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A personal view of the Middle East conflict

25 May 2012

The Middle East conflict has been a constant thread running through the news for virtually the whole of my life.

• At one time when I was quite young I recall my father telling my mother and me that war might come and if bombs started to fall we should hide in the cellar as the safest place. This was based upon his experience of living in Manchester throughout the blitz in World War 2. I was too young to understand what was in the news but later realised from my approximate age at that time that it must have been the Suez crisis (when Britain, France and Israel attacked Egypt) that had caused him to issue this warning.
• Once I became a reader of newspapers, periodically there were reports of "Fedayeen" attacks by Palestinians upon Israelis.
• I recall the 1967 gradual escalation between Egypt and Israel which culminated in the Six Day War and Israel's astonishing lightning victory.

• There were many subsequent terrorist incidents. To name but a few, the aeroplane hijackings to Dawson’s Field in 1970, the Lod Airport massacre, the murder of Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games in 1972 and the Kiryat Shmona massacre of 1974.
• The Yom Kippur War of 1974.
• The visit by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to Israel in 1977 followed by the Camp David Accords of 1978.
• The assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981.
• Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the Sabra and Shatila massacre.
• The First Intifada during the 1980s.
• The Oslo Accords of 1993.
• The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.
• The visit by Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount in 2000 followed by the Second Intifada.
• The Lebanon War of 2006.
• Israel's assault on Gaza in December 2008/January 2009.

This is not intended to be a comprehensive list but merely some highlights. Israel and Palestine have almost never been out of the news, either due to conflict or due to speculation about the peace process.

Why do people care so much about Israel and Palestine?

Ardent Zionists sometimes complain about the level of attention given to the Middle East and to the plight of the Palestinian people. They point out, quite correctly, that there are far greater injustices elsewhere in the world. To cite just one example, during the last decade or so, over 5 million people have died in conflicts in central Africa near the borders of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Burundi.

However the sad reality is that all human beings are selective about their concerns. Our concern is greatest for those we know best, our immediate family, our friends and our townspeople and our concern gradually attenuates as people become further away or become more different from us.

The Middle East conflict matters to around 2.2 billion Christians, around 1.6 billion Muslims around 13 million Jews for a number of reasons:

1. Jerusalem is the holiest city in Judaism and Jews face it to pray three times a day.
2. Jerusalem is the holiest location in Christianity, the place where Jesus was crucified.
3. Christians believe that the second coming of Jesus will take place in the Holy Land after a major conflict which the Book of Revelation locates in northern Israel.
4. Jerusalem was the first qibla (direction to face when praying) for Muslims, and is the location from which Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) ascended to Heaven.
5. The Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem is the third holiest mosque in Islam.

Muslims and Jews living outside the Middle East understandably identify with the concerns of their coreligionists who live in Israel and Palestine. Many Christians, particularly American evangelicals, identify strongly with Israel as part of their understanding of God's plan for the end of time. Religious extremists on both sides who see Islam and Christianity as being in conflict focus upon the Middle East as the most important location for this conflict.

While the contested territory is of relatively little economic importance by itself, much of the world's oil supply derives from adjacent countries which have deep concerns about the Middle East conflict.

Accordingly it should be no surprise that the world takes a far greater interest in what happens in the Middle East than it does in other geographical areas which are less significant.

The history of the Middle East conflict

History matters because, in a fundamental sense, we are our history. Accordingly, despite the contentious nature of the subject, I believe that everyone should study the history of the conflict.

However, we cannot change the past. Equally we must not allow the past to determine our future. Many Jews and Arabs have died fighting over pieces of territory. While such sacrifices need to be remembered and honoured, they cannot be allowed to preclude territorial concessions which may be in the best interests of Jews and Arabs today.

Elsewhere on this website, I have written that when I spoke about advocating Israel to Muslims at “The Big Tent for Israel” I advised Jews who wish to discuss the Middle East conflict with Muslims not to start from the history. However that does not preclude studying the history, as long as one remembers that agreement about the history is not necessary for agreeing a way forward.

The present facts

Any attempt to chart the way forward must start from where we are today. Again without seeking to be comprehensive, I have listed what I regard as some of the key facts below.

• Israel exists as a state with a population that comprises approximately 5.9 million Jews (70% of whom were born in the country), approximately 1.6 million Arabs and about 0.3 million others.
• The Jewish population of Israel includes many refugees from Arab countries and their descendants, as well as refugees from Europe and to a lesser extent from sub-Saharan Africa.
• Israel is well armed and has proved successful at defending itself. Furthermore it is widely believed (including by me) to possess nuclear weapons including a second strike capability in the form of submarine launched missiles with nuclear warheads.
• The Palestinian population comprises about 2.6 million Palestinians living in the West Bank, about 1.6 million in the Gaza Strip, and about 0.2 million Palestinians living in East Jerusalem.
• There are also significant numbers of Palestinian refugees living outside the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, there are about 2 million living in Jordan of whom about 0.3 million are still living in refugee camps, 0.4 million living in Lebanon primarily in refugee camps and about 0.5 million living in Syria.

