In Days to Come

by Avraham Burg

  In Israel in 2017, there are more than a quarter of a million people who are refugees of 1948 and their descendants. Not somewhere in miserable camps on the outskirts of Beirut. Not in Jordan, the West Bank, or the Gaza Strip, but here between and among us. At the end of the 1948 War of Independence there were 160,000 Palestinians left in Israel whom the cleansing policy of the time did not succeed in driving away. Among them were about 40,000 internally displaced people who were expelled from their communities and compelled to live “temporarily” in villages and neighboring communities inside the borders of the nascent State of Israel.

  Although Israel prides itself on its absorption of immigrants, it has not only done nothing for the displaced, but endless verdicts, along with public and governmental committees, have done their best to repeatedly violate simple government promises made to the residents when they left. Pledges that they would be able to return to their lands after the fighting subsided. Cemeteries were desecrated, holy places became warehouses and animal sheds, whole villages were wiped off their cultivated soil, and one people’s place of mourning became the other’s vacation spot, with more to come. That is the behavior of a callous country and society, denying the history of part of their citizens, and actually their own history.

  It can be different. Israel can make a huge gesture to itself, to its citizens, and to the entire region if it makes the issue of those internal Palestinian refugees its top priority. It will be an appropriate model for the correct implementation of the right of return anywhere it is possible and practical. It wouldn’t change the demographic balance sanctified by the Israeli “establishments of fear” because it is an internal Israeli matter. They are already Israeli citizens (though refugees in their own state) and do not change the infamous demographic equilibrium, which counts heads and not ideas or values.

  After making room here for a variety of Jewish ethnic groups, the time has come to make room for the remaining fifth of the country’s citizens. For those Palestinians who live in the occupied territories, the solution to their misery will be part of a larger peace agreement.

  I have participated in many conversations, conferences, seminars, and peace discussions, and I’m still an integral part of the “peace industry.” We’re all friends, we all know each other’s shticks, and still the conversations reach the same dead end. The content mostly revolves around the same axes. Dozens of years of the same arguments, the same questions and answers. Neither side, right nor left, Israel nor Palestine, changes its positions. When that frustrating point is reached, and it is always reached, I can’t help being transported by my thoughts to an odd riddle typically featured in the weekend newspapers: a brain teaser in which you’re supposed to create a bunch of geometric forms out of a very few matches or toothpicks. The solution is sometimes creative, standing a match up, breaking out of the two-dimensional plane to create another level and dimension, and then it all makes sense. I think the same will ultimately apply to the Middle East conundrum. Is it solvable? In the two-dimensional world—us or them, two states or nothing—the chances, unfortunately, tend toward nil. In a multi-dimensional reality, the chances increase greatly.

  ONE OF THE WEAKNESSES OF MOST OF THESE INTERNATIONAL peace efforts is their temporariness. A few days, usually abroad, and everyone goes back home, without follow-up, without time for maturation.

  But in 2011 and 2012, when I was privileged to work in Vienna with a group of Israeli Jews and Palestinians from Israel and the diaspora, things were different. The location was almost magical, the home of former Austrian chancellor Bruno Kreisky, where an institute named after him operates with the aim of creating and promoting international dialogue, in keeping with his legacy. With typical Austrian patience, with a perspective more historical than contemporary, Gertraud, my friend and the chefin (the boss) of the place, caused us to meet, converse, listen, express, argue, respect, and ultimately to formulate agreements that surprised us all.

  Time played its role. The meetings, the personal relationships that formed, the understanding of the other—so close in physical reality but so distant in politics and consciousness—helped us sharpen our sensitivity and develop a concept of an agreement based on sharing and openness rather than separation and distancing. Only there, far from the region and its cacophony and close to my neighbor from across the hill near my house, I understood the absurdity of all the peace plans I had been part of and supported. All of them, from first to last, were based on the assumption of separation. A separation stemming from a sad strategy: Israel, even the Israel of the peace camp, does not dare think seriously about real integration in the Middle East. Many of us prefer a high Crusader wall separating us from the broader Middle East to a single moment of integration.

