From my conversations with Palestinian leaders, however, I am convinced there still is a chance for peace. And as long as there is a chance, even a slight one, Israel may not make its choice of last resort.
Most Israelis disagree. They think we’ve already reached that point. “There’s no one to make an agreement with!” they say. “Even Shimon Peres and the leaders of the left say that they are no longer willing to talk with Arafat, and in the meantime, Israel must defend itself against terror somehow!”
But even if we assume that Arafat is not a partner (by the way, it certainly hasn’t been proven that Sharon is a willing partner either), we need to examine the practical implications of the establishment of a barrier fence without an agreement. They are grave enough to make such a unilateral move unwise, unless there really is no other alternative.
It is clear to everyone that such a fence would not prevent, for example, the Palestinians firing rockets and mortars from their territory into Israel. If Israel closed itself off behind a fence, the Palestinians would be able to invite in “aid” from foreign armies — from Iran, for example, or Hezbollah. The Israeli Army would have to operate beyond the fence, in order to defend isolated Israeli settlements that remained on the other side. It takes little imagination to realize what military complications this would lead to.
The fence would not provide an appropriate military response to the complex situation in Jerusalem, in which Jews and Arabs live adjacent to one another, rubbing shoulders each day. On the contrary. An attempt to detach East Jerusalem from the rest of the Palestinian territories is liable to turn the Arab city’s inhabitants — who, up until now, have seldom been direct participants in acts of terrorism — into active partners in the Palestinian struggle.
People will counter me by asking, What do you propose to do in the meantime, until conditions are ripe for an agreement? Isn’t it better to build the fence, so that we can block, at least partially, terrorist attacks?
I wish I could believe that the fence would ward off even some of the attacks in the long run. My fear is that, without a peace process, the attacks it would stop in the short run would simply appear in another, more permeable place. Given the intensity of the conflict, any wall would be a sieve with plenty of gaping holes.
The distress Israelis feel is constant and comprehensible. It derives from the inhuman cruelty of the suicide bombings — the very real threat to one’s personal safety — and from the feeling that there is no end in sight, given the huge support for terrorism in the Palestinian public. But this distress cannot overcome the sense that the Israeli infatuation with the fence is the product of a psychological need. It is not a well-considered diplomatic and military policy.
In establishing a fence unilaterally, Israel is, after all, throwing away the major card it has to play. It would be discarding this trump without receiving anything in return from the Palestinians, while the conflict and Palestinian demands and wounds are still at a boil. Yasir Abd Rabbo, the Palestinian minister of information, said last month in a conversation with Israelis from the peace camp: “If you withdraw behind the fence, we will spend a day celebrating that most of the occupation has ended, and the next day we will continue the Intifada, in order to obtain the rest of our demands.”
Those other demands are well known: Israeli withdrawal from 100 percent of the territories Israel occupied in the 1967 War; evacuation of all the settlements; Arab Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine; and acceptance of the principle of the Palestinian refugees’ right of return within Israel proper.
Yet there is today a good chance of resolving all these issues in negotiations. The Clinton framework plan, which proposes solutions for all of them, has been accepted, in practice, by both sides, even if neither side is able to commence negotiations to put those solutions into practice. But if these demands are not met and are not resolved in negotiations, the Palestinians will continue to fight. In fact, they may even fight more fiercely if they feel that their terrorism has forced Israel into a new ghetto. They will, in fact, be rewarded for terrorism and have an incentive to continue it.
Because it is so important, let me say it again: The establishment of a fence without an agreement means that Israel would give up most of the occupied territories without the Palestinians giving up the right of return.
Furthermore, the establishment of a fence without peace also means that most of the settlements would be included within Israel. But in building the fence in such a way that they are on the Israeli side, Israel would also have to take in a large number of Palestinian towns and villages that lie close to these Israeli settlements and to the roads that lead to them. According to some estimates, this would involve the “annexation” of about 150,000 Palestinians. If we add in the Arabs of East Jerusalem, the number of Palestinians on the Israeli side of the fence may well reach 400,000. These people would not, of course, be Israeli citizens. Israel, after all, does not want them. They would have no clear legal status. Obviously, they would not be able to participate in elections. What, then, would be done with them? How, for example, would Israel pay for their social insurance? (Israel paid for it during its period of military rule and it cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year.) Does anyone seriously believe that these Palestinians would not become a new incubator for terror of an even more violent and desperate kind? When that happens, they would be inside the fence, not outside it, and they would have unobstructed passage to Israel’s city centers. Or would Israel confine them behind yet another, second fence? Israel fears the right of return, because it threatens to return several tens of thousands of Palestinians to within its borders. So it is impossible to understand how Israel could so easily be prepared to take in hundreds of thousands of hostile Palestinians by building a fence.
Another question. Has anyone given thought to how Israel’s million Arab citizens would react? Those whose wide-ranging ties with their families in the Palestinian Authority would be severed by the fence? Would Israel not be increasing the bitterness and frustration they feel, and would not this lead them to adopt even more extreme positions (and this at a time when their connection with their country, Israel, has been growing more tenuous)?
So, when we examine the issue, we reach the conclusion that the fence’s major drawing power for most Israelis is that, unlike other ideas being floated right now, it is one that has never actually been tried. So it can be believed in, for a while.
The borderline between Israel and Palestine can be set only through full agreement by both sides. Dialogue, as difficult as it may be, has tremendous importance in shaping the nature of the peace to come. Dialogue also contributes to the political maturation of its partners. True, an agreement seems detached from reality today, but even if it is hard to believe in, we cannot allow ourselves the luxury of despairing of it. I think it’s even better to wait and live for a few more years without this fence of illusions than to be tempted to build it now. It won’t, after all, put an end to terrorism, but only make perpetrators seek other ways to attack, perhaps more vicious ones. Even worse, the unilateral erection of a fence (it would really be better termed a wall) would be a move that would declare our absolute and final despair of reaching a peace agreement in our generation, of integrating a normal Israel into the region around it. In other words, the establishment of the fence may make the conflict permanent and push any possibility of a solution beyond reach.