Key to a Wider Peace

The Palestinian demand for self-determination is gaining acceptance

The military commander of the area around Tyre, Major Azmi Zughayar, strode to the top of a sand dune in southern Lebanon. There, above the bamboo and sea grass, he pointed with his walking stick across a sliver of eastern Mediterranean to the shore line of Israel beyond. “That is my country,” he told a visitor. “How can I forget? How can any of us forget?”

Their popular image in the West is that of a throng of terrorists and refugees. Some of them indeed are that: there are perhaps 47,000 commandos under arms, and more than 650,000 people living in squalid, overcrowded camps scattered across the Middle East. But this community also includes artists and poets, builders and bureaucrats, doctors and teachers. Their industry and zeal for learning (20 out of every 1,000 are in a college or university somewhere) have earned them the sobriquet “the Jews of the Arab world.”

These are the Palestinians: nearly 4 million Arabs, the majority living in exile, who claim as their birthright both the land of Israel and the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza. The quarrel between the Israelis and Palestinians involves a tragic, seemingly irreconcilable conflict of competing nationalisms. The Jewish claim to most of this same area is also justified by historic and religious roots.

It is 32 years since the birth of Israel, when most of the Palestinians fled or were forced from the land. Instead of having melded into the populations of Arab states that reluctantly offered them shelter, the Palestinians have transformed themselves from a dispirited band of exiles into a dispossessed people with a purpose, fueled by stubborn memory, anger and a sense of injustice. Their leaders, and the Arab heads of state who back their cause, insist that there can be no broader peace in the Middle East without a solution to the Palestinian problem.

In the past few years, many Western diplomats and political leaders have come to agree with this view. So have a growing number of Israelis and even some of their American Jewish supporters. Says Rabbi Alexander Schindler, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations: “There will never be peace until there is a rapprochement between Israel and the Palestinians.”

A year has passed since President Anwar Sadat and Premier Menachem Begin signed the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty on the north lawn of the White House. This week Sadat returns to Washington for another round of talks with President Carter, to be followed a week later by one with Begin. The purpose of these separate encounters: to keep the faltering peace process alive by making some headway on the complicated and emotional question of self-determination­or “autonomy,” as the Camp David accords put it, with deliberate ambiguity­for the West Bank and Gaza.

Carter’s meetings with Sadat and Begin were inspired by concerns that Egypt and Israel could not meet the May 26 target date for a Palestinian autonomy plan. Last week the United Nations Security Council began debate on a new draft resolution on Palestinian rights and self-determination, which the U.S. will undoubtedly veto on the grounds that it would impede the Camp David peace process. Arab sponsors of the resolution will probably then offer it to the General Assembly, where it will be approved by an overwhelming vote. Many of the U.S.’s Western European allies may join Communist and Third World nations in supporting the resolution, leaving the U.S. and Israel more isolated than ever before on the subject of the Palestinians.

Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Yehuda Blum complained that the growing number of supporters for the Palestinian cause was “a sorry parade of nations supplicating the Arab oil gods.” In some cases that may be true. Yet Blum’s comment reflects a dangerous misapprehension on the part of the Begin government­namely, that support for Palestinian rights is based solely on a fearful lust for Middle East oil supplies.

Another sign of the growing importance of the Palestinian issue is the new determination of Western Europe to take an active part in resolving it. Since August, France has been advocating a ministerial-level conference between the nine-member European Community and the moderate Arab oil producers to discuss the problem. Now a European initiative, pressed by France, Britain and West Germany, is under way to create closer ties between the Community and the Palestine Liberation Organization.

The yearlong autonomy negotiations between Egypt and Israel have been handicapped from the beginning by two important factors. One is the refusal of the Palestinians and Jordan’s King Hussein to take part in the peace process; they dismissed it as a hoax for perpetuating the status quo. The other is the Begin government’s truculent determination to press ahead with new Jewish settlements in the West Bank, thereby further inflaming Palestinian passions and antagonizing world opinion. Last week Israelis began construction at Mitzpe Jericho on a new Jewish settlement near the Arab town of Jericho in the West Bank. This occurred less than two weeks after the Israeli Cabinet infuriated Palestinians by approving the establishment of two Jewish schools inside another major Arab town, Hebron.

Returning to Washington from talks with Sadat and Begin, President Carter’s special envoy on Middle East problems, Sol Linowitz, told reporters last week that his sessions produced “a willingness to explore new ideas and agreements on a substantial number of subsidiary matters.” In fact, there has been very little progress on five key issues essential to the success of any autonomy plan:

SECURITY. Israel wants to retain full military control over the occupied territories during a five-year transition period after an autonomy agreement is reached. Egypt would prefer a different arrangement, perhaps a joint Israeli-Egyptian security presence in Gaza and Israeli-Jordanian patrols in the West Bank.

