JUNE 2007
The Bed of Sodom
By Uri avnery
21/04/07
IN HEBREW legend, the bed of Sodom is a symbol of
evil.
The Bible tells how God decided to obliterate Sodom
because of the wickedness of its people (Genesis, 18).
The legend gives us an example of this wickedness: the
special bed for visitors. When a stranger came to Sodom,
he was put in this bed. If he was too tall, his legs were
shortened. If he was too short, his limbs were stretched
to fit.
In political life, there is more than one bed like this. On the Right and on the Left, there are people who put every problem in such a bed, cut off limbs and stretch limbs, until reality matches theory.
From the sixties on, doctrinaire leftists tended to put every situation into the bed of Vietnam. Everything - be it the murderous tyranny in Chile or the American threats against Cuba - had to fit the Vietnam example. Applying this model, it was easy to decide who were the good guys and who the bad, what to do and how to solve the problem.
That was convenient. It is much easier to draw conclusions when there is no need to consider the complexities of a particular conflict, its historical background and its local circumstances.
LATELY, A NEW bed of Sodom has gained currency: South Africa. In some circles of the radical Left there is a tendency to force every conflict into this bed. Every new case of evil and oppression in the world is seen as a new version of the apartheid regime, and it is decided accordingly how to solve the problem and what to do to achieve the desired end.
True, the South African situation arose in particular historical circumstances that took centuries to mature. It was not identical with the problem of the aborigines in Australia or the settlement of the Whites in North America, nor to Northern Ireland or the situation in Iraq. But it is certainly convenient to give one and the same answer to all problems.
Of course, there is always a superficial similarity between different regimes of oppression. But if one is not ready to see the differences between the diseases, one is liable to prescribe false medicines - and risk killing the patient in the process.
NOW THIS is happening here.
It is easy to put the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the South African bed, since the similarities between the symptoms are obvious. The Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories has been going on for 40 years now, and almost 60 years have passed since the Naqba - the armed conflict of 1948 in which the State of Israel came into being and in which more than half the Palestinians lost their homes and land. Relations between the settlers and the Palestinians are in many ways reminiscent of apartheid; and even in Israel proper, the Arab citizens are far from real equality.
What to do? One has to learn from South Africa that there is nothing to be gained from appealing to the conscience of the ruling people. Among the white minority in South Africa, there was no real difference between Left and Right, between open racists and liberals, who were but better disguised racists, with the exception of a few white heroes who joined the fight for freedom.
Therefore, redemption could only come from the outside. And indeed, world public opinion saw the injustice of apartheid and imposed a world-wide boycott on South Africa, till in the end the white minority capitulated. Power in the united South African state passed into the hands of the black majority, Nelson Mandela was released from prison and became president, and all this took place - wonder of wonders - without bloodshed.
If this happened in South Africa, the proponents of this view say, it must happen here, too. The idea of establishing a Palestinian state next to the State of Israel (the "Two-State Solution") must be discarded, and the single state between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River (the "One-State Solution") must become the aim. This must be achieved by the ultimate weapon which proved itself in South Africa: boycott.
This is how it is going to happen: justice-lovers throughout the world will convince world public opinion to impose a general boycott on the State of Israel. The state will collapse and disintegrate. Between the sea and the river there will come into being one single state, in which Israelis and Palestinians will live peacefully together, as equal citizens. The settlers can stay where they are, there will be no problem of borders, and all that remains is to decide who will be the Palestinian Mandela.
THIS WEEK I listened to a lecture by Professor Ilan Pappe of Haifa University, one of the leading spokesmen for this idea. The audience consisted of Palestinian, Israeli and international activists in Bil'in, the village that has become a symbol of resistance to the occupation. He presented a well-structured set of ideas, expressed with eloquence and enthusiasm. These were the principles:
There is no sense in opposing just the occupation, nor any other particular policy of the Israeli government. The problem is the very essence of Israel as a Zionist state. This essence is unchangeable as long as the state exists. No change from the inside is possible, because in Israel there is no essential difference between Right and Left. Both are accomplices in a policy whose real aim is ethnic cleansing, the expulsion of the Palestinians not only from the occupied territories, but also from Israel proper.
