The absence of peace: understanding the Israeli- Palestinian conflict
By Nicholas Guyatt
Zed Books, 1998
188pp., $39.95 (pb)
Review by Melanie Sjoberg
Have you ever wondered about the strange terminology used to describe the conflict over land in the occupied territories of Palestine, let alone why Israel still occupies the region? What really underlies the push by Israel for more settlements? What is the meaning of the Oslo and Wye agreements?
The May Israeli elections again forcefully place the ongoing struggle of the Palestinian people before our eyes and raise the issues behind the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Nicholas Guyatt's honest historical appraisal provides a readable yet detailed analysis that will answer most questions.
Guyatt places the 50 years of the Israeli state into context. He examines the underlying philosophy and aims of Zionism, refusing to allow the excuse of theology to obscure the reality of the conflict between Israel and Palestine — a practical struggle over land and the right of the Palestinian people to a just solution.
Guyatt shows that the rise of Zionism has its ideological origins drawn from the book of David, but its contemporary development in the settlement movement has been assisted through the Jewish National Fund.
He offers examples from Palestinian history which demonstrate Muslim, Christian and Jew living compatibly in the region, a useful alternative to many contemporary Jewish accounts of history which attempt to portray a negative image. He subsequently outlines the way in which the situation was eroded by a growing influx of non-Palestinian Jews in the early part of this century.
Guyatt traces the major motivation for increased Zionist immigration to the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe in the 1930s. He demonstrates that many Jewish migrants were attracted by the notion that Palestine had been an "empty land" and that they would be building an "exclusivist" Jewish state. The subsequent realisation that the land was not empty led the Zionists to fight to take it from the Palestinians.
Guyatt argues that the Palestinians, who were not to blame for the rise of Hitler, have had the consequences of Nazism's crimes visited on them. The horror of the Holocaust increased demands for a Jewish state in Palestine, the responsibility for which the British government (which promised this to the Zionists in the Balfour Declaration of 1917) relinquished to the United Nations. Through an examination of the various resolutions, Guyatt criticises the effectiveness or seriousness of the UN.
He presents and supports the arguments of Israeli revisionist historians, that the attacks against the Arabs during the period of the foundation of the Israeli state were a well-planned military operation. He declares the idea of Arab resistance based on greed a myth, citing Israeli authors such as Simha Flapan, Tom Segev Benny and Avi Shlain in support. Thorough footnoting enables the reader easily to access this more detailed information, without cluttering the central argument.
Continuing expansion of Jewish settlements into the occupied territories after 1967 has underpinned much of the reaction by Palestinians against the Israeli state, Guyatt says. He offers clear examples of this systematic encroachment, which has been largely based upon dubious technical justifications, a view strongly advocated by Palestinian human rights organisations. Neither Labour nor Likud has ever been committed to halting the process.
The return of the Labour Party in 1992 was believed by many Israelis to offer an amelioration of the situation. Prime Minister Rabin promised to freeze the settlements in exchange for loan guarantees of US$10 billion from the US.
Once the funds were agreed, however, the flimsy nature of "freeze" became obvious: East Jerusalem was excluded, and only totally "new" settlements were stopped. The dispute over East Jerusalem has continued to the present. To the dismay of Palestinians, the growth of so-called existing settlements has extended into wide areas of Palestinian land in the West Bank and is used to justify the demolition of Palestinian housing and farms.
The Oslo process, Guyatt shows, continues this pattern of land confiscation. Israel has consolidated its grip on significant amounts of territory in the West Bank, while withdrawing its military from some of the more populous Palestinian areas. Guyatt makes plain the ongoing encroachment into Palestinian territory and the upheavals this causes for families that have lived for generations on a site.
The harsh reality of daily life under Oslo is poignantly captured in passages relating the complete control exercised by Israel through the permit system.
It isn't easy for readers in Australia to comprehend the rigidity imposed on the most ordinary of activities by closure of the borders between the occupied territories and Israel, identity cards and the need for permits. Palestinians from Gaza, for example, usually can't visit relatives in the West Bank. Medical appointments, or specialist shopping, can be stopped. People risk deportation, fines and imprisonment for attempting such simple activities.
Roads are reserved for Israeli settlers on the grounds of security, and different coloured car number plates are issued to ensure ease of recognition by the Israeli military.
Palestinians living in Gaza are most affected by the closures. They are cut off completely from contact with the West Bank and Egypt. Residents are essentially confined to the strip unless Israeli permission is granted to leave.
This has a particularly dramatic impact upon Gaza students enrolled at any of the West Bank universities. After bus bombings in March 1996, the Israelis cancelled all residency and travel permits. Thousands of Palestinian students were forced out of the education system.
Shimon Peres, and then Netanyahu, refused to lift the ban. Even today, Gazan students regularly ask "How is the road?" prior to departing from the university.
Thanks to military law, Israel is not obliged to charge detainees. Palestinians can be kept in administrative detention almost indefinitely for breaching the permit system, or for any other reason.
Later agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, which has been given the right to police areas of Gaza and the West Bank, are supposed to allow prisoners to be held under Palestinian jurisdiction in Palestinian jails, but Israel has continued to flout international law.
Moreover, the judicial methods of the PA have also been criticised by international human rights organisations. The PA is supposed to be responsible for terrorist control and has arranged sweeping arrests using this pretext.
Options are canvassed towards the end of the book. Guyatt envisages a Palestine either economically dependent on Israel and providing cheap labour inside a greater Israeli sphere of influence, or in a state of economic collapse, with Palestinian territory completely sealed off by the Israeli army. He believes that economic stagnation is the most likely outcome of Oslo; Israel has already begun replacing its cheap Palestinian labour force with other immigrants from the Middle East
The sealing off of much of Palestinian territory gives rise to a form of apartheid similar to that which existed in South Africa, Guyatt says. He compares the Israeli dilemma to that which faced European colonialists who tried to take the lands of indigenous populations. The lasting solution to Zionist exclusivism suggested by Israeli history is the wholesale transfer of the Palestinian population to Egypt or Jordan.
Israel's dismissal of international condemnation and its flagrant disregard for UN resolutions, such as 242, demonstrate its preparedness to withstand criticism and the confidence amongst Israeli politicians that comes from criticism not backed by serious measures.
The Oslo and Wye process is moving in the direction of some form of two-state solution, although increasingly in favour of Israel, with enormous gains as a result of the "facts on the ground". Guyatt concludes that any final outcome will concede that Israel retains the ability to prevent Palestinian development.
Guyatt sees a central role for the international pressure against Israel's unacceptable actions. The US is identified as a major target because it continues as the banker for Israel, providing billions of direct aid dollars each year.