Our partners in life in this land
Mohammed Dahlan
Haaretz, 31 January 2002
I know, from the outset, that both the Palestinian and the Israeli publics are sick and tired of declarations and interviews; they are no longer interested in analyses and commentaries on the terrible reality in which they are living. Both publics are searching for lost hope among the death and destruction left behind by the cycle of revenge.
I have no intentions of discussing and reiterating the importance of peace and security, or the question of who is to blame for their collapse. What prompted me to write was the sense that in recent years, the Israeli public has been grossly and frighteningly misled by its leadership. This misguidance was illustrated by exaggeratedly presenting the offers made to the Palestinians by former prime minister Ehud Barak as generous; it is also illustrated by the presentation of the Palestinian public, in its entirety, as a criminal society that wants to spill blood, murder infants and blow up families in banquet halls.
The frightening thing is that no one is trying to look for the causes of this unacceptable phenomenon, so as to find a way to rescue what remains of the hope, instead of hiding behind the accusations. I believe that the question of who is to blame is no longer significant; what is important is the question of how do we rescue ourselves from this cycle of violence.
The truth is that Israeli politicians are not interested in the result; first and foremost among their concerns is the need to prove the righteousness of their ways. And when the government of the settlers took hold of the reins of power in Israel, it voiced false slogans that drew inspiration from the radical right and confounded the minds of the left, which was broken and frustrated by its failure in the campaign for peace. This is the left that is trying to recoup its loss by blaming President Arafat, as if by doing so, it has found the magical solution to the political and internal crisis in which it finds itself.
Now, following 16 months of bloody clashes, in which there have been no winners, but only losers (after all, the only winners are the extremists on both sides), I do not believe that Ariel Sharon and Shaul Mofaz have a magical solution that could bring victory and security. They have succeeded - by demonstrating much expertise in the use of a policy based on a mentality of conquest and arrogance - in recruiting all the suicide attackers that can be rounded up, from all age groups, all educational backgrounds and all possible organizations.
I do not believe they have the required gall to admit they have failed; neither do I believe that they are making a special effort to find cracks of hope in the fortified wall of despair. They are being motivated by power-oriented instincts, which they are wrapping up in the slogan: "There is no one to negotiate with." Meanwhile, the truth is that they don't have anything to negotiate about; from a political point of view, Sharon can offer only what the right wing agrees to. In brief, he will give us something of an autonomous state, alongside a revamped model of the occupation.
In the field of security, they have invented the failed model of the assassinations, in which they are targeting the accused and, in doing so, are mistakenly killing the innocent too. The siege is imposed on the innocent. The suicide attackers, on the other hand, pay no attention to it - after all, almost all the terror strikes have been carried out while the closures and sieges have been in force. The roadblocks, and the acts of humiliation taking place at them daily, have also become stepping stones for suicide attackers.
The opposition organizations no longer have to make an effort to recruit the suicide attackers; they have left this task in the hands of Mofaz and the Israeli army, in the hands of the day-to-day humiliation and oppression of the Palestinian masses. These masses have not always been a side to the conflict; they always looked toward a reasonable political solution that would improve their standard of living and the lives of their children.
Everyone must understand that the national aspirations of a people cannot be wiped out with the use of F-16 fighter planes. We are not opposed to Israel or the Israeli people, but we are adamantly and outrightly against the Israeli occupation, and that is our right. We have the right to live in our small state - with East Jerusalem as its capital - that stretches out over a mere 22 percent of historical Palestine; and we have the right to strive for a just solution to the problem of the refugees - one that would not alter the demographic character of the State of Israel.
There is no need to inflate the demands of the Palestinians, as is the practice of some of the leaders of the political and security establishment in Israel. Such inflation leads an individual such as the director of Israel's Military Intelligence, Brigadier General Aharon Ze'evi, who is rapidly getting used to Sharon's political line, to say about President Arafat that even if Israel gives him a state based on the 1967 borders, including Jerusalem and an agreement regarding the right of return for the refugees, he would not sign a peace treaty. And I say to him that this is not the first strategic mistake that MI has made.
Our clear message to the Israeli people is this: We wish to live in our state, based on the borders of June 4, 1967, alongside the State of Israel, and not in its place or at its expense. We are interested in a just and reasonable solution to the problem of the refugees. We want true stability and life in an atmosphere of complete peace and security. We want you to live securely alongside the Palestinian nation, without fears or concerns. We want you to be our partners in life in this land.
Are Sharon and his fellow leaders ready for this? Is there anyone out there who will respond to this offer?
The writer is the head of the Palestinian Authority's preventative security apparatus in the Gaza Strip.
