The Four Wars of Israel/Palestine
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POLITICS ABROAD The Four Wars of Israel/Palestine Michael Walzer four wars at the same time, side by side, though the overall emphasis falls differently at differ- ent times. Our moral and political judgments have to reflect this complexity. Taken sepa- he great simplifiers are hard at work, rately, two of the wars are just and two are un- but Israel/Palestine has never been a just. But they don’t appear separately in the T friendly environment for them, and it is “real world.” For analytic purposes, we can be- especially unfriendly today. They are bound to gin by looking at them one by one, but we won’t get it wrong, morally and politically, and that be able to stop there. is a very bad thing to do, for the stakes are high. 1. The war against Israel: this is the war There isn’t one war going on in the Middle that is “declared” every time a terrorist attacks East, and there isn’t a single opposition of right Israeli civilians. I believe that terrorism always and wrong, just and unjust. Four Israeli-Pales- announces a radical devaluation of the people tinian wars are now in progress. who are targeted for random murder: Irish • The first is a Palestinian war to destroy the Protestants in the heyday of the IRA, Europe- state of Israel. ans in Algeria during the National Liberation • The second is a Palestinian war to create an Front’s (FLN) campaign for independence, independent state alongside Israel, ending the Americans on September 11. Whatever indi- occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. vidual terrorists say about their activities, the • The third is an Israeli war for the security of intention that they signal to the world, and Israel within the 1967 borders. above all to their victims, is radical and fright- • The fourth is an Israeli war for Greater Is- ening: a politics of massacre or removal or of rael, for the settlements and the occupied ter- overthrow and subjugation. Terrorism isn’t best ritories. understood as a negotiating strategy; it aims It isn’t easy to say which war is being fought instead at total victory, unconditional surren- at any given moment; in a sense, the four are der. The flight of a million and a half Europe- simultaneous. They are also continuous; the ans from Algeria was exactly the sort of victory wars go on even when the fighting stops, as if that terrorists seek (the FLN was helped in its in confirmation of Thomas Hobbes’s definition: project, it should be remembered, by terror- “For war consisteth not in battle only, or the ists on the European side). act of fighting, but in a tract of time wherein Israel’s Jewish citizens have to assume that the will to contend by battle is sufficiently something similar is what Palestinian terrorists known . ” Throughout the course of the Oslo are seeking today: the end of the Jewish state, peace process, some Palestinians and some Is- the removal of the Jews. The language of in- raelis were fighting the first and fourth of these citement—the sermons in Palestinian wars—or, at least, were committed to fighting mosques, the funerals where the “martyrdom” them (and their will to contend was sufficiently of suicide bombers is commemorated, the slo- known so that it could have been dealt with). gans shouted at political demonstrations, the The actual decision to restart the battles was celebration of terrorists as heroes in schools taken by the Palestinians in September 2000; run by the Palestine Authority (PA)—makes since then, all four wars have been actively in this intention clear, and it is the explicit goal progress. of the leading terrorist organizations, Hamas Different people are fighting each of the and Islamic Jihad. But can it be called the goal 26 ■ DISSENT / Fall 2002 POLITICS ABROAD of the Palestinian liberation movement taken panded, the more land was expropriated and as a whole? Is this what Yasir Arafat is really water rights seized, the stronger that movement after? It isn’t easy to read him; he may think grew. It is worth recalling how peaceful the that he is using the terrorists; he may even hope occupation was in its early days, how few sol- one day to kill or exile them as the Algerian diers it required when it was believed, on both government did to its terrorists in the aftermath sides, to be temporary (and when war number of independence. But clearly, whatever his ul- one had been decisively defeated). A decade timate intentions, he is right now a supporter later, Prime Minister Menachem Begin denied or at least an accomplice of terrorism. (A note that there was any such thing as “occupied ter- to European critics of Ariel Sharon: on any ac- ritory”; the whole land was the Land of Israel; count, including that of Palestinian opposition- the government adopted the ideology of con- ists, Arafat is more involved in the terrorist quest and settlement. And the occupation was campaign than Sharon was in the Sabra and far more onerous, far more oppressive when Shatilla massacre.) His distancing gestures, the its reality was denied than when it was called occasional arrests, and the perfunctory con- by its true name. demnations after each attack long ago ceased So it is certainly a legitimate goal of Pales- to be convincing; he cannot be surprised if or- tinian militants to establish a state of their own, dinary Israelis feel radically threatened. This free of Israel—and of Egypt and Jordan too. first war is a real war, even if it looks right now The first intifada (1987), with its stone-throw- like a losing war with terrible consequences for ing children, looked like a struggle for a state the Palestinian people and even if some (or of this kind, limited to the West Bank and many) Palestinians believe themselves to be Gaza, where the children lived. It was not ex- fighting a different war. actly a nonviolent struggle (though it was some- 2. The war for an independent state: this times described that way by people who weren’t is the war that leftist sympathizers in Europe watching), but it did show discipline and high and America commonly claim that the Pales- morale, and its protagonists seemed to ac- tinians are fighting, because they think that this knowledge limits to their struggle: it wasn’t in- is the war the Palestinians should be fighting. tended to threaten Israelis on their side of the And some (or many) of them are. The Pales- green line, where most Israelis lived. And that tinians need a state. Before 1967, they needed is why it was successful in advancing the peace a state to protect them against Egypt (in Gaza) process—though Palestinian leaders subse- and Jordan (on the West Bank); since 1967, quently declined, so it seems to me, to gather they need a state to protect them against Is- the fruits of their success. rael. I have no doubt about this, nor about the The renewed intifada that began in the fall Palestinian right to the state they need, even of 2000 is a violent struggle, and it is not con- though I believe that the original seizure of the fined to the Occupied Territories. Still, the in- West Bank and Gaza was justified. In 1967, terviews that journalists have conducted with the Arabs were fighting a war of the first kind many of the fighters suggest that they (or some on my list, against the very existence of Israel. of them) consider themselves to be fighting to There was no occupation in those days; Egyp- end the occupation and force the settlers to tian publicists talked openly of driving the Jews leave; their aim is an independent state along- “into the sea.” But the territories that Israel side Israel. So this second war is a real war too, controlled at the end of its victorious defense though again it isn’t clear that Arafat is com- were supposed to be used (this is what its lead- mitted to it. Does he want what some, at least, ers said at the time) as bargaining chips toward of his people certainly want: a small state a future peace. When, instead, the government alongside a small (but not as small) Israeli sponsored and supported settlements beyond state? Does he want to trade in the aura of he- the old border (the green line), it conferred le- roic struggle for the routine drudgery of state- gitimacy on a resistance movement aimed at building? Does he want to worry about the liberation. And the longer the occupation went water supply in Jericho and the development on, the more settlements proliferated and ex- of an industrial zone in Nablus? If the answer DISSENT / Fall 2002 ■ 27 POLITICS ABROAD to these questions is yes, then we should all only that Palestinian terrorism is a political di- hope that Arafat gets what he wants. The prob- saster for the Israeli left. In the face of terror, lem is that many Israelis, who would share this the left cannot mobilize opposition to the hope if they were hopeful about anything, don’t settlements; it finds itself marginalized; its po- believe, and don’t have much reason to believe, tential supporters are more and more skepti- that the answer is yes. cal about its central claim: that withdrawal 3. The war for Israeli security: it is un- from the territories would bring a real peace. clear how many Israeli soldiers think that this And that skepticism opens the way for right- is the war they are fighting, but the number is wing politicians to defend the settlements— certainly high.