The Day Peace and
Tranquility Broke Out
Steven Plaut
It was in the year 2006. The
Israelis at long gave up their attempts to resist the pressures of the
world. They elected a new government headed by Prime Minister Yossi
Beilin, the original promoter of the Oslo Peace Process, in coalition
with the Jewish and Arab parties of the Left. They announced that Israel
was willing to implement the newest Road Map in Full, to accept the
unanimous proposal for peace supported by every single country in the
world, and would return to its pre-1967 borders, remove all Jewish
settlements from the territories of the new state of Palestine,
recognize Palestine, and grant Palestine all of East Jerusalem, that is,
all of the city located east of a line running north-south through Zion
Square, renamed Jihad Square.
The world had not seen celebration
like it since the fall of the Berlin Wall or the transferal of power in
South Africa to the black majority. All-night celebrations were held in
every city on the planet, but none so enthusiastic as the party held in
Tel Aviv in Rabin Square. Speaker after speaker appeared under a banner
"Liberation at Last", and praised the decision to agree to the terms of
the accord as the ultimate completion of the work and dreams of Yitzhak
Rabin.
The settlers were marched out of
the lands of Palestine at bayonet point, with crowds of jeering Israeli
leftists pelting them with garbage as they moved into their temporary
transit camps inside Green Line Israel. Liberal Jews in the United
States organized a million man march in Washington together with Arabs
and the Nation of Islam to celebrate the breaking out of peace and final
settlement of the conflict. Peace at Last was the number one pop single.
The State Department sent out a message urging Israel and Palestine to
conduct good-faith negotiations and round-the-clock talks on all
outstanding issues of disagreement still separating the two sovereign
states. At long last, there were two states for two peoples. Land had
been exchanged for peace. Peace had at long last broken out in the
world's most troubled region.
The morning after the Palestine
Independence Celebrations, the message arrived in the Israeli
parliament, brought in by special messenger. The newly formed government
of Palestine had only a small number of issues it would like to discuss
with Israel. It proposed that peaceful relations be officially
consummated as soon as Israel turned over to Palestine the Galilee and
the Negev.
Israeli cabinet ministers were
nonplussed. We thought we had settled all outstanding territorial issues
by giving the Palestinians everything, they protested. The spokesman for
the Palestine War Ministry explained. The Galilee was obviously part of
the Arab homeland. It was filled with many Arabs, and in many areas had
an Arab population majority. Israel was holding 100% of the Galilee
territory, and Palestine none at all, and surely that was unfair. As for
the Negev, it too has large areas with Arab majorities, but is in fact
needed so that Palestine can settle the many Palestinian refugees from
around the world in lands and new homes.
Israel's government preferred not
to give offense and sour the new relations, and so offered to take the
proposal under consideration. Within weeks, endorsements of the
Palestinian proposal were coming from a variety of sources. The Arab
League endorsed it. The EU approved a French proposal that the Galilee
and Negev be transferred to Palestine in stages over 3 years. The US
State Department proposed agreement to a new Road Map.
Within Israel, many voices were
heard in favor of the proposal. Large rallies were held on the
universities. The Israeli press endorsed the idea almost in full unison,
with only some regional weeklies from the north and south dissenting.
Israeli film producers began turning out documentaries on the sufferings
of Galilee and Negev Arabs under Israeli rule. Sociologists from around
the world produced studies showing that these Arabs were victims of
horrible discrimination and that Israel is characterized by
institutional racism. Israeli poets and novelists wrote passionate
appeals for support of the Galilee and Negev Others.
When Israel's cabinet rejected the
proposal, the pressures mounted. A Galilee and Negev Liberation
Organization was founded and immediately granted recognition by the UN
General Assembly. It established consulate facilities in 143 countries.
Weeks later the infiltrations
began. Squads of terrorists infiltrated the borders between Palestine
and Israel, and suicide bombers produced a carnage of 75 murdered Jews a
day. The border fences were reinforced, but to no avail. The US State
Department proposed that Israel defuse the situation by considering
compromise on the matters of the Galilee and Negev.
