Brit Tzedek v'Shalom

Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace

What Led to the Current Situation in Israel? .
Ethan D. Bloch
Albany, NY

That the current round of violence in Israel, starting in September 2000, is deeply disturbing is a view shared by all of us American Jews who care about the state of Israel and its people. In conversations about the situation in Israel with many fellow Jews, I have heard a strongly emotional reaction of horror to the violence; among many who were previously inclined to support peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians, there is an evident sense of feeling "betrayed" by the Palestinians. Beyond these understandable emotions, I have heard little analysis of why the current situation is as it is, and what options there are for moving forward.

The vast majority of American Jews believe in the right of Israel to exist in peace, and the importance of Israel to the Jewish people. I share this view unhesitatingly. Additionally, the majority of American Jews recognize that the Palestinians, regardless of the faults of their leadership, are human beings who, in the long run, deserve to lives their lives with dignity and respect; this same majority realizes that Israel will ultimately have to make painful compromises for the sake of peace. I also share these views.

Where I disagree with many fellow Jews is their understanding of the details of the current situation. I would summarize the views I have heard from my fellow American Jews in the following points: (1) surprise at the current escalation of violence; (2) we can no longer trust the Palestinian leadership; (3) although Israel is not perfect, the fault now lay vastly with the Palestinians; (4) Israel is now facing an existential threat, to which we must rally around; and (5) the Palestinian people are by nature violent and anti-Semitic, and will never live in peace with Israel.

I think that all five points are mistaken, and I would like to try to explain why. As for the shock of the current violence, not everyone was shocked. Both my father (who is on the right politically) and I (who am on the left), were not at all surprised at the outbreak of violence, though for different reasons. It is those in the political center, whom I feel were looking at things with somewhat rosy colored glasses, who were most shocked. Where my father and I agree, even though we have different perspectives, is that there is no rosy future of peace and harmony between the Jews and Palestinians. Both sides claim the same piece of land, and both sides have lost many lives in defense of their claims. I don't believe that harmony and friendship can happen between Jews and Palestinians in the near future. The best we can aim for is a settlement that will end the fighting, and let everyone on both sides get on with their lives. Such a settlement will be a cold peace, similar to that with Egypt. There are those who complain about the cold peace with Egypt, and demand that the Egyptians warm it up. Personally, I don't really care if the Egyptians, or Palestinians, love the Jews. We don't need their love. We do need to save the lives of our, and their, civilians and soldiers, and even a cold peace does that. The options are a cold peace or a warm war; it seems obvious which is preferable.

As for trusting the Palestinians, even though I have been a strong advocate for Jewish/Palestinian dialog, all I seek is mutual understanding and respect, not trust. Do we need to trust people to make peace with them? History does not say so. When the U.S. signed treaties with the old USSR, did we trust them? Do we trust the Chinese government now, though we have treaties with them? I think not. The point of diplomatic treaties is to find agreements that allow for both sides to feel sufficiently satisfied that they will stick to the agreement. Also needed in any treaty are verification mechanisms. Trust is not a factor here. I don't trust most of our own politicians -- so I certainly don't trust Palestinian politicians. All I want is to reach a mutually satisfactory, and mutually verifiable, peace treaty with the Palestinians. That, I believe, is possible.

Now to the current situation. To understand what is going on right now, we have to look at the basic conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, which consists of two peoples claiming the same piece of land. As someone committed to Zionism, I firmly believe that the Jewish people have a right to this land. As someone committed to human rights for all people, I cannot fail to recognize the Palestinian claim to the land too. To put my basic approach into its most basic form, it is necessary to recognize that there have long been two fundamentally different versions of Zionism: the pragmatic Zionism of Herzl, Weizmann and Ben Gurion, and the militant/messianic Zionism of Jabotinsky, Begin and the settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Both types of Zionism promote the centrality of a nation-state in which Jews are the majority, and in which all Jews can find refuge. For pragmatic Zionism the creation of the Jewish state is the end goal, whereas for militant Zionism the creation of a Jewish state is but a means to an end, which is the reclamation for the Jewish people of its biblical status in general, and the entire holy land in particular. Pragmatic Zionists support the state of Israel (medinat Yisrael); militant Zionism support the land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael). Though I hope, as do all observant Jews, that one day the Jewish people will return to its former glory in our land, when it comes to political views, I subscribe to pragmatic Zionism. As such, I believe that we have to balance our claim to the land of Israel with the political realities of the Middle East in general, and the existence of the Palestinian people in particular. Let us leave it to God to send us the messiah, and give us back the entire land of Israel, whenever God thinks we are ready.