Therefore, everyone who strives for a just solution must aim at the establishment of a single state, to which the refugees of 1948 and 1967 will be invited to return. This will be a joint and egalitarian state, like today's South Africa.
There is no sense in trying to change Israel from the inside. Salvation will come from the outside: a world-wide boycott of Israel, which will cause the state to collapse and convince the Israeli public that there is no escape from the One-State Solution.
It sounded logical and convincing, and the speaker did indeed gain applause.
THIS THEORETICAL structure contains several assumptions with which I have no quarrel. The Zionist Left has indeed collapsed in the last few years, and its absence from the field of struggle is a painful and dangerous fact. In today's Knesset, there is no effective Zionist party that is seriously fighting for real equality for the Arab citizens. Nobody is able today to call out into the street hundreds of thousands, or even tens of thousands, in order to pressure the government to accept the peace proposal of the whole Arab world.
There is no doubt that the real disease is not the 40-year long occupation. The occupation is a symptom of a more profound disease, which is connected with the official ideology of the state. The aim of ethnic cleansing and the establishment of a Jewish State from the sea to the river is dear to the hearts of many Israelis, and perhaps Rabbi Meir Kahane was right when he asserted that this is everybody's unspoken desire.
But unlike professor Pappe, I am convinced that it is possible to change the historical direction of Israel. I am convinced that this is the real battlefield for the Israeli peace forces, and I myself have been engaged in it for decades.
Moreover, I believe that we have already attained impressive achievements: the recognition of the existence of the Palestinian people has become general, and so has the readiness of most Israelis to accept the idea of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as the capital of both states. We have compelled our government to recognize the PLO, and we shall compel them to recognize Hamas. True, all this would not have happened without the steadfastness of the Palestinian people and (sometimes) favorable international circumstances, but the contribution of the Israeli peace forces, which pioneered these ideas, was significant.
Also, the notion has lately gained acceptance in Israel and other countries, that peace will be achieved only if we succeed in overcoming the gap between the Israeli and the Palestinian narratives and in integrating them into one single historical account, which will recognize the injustices which have been committed and which are still going on. Nothing is more important. (Our path-breaking booklet "Truth Against Truth" was the beginning of this process.)
On the surface, it appears that we have failed. We have not succeeded in compelling our government to stop the building of the wall or the enlargement of the settlements, nor to restore to the Palestinians their freedom of movement. In short, we have not succeeded in putting an end to the occupation. The Arab citizens of Israel have not attained real equality. But beneath the surface, in the depths of national consciousness, we are succeeding. The question is how to turn the hidden success into an open political fact. In other words: how to change the policy of the Israeli government.
THE IDEA of the "One-State Solution" will harm this effort very much.
It diverts the effort from a solution that has now, after many years, a broad public basis, in favor of a solution that has no chance at all.
There is no doubt that 99.99% of Jewish Israelis want the State of Israel to exist as a state with a robust Jewish majority, whatever its borders.
The belief that a world-wide boycott could change this is a complete illusion. Immediately after his lecture, my colleague Adam Keller asked the professor a simple question: "The entire world has imposed a blockade on the Palestinian people. But in spite of the terrible misery of the Palestinians, they have not been brought to their knees. Why do you think that a boycott would break the Israeli public, which is far stronger economically, so that they would give up the Jewish character of the state?" (There was no answer.)
In any case, such a boycott is quite impossible. Here and there, an organization can declare a boycott, small circles of justice-lovers can keep it, but there is no chance that in the coming decades a world-wide boycott movement, like the one that broke the racist regime in South Africa, will come about. That regime was headed by declared asmirers of the Nazis. A boycott of the "Jewish State", which is identified with the victims of the Nazis, just will not happen. It will be enough to remind people that the long road to the gas chambers started with the 1933 Nazi slogan "Kauft nicht bei Juden" ("Don't buy from Jews").
