My husband, Carey, and I just returned from the AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington DC, which we attend annually. With the largest attendance ever (in excess of 10,000 delegates), speeches from President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, and the top Senate and House leaders, as well as an awareness of all of the turmoil currently in the Middle East, it is no surprise that this was a powerful weekend.
Interestingly, the most thought-provoking moment for me came not from one of the much-anticipated speeches to the entire delegation, but in a speech that was delivered at a luncheon, by Rabbi Daniel Gordis, Senior Vice President of the Shalem Center, and a frequent columnist for the Jerusalem Post and contributor to the New York Times. His subject was emet, truth, and it became the lens through which I reflected on the rest of the conference.
Truth, in particular the true source of the Israeli Palestinian conflict, was at the heart of the recent highly publicized discord between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu. Not surprisingly, everyone who heard that I had been in DC inevitably asked about this matter. In President Obama’s speech to the State Department on the Thursday before Policy Conference, he had expressly framed the discussion in a way that no previous American President had publicly done - stating that "the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps". This pre-judgment on the territorial component was highlighted as the catalyst for reigniting the peace process, without any reference to the fact that no negotiations have been held due to the Palestinian Authority’s refusal to enter into bilateral negotiations with Israel without preconditions. The manner in which Bibi addressed the point in front of the press on Friday demonstrated the serious concern that these policy statements engendered across a broad spectrum of Israeli political opinion. After hearing the President’s speech at Policy Conference, during which he clarified some of his previous comments, I believe that the President’s goal in making this controversial statement was to cultivate a sense in the Arab world that the US is capable of being even-handed in the negotiating process. In doing so, he was trying to get the Palestinians back to the negotiating table, since declaring Palestinian statehood through the UN in September, as they are hoping to do, is antithetical to the path of direct negotiations.
Unfortunately, this approach to restarting peace talks starkly ignores a number of truths that underlie the conflict. Beginning a negotiation with the 1967 lines (even with mutually agreed-upon land swaps, as the President suggested), prejudges the outcome of the territorial dispute without addressing the core issues. (Highlighting the fact that the breadth of Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria, the West Bank, is not the real obstacle to a peace deal, Defense Minister and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak had agreed to cede 97% of the West Bank, only to be rebuffed by the PA.) It creates a situation in which Israel is at a deficit before negotiations even begin, since the substantial majority of Israelis view the ‘67 lines as indefensible, and even President Obama acknowledges that the borders need to reflect the realities on the ground that have changed since June 1967. Moreover, it requires Israel to deliver tangible assets, i.e. territory, while the core bases for the conflict, arising from the perennial Palestinian and Arab unwillingness to accept Israel as a Jewish state with Jerusalem as its capital, remain unaddressed. Also, it does not take into account the fact that, although Bibi has been trying since November to get back to direct talks, these are utterly implausible at the moment, because of the emerging partnership of Fatah with Hamas, a terrorist organization committed, both under its charter and through its actions, to Israel’s destruction. In addition to the absence of a currently viable Palestinian interlocutor, the Arab Spring adds to the volatility of the region, making Israel’s caution regarding its secure borders even more imperative. Hopefully, the warm and effusive response received by Bibi during his speech to Congress will help move the President to refine his strategic thinking about the Israeli Palestinian conflict, which will take into account these new truths.
Even the borders that, for decades, have been quiet, such as Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, now have the potential for instability. In an extraordinarily insightful observation, Rabbi Gordis discussed the May 15 infiltration at a number of Israel’s border crossings, the most alarming of which was into the Golan Heights from Syria, whose border had for years been Israel’s quietest. I had heard with alarm about the breaches in Israel’s borders, but what I hadn’t called into question was this: if the protests related to the land that Israel had won in the Six Day War, why weren’t these protests taking place on June 5, the first day of the war in 1967, or on June 9, the day the Golan was taken? As Rabbi Gordis explained, the reason is simple...the protests (emblematic of the conflict itself) had nothing to do with territories, land swaps, or borders. Arabs from the countries and territories on all sides of Israel were simply protesting Israel’s existence. May 15 was Yom Ha’Atzma’ut, the day that the State of Israel declared its independence - as the only Jewish, democratic state. And that, for many, is an unforgivable truth.
