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PALESTINIAN-ISRAELI IMPASSE - EXPLORING SOLUTIONS TO THE PALESTINE-ISRAEL CONFLICT
Dr. Susser's Paper: Thank you very much. It is always a pleasure and a privilege to be here. I have been here on several occasions and I do value the opportunity to talk to this audience particularly. This time I have been asked to address the idea of confederation. I would have thought some years back of the possibility of a triangular confederation at some time in the future; I’m not optimistic about such a scenario these days. There are three issues that I would like to address. First the triangle that does unite Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians in a special kind of association; and that is the common ground that they share, though this does not apply to the same extent to all three of them. Secondly, the historical narratives and collective identities that actually separate the three peoples; one can talk about the historical connections between Israel, Palestine and Jordan; but one cannot ignore Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli identities, all of which are very distinct and very real. And thirdly, the consequences for this triangular relationship of Israel’s decision to disengage; based on the assumption that Israel actually manages to complete the disengagement as planned. It is not my subject to talk about the Israeli government, but just in terms of setting the current agenda, I am very firmly convinced of Sharon’s seriousness to disengage. That does not mean that he will necessarily overcome the obstacles on the Israeli domestic political scene. Personally I hope he does, but the difficulties are significant. At the moment, as we speak, he does not have a government that can complete the disengagement. And trying to construct one appears to be more difficult than originally thought. Historical Ties First of all, to the Jordanian-Israeli-Palestinian triangle; having studied the affairs of Jordan for many years, and often been confronted by those waiting for Jordan to collapse, I would argue that Jordan is much more stable than some people give it credit for. For Jordan, Palestine is a domestic issue, rather than foreign policy. It is all about Jordan’s being, its own identity, and its own stability, and therefore a case unto itself. This has very longstanding historical reasons, and also some related to the more recent past. Just to mention demography, there are probably more Palestinians in Jordan than in the West Bank. The numbers here are a little difficult to gauge precisely, because they are never given formally. But I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that there are more Palestinians in Jordan than in the West Bank. A look at the topography and the administrative boundaries of both sides of the Jordan River, since the earliest of times, reveal a web of unique ties. The East Bank is divided into three parts, created by the three rivers that flow on the East Bank, from East to West into the Jordan Valley. These three rivers (Yarmuk, Zarqa and Mujib) cut through the mountains of the East Bank creating three distinct territorial components. Historically it has been much easier to travel from East to West across the Jordan River, than from the southern part of the East Bank to its northern part. As a result there have been much closer family ties between towns and villages in the West and East Banks, than within the East Bank itself. There are much closer ties between Nablus and Salt, or between Hebron and Karak, than between Karak and Irbid. One cannot write the history of Nablus without including the ties with Salt, as it would not make historical sense. There are profound historical ties, if one looks at the administrative boundaries, from Roman times, through Ottoman rule and up to the British Mandate. The East and West Banks were usually seen as one political unit, and indeed the British Mandate over Palestine initially included both banks of the river. Political Identities However, three distinct political entities have emerged in the last century from the British Mandate, and the relationship between these three has been shaped to a very large degree by the various stations on the road of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Jordan was created as a solution to the Jewish-Arab conflict over Palestine. And Jordan’s history, like that of Palestinians and Israelis, has been shaped very much by the turning points of the conflict, 1948, 1967, 1987, 2000, etc. Historically, the Jordanians sought to inherit Palestine. And it was Hussein who used to say in the 1950s and early 1960s that “Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan.” But that is long gone. Jordan has evolved from inheritor of Palestine, to superior partner, to equal partner and ultimately, to non-partner and to “Jordan First” (al-Urdunn awalan). Things indeed have changed. Israeli and Palestinian identities have emerged with historical narratives that are separated by what is presently an unbridgeable perceptual