(The obnoxious fact that the government of the "State of the Holocaust Survivors" had close relations with the Apartheid State does not change this situation.)
That is the problem with the bed of Sodom: one size does not fit all. When the circumstances are different, the remedies must be different, too.
THE IDEA of the "One-State Solution" can attract people who despair of the struggle for the soul of Israel. I do understand them. But it is a dangerous idea, especially for the Palestinians.
Statistically, the Israeli Jews constitute, as of now, the absolute majority between the sea and the river. To that, one must add an even more important fact: the average annual income of an Arab Palestinian is about 800 dollars, that of a Jewish Israeli is about 20,000 dollars - 25 times (!) higher. The Israeli economy is growing every year. The Palestinians would be "hewers of wood and drawers of water". That means that if the imaginary joint state did indeed come into being, the Jews there would wield in it absolute power. They would, of course, use this power to consolidate their dominance and prevent the return of refugees.
Thus the South African example could come true retroactively: in the Single State, an apartheid-like regime would indeed come into being. Not only would the Israeli-Palestinian conflict not be solved, but on the contrary, it would move into an even more dangerous phase.
Pappe put forward an argument that looked a bit strange to me: that a Single State already exists in practice, since Israel rules from the sea to the river. But that is not so. There is no single state, neither formally nor in practice, but one state occupying another. Such a state, in which a dominant nation controls the others, will eventually disintegrate - as did the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.
The One State will not come into being. Not only the Israelis, but most of the Palestinians, too, will not give up their right to a national state of their own. They can applaud an Israeli professor who advocates the dismantling of the State of Israel, but they have no time to wait for utopian solutions that could be realized in a hundred years. They need an end to the occupation and to achieve a solution to the conflict here and now, in the near future.
ALL WHO wholeheartedly want to help the occupied Palestinian people would be well advised to keep well away from the idea of a general boycott of Israel. It would push all Israelis into the arms of the extreme Right, because it would reinforce the right-wing belief that "All the world is against us" - a belief that took root in the years of the Holocaust, when "all the world looked on and kept silent". Every Israeli child learns this in school.
A focused boycott against specific organizations and corporations that actively contribute to the occupation can indeed help in convincing the Israeli public that the occupation is not worthwhile. Such a boycott can achieve a specific aim - if it is not aimed at the collapse of the State of Israel. Gush Shalom, to which I belong, has for 10 years been organizing a boycott of the products of the settlements. The aim is to isolate the settlers and their accomplices. But a general boycott on the State of Israel would achieve the very opposite - to isolate the Israeli peace activists.
THE "TWO-STATE SOLUTION" was and still is the only solution. When we put it forward immediately after the 1948 war, we could be counted on the fingers of two hands not only in Israel but in the entire world. Now there exists a world-wide consensus about it. The path to this solution is not smooth, many dangers lurk on the way, but it is a realistic solution that can be achieved.
One can say: OK, we will accept the Two-State Solution because it is realistic, but after its realization we shall endeavor to abolish the two states and establish one joint state. That is alright with me. As for myself, I hope that in the course of time a federation of the two states will come into being, and relations between the two will become close. I also hope that a regional union, like the EU, will be established, consisting of all the Arab states and Israel, and perhaps also Turkey and Iran.
But first of all we must treat the wound from which we are all suffering: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Not by patent medicines, certainly not by a bed of Sodom, but with the medicines that are on the shelf.
THE 18th CHAPTER of Genesis tells of Abraham trying to convince the Almighty not to obliterate Sodom. "Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city; wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein?"
