Harsh realities of Israel-Palestine situation debated

MIRAH LANGER

These controversial statements about the way forward for the Israeli-Palestinian situation are rarely made in the same room without the potential for fisticuffs or, at the very least, explosive arguments. However, it was in a spirit of dialogue and constructive debate that these three perspectives were expressed at a Siso [Save Israel, Stop the Occupation] panel discussion, held at Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia, Johannesburg this week.

Seated side by side were journalist and author Benjamin Pogrund, academic and lecturer Na’eem Jeenah, and former Israeli ambassador to South Africa, Alon Liel. The panelists offered the audience multiple lenses through which to survey the current lay of the land.

For Cape Town-born Pogrund, the two-state solution remains the only possible way forward: “It is the only concept that can meet the basic needs to satisfy self-determination for Palestinians, to give them the freedom they want and must have. It also ensures that Israelis are free from fear of being exterminated and they can live securely in their own Jewish, ethnocratic state,” said Pogrund, who was deputy editor of liberal newspaper the Rand Daily Mail, which was known for its anti-apartheid stance.

Pogrund, who has lived in Jerusalem since 1997 and served as the director of the Yakar Centre for Social Concern, envisages that the starting point would be the establishment of “two separate, independent states”. However, he hopes that soon after, these states would form a “federation” as an economic entity, which nearby countries might even join.

For Jeenah, who serves as the executive director of research institute the Afro-Middle East Centre, “two sovereign, viable states side by side with complete power over their territory and everything that goes with it” would be the ideal.

Yet, this university lecturer, who has been appointed as an international adviser on Middle Eastern studies, said he did not believe this was a possibility at the moment, given that currently, there was simply a “pretence of a Palestinian state or a Palestinian state that might be born”.

“In reality,” he said, “it is all under Israeli control.”

In fact, all the speakers expressed concern that a vision for a successful and peaceful future was remote when compared to the present-day harsh reality.

“We are in a situation of acute mistrust, rejection and hatred. The atmosphere is total poison at the moment and both sides are to blame… Both sides screwed up,” said Pogrund.

The mistake that the Israelis made, he said, was the building of settlements, while the Palestinians had erred by turning to violence: “That turned the whole story around.”

Former diplomat Liel is so devastated at the “dying” of the proposed two-state solution in government at present that the reality of a one-state future is all that’s left to contemplate. “We are not discussing one state because we – Israelis, both civilians and those in government – support it. I hate it. I discuss it because this is what is going to happen to my country and I can’t stand it,” said the man who once served as the director-general of Israel’s foreign affairs ministry.

“Yet we sit with a situation whereby there is no mediator, there are no talks; nothing is in the pipeline; no one is putting real pressure on Israel,” Liel says. Because of that, Israeli Jews had to face the reality of one state.

This fate, Liel suggested, would force them into a dilemma they have never faced before: “The Israelis will have to pick whether we want to be a Jewish state or a democracy… and they will pick a Jewish state and we will lose our democracy.

“Some of us – not the majority – will have real difficulty in accepting the fact that they live in a country that will not be democratic.”

However, Liel added, expressing the emotional tussle he has regarding the situation: “I also want a Jewish state: This is the dream of the Jewish people.”

A key point of contention among the speakers was the role that violence played in shaping the future of the region.

For Na’eem, checkpoints and the Israeli army have led to a “violence that is perpetrated on Palestinians… that is systematic on a daily basis”.

However, Pogrund vehemently disputed that the actions of the two sides could be equated: “There is violence, and there is violence – and the nature of violence in Israel [perpetrated by Palestinians], of kidnapping a bus and killing a load of children, is at a different level and is beyond defence; it’s not brave.”

Pogrund said that far beyond the debate of exactly how many rockets were launched against Israel, “the idea is to try and wipe us off the face of the earth… Everyone lives under that in Israel, and that has an effect on people’s minds.”

Yet, while Liel conceded that violent attacks had made the Israelis “frightened and traumatised”, he said this was part of the problem. “When you are traumatised, you lose contact with reality and you can make terrible mistakes. A traumatised nation can act in a very wrong way – and it is doing it at the moment.”

Liel said the stark reality which Israelis needed to face was that the millions of “Palestinians between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean are not going to disappear”.

“So, you can be frightened and traumatised; they will not go away. We need a good psychiatrist to give the Israeli public the dose it needs to come back to its rational decision-making.”

Liel added that change would have to come from holding leaders to account. “My personal hope is that people, like the Jewish community here that support Israel wholeheartedly, will ask the prime minister: ‘What is your vision? What is your long-term plan? Where are you leading us?’ This, for me, will be enough.”

Meanwhile, Jeenah expressed some optimism in a ground-up approach towards building mutual understanding. “The trust is not going to be between Palestinians and Israelis. The trust is going to be between individuals and small groups of people that will then build up.”

He said on a societal level, the position of Arabs with Israeli citizenship also indicated some possibilities. “I do think that is the place where there is hope.”

For Jeenah, it offers some proof that “it is possible to have relationships that can endure, that we can work towards a future where we can coexist”.

Although Pogrund opposed any comparison between apartheid and the Israeli situation, he did offer one analogy: Inspiration for those holding on to the possibility of two states, he proposed, needed to be drawn from the mindset of the minority of South Africans who, even in the darkest days of apartheid, had remained steadfast and determined that a different future was possible. “That is what I am suggesting now is needed at this bleak, bleak time,” he said.

“You have to have your belief inside you, what you want, what you are aiming for – and you have to stick to it and keep working for it.”

Anyone trying to understand a way forward for the region had to be willing to grapple with the deep complexity of the situation, concluded Pogrund. “I moved to Israel 20 years ago. Every day I am faced with moral dilemmas and issues. There are no easy, slick answers.”