There are two basic approaches a person can take when trying to deal with any political conflict: one can try to stand on principle, or one can try to solve the problem -- doing both simultaneously is usually impossible. If we view the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the lens of who is right and who is wrong, we then have to decide who has a stronger claim to the Land of Israel, and who came first, the Jews or the Palestinians. Many Jews and Palestinians try to make such arguments, usually referring to divine rights. However, it is impossible to prove historical claims from many centuries ago. We cannot prove that Abraham really bought the cave in Hebron, just as the Palestinians cannot prove that Mohammed really went to heaven from Jerusalem. I believe that it is absurd to try to determine who has a stronger historical claim to the Land of Israel. Jews and Palestinians have different views of history, and there is no way of reconciling these two histories, and of establishing who is more "right." My feeling is that the Middle East has a historically unique situation: Many people throughout history have been conquered, and then either killed off or kicked out; what has never happened before in history is that someone came back after being kicked out so long ago -- long enough for someone else to establish their home on the land.

In general, I don't think that it ever works to solve political problems by trying to be right, though of course we should strive for the highest ideals, such as peace and respect for human rights, along side of security and protecting our freedom. The more feasible approach is to try to solve political problems based on the current political reality. I believe that most Israelis fall into this pragmatic camp, though, of course, some pragmatists are hawks, and others are doves -- it is a matter of how one reads reality. The hawkish approach says that there is not enough room for two people in two states in the Land of Israel, and so one people will win, and the other lose. In that view, the only option for Israel is to tough it out, and defeat the Palestinians, at which point they will accept a status of living under some form of autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with no state of their own. There is no point in giving them anything, and there is no point in any treaties, except if they surrender. A similar view is found among hawkish Palestinians. The dovish view says that, as has happened elsewhere in the world, if Israel is to continue to be a democracy, and to have a Jewish majority, then it cannot continue to rule over millions of Palestinians. A peaceful solution based on compromise must be found, it we are to avoid continual bloodshed. Such a solution means that each side has to end up with enough to feel that their claims are being recognized, and that they have a politically viable solution. I am in the dovish camp, and I think that ultimately most American Jews are too. The key, however, is that if we choose the option for peace, we have to be willing to go all the way. Halfway steps toward peace do no good, just as going to war halfway does no good.

To understand the current situation, we need to go back to the Oslo accords. Unlike many former leftists who have recently repudiated these accords, I still believe that the Oslo accords were a remarkable breakthrough, in that, for the first time, Israel and the PLO recognized each other as a partner for peace. However, the accords also created a very unstable situation by giving the PLO a foothold in the territories, and allowing them to have an armed police force. This unstable situation was acceptable, as long as the momentum towards peace continued. It is clear that the framers of Oslo, chief among them Yossi Beilin (who initiated the Oslo process), viewed Oslo as a step in an ongoing peace process -- thus the temporary instability was worthwhile. Indeed, after the Oslo accords, Beilin initiated secret negotiations on a permanent status agreement, which ultimately led to the Beilin-Abu Mazen plan. Beilin intended to present his plan to Rabin, but the latter was assassinated shortly before Beilin had the opportunity to present it. Arafat, who did see the plan, accepted it as a basis for negotiations.

Rabin's assassination changed everything. Peres soon lost the election to Netanyahu, and the momentum towards peace was lost. Netanyahu rapidly expanded the settlements, and avoided negotiating with Arafat. Palestinian land continued to be expropriated, the Palestinian economy declined even further, the safe passage from the West Bank to Gaza was not opened, and the ongoing closures on the territories prevented West Bank Palestinians from having access to Jerusalem, the site of not only al-Aksa mosque, but also al-Makkased hospital in East Jerusalem, the hospital available for Palestinian use. From the Palestinian point of view, the momentum towards peace was lost, and their lives were made ever worse.