  Many Israelis are convinced that Israel is the only guarantee for the future existence of the Jewish people. Some believe that force of arms will protect us from disasters, and many are convinced that we here in Israel are immune to the assimilation and mixed marriages eating away at western Jewry. Are marriages outside the circles of Jewish faith and genetics really such a great tragedy? I’m not convinced of that. But I’m pretty much alone in this position. The majority thinks differently. Very few people have ever thought about the question of what purpose is served by the continuation of the Jewish people, and why survive. What is it to be a Jew? They make do with Jewish numbers and demography. How many, and who is marrying whom, and who, God forbid, married a gentile man or woman. I sense that deep and dark concern everywhere.

  When the Israeli-Jordanian peace agreement was signed in 1994, one of the weekend papers published an article about a couple, an Israeli and a Jordanian, a nice love story. But the squawks of those reacting in radio broadcasts and from parliament members who quickly submitted motions to the agenda told a different story. The story of purity of Jewish blood. There are many organizations busy “saving” daughters of Israel from falling in love with Arabs and pairing off with them. Many religious rulings against Arab employees in supermarkets where Jewish women shop are part of the landscape in the “Jewish state.” An Israeli journalist (and he’s not the only one) wrote about illegal African migrants sleeping with “our girls” and thereby threatening Israeli culture. This motto recurs everywhere: “our girls.” As one of the greatest racist rabbis of our generation said, “I myself saw Arab students who came to Safed, and after two days here, they had already started flirting with the girls at the seminary. Modest girls who came to study in a religious atmosphere were compelled to turn around and flee.”§

  Never, in all my years as a peace activist, had I given genuine thought to a different option than the principle of separation. Only there, in distant Vienna, was I able to see the defining mistake I had committed along with my colleagues. All the meetings were in the same room, in the home of the Jewish chancellor, who many considered to have been the best prime minister of post-war Austria. It was a spacious glass-walled room that faced a spacious green garden. A great silence enveloped the place, and all the participants in the room were framed by a different aesthetic than the rough background of the Middle East. No barbed wire fences and separation barriers, no ugly concrete wall, and no rifles and gunsights through which I am compelled to see my neighbor, both near and far. These new and impressive friends, the atmosphere, the depth and thoroughness, the framework and the aesthetic all gave me a sense of opportunity. Here I was in a laboratory of ideas and thoughts. Not a sweaty Levantine workshop with preconceived outcomes, but a real place for thought. And out of this political laboratory a totally new conception of the chance for a solution slowly took shape in me.

  Another plane is needed, like the upright match in the riddle that today is outside the realms of imagination of the existing players, of the two communities so hostile to each other. Because the conversation about a state is actually a one-level conversation—the national level and nothing else. A national home for the Jewish people, a national home for the Palestinian collective—and that’s it. Anything les
s than a state—identity, character, the citizens, and communities—are almost entirely outside the conversation, and anything beyond the state structure goes virtually undiscussed. The result is that many people on all sides feel just like me, that no matter what type of settlement is achieved someday, it won’t solve the real problems. Even if a Palestinian nation-state is established alongside Israel tomorrow morning, it will be at best an inadequate interim settlement. Because those who want all of the territory—on our side or theirs—will never be content with half the land, and will continue to undermine the foundations of the partition settlement. Those who want partition actually want to push across the border the basic problems in our lives that have existed since the establishment of Israel, and more acutely since 1967: the traumas, the refugees, the domineering, and the occupation. Their counterparts on the Palestinian side want separation to avoid dealing with the Israeli challenge so present in their lives.

