Yossi Klein Halevi, former “Jewish extremist,” later an advocate of Jewish-Muslim reconciliation, most recently a supporter of disengagement, has written an important essay: “Letter to a Palestinian Neighbor.”
It captures the tragedy of the Palestinians: what they could have had five years ago by negotiation they have now lost by war. And just as with each prior war, the map of a potential Palestinian state got smaller.
Simply by saying “yes” in 1937, 1947, 1949, 1967, 1978, 2000 or 2001, the Palestinians could have had a state. Today, after a five-year Terror War, there is no longer any part of the Palestinian “no” that Israelis do not understand.
Even moderate Israelis now recognize the truth about even moderate Palestinians: the moderates favor two states as step one of a two-step solution:
I met General Nasser Youssef (who at the time of our meeting was head of one of the Palestinian security forces and is now the PA Interior Minister). At one point during our conversation, I asked the general to describe his vision of the relations between a Jewish state and a Palestinian state after we signed a peace agreement.
Let’s assume, I said, that Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, uproots the settlements and redivides Jerusalem: What then? He replied that, once the refugees begin returning to the area, so many would gravitate to those areas in Israel where their families once lived, that eventually we would realize there was no need for an artificial border between Israel and Palestine. . . .
But, I asked the general, aren’t we negotiating today over a two-state solution? Yes, he replied, as an interim step. . . ."
This story is particularly relevant because General Youssef is widely known as a moderate, deeply opposed to terror as counter-productive to the Palestinian cause. And so what I learned in my journeys into your society is that moderation means one thing on the Israeli side and quite another on the Palestinian side. . . .
A Palestinian moderate . . . tends to disagree with the extremists about method, not goal: He opposes the destruction of Israel through terror and war, perhaps because that option isn’t realistic; yet he advocates the disappearance of Israel through more gradualist means, like demographic subversion. Like General Yusuf, he sees a two state solution as an interim agreement, a step toward Greater Palestine. When your moderates speak of peace and justice, then, they usually mean a one-state solution.
It is an important essay.