The Beilin-Abed-Rabbo agreement is the latest hit on the Middle Eastern market.
This week I made a short visit to Germany, where a book of mine has come out, and was asked about itat every event. At my meetings with President Johannes Rau and Foreign Minister JoschkaFischer, too, the subject came up at once. I used the opportunity to argue for support of thisinitiative by all possible means.
To avoid misunderstanding, I pointed out that I have no connections with this initiative. TheIsraeli participants belong to the left wing of the Labor and Meretz parties, and I do notbelong to this circle. But I give this initiative all my blessings – all the more so because itcontinues a process that we ourselves started two years ago.
In August 2001, Gush Shalom published the draft of an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.It consisted of 14 paragraphs that included detailed proposals for the solution of all theproblems of the conflict. It was an Israeli initiative, but we acted in close consultationwith Palestinian colleagues.
The main object of the initiative was educational. The al-Aksa Intifada was in full swing,Ehud Barak’s myth (“There is no one to talk with!”) had captured the public, most of the peacecamp had collapsed, hopelessness and impotence reigned supreme.
We wanted to light a candle in the darkness. To prove to the public that there is a solution, thatthere was somebody to talk to and something to talk about. And, most importantly, to tell thepeople what the price of peace is, and that it was worthwhile to pay it.
We saw ourselves as an icebreaker, a compact and autonomous vessel that opens the way for muchbigger ships to follow.
We published the draft treaty as a full-page ad in Haaretz (August 10, 2001). It did not causemuch of a stir. As usual, all the Israeli media boycotted it and even abroad it attracted onlylimited attention. But we hoped that we had opened a path, and that others would use it in duecourse.
The first who did so were Sari Nusseibeh and Ami Ayalon, the former the president of an Arabuniversity and the scion of an important Jerusalem family, the latter a former commander ofthe Israeli navy and a former chief of the Security Service. They presented a small number ofbasic principles for a peace accord, launched a big publicity campaign and called for masssignatures on both sides. Up to now, some 65,000 Palestinians and 85,000 Israelis havesigned.
Now comes the initiative of a group of important Israeli and Palestinian personalities. Likeour initiative at the time, it takes the form of a detailed draft peace agreement. In theircontent, too, the two documents are quite similar. It can be said that 90% of the proposals arethe same. And no wonder – after endless plans, endless rounds of negotiations and endlesstalks, all the problems lie on the table and everyone knows what the parameters of a possiblecompromise are.
Both drafts are based on the principle of “two states for two peoples”, with their capitals inJerusalem, a border based on the Green Line, removal of the settlers from the Palestinianterritories and a practical solution of the refugee problem.
The differences are mainly due to Beilin-Abed-Rabbo’s desire to sweeten the pill for theIsraelis as much as possible. For example: we proposed to cure the historical wound withIsrael’s acceptance of its responsibility for the creation of at least part of the refugeeproblem and its recognition of the principle of the Right of Return. We believe that such adeclaration is necessary for the cleaning of the wound.
The new initiative deliberately ignores the painful question of principle and deals onlywith the practical solution. Beilin says that the Palestinians have “given up” the Right ofReturn de jure, too – a statement the Palestinians will it find difficult to swallow.
Like us, the initiators propose in practice to allow a limited number of Palestinians toreturn to Israel, but they propose a sophisticated key: a number equivalent to the averagenumber of refugees allowed in by other nations. We have proposed a quite simple method: toallow back a fixed quota (say 50 thousand) every year for 10 years.
On the question of Jerusalem, too, the new draft tries to sweeten the pill. They avoid sayingclearly that the Palestinians will be “sovereign” over their part of the city and the TempleMount. All the paragraphs about Jerusalem are a bit clumsy, in an attempt, so it seems, to makethem more palatable to the Israeli public.
The document imposes several limitation on Palestinian sovereignty that may impair thefeeling of equality. Also, without seeing the detailed maps it is hard to say how much Beilinwants to swap. It seems that there is a certain disparity between their and our maps.
But these differences are not really important. The people who drafted this document knewthat they were preparing only a sample agreement. It will be presented to the public in order toshow that peace is possible, that it poses no existential danger to Israel that there is apartner on the other side and that there is something to talk about. Even the refugee problem,which frightens so many Israelis out of their wits, stops being so threatening when onetackles it in real terms. It becomes a practical problem with practical solutions.
The reactions of the leaderships of the two sides is illuminating. Ariel Sharon has attackedthe document furiously, as if it constituted high treason and sticks a knife into the back ofthe nation. That’s no wonder, considering that there is no greater danger to Sharon and hisgrand design than the danger of peace. Ehud Barak, the man most to blame for the collapse of theIsraeli peace camp, has also raged against the initiative. The starling visits the raven, asthe Hebrew saying goes.
Yasser Arafat, on the other hand, has blessed the initiative. He cannot accept it formally,because a real peace treaty must be negotiated between governments. No national leader cantake official responsibility for terms when the leader of the other side does not. But it cansafely be said that the agreement is acceptable to him – all the more so since he took part in itsformulation behind the scenes. There is, of course, no symmetry: the Israeli doves are inopposition, while their Palestinian counterparts are in power.
Throughout the world, the document was well received by all who wish for an end to the conflict.The great hope is that this initiative, like the “revolt of the pilots”, represents the end ofthe era of despair.
The first task of Beilin and his colleagues is to raise the Labor and Meretz parties from theirruins (the Labor party chairman, the birthday darling, has not joined the initiative!) and toset up a strong and combative opposition in the spirit of the document.
To quote Churchill again: This is not the beginning of the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of thebeginning.