Though many of us were initially thrilled with Barak's election, the situation on the ground did not materially improve. Barak, in spite of his rhetoric of peace, authorized more new building in the settlements than Netanyahu did in a comparable period, and Barak too avoided negotiating with Arafat at first, until his Syrian option fell through. Palestinian land continued to be expropriated, the Palestinian economy declined even further, and the ongoing closures on the territories prevented West Bank Palestinians from having access to Jerusalem. From the Palestinian point of view, the facts on the ground were no better under Barak than under Netanyahu, in spite of Barak's rhetoric of peace.

Barak genuinely wanted peace. Unlike Rabin, however, Barak never made the transition from general to statesman. Barak is a brilliant military tactician, who constantly comes up with clever solutions to problems. In his own mind he formulated a plan for ending the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. The problem, as Gershom Gorenberg stated concisely in the Jerusalem Report (20 Nov. 2000) was that: "Barak also didn't realize that his mission was negotiation. He made a unilateral proposal for peace, and tried to push Arafat into taking it. Barak is consistent: He never listened to coalition partners (when he had them); he prefers unilateral action to listening to colleagues in his own party. Instead of taking his offer, Palestinians took to the streets." I have no doubt that Clinton too knew all this, but he couldn't say any of it during the election period, when Camp David happened.

The real blow to the peace process came at Camp David. Prior to Camp David, Shlomo Ben-Ami had been conducting "secret" negotiations with the Palestinians. Ben-Ami felt that progress had been made, and asked Barak for authority to start discussing the question of Jerusalem, so that they would arrive at Camp David with some understanding. Ben-Ami knew what he was talking about; at the original Camp David negotiations between Israel and Egypt, everyone knew ahead of time that Israel was willing to return Sinai. Unfortunately, Barak did not let Ben-Ami start to negotiate issues related to Jerusalem. Barak's plan was to go to Camp David, and offer Arafat a deal Barak thought he couldn't refuse, namely a large part of the West Bank, in return for complete Israeli control of Jerusalem. Well, Arafat refused, as anyone not subject to Barak's ego could have easily foreseen. So, during Camp David, Barak realized that he would have to make some compromise in East Jerusalem. Barak and Clinton then called Arab leaders such as Mubarak and King Abdullah for support. This was a terrible job of diplomacy. Barak should have done his homework on Jerusalem prior to Camp David, and Clinton should have insisted on it before convening the meeting. A meeting such as Camp David should not have had such big surprises.

After Camp David, Barak and Clinton repeatedly stated that Barak went a long way towards the Palestinians at Camp David, farther than any previous Israeli leader, and that Arafat didn't move correspondingly. Many Israelis and American Jews have taken this understanding of Camp David as the main proof that Arafat, and the Palestinians, do not really want to make peace with Israel - and thus there is no point in Israel trying to make peace with Arafat. Unfortunately, this understanding of Camp David, though believed by many, is a serious misperception. Barak did change his views about Jerusalem at Camp David, but that simply reflected his excessive rigidity prior to Camp David. There is another, more substantial, point that is rarely mentioned in public discussion: Arafat had already made tremendous concessions prior to Camp David. Even though Palestinians consider all of mandatory Palestine their own, Arafat had accepted the existence of the State of Israel in the 1967 borders, which leaves Palestinians with less than half of the territory they consider theirs (and we consider ours). Moreover, even though much of West Jerusalem was Palestinian in origin (for example, Baka, Katamon and Talbieh), Arafat had accepted not making any claim on West Jerusalem. Prior to Camp David, Arafat had accepted that the Palestinians would not really exercise the right of return, as long as they received a statement from Israel recognizing Palestinian rights in principle, and as long as a relatively small number of Palestinians could return, and if the rest received compensation. All told, prior to Camp David, Arafat had already made more concessions than his public might allow. Barak, prior to Camp David, had made no such concessions. So, when Barak made changes in his position at Camp David, and Arafat did not, it is mainly because Arafat gave away all he could give away prior to Camp David.

