It’s amazing how the tables have turned. During the political struggle for the State of Israel’s establishment, the Jewish community was practical, sophisticated and flexible. The Palestinian side, on the other hand, boycotted the process and turned its back to the international institutions engaged in the partition question.
The Palestinians could have received about half of Eretz Yisrael’s territory, yet through their stubbornness and absolute refusal to recognize the other side’s rights they chose war and lost the opportunity.
Yet now, when a sort of conclusion of the 1947 partition decision is on the agenda in the form of recognition of a Palestinian state, we’re conducting ourselves like the Palestinians did back then; just like them, we are leaving the initiative and international legitimacy in the other side’s hands.
Israel’s prime minister is trying to convince the world with the argument that a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood hurts the peace process. This argument doesn’t impress anyone, as there is no peace process, and as it’s clear to the whole world that Netanyahu does not intend to present the Palestinians with any realistic proposal.
However, the Palestinians have realized that they do not need Netanyahu’s recognition. They understood, just like Herzl did before them and most Zionist leaders after him, that the key to establishing a state is broad international recognition. This is what we did, and international recognition was ultimately achieved via the partition decision. We accepted it and got a state. They refused and didn’t get a state.
Now, it’s the other way around. Just like the Palestinian leadership at the time the state was established, we cling to rejectionism and lose any advantage we could have drawn from the move. Shaul Mofaz is right when he urges Israel to also recognize the Palestinian state and leverage the move in order to set conditions for this recognition. Instead of letting the train pass and leave us behind, we must board it and influence its route.
The world matters
Israel’s rejectionism will rob us of any ability to exert such influence. If we maintain our displeasure and remain on the sidelines, the decision may adopt the 1967 borders as is and prevent the possibility of territorial tradeoffs around the settlement blocs. It may ignore the security arrangements required by Israel and leave the demand for refugee return (which the Palestinians refer to as the “right of return”) open.
In order to prevent all that, Israel must recall what it understood in the past and what the Palestinians realize today: What’s important here is not what the other side says, but rather, the international theater as a whole. Just like the Palestinians are unconcerned at this time about Israel’s attitude to the move, Israel too does not need to elicit concessions and compromises from the Fatah-Hamas government.
I believe that the one error in Mofaz’s position – which is much more sophisticated than that of Israel’s government – has to do with the notion that we must condition recognition of Palestine on the Palestinians accepting our demands. Had this been possible, we could have secured an agreement with them. Yet in the absence of such possibility, we can influence the UN decision and the terms under which the world recognizes Palestine.
Israeli recognition has value, because it will allow for eliciting the support of Israel’s friends to the move. And should Israel and its friends condition their support on maintaining Israel’s fundamental interests, we may get what we want regardless of the Palestinian view.
We did not receive recognition for our independence from the Palestinians, but rather, from the UN, and they will not get it from us, but rather, from the world. Some 63 years later, the way to safeguard our interests may also pass through the international community, rather than through direct negotiations. We better not make in 2011 the mistakes that the Palestinians made in 1947.
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