrain and continues posing the question "What about Israel's right to
exist?", but almost no one asks about the right of Palestinians to exist.
With each demand, we are seeing Israel edge closer to its ultimate goal.
Ehud Olmert let us know as much last year when he said to the US Congress on
24 May that he believes the Jewish people have "an eternal and historic
right to this entire land". [8] It could not be clearer: Israel demands
the right to exist as an exclusively Jewish State in all of Palestine. The
Palestinians do not figure in this scenario at all. No wonder previous
peace negotiations have failed: there is nothing to suggest that the
November peace conference will be any different. As long as Israel refuses
to recognise Palestinian rights, and as long as international interlocutors
insist on Israel's "right to exist" over the rights of people, every attempt
at negotiating peace will be doomed to failure.
The situation for the Palestinians right now is very dangerous. Israel's
settlement enterprise has been largely achieved: 40 per cent of the West
Bank is off limits to the Palestinians and the rest has been virtually
cantonised with movement all but restricted between them. Gaza is totally
isolated. There is not a border or space in or around Palestinian land that
is not controlled by Israel. Also, Israel is creating facts on the ground
that have already made it impossible for the Palestinians to have their
state within the 1967 Green line. What is left has been made deliberately
confusing and has led to the myth of the "generous" offer. The 92 per cent
that Israel is again offering the Palestinians, is 92 per cent of the 22 per
cent of land left within the Green line, not 92 per cent of the whole that
the Palestinians originally owned. Such an offer is frankly insulting and
so are the further border adjustments that Israel is making even as the
offer is on the table. It shows to what audacious lengths Israel will go
to exist as a Jewish state. That it is at the expense of the Palestinian
right to exist in their own land, is illegal and immoral. It would be
suicide for the Palestinian leadership to agree to anything that is not
reciprocated, particularly the unconditional recognition of the Jewish state
and the demand for its "right to exist".
Footnotes:
[1] Burchill, Dr Scott – "Does Israel's "right to exist" actually exist?"
crikey.com, 10 October 2006 "According to some theorists from the
"realist" tradition of international relations, states have no "right" to
exist because such a right cannot be enforced by a higher authority than the
state. . . Acknowledging a state's right to exist, or insisting on such a
pledge from others, is therefore a meaningless gesture -- or worse, a
political tactic."
<http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20061010-Israels-right-to-exist-does-it- exist.html>
[2] Said, Prof Edward – "What Israel has done", The Nation, 18 April 2002
(6 May, 2002 issue)
[3] Ibid.
[4] Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP) "'How Generous is Generous?'
in Crossroads of Conflict: Israeli-Palestinian Relations Face an Uncertain Future",
Special Report, Winter 2000
An analysis of the Israeli proposals by FMEP concluded that Israel: 1. only
proposed to relinquish control over between 77.5-81 percent of the West Bank
excluding East Jerusalem, which most likely included Israel's retaining of
the Jordan Valley. 2. wanted sovereignty over one-third of occupied East
Jerusalem and all of West Jerusalem. 3. wanted control of the third holiest
site in Islam, al-Haram al-Sharif (which Israel refers to as the 'Temple
Mount'), where "Israel, incredibly, also demanded Palestinian agreement to
the construction of a synagogue."
[5] Palestine Land Society, "Financing Racism and Apartheid –
Jewish National Fund's Violation of International and Domestic Law", August
2005, p.4
[6] Hassan, Ghali – "Are Israel's Interests in America's Interests?"
Countercurrents.org, 29 March 2006
http://www.countercurrents.org/hassan290306.htm ;
Pilger, John – "Children of the Dust", New Statesman, 28 May 2007
http://www.newstatesman.com/200705280029
[7] Israel-United States Memorandum of Understanding, 1 September 1975
"Accord on Geneva 2. The United States will continue to adhere to its
present policy with respect to the Palestine Liberation Organization,
whereby it will not recognize or negotiate with the Palestine Liberation
Organization so long as the Palestine Liberation Organization does not
recognize Israel's right to exist and does not accept Security Council
Resolutions 242 and 338."
[8] Address by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to Joint Meeting of US Congress,
24 May 2006
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