To say that Barak went farther than all previous Israeli governments is true, but misses the point. The real question is this: Did Barak do all that he could have done for peace (thereby showing, as Barak has claimed, that Arafat was the recalcitrant one)? The answer is, sadly, no. First, Barak neither consulted with Israel's most experienced negotiators (such as Peres and Beilin) for advice, nor did he make use of their talents and connections with the Palestinians during the negotiations (except at Taba, but by then it was too late). Second, Barak continued Netanyahu's policies of building up the settlements and expropriating Palestinian land (though he did it more quietly). Third, Barak did not do his homework on the Jerusalem issue. Fourth, Barak should have gone straight for the Palestinian issue after being elected, rather than his initial focus on Syria (and initial ignoring of the Palestinians, which wasted precious time and good will). Fifth, Barak continuously treated the Palestinians generally, and Arafat in particular, with great disrespect, which was not conducive to moving the negotiations forward. Sixth, Barak's offer at Camp David was not as far as an Israeli leader could go; in fact, he went further in the subsequent Taba negotiations, but by then Barak's coalition had completely fallen apart. Seventh, Barak's disrespectful behavior towards the Palestinians was matched by his disrespectful behavior towards his coalition partners; that attitude, and his constant zig-zagging, cost him his coalition. Last, and most important, although Barak did offer Arafat over 90% of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, it is not percentages that count but rather the viability of the offer; unfortunately, what Barak offered was a Palestinian "state" that would have been chopped up into pieces by settlements and bypass roads, and would not have been viable; no Palestinian leader could have accepted Barak's offer.

The sad part about Camp David is that, I suspect, it could have brought peace, if Barak had done his homework, had negotiated properly prior to Camp David, and had gone just a bit farther than he had. Arafat's style of negotiation also contributed to the failure of Camp David, though it should be noted that he had not even wanted to have the conference take place as planned, claiming that there was not yet adequate preparation for success -- and he agreed to the conference as a result of pressure from Clinton; unfortunately, Arafat was correct in his assessment. It has been clear for some time what a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians would have to look like, namely some variant of the Beilin-Abu Mazen plan, with a Palestinian state in virtually all of the West Bank and Gaza, and with the Palestinians having their capital in East Jerusalem (which they would call Al-Quds). Even the right of return question is solvable, with a bit of creativity; various variants of solutions have been floated, the idea being that in good talmudic fashion, Israel needs to accept the right of return in principle, but in such a way that in practice no more than tens of thousands will actually be able to implement it. I have no doubt that with courageous leadership on both sides, such an agreement would be accepted by the majority of both Israelis and Palestinians (at least it would have been accepted prior to the current violence). Barak, though he did take some bold steps at Camp David, seemed too concerned with thinking up the next clever maneuver to keep himself in power to be bothered with the kind of bold leadership displayed by his heroes Ben Gurion (who accepted the UN partition plan without Jerusalem!) and Rabin.

Instead of the peace that could have happened at Camp David, we now have the current spate of violence. It was really unavoidable, once the peace process collapsed at Camp David. To understand what is happening, it is too easy simply to look at the faults of Arafat and his allies (though Arafat has many faults indeed); we need to look at the root cause of the violence, and that is the situation created by having the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza living under Israeli occupation. The continued expansion of settlements and bypass roads, the continued daily harassment by Israeli soldiers and settlers, and the deterioration of daily life, all of which happened before the violence broke out, have had more of an impact than all the rhetoric of their, and our, politicians. Israel is certainly not a terrible occupier in comparison to many other occupying forces in history, but it has still led to a situation in which the average Palestinians under occupation feel that they have nothing to hope for, and nothing left to lose. That is the situation when people become suicide bombers. Normal Palestinian children don't want to die, and their parents don't want them to either.

