2003 Begins With No Leadership In Israel Or Palestine

by Rami G. Khouri

First, the current, violent course of local history increasingly is being determined by mass popular sentiments on both sides, while official leaders often only react to events without being able to guide them. In Israel and Palestine alike, the center of gravity of political decision-making and ideology continues to shift from the top toward the bottom, from the government to the community.

Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat spend more and more time these days issuing a dizzying combination of statements, warnings, threats, pleas and promises that make more noise than impact. Both men are nearly immobilized by the mass anger and fear of their respective populations, and by the intense ideological competition within their very pluralistic political establishments. Rather than real leaders, they act like cheerleaders.

At best, Sharon and Arafat try to manage popular fear and anger. At worst, they feed and aggravate those emotions by pandering to them, usually choosing political expediency over statesmanship. The populations on both sides are resigned to keep fighting in their respective ways, seeing guns and bombs as the only immediate means to protect or to liberate themselves.

The idea that significant movement toward a negotiated peace may come from the collection of aging men that holds official power in Israel and Palestine is fanciful dreaming. Most Israelis and Palestinians know this. Yet, paradoxically, both leaderships continue to enjoy strong popular support -- only because, in times of war and mass fear, the citizenry rallies around the flag and seeks protection behind the man with the gun.

Second, some Israelis and Palestinians have started to question the effectiveness and appropriateness of current policies, and to ask whether new directions should be pursued. The collapse of the trust and hope in the immediate post-Oslo years of 1994-96 was replaced by tough attitudes and military actions. Palestinians have viewed this militancy as legitimate resistance against Israeli occupation and colonization; Israelis see their own as legitimate self-defense and security. Yet militarism has not achieved the strategic political or national goals of either side.

So minorities in both communities have started to explore other, peaceful means of achieving Israeli and Palestinian legitimate national rights -- means such as immediate, unconditional negotiations, non-violent civil disobedience and mutual recognition.

These attempts are unlikely to bring about different policies any time soon. Their significance is unclear, and should not be exaggerated. The majorities want to keep fighting, until they are offered a clear way to achieve their rights through negotiations.

Third, as a two-state solution seems less likely to materialize any time soon, some Israelis and Palestinians are exploring radically different permanent resolutions of the conflict -- most of which are deeply frightening to the other side. Israelis increasingly speak of unilateral separation from the Palestinians -- building a wall to keep the Palestinians away from Israeli population centers -- which one Israeli academic has described as a form of "internal ethnic cleansing." Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories increasingly speak of a single, bi-national, democratic state in which Israelis and Palestinians are virtually equal in number (about 5 million each).

There is no doubting that the current political and emotional environment is the result of fear, anger, and militarism that both peoples can sustain for many years. Both sides see themselves as fighting for their very survival. In such existential struggles, there is no such thing as battle fatigue.

It's probably also safe to assume that it will not end through external intervention. Perhaps the only phenomenon that matches the failure of current Israeli and Palestinian policies has been the legacy of failed American mediation in the quest for comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace and resolution of the Palestine issue.

The resolution of this conflict will have to come from within Palestine and Israel, but there are no signs of that now. We have not yet reached the point where majorities in both communities see how they can live comfortably with the national demands of the other.

What could make this happen? One horrible day of violence, perhaps, when thousands on each side die due to attacks by the other. Or an economic collapse so thorough that both Israelis and Palestinians started to die from poverty rather than warfare.

Peace could also come when gifted statesmen and women emerge from the darkness to lead Palestinians and Israelis beyond their fears, into the land of their hopes and rights.

Jerusalem and its powerful spiritual legacy tell me that this will happen one day. The warring citizens of Jerusalem tell me it will not happen any time soon.