divide. Zionism, in the way the Jews see it, is, needless to say, extremely different from the way in which it is seen by Palestinians. For the Jews, Zionism is the ultimate self-defense of the Jewish people against their historical fate. For the Palestinians, it is net aggression against them, from the very outset. I will say, in passing, that one of the reasons why I thought that Israel’s idea of urging the Palestinians to declare “end of conflict” at Camp David would not work, was that for the Palestinians to declare “end of conflict” would require of Israel to concede what it would not. From the Palestinian point of view, “end of conflict” does not relate to the 1967 issues, but to the 1948 issues, which for Israel are extremely difficult to address to Palestinian national satisfaction. Israel’s victory in 1948 was for the Jews an act of defiance against their historical fate; their greatest victory in 2000 years, the attainment of statehood and sovereignty and national liberation. For the Palestinians it was entirely the opposite. No less than a national catastrophe. The differences in the narratives and the collective memory are not just of nuance, they are totally opposed to each other. The Palestinian nakba is a traumatic defeat, dispersal of a people, loss of homeland and refugeedom, which Palestinians recognize as a great historical injustice. All these combined are no less than the formative experience and historical core of Palestinianness. Israeli identity and Palestinian identity may certainly be influenced by each other, and have been created and recreated as part of the confrontation between them, but there is an enormous gulf that separates these two narratives. Just as Israeliness and Palestinianness have come into being, Jordanianism has evolved as a distinct identity in its own right not to be underrated or underestimated. It is no less distinct than Palestinianness, no less distinct than Jewish nationalism, and is not about to disappear either. There are some Israelis and some Palestinians, who think of Jordan and Jordanianness as some form of artificial creation. But if one is to read the literature about nationalism of the last decade and more, one would observe that all identities and all nationalisms are invented and imagined in one way or another. The Jordanians in that respect are no different. But it did not start that way. In the Jordanians’ mind, after 1948 and the incorporation of the West Bank, the Jordanian identity and the Palestinian identity were to merge into the essentially Jordanian Arab identity and to unite in the name of Arabism. The term “West Bank” was a Jordanian invention intended to de-Palestinize the area. The West Bank could, after all, have retained the name Palestine. It was the core area of Arab Palestine. The Jordanian term “West Bank” was a means of diluting its national identity, by giving it a geographic designation and thereby subordinating it to East Bank domination. But the war of 1967 changed all that. Jordan’s loss of control over the West Bank also meant Jordan’s loss of control over the Palestinian historical fate. The loss of the West Bank, the largest area of historical Palestine, which remained after the 1948 war in Arab hands, meant the loss of control of the area of decision of the fate of Arab Palestine. Jordan’s loss of the West Bank was, therefore, the end of Jordanian domination over the Palestinian question. The fedayeen challenge and then the events of September 1970 accelerated the coalescence of both Jordanian and Palestinian distinctiveness. If between 1948 and 1967 the Jordanians made no effort to promote a separate Jordanian identity; after 1967 this began to change, and after 1970 even further and at an accelerated pace. The language of Jordanianness has become part and parcel of Jordanian political discourse. When Jordan was attacked for making its peace with Israel by Hafiz Assad, the Jordanian minister of information at the time explained that this was simply Jordan’s own self-interest, a kind of argumentation that one would never have made in the 1950s or 1960s. Now King Abdullah II has gone even further, speaking of “Jordan First,” which has become the normative tone of Jordan’s political lexicon. This would have been most unacceptable in the 1950s and early 1960s, in the heyday of And al-Nasr. Such terminology would have been dismissed as anti-Arab and separatist (infisali). Together with the “Jordan First” mentality, there is also the talk in Jordan of Jordanians and Palestinians as a united people. There is a discernable effort on the Jordanian side to do two things at the same time; to speak of separate Jordanian identity as well as the special relationship with Palestine and the Palestinians. Because it is domestic politics, the Jordanians cannot but do that. One cannot speak of a Jordanian identity in Jordan without incorporating at least the Palestinians in the East Bank. The confederation idea stems from this reality. In 1972 Hussein published for the first time his formula for a federation between Jordan and