According to an Israeli opinion poll published this week, more than six out of 10 Israelis support a Palestinian state. But the same poll also showed that more than six out of 10 Israelis also strongly support the current prime minister, Ariel Sharon as Israel’s leader rather his main rival, Benjamin Netanyahu.
There seems to be some confusion here. There is undoubted political rivalry between the present and former Likud prime ministers; Benjamin Netanyahu would dearly love to get his hands on the levers of Israeli power again and obviously intends to mount his own bid to be elected prime minister in the next election, expected in late 2003. And he is clearly playing to an extreme right-wing gallery — as his rather Gothic horror statement this week that he would “defang the threat” of a Palestinian state plainly illustrates.
But Sharon is as opposed to a Palestinian state as Netanyahu. He is no moderate, despite ridiculous claims being made to that effect, particularly in the US, in the wake of the Likud vote against the establishment of such a state, a vote orchestrated by Netanyahu. Sharon is, after all, the one who has consistently done his utmost to prevent such a state from coming into being, who only yesterday said that he would never allow peace with what he called a “corrupt terrorist regime”. He too is firmly in the extremist camp. The idea that he is a moderate is the sick joke of the century; as President Bush’s description of him as “a man of peace”.
Against this background it is encouraging that a majority of Israelis appear to back a Palestinian state. It indicates that they understand that they will only find peace and security by such a state coming into existence. The fact that they are so confused as to imagine that support for Sharon will allow this to happen has to be put down to their insecurity, which Sharon busily exploits and Netanyahu hopes to do likewise.
It would be much easier for the Palestinians if the Israelis were less confused and more consistent. The strong backing for contradictory ideas — support for harsh military action against the Palestinian Authority on the grounds of fighting terrorism yet also for the establishment of a Palestinian state, including the closure of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories — makes it near impossible to make any progress toward a settlement. Israeli confusion is augmented by yet more suggestions from Labor’s competing contenders for the premiership — from hawkish party leader and Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, whose plans in fact provide no basis whatsoever for a settlement (his idea of Palestinian “independence” includes keeping almost all Jewish settlements plus the Israeli Army in the West bank and Gaza Strip), as well as from Haim Ramon, a legislator and former Cabinet minister whose proposals are interestingly similar to those in the Saudi plan.
He supports an almost total and unilateral withdrawal from areas occupied in the 1967 war. The question that Palestinians — and Arabs — need to have answered is what are the Israelis prepared to offer and to accept. There is too much smoke in the air, too much confusion — and it is being exploited by Israeli extremists. It is hardly surprising that there is so much venom in the air, when the Israeli political scene so resembles a snake pit.
Yet the very fact that a majority of Israelis realize that a Palestinian state and their own peace and security go hand in hand, and that at least one prominent Israeli politician has a plan based on that obvious truth, gives grounds for hope. It is all the more reason to promote the Saudi peace plan over the heads of Sharon, the rest of the Israeli government (Ben-Eliezer and the supposedly dovish Foreign Minister Shimon Peres included) and a host of Israeli hard liners. There is no point expecting any workable solution, let alone a just one, from any of them.
