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April 13, 2005
The Israeli Settlements
In the news on a periodic basis is the issue of Israeli settlements on two pieces of territory; the West Bank and the Gaza strip. Last week Israeli Prime Minister Sharon met with President Bush on the latter's ranch in Texas, where they discussed these and other issues. Sharon wants to "evacuate" settlers from Gaza, while expanding settlements on the West Bank.
Like everyting else in the Middle East, the technical, social, and historical details are unbelievably complex, but the moral issues are fairly straightforward.
Here is a map of Israel for those folks not completely familiar with the geography. One thing to keep in mind is how small the area concerned is. Look at the scale; one could drive the entire length of Isreal in two or three hours. You can stand on some hills on the West Bank and see the Mediterranian Ocean.
The (very) short version of the history of Israel as regards the settlements is that after the 1948 War of Independence Israel formed borders now known as the "pre-1967 borders". This is the light colored area in the map above.
While the reasons for the 1967, or "Six Day War", are, like everything else in that region of the world, complex, but essentially repeated provocations, including blockade of sea routes by Egypt and Syria convinced Israel that it had no choice but to "pre-empt" the Arabs by attacking first. On the morning of June 5 the Israeli Air Force wiped out first the Egyptian Air Force, then the Syrian Air Force, while they sat on the ground in a "Pearl Harbor" type raid. With the Arab air forces decimated, Israeli ground troops quickly destroyed their enemies.
During this war Israel captured four territories:
1) The West Bank (west bank of the Jordan river) captured from Jordan
2) The Golan Heights (a plateau in south-western Syria bordering Israel) captured from Syria
3) The Gaza Strip (now in west south-western Israel) captured from Egypt
4) The Sinai Desert (marked simply "Egypt" on the map above) captured from Egypt
Of these territorie, Sinai was returned to Egypt as part of the Sadat-Begin peace accords of 1979.
Shortly after occupying the territories the Israelis began to occupy them with civilians.
Again, the short version is that Israel captured these terrorities because their original borders were militarily indefensibe, and two, because some religious Jews cite historical and religious claims to the land. However, some Israelis have moved to the settlements for more mundane and practical reasons, such as tax incentives, cheap housing, etc.
The Settlements are Not the Issue
Today we hear from the Arabs that the settlements are the major obstacle to peace. And, if you read the papers, you can be forgiven for thinking that if only the Israelis would give up their settlements a peace could be quickly worked out. The solution, it is said, is to give the Palestinians a country on the West Bank, and to let (demand, really) that Israel live within it's pre-1967 borders.
This is not true for a number of reasons.
- If the settlements are the problem today, then what was the problem before 1967? Terrorism against Israel did not begin with the end of the Six Day War. The PLO, for example was formed in 1964.
- If the West Bank is such a perfect home for the Palestinians, why didn't Jordan give them this land as their country when they had the chance (i.e. before 1967)?
- The fact is that Israel is willing to negotiate with the Arab countries but with the exception of Egypt and Jordan the Arab countries still refuse to recognize Israel's right to exist.
- The Palestinian "right of return" must be abandoned. This is not something that you read about often (if at all) in your daily newspaper but it is one of the most important things that must be resolved. In short, during the 1948 War of Independence, some 800,000 Arabs fled the area (for reasons that are disputed). Today their ancestors demand the right to return to Israel and claim the land they left, or at least to take up Israeli citizenship. One need not be a demographer to see that these ancestors (and anyone could claim to be one as documentation would be impossible to verify) would now number in the tens of millions. They would simply flood Israel with Arabs, and, in the next election, vote the state of Israel out of existance.
- In short, if the Arabs had not opposed Israel's right to exist from the beginning, had negotiated a peace, had given the Palestinians a homeland on the West Bank, stopped their terrorism, formed democratic (or at least representative) governments, the present situation could have been entirely avoided.
- Further, the Security Fence that Israel is building is not preventing peace as some alledge. It is stopping terrorism, and that is a good thing. My only question is why didn't the Israelis think of it earlier. And I don't care what any "world court" has to say about it.
The Real Issues
The main issues preventing peace are the following
- Lack of Moral Clarity. I've written on this before here. Here are two of the essential elements of moral clarity lacking in some people:
- Israel is an imperfect democracy, but it is a democracy. No Arab state is a democracy. This does not mean that Israel may do anything it wishes, but it does mean that we should give them the benefit of the doubt.
- Israeli forces practice discrimination in warfare. That is, they only attack military targets. Civilians are sometimes killed as a byproduct, but the civilians are not the target themselves. Arab/Muslim terrorists deliberately target civilians. Why this is hard for some people to understand is beyond me.
- Lack of Democracy among the Arab States. Natan Scharansky wrote about this in his excellent book "The Case for Democracy". Simply put, democracies do not fight each other. We in the west are partly responsible for the current state of affairs, since in the past we did not pressure Arab governments to reform.
- Palestinian terrorism - until the Arab states and/or the PA put and end to terrorism by organizations such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the others there will be no peace.
- The expansion of the settlements should stop. Ok, I know I said earlier that "the settlements per se" are not the problem. And that is true. But it is also true that in my opinion Israel does not need new settlements, and by expanding them they give Palestinian extremists a propaganda message that is useful in recruiting terrorists.
That's my take on the whole issue, or at least all I have time to write for now. I may add to this post later.
Posted by Tom at April 13, 2005 11:35 AM
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