Palestine. This in my view was the strategic turning point in Jordan’s history vis-à-vis Palestine, more so than the disengagement of 1988. As a result of 1967 and the events of September 1970, Jordan had no choice but to recognize Palestinian distinctive identity. From then on it has been a gradual progression from inheritor to partner, albeit superior in 1972, but equal in the 1985 formula agreed with Arafat, for two states in a confederation. So if one takes a look at Israel-Palestine and Jordan-Palestine in this triangular relationship, the Jordanian-Palestinian relationship is in a totally different category than the Israeli-Palestinian one. Israel-Palestine is far more conflictual, than it is overlapping. If Hussein used to say in the 1950s that Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan, from the mid 1980s onward, it ceased to be part of his discourse. From then on it was “Jordan is Jordan and Palestine is Palestine.” Certainly, from the disengagement of 1988, the Jordanians realized that if they themselves did not make the distinction between Jordan and Palestine, others might do the same, and that could endanger the long term existence of the Jordanian state. Therefore the Jordanian self-interest in supporting the creation of an independent Palestinian state, was intended above all else to maintain Jordan as Jordan. Strangely enough, Israel’s decision to disengage has a similar kind of motivation. The Israeli right, or parts of it (Sharon certainly), recognize that it was in Israel’s own interest to see the creation of a Palestinian state in order to maintain Israel as Israel. Israel now, in 2004, is where King Hussein was in 1988, i.e. fully cognizant of the fact that disengagement from Palestine was imperative for the preservation of its own territorial identity and integrity. Jordan, therefore, is not about controlling the West Bank; Jordan is about controlling the East Bank. What is necessary for that; is an understanding with Palestine and an understanding with Israel. The problem for the Jordanians has been, since the disengagement until today, that there is no mechanism by which to create this understanding. They would like to coordinate with Israel and with the Palestinians and influence the outcome of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, but they do not want to bear responsibility for whatever concessions are made during this process. So the Jordanians are locked in this dilemma of seeking influence but not having the mechanism to secure it. The three entities that have emerged from the British Mandate are here to stay. They have all developed their vibrant and genuine collective identities, and all three have been shaped in one way or another by the conflict. But if there is to be a resolution of the conflict, it will have to rest on the recognition that Jordan is Jordan, Palestine is Palestine, and Israel is Israel. Special ties between Jordan and Palestine make a great deal of sense, considering the history, the demography and the cultural unison of Arabs and Muslims on both sides of the river. The links between Jordanians and Palestinians go back a long way and are very profound. Between Israel and Palestine these overlapping identities do not exist, and the historical narratives are very difficult, if not impossible, to bridge. To that one must add a failed peace process and the last four years of armed conflict, certainly the worst between Israelis and Palestinians ever since 1948. Consequences of Disengagement by Israel What are the consequences of Israel’s disengagement against this background? The integration of the West Bank into Israel from 1967 onwards weakened the link between the West Bank and Jordan systematically, and incorporated the West Bank into the Israeli orbit of influence. Israel’s disengagement would most probably have the opposite effect. The West Bank is landlocked territory between Israel and Jordan. If it not absorbed into the Israeli orbit of influence, and that is what the disengagement suggests, it would probably lead to some kind of closer association between the West Bank and Jordan. Considering the historical narratives of Israelis and Palestinians, the failure of the peace process, and the last few years of ferocious struggle, I find an Israeli-Palestinian confederation hardly a likely proposition, at least not in the foreseeable future. I find it far more realistic to envision a Jordanian-Palestinian confederation. The two peoples have a much greater overlap of identities and historical, cultural and religious ties. As an Israeli, I would like to emphasize, that it is not Israel’s business if there is to be a confederation between Jordan and Palestine. That is for Jordanians and Palestinians to decide. What Israel does, such as disengaging from the West Bank, naturally has an impact on Jordanian-Palestinian relations. But it is not Israel’s decision whether there should be or would be a confederation in the future between Jordan and Palestine.
PALESTINIAN-ISRAELI IMPASSE -
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