There is no military solution

Israel has prevailed in every war that it has fought against the Arab states. However this has not resulted in peace and when I visited Israel at the end of 2009/beginning of 2010 I found people very pessimistic about the future. Few if any Israelis, even those who are most hawkish, believes that a permanent peace can be achieved by the additional exercise of Israeli military power.

Despite Israel being the military superpower of the region, there are undoubtedly some amongst the Palestinian armed factions who believe that Israel can ultimately be defeated by military means. Quite apart from being an unrealistic assessment of the balance of forces, this belief fails to take into account the implication of nuclear weapons. It is inconceivable that an Israel facing destruction would not use nuclear weapons either as part of a military defence or as a form of retaliation. That is the meaning of the phrase "Mutually Assured Destruction". It means that even a very powerful nuclear weapons state cannot defeat a weaker one if that weaker one has an assured second strike capability.

What would peace look like?

It is inevitable that any peace agreement will leave many Jews and Arabs dissatisfied.

Maximalist positions

It is quite easy to find amongst both Jews and Arabs maximalist positions which are utterly unacceptable to the other party.

The maximalist Jewish position

God gave the whole of Judea and Samaria to the Jewish people as part of a perpetual covenant. Accordingly it would be a sin for Israel to hand back any part of it to Arabs.

It was sentiments like these which motivated the assassin who murdered Yitzhak Rabin. Furthermore some Jews wish to expel Arabs from within their midst and commit terrorism against Arabs; the most notable recent example being the killongs by Baruch Goldstein. Almost as reprehensible as his killings is the fact that some Jews regard him as a hero.

The maximalist Arab position

Any land that has once been governed by Muslims must always be governed by Muslims. The Jews in Israel are European settlers who should return from whence they came.

In every war between the Arab states and Israel there have been some Arabs shooting off their mouths about "Driving the Jews into the sea."

The one state solution

This is the preferred model of many Muslims. It would involve a single state comprising the territory of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank with single citizenship for all of the people living there. Even without considering the possible return of Palestinian refugees from Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, the demographics would mean an Arab majority in the forseeable future.

Why a one state solution is unacceptable to Israeli Jews

From a Jewish perspective, fundamentally Israel is about one thing – survival.

The early Zionists were acutely conscious of discrimination in Western Europe but even more importantly of pogroms in Russia. Then came the Holocaust. Once you think about people seeking to exterminate you while no other country will let you in, you understand why having one country with a Jewish majority that will always take you in is so fundamentally important to Jewish people.

As a concrete illustration, one should look at the history of the SS St Louis in 1939. The ship sailed from Hamburg carrying Jewish refugees. It called at Cuba, the USA and the UK, but each country would take only a few refugees, such as children or doctors. Eventually the ship returned to continental Europe and some of those on board perished in the Holocaust.

Israel's Law of Return sets the criterion at what seems like a very low threshold; having one Jewish grandparent is enough to qualify under the Law of Return. The criterion becomes understandable once you remember that this criterion was sufficient for persecution by the Nazis under the Nuremberg Laws.

The two state solution

The essence of a two state solution is very straightforward:

1. A state with a boundary drawn so that it has a majority Jewish population.
2. A state with a boundary drawn so that it has a majority Palestinian population.
3. Special arrangements for Jerusalem given the importance of its holy places.
4. Some arrangement for the Palestinian refugees that involves either their return or financial compensation.

Where you draw the boundary line and the precise nature of the special arrangements for Jerusalem and the refugees are matter that needs to be negotiated by the parties. However the essence of negotiation is that the deal must be acceptable to both parties; otherwise there will be no agreement.

Does Israel need a peace agreement?

One regularly hears voices amongst Israeli Jews that there is no point in seeking peace with Arabs who cannot be trusted. Israel has military control over the whole of the West Bank (while allowing some Arab self-government under the Oslo Accords), and can defend itself. The status quo allows the gradual settlement of more Jews on the West Bank and eventually it will be sufficiently well-settled by Jews that a Palestinian state becomes impossible.

It is superficially attractive to put off the difficult decisions regarding territorial concessions that would be needed for a two state solution. However in my view a strategy of continued occupation of the West Bank combined with increased settlement activity would be dangerous and self-defeating for Israel. I was struck by Tony Klug's 3 January 2013 article "Israel will pay the price for intransigence" in the Jewish Chronicle which makes the same point.

It will not be possible to keep the Palestinian residents of the West Bank in their present limbo status permanently, and ultimately Israel would face demands for their absorption as citizens. Such absorption would fundamentally change the demographics of Israel in a way that most Israeli Jews would find unacceptable. Conversely I believe that it will be impossible to resist the demand for absorption once a two state solution can no longer be achieved.

Accordingly time is not on Israel's side, as a continuation of current policies will make a two state solution impossible.