God promised him not to destroy the town if there were 50 righteous in it. Abraham haggled and brought the Almighty down to 45, then 40, 30 and 20, finally settling for 10. But in Sodom there were no 10 righteous to be found, and so its fate was sealed.
I believe that in Israel there are many, many more than ten righteous people. All public opinion polls show that the great majority of Israelis not only want peace, but are ready to pay its price. But they are afraid. They lack trust. They are shackled by the beliefs they acquired in early childhood. They must be freed from them - and I believe that it can be done.
An
Answer To Uri Avnery
by Ilan
Pappe
Electronic Intifada
28 April 2007
The following is Ilan Pappe's response to Uri Avnery's
essay "Bed of Sodom"
Uri Avnery accuses the supporters of the one-state
solution of forcefully
imposing the facts onto the "Bed of Sodom". He
seems to regard these people
at best as daydreamers who do not understand the
political reality around
them and are stuck in a perpetual state of wishful
thinking. We are all
veteran comrades in the Israeli Left and therefore it is
quite possible that
in our moments of despair we fall into the trap of
hallucinating and even
fantasizing while ignoring the unpleasant reality around
us.
And therefore the metaphor of the Bed of Sodom may even
be fitting for
lashing out at those who are inspired by the South
African model in their
search for a solution in Palestine. But in this case it
is a small cot of
Sodom compared to the king-size bed onto which Gush
Shalom and other similar
members of the Zionist Left insist on squeezing their
two-state solution.
The South African model is young -- in fact hardly a year
has passed since
it was seriously considered -- while the formula of two
states is sixty
years old: an abortive and dangerous illusion that
enabled Israel to
continue its occupation without facing any significant
criticism from the
international community.
The South African model is good subject matter for a
comparative study --
not as an object for a hollow emulation. Certain chapters
in the history of
the colonization in South Africa and the Zionization of
Palestine are indeed
nearly identical. The ruling methodology of the white
settlers in South
Africa resembles very closely that applied by the Zionist
movement and later
Israel against the indigenous population of Palestine
since the end of the
19th century. Ever since 1948, the official Israeli
policy against some of
the Palestinians is more lenient than that of the
Apartheid regime; against
other Palestinians it is much worse.
But above all the South African model inspires those
concerned with the
Palestine cause in two crucial directions: by introducing
the one democratic
state, it offers a new orientation for a future solution
instead of the
two-state formula that failed, and it invigorates new
thinking of how the
Israeli occupation can be defeated -- through boycott,
divestment, and
sanctions (the BDS option).
The facts on the ground are crystal clear: the two-state
solution has
dismally failed and we have no spare time to waste in
futile anticipation of
another illusory round of diplomatic efforts that would
lead to nowhere. As
Avnery admits, the Israeli peace camp has so far failed
to persuade the
Israeli Jewish society to try the road of peace. A sober
and critical
assessment of this camp's size and force leads to the
inevitable conclusion
that it has no chance whatsoever against the prevailing
trends in the
Israeli Jewish society. It is doubtful whether it will
even keep its very
minimal presence on the ground, and there is a great
concern that it will
disappear all together.
Avnery ignores these facts and alleges that the one-state
solution is a
dangerous panacea to offer to the critically ill patient.
All right, so let
us prescribe it gradually. But for God's sake let us take
the patient off of
the very dangerous medicine we have been forcing down his
throat the last
sixty years and which is about to kill him.
For the sake of peace, it is important to expand our
research on the South
African model and other historical case studies. Because
of our failure we
should study carefully any other successful struggle
against oppression. All
these historical case studies show that the struggles
from within and from
without reinforced each other and were not mutually
exclusive. Even when the
sanctions were imposed on South Africa, the ANC continued
its struggle and
white South Africans did not cease from their attempt to
convince their
compatriots to give up the Apartheid regime. But there
was not one single
voice that echoes the article of Avnery, which claimed
that a strategy of
pressure from the outside is wrong because it weakens the
chances of change
from within. Especially when the failure of the inside
struggle is so
conspicuous and obvious. Even when the De Klerk
government negotiated with
the ANC the sanctions regime still continued.
