The news in the papers say that, as an opening position in the coming permanent statusnegotiations, Barak is going to offer the Palestinians a state of their own in 18% of the”territories”. I wish I could add: I don’t believe it. But the truth is, I do believe.
18% of the “territories” occupied by Israel in 1967 are less than 4% (four percent!) of theterritory of Palestine under the British Mandate. In such a territory, which will be cut upinto enclaves, it is impossible to create a viable state, not even a mini-state. It is hardlyenough for a Bantustan – the name given to the black “homelands” by their white masters in theformer South Africa.
Such an offer is not only a burning insult to the Palestinians, but also an act of extremefoolishness. It will compel the Palestinians to adopt a similar method – an extreme “openingposition” of their own. They might start with the UN partition resolution of 1947, which is thelegal basis of the State of Israel even according to our Declaration of Independence. Thisresolution accords to the Palestinian-Arab state the towns of Ramleh and Lydda, Acre andBeersheba. Greater Jerusalem was turned over to an international regime.
The folly called “opening position” has a history. I came across it immediately after the 1967war, when the then Prime Minister, Levy Eshkol, explained it to me. A few days before, on thefifth day of the war, I had published an Open Letter to the Prime Minister, suggesting to turnover to the Palestinians all the parts of the country conquered just now by the Israeli army, inreturn for an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. I also asked him to grant me an urgentaudience.
He called me to the Prime Minister’s office in the Knesset building. ( I was a member of heKnesset at the time.) After we had occupied all of the territory of Palestine and beaten all theArab countries, I said, the Palestinian people is in a state of shock. This is an opportunity,which may never return, to effect an historical change. If we make it possible for thePalestinians to set up their own state now, side by side with Israel, in the framework of anagreement with us, we can settle once and for all the conflict which has already endured forthree generations.
Eshkol listened with amused patience. (Contrary to many leaders, he was able to listen.) Thenhe said something like: “Uri, what kind of a trader are you? You want to give the Palestinian themaximum before you even start. That’s not the way to make a deal. At the start you offer theminimum and demand the maximum. Afterwards, if necessary, you give up something and reachagreement.”
“With all due respect,” I answered, “That may be a good way to sell a horse, but not to settle anhistorical conflict between to nations.”
I am recounting this, not for the first time, in order to point out the double folly of thisapproach. First, making such a humiliating offer is
a first-class psychological blunder – as proven by the fact that all Arab leaders – includingKing Hussein, who was already engaged in secret contacts with Israel – refused the offer andwent to Khartoum, where they adopted the famous “Three No’s” We saw the result on Yom Kippur.And second, it is also a major domestic political blunder. In the eyes of the public, theminimum “opening position” of the government becomes immediately a maximum offer, a “redline”. Every withdrawal from this line will look thereafter like a shameful surrender of aweak and pitiful, if not treacherous, leadership. The same will, of course, happen on theother side.
The same minds in the Prime Minister’s office that hatched this foolish idea are now busypreaching “separation”. This is a negative term. “Divide and impera” is an ancient cynicalslogan. “Separation” is the translation of the Afrikaans word Apartheid. “High fences makegood neighbors”, a saying frequently quoted by Mr. Barak, is a fetching, but dangerous,slogan. A person who thinks about electrified fences, barbed-wire barricades andmine-fields does not really think about peace, but about the continuation of the war by othermeans. Peace must bring the two peoples to mutual understanding and cooperation, drying theswamp that bred the violence, hatred and terrorism.
Fifty years ago some of us started to talk about a peace based on the co-existence of Israel and aPalestinian state that must come into being at its side. We always emphasized that the borderbetween the two sates must be open to the movement of people, ideas and goods. When I talkedabout this for the first time with Yitzhaq Rabin, he coined a phrase that is since then embeddedin my memory: “I don’t care for a safe border (gvul batuach), but for an open border (gvulpatuach). That was thirty years ago.