The two per cent solution

Letters

Editor: There is a long, long trail of concessions that stretches from Madrid to Oslo and from Oslo to Geneva. In 1991, the PLO came to the Madrid Peace Conference as an adjunct to the Jordanian delegation. Today, 13-odd years later, they stand on the threshold of statehood. During those 13 years, the Palestinians have managed to turn every Israeli concession into an abject confession. Of this we can be certain: As long as the concessions keep coming, as long as the Arab reading of history is left unexamined, all of our expectations about peace and reconciliation are destined to become the source of our sorrows and the vessel of our discontent.

For the Palestinians, some issues have become more equal than others. Checkpoints and refugees, for example, have become derivative issues. Their more sanctimonious sophistries have been reserved for the "occupation." It is the occupation that justifies the murderous excesses of the intifada. And it is their constant weeping and wailing about the occupation that has muzzled every hint of an Israeli part. This denial of our past, of our identity, prefigures a far graver denial – our very right to exist.

With a little understanding, the Arab world could easily turn this all around. They could begin with a rather modest gesture. For example, accepting the authenticity of our history could be such a beginning. In deference to that history, they might even want to consider an extraterritorial arrangement for some of the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. That would not be such an extraordinary development. There are precedents. After the Six Day War, the Palestinians were given de facto control of the Temple Mount. And, in Hebron, they continue to have equal access to the Cave of Machpela. But there is an even more compelling reason to expect a little give-and-take from our Arab adversaries. Judea and Samaria were supposed to be our inheritance until the last wrinkle of time. The Arab world can therefore take some comfort in the fact that the retention of what is ours hardly constitutes the acquisition of what is theirs.

There is a rather conspicuous statistic that goes to the heart of this extraterritorial question. Israelis actually reside on a relatively small fraction of Judea and Samaria – less than two per cent. The Palestinians will, in all likelihood, reject any arrangement that would leave the Israelis with even a snippet of their biblical heartland. If it turns out that two per cent is too much for them, then 98 per cent should be too much for us.

Mitchell Finkel
Silver Spring, Md.

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