Statehood is secondary

Editorial

The schism in the Arab world's relationship with Israel has been dubbed the hawks versus the doves. Or the radicals versus the pragmatists. Or the talkers versus the murderers. For more than five decades, Israel and its allies have struggled to differentiate the potential "partners for peace" from the intransigents who go on killing when the opportunity for a Palestinian state seems nearest.

For those who hadn't come to the conclusion before, last weekend's events made the reality of the schism perfectly clear. As the Palestinian leadership (Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, that is, not "president" Yasser Arafat) was working toward a peaceful two-state solution with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, three murderous Palestinian militias united to kill five Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint in Erez, Israel, Sunday. This rampage was a remarkable show of unity among groups that agree that killing Israelis is a good thing but that don't usually concur on the details.

Israel and its allies should be careful of the lesson we take from this experience. Is this a sign that Palestinians don't want peace? Perhaps. But more likely, it is further proof of a growing split in the Palestinian body politic and one that contains, despite its murderous methods, the seeds of true hope.

Under Arafat, the Palestinian leadership was seen as monolithic. There have always been divisions among the militias that target Israeli civilians, but Arafat was the sole spokesperson with whom Israel could talk.

The development of a schism between Arafat and Abbas is more than just a political break. Observers are hopeful that Abbas will prove to represent a growing portion of Palestinian (and larger Arab) consensus that talking is better than fighting. Most significantly, the United States has extracted a promise from many of the Arab countries that have funded and supported terrorism to halt the flow of blood money. The demise of Saddam Hussein's regime cut off the major flow of cash to the families of suicide murderers.

If he is genuine, Abbas and his allies will come to represent peaceful coexistence and the killer militias will come to represent a grisly old method that has been abandoned by decent people of all ideologies.

Of course, this is a wildly hopeful supposition in itself. We hope we have found a partner for peace in Abbas, just as we hoped we had found a partner for peace in Arafat at Oslo (and Camp David and Wye and Taba, etc., etc.). Though Israel has demonstrated a superhuman willingness to engage in discussion with anyone who exhibits even a hint of openness, Abbas remains a relative unknown quantity. Whether he turns out to be the Palestinian Mandela (or Gorbachev or Lincoln) remains to be seen. But if he proves trustworthy – and if, further, he survives as leader of his people – it will be a testament to more than just a victory of talking over murder. It will be proof-positive of something Israel's allies have always known but the world, for the most part, has insistently denied.

The differentiation between those who seek peaceful solutions and those who seek violent "solutions" may appear to be the most relevant schism, in fact there is another, more important ideological break within the Palestinian/Arab spectrum.

On Sunday night, hours after the Israeli soldiers had been killed, David Olesker, a top Israeli communications professional spoke to a group of Vancouver supporters of Israel about advocacy and the larger issues around the Middle East conflict. He debunked the popular idea that totalitarian Israeli occupation has led to a desperation among Palestinians that is so existential that Palestinian young people blow themselves up for lack of anything better to strive toward for themselves and their people.

Olesker noted that suicide bombings (or, homicide bombings, as some prefer to call them) were unknown in Israel before 1993. What else happened in 1993? he asked the audience at Schara Tzedeck Synagogue. The Oslo Accord.

The most comprehensive anti-civilian, anti-civilized killing rampage in Palestinian history began not because Palestinian statehood was so remote a hope, but because it was becoming a reality.

For Palestinian terrorists, Palestinian statehood is not the beginning of a dream, but the end of one. For Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Palestinian statehood is envisioned simply as a barrier to a larger cause: the destruction of the "Zionist entity" and the elimination of the Jewish people from the Middle East.

Abbas and others who are willing to discuss a Palestinian state living in peaceful coexistence with Israel signify far more than just peace-versus-violence. Abbas versus the Palestinian murder-militias represents a broader disagreement: Acceptance of Israel versus the absolutist rejection of ever accepting a Jewish state in the Middle East.

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