It is also very difficult to understand why Avnery
underrates the importance
of world public opinion. Without the support this world
public opinion gave
to the Zionist movement, the Nakba (catastrophe) would
not have occurred.
Had the international community rejected the idea of
partition, a unitary
state would have replaced Mandatory Palestine, as indeed
was the wish of
many members of the UN. However, these members succumbed
to a violent
pressure by the US and the Zionist lobby and retracted
their earlier support
for such a solution. And today, if the international
community alters its
position once more and revises its attitude towards
Israel, the chances for
ending the occupation would increase enormously and by
that maybe also help
to avert the colossal bloodshed that would engulf not
only the Palestinians
but also the Jews themselves.
The call for a one-state solution, and the demand for
boycott, divestment
and sanctions, has to be read as a reaction against the
failure of the
previous strategy -- a strategy upheld by the political
classes but never
fully endorsed by the people themselves. And anyone who
rejects the new
thinking out of hand and in such a categorical manner,
may be less bothered
by what is wrong with this new option and far more
troubled by his own place
in history. It is indeed difficult to admit personal as
well as collective
failure; but for the sake of peace it is sometimes
necessary to put aside
one's ego. I am inclined to think that way when I read
the false narrative
Avnery concocted about the Israeli peace movement's
'achievements' so far.
He announces that 'the recognition of the existence of
the Palestinian
people has become general, and so has the readiness of
most Israelis to
accept the idea of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as
the capital of both
states'. This is a clear case of amputating both the leg
and the hand of the
patient to fit him to the Bed of Sodom. And even more
far-fetched is the
declaration that 'We have compelled our government to
recognize the PLO, and
we shall compel them to recognize Hamas' -- now that the
rest of patient's
limbs have been dispensed with (sorry for the gruesome
metaphor but I am
forced into it by Avnery's choice). These assertions have
very little in
common with the position of the Jewish public in Israel
towards peace from
1948 until today. But facts can sometime confuse the
issue.
But in order to stifle any debate on the one-state
solution or the BDS
option, Avnery draws from his magic hat the winning card:
'but beneath the
surface, in the depths of national consciousness, we are
succeeding'. Let us
thus provide the Palestinians with metal detectors and
X-ray equipment --
they may discover not only the tunnel, but also the light
at its end. The
truth is that what lies in the deepest layers of the
Israeli national
consciousness is far worse from what appears on the
surface. And let us hope
that this remains there forever and does not bubble to
the surface. These
are deposits of dark and primitive racism that if allowed
to flow over will
drown us all in a sea of hatred and bigotry.
Avnery is right when he asserts that 'there is no doubt
that 99.99 percent
of Jewish Israelis want the State of Israel to exist as a
state with a
robust Jewish majority, whatever its borders'. A
successful boycott campaign
will not change this position in a day, but will send a
clear message to
this public that these positions are racist and
unacceptable in the 21st
century. Without the cultural and economical oxygen lines
the West provides
to Israel, it would be difficult for the silent majority
there to continue
and believe that it is possible both to be a racist and a
legitimate state
in the eyes of the world. They would have to choose, and
hopefully like De
Klerk they will make the right decision.
Avnery is also convinced that Adam Keller debunked most
successfully the
argument for a boycott by pointing out that the
Palestinians in the occupied
territories did not give in to boycott. This is indeed a
fine comparison: a
political prisoner lies nailed to the ground and dares to
resist; as a
punishment he is denied even the meager food he received
hitherto. His
situation is compared to a person who occupied illegally
this prisoner's
house and who for the first time is facing the
possibility of being brought
to justice for his crimes. Who has more to lose? When is
the threat mere
cruelty and when is it a justified means to rectify a
past evil? The boycott
will not happen, states Avnery. He should talk with the
veterans of the
anti-Apartheid movement in Europe. Twenty years passed
before they convinced
the international community to take action. And they were
told, when they
began their long journey, that it will not work -- that
too many strategic
and economic interests are involved and invested in South
Africa.