Six months later, the Galilee and
Negev victims of Jewish discrimination decided to escalate their
protests. Gangs of Arabs lynched Jews throughout the disputed
territories. Roadblocks were set up, and entire families of Jews were
dragged from their cars by the activists and beaten to death or doused
with flames. The EU sent in observers, but warned Israel that there is
no military solution to the problems of terrorism and violence. When
Israel arrested gang leaders from the riots, the General Assembly
denounced Israeli state terrorism against Galilee and Negev Arabs.
French universities gave the pogrom leaders, Ahmed Tibi and Azmi Bashara,
honorary doctorates.
Meanwhile, boycotts of Israel arose
throughout Europe. Professors at the US Ivy League colleges demanded a
total embargo and divestment from ties with Israel until it ended its
racist apartheid regime. The leaders of the Reform synagogue movement
supported the State Department and demanded that Israel end its
obstinacy.
Israel's own leftists launched a
Movement against Apartheid, and the foreign press reported that 400,000
protested attended a rally by the Movement in Rabin Square. Cars around
Israel had bumper stickers that read "My Son Will Not Die for Nazareth",
and "Peace Now". The Israeli Labor Party proposed erecting a series of
separating barriers throughout the Galilee under the slogan "Good Fences
Make Good Neighbors".
But Palestine could not sit idly
by. Barrages of rockets and mortars drenched Israeli cities. The death
toll rose to 7,000 Israelis per month. The White House and State
Department threatened to cut off all supplies from Israel if it dared to
launch reprisal raids against independent Palestine. Large cargo ships
from Egypt laden with advanced arms entered the port of Gaza. Thousands
of volunteers streamed into Palestine to assist in the campaign to
rescue the Galilee and Negev Arabs from Israeli oppression.
On the afternoon of Yom Kippur,
tank columns cut Israel in two just north of Tul Karem. Palestine
offered to withdraw in exchange for transferring the Negev and Galilee
to its control. An Israeli newspaper and the Israeli Peace Movement
proposed transferring the disputed areas to EU control until things
could be settled.
Synagogues in Belgium and France
were torched. Teach-ins for Palestine were held on US campuses. A new
conference was called in Durban to denounce Israeli apartheid. The White
House insisted that Israel not expel the invading Palestine troops who
had divided the country, for it was a matter for negotiations and
dialogue. The President invited both sides to Camp David, with observers
from the Negev and Galilee militias present.
Increasing numbers of Israeli
politicians urged that Israel respond to the situation by granting
limited autonomy to the Negev and the Galilee. The Americans offered to
send in ground troops to protect the remaining Israeli territories if
Israel decided to accept the proposal to give up the Negev and Galilee.
Let's at long last have peace in the hills that Jesus roamed, suggested
the President.
Jews living in the Galilee and
Negev were under siege everywhere, and the roads were unsafe. The road
through the Negev to Eilat was cut by militia gangs in four places.
Leftist Israeli professors officially joined the Arab militias fighting
for liberation. Two of them blew themselves up on a Jewish school bus to
show their solidarity with the oppressed Arabs. Ahmed Tibi, head of the
largest militia, insisted he was doing everything possible to stop the
suicide attacks on Tel Aviv and Haifa from the Galilee, but the
Americans demanded that he do more. The UK demanded 100% effort to stop
the violence. The PLO proposed as a compromise that instead of being
annexed by Palestine, the Negev and Galilee be allowed to form a
separate state. The Arab League endorsed the idea.
CNN broadcast a series of specials
on the plight of the Negev and Galilee Arabs, and the BBC started
referring to Tel Aviv as illegally occupied Arab Jaffa. Netanya and Beer
Sheba were described by them as illegal colonial settlements. When the
carnage exceeded 10,000 a month, The New York Times for the first
time expressed regret in having promoted the peace process and ran as
its lead headline "Oops".
The Washington Post however
urged more Israeli flexibility and concessions. The publishers of
Tikkun Magazine and the Reconstructionist movement announced they
would be merging with the American Buddhist Society. The Economist
demanded a new Road Map.
The Negev and Galilee Liberation
organizations raised their flags over their towns and proposed that the
Jews living in their territories be resettled elsewhere. The Palestine
War Ministry was shipping them guns and explosives. The first word came
of a detention camp north of Nazareth in which Jews expelled from their
Galilee homes were being concentrated, with a second camp opened in the
Negev near Rahat.
Strange black smoke rose from the
chimneys.