This is a very controversial issue and I was thinking for a long time on how, if at all, I should comment on it.
Perhaps one of the best ways of going about this is to get to the realm of facts. There's so much disinformation and ideological probelms in this conflict that it's helpful to know what actually happenned.
I'd recommend this as a primer and essentially my view on the topic. This is a discussion between Shlomo Ben-Ami, former Foreign Minister of Israel and chief negotiator at the Camp David accords of 2000, and Norman Finkelstein, a leading and courageous expert on this topic.
A few excerpts:
On events 1920-1947
Ben-Ami: "The reality on the ground was that of an Arab community in a state of terror facing a ruthless Israeli army whose path to victory was paved not only by its exploits against the regular Arab armies, but also by the intimidation and at times atrocities and massacres it perpetrated against the civilian Arab community. A panic-stricken Arab community was uprooted under the impact of massacres that would be carved into the Arabs' monument of grief and hatred.”
On the resolution
Ben-Ami: We need to draw a line between an Israeli state, a sovereign Palestinian state, and solve the best way we can the problem, by giving the necessary compensation to the refugees, by bringing back the refugees to the Palestinian state, no way to the state of Israel, not because it is immoral, but because it is not feasible, it is not possible.
On Oslo (1991)
Ben-Ami: the P.L.O. will be Israel's subcontractor and collaborator in the Occupied Territories,...” "...in order to suppress the genuinely democratic tendencies of the Palestinians."
On Hamas and PLO
Ben-Ami: ...in my view there is almost sort of poetic justice with this victory of Hamas. After all, what is the reason for this nostalgia for Arafat and for the P.L.O.?...
...1990s was the first time that Hamas spoke about a temporary settlement with Israel. In 2003, they declared unilaterally a truce...
...Now, everybody says they need first to recognize the state of Israel and end terrorism. Believe me, I would like them to do so today, but they are not going to do that. They are eventually going to do that in the future, but only as part of a quid pro quo, just as the P.L.O. did it.
On 1967 borders
Finkelstein: Borders. The principle is clear. I don't want to get into it now, because I was very glad to see that Dr. Ben-Ami quoted it three times in his book. It is inadmissible to acquire territory by war. Under international law, Israel had to withdraw from all of the West Bank and all of Gaza. As the World Court put it in July 2004, those are, quote, "occupied Palestinian territories."
On Camp David (2000)
Finkelstein: ...On every single issue, all the concessions came from the Palestinians. The problem is, everyone, including Dr. Ben-Ami in his book — he begins with what Israel wants and how much of its wants it's willing to give up. But that's not the relevant framework. The only relevant framework is under international law what you are entitled to, and when you use that framework it's a very, very different picture.
Ben-Ami: ...Camp David was not the missed opportunity for the Palestinians, and if I were a Palestinian I would have rejected Camp David, as well...
On Clinton Parameters (late 2000) and Taba (2001)
Finkelstein: It[Taba] ended officially when Barak withdrew his negotiators. It wasn't the Palestinians who walked out of Taba. It ended with the Israelis walking out of Taba, a matter of historical record, not even controversial.
Ben-Ami: ...Now, with regard to Taba, you see, we were a government committing suicide, practically... Our legitimacy as a government to negotiate such central issues as Jerusalem, as Temple Mount, the temple, etc., was being questioned...“Shlomo Ben-Ami is ready to sell out the country for the sake of a Nobel Prize.”
On "not-so-new new anti-Semitism.”
Finkelstein: There is no evidence of a new anti-Semitism. If you go through all the literature, as I have, the evidence is actually in Europe...the evidence is, if you look at like the Pew Charitable Trust surveys, anti-Semitism has actually declined since the last time they did the surveys. They did it in 1991 and 2002. They said the evidence is that it's declined.
Ben-Ami: I don't believe also that the number of incidents, as such, is the reflection of whether or not anti-Semitism is growing...[I] can see more xenophobia against North Africans, against foreigners throughout Europe. And in a way, in a way...The problem today is, in my view, much more that of [discrimination against] the Arab, the Muslim immigrants from North Africa, from the Middle East and other parts
On human rights
Finkelstein: ...the fact of the matter is, being faithful to historical record, the record of Labour ["left-wing"] has been much worse on human rights violations than the record of Likud ["right-wing"]... it doesn't speak too much in Israel's favor that it's the only country in the world that legalized torture. It was also the only country in the world that legalized hostage taking...Israel was the only country in the world that's legalized house demolitions as a form of punishment.
On the future
Ben-Ami: ...let us not fool ourselves. Many of the problems that the West is facing today with the Arab world will persist. The Palestinian issue has been used frequently by many Arab rulers as a pretext for not doing things that need to be done in their own societies...
...I define myself as an ardent Zionist that thinks that the best for the Jews in Israel is that we abandon the territories and we dismantle settlements and we try to reach a reasonable settlement with our Palestinian partners. It's not because I am concerned with the Palestinians. I want to be very clear about it. My interpretation, my approach is not moralistic...
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