Life in the territories is a powder keg that waited for the match that Sharon conveniently supplied. Of course, I wish that the Palestinians had leaders like Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, and that they had reacted with peaceful protest to Israeli policy in the territories. The Palestinian leadership is corrupt and incompetent, and is willing to incite, and support, violence. That is clearly to be condemned. But those who conclude that we write off Arafat, and wait till someone better comes along, are quite mistaken. The alternatives to Arafat are either Fatah people who will be even weaker than Arafat, or strong Hamas leaders. As much as I do not particularly appreciate him, Israel has no choice but to negotiate with Arafat. Is violence such as the lynching of the Israeli soldiers, or the bombing of the discotech, terrible? Very terrible. Of course, every unnecessary death (Jewish or Palestinian) is terrible. However, although each violent act upsets us very much, the political reality on the ground, and the only possible solution, has not changed as a result of the violence.

Then there is the matter of the rioting by Israeli Arabs in the Galilee, which really caught the Jewish public off guard. I view the riots by Israeli Arabs as distinct from the violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The rioting by Israeli Arabs seems to me to be sort of like the rioting by Blacks in the U.S. in the 1960's. Again, I preferred Martin Luther King style leadership in the 1960's to the Black Panthers and Malcolm X, and I would prefer peaceful protests among Israeli Arabs. But, at base, it is Israel's poor treatment of its Arab citizens that caused the protests. Everyone knows that Israeli Arabs suffer serious discrimination. For example, Israeli Arab villages get smaller budgets per capita than Jewish towns. In the past, Israeli Arabs behaved like blacks in the Southern U.S. before the civil rights movement of the 1960's, in that they accepted whatever was done to them, and did not complain. That type of passive acceptance of discrimination can last only so long, and since the discrimination was never remedied, it eventually led to the current burst of anger. Just as the younger generation of blacks in the U.S. in the 1960's could not accept their parents' tolerance of discrimination, so too the younger generation of Israeli Arabs cannot accept discrimination. Ultimately, Jews in Israel created this current anger of Israeli Arabs by not addressing the problems of the Israeli Arabs sooner.

What about the recent expressions of anti-Semitism found among some Palestinians in the territories? It is certainly there, and should be countered. However, we need to distinguish between traditional anti-Semitism (found all over the world), and that resulting from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As a Jew, I believe the land of Israel is mine. From a Palestinian point of view, they have every right to believe that the land is theirs. From their point of view, we destroyed hundreds of their villages that existed before 1948, and caused most Palestinians to be refugees. I do not think that most of the refugees from 1948 should be allowed to return (and Beilin-Abu Mazen agreed to that), but I do think Israel needs to admit that there is a refugee problem, and that Israel's establishment contributed to that problem. More recently, ever since Rabin was assassinated, daily life in the West Bank and Gaza has gotten progressively worse. Under both Bibi and Barak, more land has been taken to build settlements; the Palestinian economy has gotten worse and worse. The Palestinian people feel no hope, and feel as if all that keeps happening is that they are having more and more land taken away from them. I would hate the Israelis if I were a Palestinian. Although the Palestinian hatred for Israelis makes use of anti-Semitic rhetoric, to deny that it has roots in the Palestinian loss of their homeland in Mandatory Palestine is to sweep the essence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict under the rug.

Should we wait until Palestinian anti-Semitism ends before seeking peace? Should we wait until the Palestinians accept the legitimacy of the Jewish version of the history of what we call the Land of Israel? Many American Jews seem to say yes, but I think that is a mistake. As a proud Jew, I am certainly offended, and frustrated, that the Palestinians (including some of their moderates) deny our connection to the Land of Israel. However, if we wait until the Palestinians accept our claim to the Land before reaching a political solution, we will wait in vain, and many innocent people on both sides will be condemned to die needlessly. Just as we are commanded to violate something as important as Shabbat for the sake of saving a life, how much the more so should we forgo our pride for the sake of peace -- and saving many lives.

