Palestinians doomed by intransigence

THE Hamas Prime Minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, said in a televised speech last week that his group remained committed to a policy of indiscriminate murder. He gave this policy a different name, of course. ''Resistance,'' he said, ''is the shortest way to liberate Palestine.''

 

 

Blame for this can be apportioned widely: Arab nations rejected the partition of Palestine into two states, one Arab and one Jewish, and instead invaded the nascent state of Israel - and then lost to it on the battlefield. Egypt and Jordan occupied the Gaza Strip and the West Bank between 1948 and 1967 but did nothing to bring about an independent Palestine.

 

The Arab world at large, though possessing the oil- derived resources to free the Palestinians from material misery, sequesters them in refugee camps in order to perpetuate the conflict. Israel has occasionally shown an interest in freeing Gaza and the West Bank, which came into its possession in 1967, but has more often focused on keeping a permanent hold on the West Bank, colonising it in destructive, and self-destructive, ways.

 

To blame everyone but the Palestinians for their current condition, however, is to treat them as a people without independent agency.

 

Today, the two main Palestinian parties are implementing flawed strategies. Hamas, as its Prime Minister says, is committed to ''resistance''. This means waging an endless war of attrition against Israeli civilians and advancing a religiously inspired, hate-filled, maximalist argument for the slaughter of all Israeli Jews, in both the West Bank and in Israel proper. (If you doubt this description of Hamas' agenda, read the group's covenant.)

 

This strategy might actually work if Hamas got hold of three or four nuclear weapons, or if the Jews of Israel would acquiesce in their own massacre. Hamas' arms supplier, Iran, is working towards nuclear-weapons capability, though it doesn't seem likely Tehran would turn over control of a nuclear weapon.

Hamas believes that its war of attrition - the latest round of which ended last week - will eventually wear Israel down, causing its Jews to abandon their country before the final, God-endorsed massacre. This is not a realistic expectation.

 

The second prong of this strategy is to seek recognition of Palestinian statehood in the West Bank and Gaza from the UN General Assembly, the world body that 65 years ago offered the Palestinians a state. On November 29, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to make this appeal in New York. The only country that can grant the Palestinians statehood in Gaza and the West Bank is Israel.

 

Israeli leaders are opposed to Abbas' gambit, and Israel's Western allies will protect it from the fallout of whatever happens at the UN.

 

 

There is, however, a strategy the Palestinians could implement that would help move them towards independence: They could give up their dream of independence.

 

When Abbas goes before the UN, he should not ask for recognition of an independent state. Instead, he should say: ''Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza 45 years ago, and shows no interest in letting go of the West Bank, in particular. We, the Palestinian people, recognise two things: The first is that we are not strong enough to push the Israelis out.

 

Armed resistance is a path to nowhere. The second is that the occupation is permanent. The Israelis are here to stay. So we are giving up our demand for independence. Instead, we are simply asking for the vote. Israel rules our lives. We should be allowed to help pick Israel's rulers.''

 

Reaction would be seismic and instantaneous. The demand for voting rights would resonate with people around the world, in particular American Jews, who pride themselves on support for Israel and for civil rights at home. Such a demand would also force Israel into an untenable position; if it accedes to such a demand, it would very quickly cease to be the world's only Jewish-majority state, and instead become the world's 23rd Arab-majority state. If it were to refuse this demand, Israel would quickly be painted by former friends as an apartheid state.