There were several historical junctures at which the Israelis nearly did it—but held back at the last moment. The most famous instances were in 1958 and 1960. In 1958, the leader of the state and its first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, aborted plans at the last moment due to fears of international reaction. In 1960, Ben-Gurion held back because of his demographic fears—thinking that Israel could not incorporate such a large number of Palestinians. The best opportunity came in 1967—regardless of the Israeli mythology of not wishing to go to war against Jordan but being forced to react to Jordanian aggression. There was no need for Israel to remain in the West Bank, if this was just another round of tension between the two states. Incorporating the West Bank and the Gaza Strip within Israel had been an Israeli plan since 1948 and was implemented in 1967.
Myth 7: Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza with benevolent intentions, but was forced to respond to Palestinian violence
The seventh myth was that Israel intended to conduct a benevolent occupation but was forced to take a tougher attitude because of Palestinian violence. Israel regarded from the very beginning any wish to end the occupation—whether expressed peacefully or through struggle—as terrorism. From the beginning, it reacted brutally by collectively punishing the population for any demonstration of resistance.
The Palestinians were offered two options: 1) to accept life in an Israeli open prison and enjoy limited autonomy and the right to work as underpaid laborers in Israel, bereft of any workers’ rights, or 2) resist, even mildly, and risk living in a maximum-security prison, subjected to instruments of collective punishment, including house demolitions, arrests without trial, expulsions, and in severe cases, assassinations and murder.
The major reality change that Palestinians had to accept—or risk enduring punishment—was that Israel would unilaterally decide which parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip would be taken from them forever and annexed to Israel. Today, more than half of the West Bank has been annexed in one way or another, while the Gaza Strip has been left alone, eventually, as an area over which Israel wishes to exercise direct rule.
Part of this myth related to assertions about the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO)—assertions promoted by liberal Zionists in both the US and Israel and shared with the rest of the political forces in Israel. The allegation is that the PLO—inside and outside of Palestine—was conducting a war of terror for the sake of terror. Unfortunately, this demonization is still very prevalent in the West and has been accentuated after 2001 by the attempt to equate Islam, terrorism, and Palestine. The PLO was, in fact, recognized as the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people by more states than have recognized Israel. It is noteworthy that this demonization continued even after the Oslo Accords of 1993, through which Israel supposedly recognized the PLO as a legitimate partner. Even the Palestinian Authority is still depicted by Israel as an outfit that supports terror. The worst kind of demonization, which convinced the Western world to resort to political boycott, was directed at Hamas. While international civil society continues to question such a characterization, mainstream media and politicians still fall foul to this slander.
Myth 8: The Oslo Accords reflected a desire on both sides to reach a solution
The eighth myth is that the Oslo Accords were a peace process born out of the wish of both sides to reach a solution. The idea of partitioning Palestine was already a Zionist concept back in the 1930s; the Palestinians refused to cave in to it until the late 1980s. In the meantime, the share of the land the Israelis were willing to offer the Palestinians went down from half of the land to 15 percent of it. The willingness to call this 15 percent a state could not hide the fact that the Oslo process, devised solely by Israelis, offered only a fragmented Bantustan for the Palestinians and no “right of return” or other solution for the millions of Palestinian refugees.
Oslo was the result of a matrix of events that disempowered the PLO and its leader, Yasser Arafat, to such an extent that, against the advice of his best friends, he went into this process hoping to gain independence in at least part of Palestine. The end result was the almost total destruction of Palestine and the Palestinians.
Myth 9: The Second Intifada was a mass terror attack orchestrated by Arafat
The ninth myth is that the Second Intifada was a mega–terrorist attack sponsored and, in a way, planned by Arafat. The truth is, it was a mass demonstration of dissatisfaction with the betrayal of Oslo, compounded by the provocative action of Ariel Sharon and his like around the Islamic holy places in Palestine. This nonviolent protest was crushed with brutal force by Israel, which led to a more desperate Palestinian response: the expanded use of suicide bombs as a last resort against Israel’s overwhelming military power. There is telling evidence by Israeli newspaper correspondents that their reporting on the early stages of the Intifada—as a nonviolent movement that was crushed violently—was shelved by editors so as to fit the narrative of the government.
That narrative of the Palestinians aborting the peace process by force, and thus “reaffirming” what Israel has always said about them—i.e., that they do not miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity for peace and that “there is no one to talk to on the Palestinian side”—is particularly cynical. The Israeli government and army tried by force to impose their own version of Oslo—one meant to perpetuate the occupation forever, but with Palestinian consent—and even a feeble Arafat could not accept it. He and so many other leaders who could have led the Palestinians to reconciliation were targeted by the Israelis; most of them, perhaps even Arafat as well, were assassinated.
Myth 10: A solution in Israel and Palestine is just around the corner
The last and tenth myth is that there is a solution in Israel and Palestine just around the corner: the “two-state solution” will fall into place and the conflict will be nearly over. That corner is definitely not upon this earth; maybe it exists somewhere in the universe. The reality on the ground, that of a massive colonization and direct annexation of vast part of the West Bank to Israel, would render any resulting state a sad Bantustan without any proper sovereignty. Even worse, Palestine would be defined as only 20 percent of what it actually is, and the Palestinians would be defined only as those who live in the West Bank. (Significantly, the Gaza Strip seems to have been excluded from discussions of a future state, and many parts of Jerusalem are also not included in the envisaged state).
The “two-state solution,” as mentioned above, is an Israeli invention meant to allow it to square a circle: to include the West Bank within Israel’s control without incorporating the population that lives there. Thus, it was suggested that part of the West Bank would be autonomous and maybe even a “state” in return for the Palestinians giving up all their hopes: hopes for the return of refugees, for equal rights for the Palestinians in Israel, for the fate of Jerusalem, and for a normal life as human beings in their homeland.
Any criticism to this mythology is branded as anti-Semitism. But in fact, this policy and mythology are the main reasons why anti-Semitism still exists. Israel insists that what it does, it does in the name of Judaism. Hence it creates an association between Zionist colonization and the Jewish religion in the minds of twisted people. This association should be rejected in the name of Judaism.
Indeed, for the sake of universal values, the rights of everyone who lives in Palestine (or was expelled) should be respected. The right for all peoples in Israel and Palestine to live as equals should top the agenda of all efforts for peace and reconciliation in the region.
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The Fate of Palestine: An interview with Noam Chomsky (2007)
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