Staying alive in Israel
From Mr Ofir Haiviy Sir: I have to disagree with Bruce Anderson's claim (Politics, 10 February) that 'Israel will never enjoy a secure peace until the Palestinians have a state on the West Bank'. From 1948 to 1967, while the West Bank and Gaza Strip were not in Israeli hands, the young state did not 'enjoy' peace but, rather, three wars. During this time, all the efforts by Palestinian groups — including Arafat's own — were not directed towards securing independence, or even some autonomy, in the West Bank and Gaza. Instead, they concentrated on bloody terrorist attacks, and attempts to goad Arab states into further wars against Israel.
Since 1967 the aim of the PLO has been the retrieval (immediate or gradual) of all 'Palestine. — meaning the disappearance of Israel. Some thought this had changed with the beginning of the 'Oslo process' in 1992. Ehud Barak tested this when, unhingeing himself from all precedent, he offered Arafat a Palestinian state on all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip (those areas where Israeli settlements remained were to be offset by the addition to the new state of territories in the Negev), and unheard-of concessions in Jerusalem.
The offer was not accepted, nor was it received as a significant concession. For, as the Nobel Peace Prize-winner Arafat explained, a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is not what he wants; he still has his own designs for the future of Israel — which include the addition to it of up to four million new Arab inhabitants, in effect making them the new majority in the Jewish state. Since then, a new campaign of violence has been initiated.
It may be that the Children of Israel will not be able to enjoy a secure (or even an insecure) peace for a long while yet, but there are things worse than this. In the meantime, they will content themselves with what they have succeeded in achieving until now — staying alive in a none too nice neighbourhood and in spite of Balaamic curses like Mr Anderson's.
Ofi r Haim
London
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