We made peace with Egypt, even though the Egyptian people don't exactly love us. All that is needed for a peace treaty with the Palestinians is for them to accept the fact that they cannot get rid of Israel, and that they have no choice but to make peace with the Jews. It would be nice to have them accept us in principle; it is sufficient to have them accept us in practice. In fact, the Palestinian leadership under Arafat has already accepted that they have no choice but to make peace with Israel. They cannot, on the other hand, accept an unfair peace treaty, and that is the only sort of treaty that Barak (or any other Israeli leader) had been willing to agree to. A just peace accepted by both sides, rather than an unjust peace imposed by one side, is the only sort of peace that will hold in the long run. Moreover, a just peace between Israel and the Palestinians is the only thing that in the long run will lead to Jews and Palestinians accepting each other's legitimacy. As it says in the Torah, "we will do and we will listen." Emotional changes follow action, not the other way around.

I have heard some otherwise liberal American Jews say that the current violence shows that the Palestinians are "not like us" Western liberals, and that they are inherently violent, and, in particular, they are particularly inclined towards suicide bombing; hence, we cannot make a peace treaty with them. Among the "evidence" cited for such views are the TV footage showing summer camps training Palestinian children to be martyrs, and the recent polls showing a majority of Palestinians supporting suicide bombers against Israel. Though disturbing, these bits of information do not add up to a blanket condemnation of the Palestinian people. Surely, some Palestinian children are undergoing extreme indoctrination in summer camps, but is it a majority of their children? I see no evidence of that. We have our extremists too (e.g. the late Meir Kahane and his followers). Are Jewish children who were brought to pray at the grave of Baruch Goldstein (who massacred 29 Palestinians in Hebron) not being indoctrinated to support violence? As for the polls of Palestinian views, the volatility in the views found by polling the Palestinian public is matched by the rapid changes in views held by the Israeli public. At the start of the Oslo process, when the peace process held out hope for a better future, the majority of Palestinians supported the peace process, as did the Israeli public. During periods of violence, both publics turn away from peace. Many Palestinians have personally suffered loses during the Oslo process (and generally during the years since 1967), and it is their current desperate situation that leads to support for violence -- they have not been shown that any alternative benefits them. Finally, the notion that the Palestinians are "not like us," but are somehow inherently prone to violence, is racism, pure and simple. It is sad that when it comes to Israel, some American Jews drop their otherwise natural open-minded and liberal tendencies.

An interesting insight into the current escalation in Palestinian violence, and in particular suicide bombing, is given by Danny Rubinstein in Haaretz (25 March 2002): "The 1970s were years of growth and economic prosperity in the territories conquered in the Six-Day War. The Israeli labor market employed over half the Palestinian workforce, and tens of thousands who left for the oil-producing Arab states accumulated a great deal of money. … Economic distress is apparently playing a key role in the violent outbreak. The peace process was an economic disaster for the average Palestinian. The closures that blocked access to the Israeli labor market created unemployment in the dozens of percentages, along with a situation of near starvation in broad sectors of the Palestinian public. The Palestinians never liked Israeli rule. But the steep increase in the living standard in the territories during the period of economic prosperity, checked the hatred. And on the other hand, when there is no money and no food, and in the mosques one hears sermons about the road to salvation, and outside one's window one sees flourishing settlements that are living on the Palestinian national resources, the result is what is happening now." Again, rather than looking for some problematic psychological tendency among Palestinians, or Arafat in particular, we need to look at the underlying political and economic situation to understand the current violence.

Finally, is Israel under existential threat due to the current violence? If so, I would be the first to rally to Israel's support. However, I do not think that Israel is facing a real existential threat during the current intifadah. It is true that many Israelis have been killed in the current violence, and that is a tragedy (of course, many more Palestinians have been killed, and that is a tragedy too). Militarily, however, the Palestinians have never constituted an existential threat to Israel. The Palestinians, who are economically bankrupt and militarily unsophisticated, cannot pose any real threat to the IDF. They could start a guerrilla war in the West Bank and Gaza, and that will be painful to Israel, but, like the situation in Lebanon, Israel would not be seriously threatened. By contrast, Iraq and Iran, with their missile technology, are the real military threats. A disillusioned Israeli public is a threat to Israel's future. The demise of the peace process is a threat to Israel. Giving up most of East Jerusalem would not be an existential threat to Israel. This whole notion of Israel currently facing an existential threat, or that the current violence is somehow a continuation of the war of 1948, is a gross exaggeration, though it sells well to the American Jewish public.

