A new spring for Palestine

The ray of light Palestinians see in an otherwise bleak horizon on the outcome of the Israeli election boosting the centre-left could prove a mirage. That the Yesh Atid party of the television presenter turned politician, Yair Lapid, did far better than expected, securing 19 seats, second to Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud-Beiteinu 31, was a result of his emphasis on domestic bread and butter themes such as expensive housing and the rising cost of living.

True, he is somewhat more benign to the two-state formula with caveats, but an honest effort to talk to Palestinians is far above his horizon.
The truth is that the solution to the existential problem of the Middle East (a more precise term than the Indian concept of West Asia) lies in the country that has aided and protected the Jewish state for decades. And the Israeli lobby is so deeply entrenched in the US political establishment that American politicians quake at any suggestion that they are less than 100 per cent behind Jerusalem. A list of vetoes in favour of Israel in the UN Security Council, often to the disregard of Washington’s own interests, makes for impressive reading. The latest negative vote, of course, was on the upgrade of Palestine as an observer state in the UN General Assembly. The US shone in almost solitary splendour.
In his first term, President Barack Obama burnt his fingers by asking for a halt to new Israeli settlements on occupied land inviting a snub from Mr Netanyahu which is still scorching the White House. The Israeli Prime Minister gave a late and reluctant nod to the two-state concept but has been doing everything in his power to make the question of mere academic interest, lately by agreeing to build more illegal settlements in occupied East Jerusalem to block off connection to the West Bank.
Despite his premature Nobel Peace Prize, it is a matter of realpolitik for President Obama to decide whether he should invest his political capital in an issue that will rile the most important Israeli lobby that funds American politicians in elections and blackballs those who dare stray from the line. His secretary of state, John Kerry, might well pronounce on the great importance of resolving the issue, but congressmen and senators in hock to the Israeli lobby know better than to espouse the Palestinian cause.
The real solution then lies in Israel changing before the US can change. It is a truism to say that Israel is split down the middle between the hardliners and those who would want to see an independent Palestinian state. What is often left unsaid is that the hard- line camp is more vociferous and powerful while the peace camp was almost decimated by events of recent years. An encouraging sign is that the peace camp is gathering some strength.
Palestinians themselves are divided between a weak Mahmoud Abbas running the West Bank’s Palestinian Authority and the more muscular Hamas which rules the Gaza Strip, most recently in conflict with Israel. Periodic efforts to bring the two together, lately by Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi, have met with limited success. The civil war in Syria has further queered the pitch, with Israel roiling the waters by bombing a convoy near Damascus, ostensibly to stop alleged war materiel going to the Hezbollah in Lebanon.
With the power relations in Israeli politics having changed somewhat in Mr Netanyahu’s need to placate the centre, the rhetoric of the ruling coalition might change but not the bedrock conviction of the right — there is even a party to the right of Likud — that will not concede an independent Palestine state unless driven to the wall.
The Israeli government can only be a coalition and the combination of the nationalist right and religious parties is more often than not in the driver’s seat. Mr Netanyahu is a forceful leader but by no means a match for those with a vision who have led their country to landmark deals that have eventually benefited the state of Israel. After the assassination of Rabin at the hands of an Israeli radical nationalist, it has been a downhill journey for Israeli peacemakers.
Anyone with a sane mind knows that kicking the Palestinian problem down the hill is no solution because the longer the stalemate continues, with more and more Palestinians deprived of their homes and land, the greater will be the cost the nation of Israel will have to pay in disentangling the mess. The one-state solution being debated is less than attractive on two counts. Palestinians will become the majority in view of the rate of growth of the Jewish population and Israel will lose its claim to being a democratic state because its Palestinian citizens will live under an apartheid system with limited rights and Bantustans as their home.
Historically, it is not unique that the once oppressed become oppressors when they gain power. For Israel, its mentor and protector, the US, and the wider world, it is not merely a moral question of Jewish behaviour given their suffering at the hands of the Nazis but one of fighting a hundred years’ war with Palestinians. Some Israelis take pride in saying that they live in a militarised state in view of the neighbourhood they live in. But provoking one’s neighbours with policies that oppress a section of their co-religionists and deny them their inherent rights to freedom and independence is to ensure that Israel will remain a garrison state for a long time to come.
The turmoil of the Arab Spring and its aftermath, the Syrian winter, is still with us and will roil the region for years. If Israelis seek to draw the conclusion from it that the Israeli-Palestinian problem will recede to the background, they would be mistaken. Rather, the Arab Spring is an inspiration for Palestinians fighting against great odds eventually to lead lives of dignity and freedom. There is a new spring in their steps.