  Almost daily I find myself in conversation or debate about the subject. And nearly every time the conversation ends with a shrug of the shoulders and the remark, “That’s the way it is, there’s nothing to be done.” Like predetermined fate, like death or a car accident. Not only is the vocabulary lacking for such a creation, the feelings are also very opposed. If a settlement emerges from such negotiations, it will be forced and permeated with great suspicion and hostility. Many Palestinians are convinced that all Israelis are either settlers or soldiers—if only because that is the only side of us they are exposed to. Most of us, on the other hand, are convinced that “they”—all of them—are among the worst anti-Semites and that every Palestinian is a suicidal terrorist. The sour attitudes of Israeli prime ministers and ministers, like the suspicion of the Palestinian leadership, do not promise real change. In short, it doesn’t look particularly encouraging.

  Can a different future be molded from all these materials? Is it possible to have a structure encompassing a greater range of issues, that will extend from the individual and personal, Israeli or Palestinian, to the superstructure that organizes the lives of all of us? The working assumption is that none of the parties involved is about to disappear in the foreseeable future. The Israeli and Palestinian fates are so completely intertwined that even complete disregard cannot make anything disappear. Illnesses that go untreated on one side metastasize to the other, and there is no wall in the world that can stop them. Because of all this, it is vital today more than ever to build a new political and ideological structure. In order to give a positive answer to these questions we have to abandon the one-dimensional, one-floor concept, and add depth and height to it. The time has come for thinking about a three-story house.

  The first level will be the infrastructure floor. The moral basis on which the whole future political structure will rest: every person between the Jordan River and the sea is entitled to the same rights, individual, political, economic, and social, including the rights to protection and security; to fair treatment and freedom of movement; to property ownership; to sue in court; to vote and be elected. It doesn’t matter which country’s citizenship you have—Israeli or Palestinian—you are committed to the same constitutional and ethical framework, and you are entitled to the same basic freedoms without any discrimination based on sex, race, ethnic origin, religious belief, or national affiliation. That is the civic infrastructure that comes before any conversation about nationhood or statehood.

  The intermediate level above it will be divided between the two residents. Separation and agreed logical partitions between the two collectives in the form of two sovereign states. In each one, separately, the aspirations and values of the Israelis and Palestinians will be expressed. Everyone in their place, and every side in its way and according to its traditions. Each of the states on the intermediate level will conduct its own foreign, interior, defense, and economic policies.

  But it can’t end there. The historical hostility and violent friction of the past between the two sides could erupt again at any moment. That is why constant coordination is vital. For that the third level will be built, the superstructure shared by the states themselves. A confederation of Israel and Palestine that will function internally as well as externally. Internally, the confederative government will have authorities delegated to it from the two independent partners—Israel and Palestine. The confederation will be responsible, among other things, for the constitutional system between the Jordan River and the sea. There will never be calm and reconciliation if a common moral language is not created here. A murderer on one side must be a murderer on the other. Enough of the intolerable gap, in which an act is perceived as a horrendous crime on one side and the highest expression of patriotism on the other. Although each state will collect its own taxes with the agreement of its citizens and operate its own educational systems and cultural institutions as it sees fit, the infrastructures of both must be coordinated.

  The third floor, designated for coordination, will ensure that the water resources in the mountains will be shared with residents of the coastal plain, that the rivers are clean along their entire length, and that the road signs are in the languages of all drivers in the region. There does not need to be a difference between streets and roads in Nablus and Netanya, just as there are no such differences between New York and California and between Italy and Austria, despite the differences between them. There will be positive and vital cooperation on the superstructure level to enforce shared constitutional principles, regulating judicial and civil matters and coordinating policy on issues of asylum, immigration, and the return of Jews and Palestinians to their national homelands. Externally, for the world beyond the historic space between the Jordan River and the sea, the Israeli-Palestinian confederation will be the interface that other national entities will be invited to join. Those who accept the commitments stemming from the ethical, democratic, and constitutional principles of the first floor will be able to join the new regional union.