When the current violence ends, as it will eventually, the facts on the ground will be the same as before the violence started. Both the Jews and the Palestinians claim the same piece of land. We can either divide the land, or we can fight till one side crushes the other. I think that dividing the land makes more sense. I thought peace was possible before the current events, and I still think it is possible now, though it is now less likely to happen soon. I do not believe that Sharon is capable of bringing peace, though he has behaved with more restraint than I would have expected. I believe that peace will ultimately happen. Because it does not appear to be happening soon, that simply means that more people on both sides will die before peace is achieved. That is the real tragedy we must work to avoid.

Addendum April 2002:

The bulk of the above remarks were written in the summer of 2001. The violence has since gotten worse; the basic analysis of the causes of the situation remain the same.

The end of the violence, sadly but also predictably, does not appear to be in sight. The Saudi plan offers some hope, though, sadly, Israel did not leap at the opportunity it presented. Once again, the solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is reasonably clear, though it now seems that many more innocent people will die, and others will have their lives ruined, until we reach that solution. Prime minister Sharon has no real plan to try to bring about peace - not even a bad plan, but no plan at all. Sharon has spent the past 50 years waging war (sometimes brilliantly as in his crossing of the Suez in the 1973 war, sometimes brutally as in his reprisals in the 1950's, and sometimes with horrible consequences as in Lebanon in 1982), and he seems to know nothing other than war. The sum total of his strategy, and that of the Israeli right in general, is to hit the Palestinians so hard that they will surrender unconditionally, and accept a non-viable patchwork of territory on a fraction of the West Bank and Gaza Strip as their "state." This strategy won't work - the Palestinians will never settle for what Sharon would be willing to offer.

Whatever very understandable anger we as Jews may feel towards the Palestinians in response to the terrorism they have unleashed, simply using more violence in response will not only not prevent more Israeli (and Palestinian) deaths in the future, it will in fact increase the violence. As for all the current focus by the Israeli mainstream on Arafat's role as terrorist, that is simply an attempt to avoid the real issues. Getting rid of Arafat will solve no problems. The only way to solve the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is to deal with the fundamental cause of the problem, which is the fact of two peoples claiming the same piece of land. I would certainly prefer it if better leadership took over on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides, but just as Sharon will stay in power until the Israeli public replaces him, so Arafat is here to stay until the Palestinians choose someone else - and that is less and less likely the more Israel humiliates him and causes the Palestinians to rally to his support. Sharon led Israel into the 1982 disaster in Lebanon because of his plans to replace the Lebanese leadership with someone to his liking, and failed miserably; unfortunately, Sharon does not appear to have learned his lesson.

The right wing argues that Israel is in a war of self-defense. Nothing could be further from the truth. The current war, to quote a recent Haaretz op ed piece, is really the "war of defense of the settlements." The settlement movement has never had the support of the majority of Israelis, but they have managed to intimidate all Israeli leaders save Rabin, and he paid with his life for it. If one has a Jewish messianic viewpoint, then one supports the settlements no matter what bloodshed they lead to. The majority of Israelis, and American Jews, who take a pragmatic rather than messianic approach to Zionism, need to understand that the settlements are now the biggest obstacle to security for Israel. Having settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the midst of Palestinian villages means that it is impossible to defend them adequately. Israeli soldiers are dying to protect these unprotectable settlements. Settlers are putting their children in the line of fire for the sake of their ideology (or for the cheap housing that was subsidized by the Israeli government). If it weren't for the settlements, Israel would be completely out of the Gaza Strip at this point, and would have an easy time negotiating a final border between Israel and the West Bank. The settlements are illegal according to international law, are endangering the lives of Israeli soldiers and civilians, and are a thorn in the peace process. Until Israel gives the Palestinians a real signal that it will agree to a viable Palestinian state, there will be no end to the violence; until Israel agrees to dismantle the vast majority of the settlements, no verbal promises made by Israel will be acceptable to the Palestinians, and they will continue their struggle, unfortunately by violent means.