Moreover, adds Avnery, in places such as Germany the idea
of boycotting the
victims of the Nazis would be rejected out of hand. Quite
to the contrary.
The action that already has been taken in this direction
in Europe has ended
the long period of Zionist manipulation of the Holocaust
memory. Israel can
no longer justify its crimes against the Palestinians in
the name of the
Holocaust. More and more people in Europe realize that
that the criminal
policies of Israel abuse the Holocaust memory and this is
why so many Jews
are members in the movement for boycott. This is also why
the Israeli
attempt to cast the accusation of anti-Semitism against
the supporters of
the boycott has met with contempt and resilience. The
members of the new
movement know that their motives are humanist and their
impulses are
democratic. For many of them their actions are triggered
not only by
universal values but also by their respect for the
Judeo-Christian heritage
of history. It would have been best for Avnery to use his
immense popularity
in Germany to demand from the society there to recognize
their share not
only in the Holocaust but also in the Palestinian
catastrophe and that in
the name of that recognition to ask them to end their
shameful silence in
the face of the Israeli atrocities in the occupied
territories.
Towards the end of his article, Avnery sketches the
features of the
one-state solution out of the present reality. And thus
because he does not
include the return of the refugees or a change in the
regime as components
of the solution he describes today's dismal reality as
tomorrow vision. This
is indeed an unworthy reality to fight for and nobody I
know is struggling
for it. But the vision of a one-state solution has to be
the exact opposite
of the present Apartheid state of Israel as was the
post-Apartheid state in
South Africa; and this is why this historical case study
is so illuminating
for us.
We need to wake up. The day Ariel Sharon and George W.
Bush declared their
loyal support for the two-state solution, this formula
became a cynical
means by which Israel can maintain its discriminatory
regime inside the 1967
borders, its occupation in the West Bank and the
ghettoization of the Gaza
Strip. Anyone who blocks a debate over alternative
political models allows
the discourse of two states to shield the criminal
Israeli policies in the
Palestinian territories.
Moreover, not only are there no stones left in the
occupied territories with
which to build a state after Israel ruined the
infrastructure there in the
last six years, a reasonable partition is not offering
the Palestinian a
mere 20 percent of their homeland. The basis should be at
least half of the
homeland, on the basis of the 181 partition route, or a
similar idea. Here
is another useful avenue to explore, instead of
embroiling forever inside
the Sodom and Gomorrah stew that the two-state solution
has produced so far
on the ground.
And finally, there will be no solution to this conflict
with a settlement of
the Palestinian refugee problem. These refugees cannot
return to their
homeland for the same reason that their brothers and
sisters are being
expelled from greater Jerusalem and alongside the wall
and their relatives
are discriminated against in Israel. They cannot return
for the same reason
that every Palestinian is under the potential danger of
occupation and
expulsion as long as the Zionist project has not been
completed in the eyes
of its captains.
They are entitled to opt for return because it is their
full human and
political right. They can return because the
international community had
already promised them that they could. We as the Jews
should want them to
return because otherwise we will continue to live in a
state where the value
of ethnic superiority and supremacy overrides any other
human and civil
value. And we cannot promise ourselves, as well as the
refugees, such a fair
and just solution within the framework of the two-state
formula.
____________
political Science and Chair of the Emil Touma Institute
for Palestinian
Studies in Haifa. His books include, among others, The
Making of the
Arab-Israeli Conflict (London and New York 1992), The
Israel/Palestine
Question (London and New York 1999), A History of Modern
Palestine
(Cambridge 2003), The Modern Middle East (London and New
York 2005)
and his latest, Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006).
[shamireaders] PAPPE An
Answer to Uri Avnery