2 min read
ByNathan Jeffay, Nathan Jeffay
After Oslo, we longed to be good neighbours; today, it’s a question of turning our backs
May 6, 2010 10:32An Israeli television crew got a shock recently on a visit to the Palestinian city of Ramallah. For it seems that the "moderate" Palestinian Authority, upon which the world has pinned hopes for peace, has paid tribute to a terrorist. A brand new road-sign informed the TV crew that they were standing on Yahya Ayyash Street, named in honour of one of Hamas's most notorious bomb-makers. Ayyash, who was assassinated by Israel in 1996, also helped to direct suicide attacks that killed dozens of Israelis.
Ramallah is the PA's administrative capital. The street in question is used by numerous top PA officials every day - it is alongside the office of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and the building site for the new presidential compound. So this is hardly a hidden or unapproved move.
America tried this week to restart negotiations, which is certainly good news in this troubled region. But whatever is decided in talks on borders and the like, the messages the respective authorities send to their people about the other side are vitally important. During the Oslo peace process of the 1990s, there was an almost utopian sense on both sides that attitudes towards the other could change to such an extent that feelings of enmity could be transformed into friendship. The peace process, it was hoped - indeed, even expected - would bring forth an era of mutually advantageous coexistence.
Today, the vision is very different - from both sides. The two-state solution is no longer viewed as a prelude to marriage but as a route to divorce. A "quickie" divorce at that, based on a perceived urgent need for the two sides to go their separate ways in fear of what could happen otherwise.
In Israel, people advocate a two-state solution in order to remove millions of Palestinians from Israeli jurisdiction, as they are seen as threatening the Jewish character of the state. In the West Bank, people say that ending Israeli presence there is necessary to stop the younger generation from becoming radicalised.
The two-state solution is no longer seen as a marriage but as a divorce
If the aims of Oslo are summed up by the image of Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat shaking hands on the White House lawn, those of the present era are symbolised by the image of the separation barrier. Though this Israeli structure is decried by Palestinians, the ethos of separation it represents is common to both sides.
However, this does not mean that the discourse about the "other" propagated on either side of the barrier is that particular side's exclusive business. Any sustainable peace process needs to lay down red lines - and officially commemorating a terrorist goes beyond such lines.
While Israel's view of the two-state solution is now as pragmatic as that of the Palestinians, it may not have gone as far in substituting cynicism for idealism. One of the recipients of the nation's recent Lifetime Achievement Award was a Druze man who has spent more than 50 years promoting harmony between Jews and Arabs.
As it applies pressure for a settlement, the Obama administration would do well to remember that the situation is more complex than a matter of drawing lines on a map and deciding who is allowed to build where.
Nathan Jeffay is an Israeli-based journalist