Volume 50, Number 7 · May 1, 2003
'A Frustratingly Impossible Task'
By Daniel Statman, Reply by Henry Siegman
In response to Partners for War (January 16, 2003)
To the Editors:
Henry Siegman ["Partners for War," NYR, January 16] says that a breakthrough in the stalemate between Israel and the Palestinians "will come only from a revived Israeli peace camp" (italics added). On Siegman's view, while the Palestinians are ready to stop violence and resume negotiations, Sharon refuses to do so, hence the only hope is from a change within Israel. To support this conclusion, Siegman relies on recent polls, allegedly showing that "a large Palestinian majority now supports an end to Palestinian terror attacks, even if it means taking on Hamas and Islamic Jihad." Had these polls indeed shown this picture, Siegman's conclusion would have followed. But they do not.
In correspondence, Mr. Siegman kindly referred me to the recent poll of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research conducted in November 2002 (available on the Web at www.pcpsr.org/survey /polls/2002/p6a.html). Far from finding that "a great majority" of Palestinians support an end to terror, the report found that 53 percent support armed attacks (terror attacks) against Israeli civilians inside Israel, while 89 percent support such attacks on settlers. Some optimism can, however, be drawn from the finding that 76 percent "support a mutual cessation of violence by both sides," and it is on this figure that Siegman bases his comments. Yet even after such a cease-fire is achieved, only 56 percent of the respondents "support taking measures by the PA to prevent armed attacks against Israeli civilians inside Israel."
This means that if Israel were to withdraw its forces from the West Bank as part of an agreed mutual cessation of violence, there would be only a 56 percent chance that the Hamas murderers would be stopped by the PA on their way to Tel Aviv, and a close to zero chance that they would be stopped on their way to murdering little children in some settlement. And this plainly means that Palestinian terror will continue, the cease-fire will collapse, and the Israeli army will have to reinvade the Territories in an attempt to protect the lives of its citizens.
Thus, in my reading, this poll confirms Israel's claim that the Palestinians have not made the strategic decision to quit terror. I fear that without such a decision, the path for reconciliation will remain blocked. Contrary to Siegman's view, the key to progress on this path is not in the hands of Israel, but in those of the Palestinians.
Daniel Statman
Department of Philosophy
University of Haifa
Haifa, Israel
Henry Siegman replies:
David Statman writes it is my view that only Sharon poses an obstacle to peace, not Arafat or the Palestinians.
In fact, I wrote precisely the opposite in the very paragraph from which he quotes: "There is no prospect for a resumption of a peace process if Sharon returns as head of Israel's next government and Arafat remains as the principal leader of the Palestinian Authority" (emphasis added). And in the very next paragraph I wrote that an Israeli government "committed to an immediate resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians and to the removal of most of the settlements" is likely to trigger a new "Palestinian leadership opposed to violence and prepared to make the compromises...that are essential for a peace agreement."
Indeed, the entire first half of my article is devoted to an exposition of why Arafat is not a partner for a peace process with Israel.
Statman's references to the poll of the Palestinian Research Center is also selective and self-serving. While he cites the survey's finding that 56 percent of Palestinians would want the Palestinian Authority to act against those Palestinians who continue their violence against Israeli civilians inside Israel following a mutual cease-fire, he ignores the survey's findings that 73 percent fear that a Palestinian failure to take the necessary measures to prevent continued attacks inside Israel would make impossible a return to the peace process. Is it not reasonable to conclude that those who express this fear could support Palestinian Authority measures to prevent such continued violence? The survey's authors themselves try to explain the contradiction between these two responses by pointing to the fear expressed by 82 percent of Palestinians that a Palestinian Authority crackdown on those who violate a mutual cease-fire might lead to a Palestinian civil war.
Statman's conclusion that if 56 percent of Palestinians support a crackdown against those who intend to continue terrorist attacks inside Israel, "there would be only a 56 percent chance that the Hamas murderers would be stopped by the PA on their way to Tel Aviv" is too silly to deserve comment. What it obviously means is that if the Palestinians were to act against such infiltrators, they would have support from a clear majority of the Palestinian population.
It should hardly be surprising that achieving peace between Israelis and Palestinians has been such a frustratingly impossible task when some of the best people on both sides seem to devote more energy to scoring polemical points than to finding ways of finally putting an end to this tragedy.
