Palestinian liberty must come — if only to preserve the state of Israel

IN August 2001, Mary Robinson made a dramatic gesture of solidarity with victims of anti-Semitism.

At a dinner in Durban, South Africa, during the UN anti-racism conference, her attention was drawn to a booklet containing anti-Semitic cartoons.

She stood up, waved the booklet and declared: "I love political cartoons, but when I see the racism in this cartoon booklet of the Arab Lawyers' Union, I must say that I am a Jew for those victims are hurting. I know that you people will not understand easily, but you are my friends, so I tell you that I am a Jew."

A little over-the-top perhaps. But brave too, given the presence of so many Palestinian activists and supporters.

Isn't it strange, then, that more than 1,000 staff and students of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, recently branded her an anti-Semite? They don't want her speaking at their graduation ceremony and they don't think she deserves an honorary doctorate.

Like Mel Gibson, Robinson has been wrongly convicted by the American Jewish lobby of anti-Semitism. Gibson dared to reflect the biblical narrative in his film, The Passion of the Christ, by detailing the complicity of certain Jewish leaders in the death of Jesus. Robinson is resented for comments she made about modern Israel. In 2002 she said the occupation of Palestine was "at the root of many of the human rights problems".

"I find it very disheartening that there is not more understanding here [in America] of the appalling suffering of the Palestinian population, nor appreciation that this is not going to lead to a secure future. It's going to lead to greater hatred and desperation, and further suicide bombings."

It doesn't matter whether she's right or wrong. It's a legitimate political opinion, which doesn't deserve to be tarred with the brush of anti-Semitism.

Robinson's analysis of the Middle-East conflict may be naive of course.

The western liberal intelligentsia blames Israel for being heavy-handed and intransigent and America for bankrolling its arrogance. They accuse the Israeli government of humiliating and impoverishing the Palestinians, and of turning the occupied territories (the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem) into a breeding ground for suicide bombers and Islamist terrorism.

But neither poverty nor oppressive living conditions can explain why terrorism breaks out in particular situations. Studies show that religiously or politically-motivated terrorists often come from economically secure backgrounds.

Al-Qaida leaders such as Osama bin Laden and Dr Ayman Al-Zawahiri are university-educated, as was the recently killed Hamas leader, Abdul Aziz Rantissi.

At the start of the Palestinian uprising in 2000, economic conditions were improving in the occupied territories, and the unemployment rate among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip was falling. It was the same during the 1988 intifada. Terrorism broke out just as economic conditions looked like improving.

It is not the desperation of the Palestinians, but the frustration of the Israelis, which is responsible for the present crisis. Time after time, Israel can argue, the Palestinians have failed to agree a settlement, or to root out terrorists in their ranks. Now the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, ups the ante by 'creating new facts on the ground'. In effect he is saying: 'If you don't do business with us now, you'll end up with something worse. Our security fence will repel your suicide missions and you'll never get the territories which negotiations would have secured.' Last week, US President George W Bush backed this approach by endorsing the Israeli disengagement plan, under which Israel will withdraw certain military installations and all settlements from Gaza, and withdraw certain military installations and some settlements in the West Bank.

This seems to give US backing to some Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.

"In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centres," said Bush, "it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949."

But he added an important rider. Any final agreement would have to be on the basis of mutually agreed changes. He noted Israel's promise that the barrier being erected was a temporary security barrier, not a political boundary. It would not "prejudice any final status issues including final borders".

In other words, nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.

The problem is that Israel has no right to be in the occupied territories unless you believe those who claim every part of biblical Israel for the modern Jewish state, or those who insist that some of the occupied territories are vital for securing Israel from attack. The mere fact that Israel took these lands after repelling invaders doesn't justify its continued occupation.

SOME apologists for Israel point out that there has never been a Palestinian state. There are even those who argue that Jordan is Palestine that Palestinians should be accommodated east of the river Jordan. Thus the moral high ground which Israel could otherwise enjoy (it incorporates over a million enfranchised Palestinian Arabs and is the only functioning democracy in the Middle-East) is undermined.

In his book, No End to War Terrorism in the 21st Century, Walter Laqueur argues that the settlements in the occupied territories were Israel's big mistake. The Jewish enclaves (the West Bank has 200,000 settlers among a population of two million Palestinians) are impossible to secure militarily, he argues.

Over time, they will make Israel impossible to defend politically as well.

Within its legitimate boundaries, Israel survives as a Jewish democracy, with a majority Jewish population of 78%. Factor in the occupied territories, however, and you have nearly five million Palestinian Arabs being ruled directly or indirectly by just over five million Israeli Jews.

Problem 1: Palestinians in the occupied territories have no voting rights in a state that claims to be both Jewish and democratic.

Problem 2: the Palestinian birth-rate far outstrips that of Jewish Israel. The Palestinians are heading for a majority within the decade.

Some Jewish settlers would like to 'transfer' or disenfranchise all Palestinians west of the Jordan river. In other words, ethnic cleansing. Realists, however, accept that a two-state solution is now inevitable.

Palestinian nationhood emerges, if not because of Arab rights, then in order to preserve a Jewish majority in the state of Israel.

Even then, considerable problems remain. Ariel Sharon seems to want to have it both ways, allowing a Palestinian state of sorts but still retaining up to 50% of the occupied West Bank territories.

Then there is the problem of the Palestinian refugees eager to return to their own homes in Israel from which they were ousted decades ago with their descendants. Factor in the power of the Jewish lobby in the United States, the dependence of Israeli government on extreme Jewish factions and the failure of the Palestinian authorities to halt terrorism and progress seems impossible. Sharon's own political future is uncertain with accusations of alleged financial irregularity under consideration.

Israel's desire to preserve itself as a specifically Jewish democracy presents a unique problem. Selective immigration Jews from anywhere in the world are welcome but Palestinians ousted from their homes are not can be seen as extra-territorial apartheid. Yet it's the only way Israel can survive as it is presently constituted.

If that's to be the future, it behoves Israel to keep some generous offer on the table for Palestinian Arabs.