  The proposed structure seeks to provide other answers to most—not all—of the issues on the agenda. Whoever wants one state will find a partial answer in the confederative structure. Advocates of two states will get them in the intermediate level. And whoever is committed to individual rights will be pleased with their expression in the binding constitutional infrastructure.

  “All is well and good, Mr. Burg,” the cynics will say, “but security, what about security? An Arab chief of staff, an Arab defense minister? Not on your life. Are you crazy?” To the cynics I say cynically, “And you agree to all the rest?” When we achieve all the rest, it will be much easier to deal with security issues. To those thinking more deeply I pose the question: Did anyone ever believe in open borders between Germany and France? In peace between Spain and Holland? In reconciliation between Russia and Germany? When the environmental conditions change, the threats also change and so do security perceptions. And to the rest I say frankly: We—the Israelis—are so strong that we can allow ourselves to abandon the strategy of anxieties and traumas and shift to a concept of trust. If I am wrong, our situation would not have gotten worse, and we can always declare another war, no? And if I am right, then the current security obsession will change unrecognizably. Just as it changed toward Iraq that has disappeared, toward Syria that is being torn apart, and toward weakening Egypt, so will it change dramatically when confronted with an Israeli-Palestinian partnership totally different from anything we have known.

  With such a peace, Israel and Palestine can and must be part of the united states of Europe in general, and of the European-Mediterranean region in particular. We will all be citizens of a human sphere much greater than the limited borders of our pain-filled and mournful homelands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. This is the vision of the Mediterranean confederation, and it is possible and right for us. It is no less right and essential for Europe, coping with tremendous challenges of integrating minority communities and cultures. For the Romans, the Mediterranean was Mare Nostrum, “our sea,” our common and
shared space. Now, the shores of the same old sea can become the confederation of integration. I have been privileged to be such a citizen even before the full realization of the dream. I return gently, quietly, humbly, to what was violently stolen from my father in the days of World War II. I feel the power of the renewed connections, the interface still hurts me sometimes, but in fascinating, coping Europe, I also feel at home.

  WHEN I COMPARE THIS TO THE POINTS OF DISCONNECTION of my Jewish friends from their roots in Islamic countries, I can’t help but weep for the existential change wrought on historic Jewry by that great war and the subsequent establishment of the state. The Israeli sociologist Yehouda Shenhav defines himself as an Arab Jew. “If there is a Christian Arab and a Muslim Arab, then there was and there should also be a Jewish Arab,” he passionately asserted to me in conversation. André Azoulay, an advisor to the king of Morocco, presents himself, with his plethora of heritages, as a Berber, Arab, Moroccan, and Jew. True, one must not forget for a moment the hardships that afflicted the generations of our parents in all of the Jewish diasporas, but by the same token it cannot be forgotten what could have developed here had history flowed a bit differently, with fewer ethnic divisions and more common spaces. I feel comfortable in today’s Europe. In fascinating Turkey, which alternately opens and closes. I like Egypt, and take advantage of every opportunity to be in Ramallah and Jericho. The complexity, tensions, compromises, and cultures fuel my curiosity over and over again. I believe that the comfort of multiple identities and affiliations can and must be part of our Mediterranean existence. Yes, it could very well be that at the end of this process, after all the pains and prices, one of my grandchildren will come home and say to his parents, “Dad, Mom, meet Sawsan, my girlfriend. We are going to get married.” Maybe it will be easy for them because they are tolerant, as we raised them, and maybe it will be difficult because their primary Israeliness had hardened them considerably, and the public Judaism they are familiar with will still handcuff their consciousness. It will likely be a great challenge for them, as well as for the parents of Sawsan. But that is a much healthier challenge than the challenges of war and hostility that we received from our parents and bequeathed to our children. A price worth paying. And I? I would be very happy to meet her parents, be present at the couple’s wedding, maybe even marry them, and kiss our common great-grandchildren. And hope.