ADMINISTRATION. Israel wants to limit the role of any governing council set up for the West Bank and Gaza to running schools, clinics and other social services; Egypt insists that this council must have some legislative powers.

SETTLEMENTS. Israel insists on the right of Jews to settle anywhere in the occupied territories, refusing even to suspend its policy of building new settlements until the May 26 target date. The Egyptians oppose the settlements, but feel Israel should negotiate this issue with an autonomous Palestinian council.

WATER RIGHTS. Israel wants to settle in advance of autonomy how control of this scarce resource will be shared with the Palestinians; Sadat prefers to leave it to the council to work out.

EAST JERUSALEM ARABS. Sadat insists that the 100,000 Palestinian residents of the city must be allowed to vote in council elections, even if East Jerusalem is not included in the autonomy plan. Begin is determined they will not vote, lest this be construed as a step toward redivision of the holy city.

Beyond these matters, which deal only with arrangements for the West Bank and Gaza during a five-year transition period, is the hard question: Should the Palestinians over the long term have the right of self-determination, which could mean federation with Jordan but more likely would mean full independence? The Palestinians demand self-determination as their due. The Arab states support their cause, in part because they think the creation of a Palestinian state would reduce internal political pressure on their own regimes. Begin’s government opposes the concept absolutely. One reason is Begin’s deeply rooted belief that Jews have a right to settle anywhere in Eretz Yisrael, which includes present-day Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. Another is the fear that an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank, dominated by the P.L.O., would present a new threat to Israel’s security.

Thus on the eve of their Washington talks, both Sadat and Begin are under considerable pressure. Sadat is anxious to show his Arab critics that he has not betrayed the Palestinian cause by making peace with Israel. For his part, Begin feels that the Israelis have already made a lot of concessions. They have abandoned the Sinai, with its oilfields, airbases and Jewish settlements, in exchange for Egypt’s promise of peace. He has already committed Israel to the concept of Palestinian autonomy, however vague it may be, but is obsessed by the thought that he may have set in motion a process that could eventually jeopardize the future of Israel.

Finally, Begin realizes that he is in trouble at home. His country is gripped by social and economic woes (including an inflation rate last tracked at 124%), and he is trailing in the public opinion polls. He is not anxious to make any bold concessions on the Palestinian issue or indeed do anything that might bring down his faltering government.

Nor does Begin seem at all inclined to put the brakes on the ultranationalist ambitions of the Greater Israel Movement, the Gush Emunim (Bloc of Faithful) or Rabbi Meir Kahane’s Jewish Defense League. By political pressure and sometimes by becoming squatters on Arab land, these zealots have pushed their country into an angry standoff with the Palestinians of the West Bank, which Begin refers to as Judea and Samaria, their names in biblical times. Since Begin’s government came to power in 1977, both the number of settlements and the number of their inhabitants in the West Bank have doubled. Today some 14,000 Israelis live in 64 West Bank settlements, 39 of which have been built since 1977. An additional 54,000 Israelis live in six suburbs that have been built around East Jerusalem since 1967. Meanwhile, 900,000 Palestinians make up 98% of the West Bank’s population.

Since the Six-Day War of 1967, Israelis have bought, expropriated or taken over roughly 30% of the West Bank’s 2,200 sq. mi., including some of the most fertile farm land in the Jordan Valley. In many instances, land has been seized in the name of defense. A $300 million housing project for 20,000 Israelis is currently being built on the mountaintop of Ma’ale Adumin, thereby completing the “encirclement” of Jerusalem that successive Israeli governments have claimed as a strategic priority since the 1967 war. In other cases, little effort is made to justify expansionism on security grounds­for example, the recent Cabinet decision approving the right of Israelis to settle in the Arab city of Hebron.

Begin’s critics charge that his goverment is engaged in a policy of “creeping annexation.” Indeed, Gush Emunim members believe that the government should formally incorporate the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights as integral parts of Israel. Moshe Dayan resigned as Foreign Minister last fall in part because he was convinced that Begin’s ultimate goal was to demand full sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza at the end of the five-year interim period. Writing in the Jerusalem Post, former Foreign Minister Abba Eban argued that the settlements “squander the nation’s resources at home and its dignity abroad without the slightest service to any authentic Zionist purpose.” Eban is clearly right, and many Israelis would agree, but Begin seems determined to pacify the extreme nationalists who form part of his constituency.

Other critics charge that the government’s aim is to neutralize the West Bank, politically and militarily, by turning its major Arab population centers into “little Bantustans” surrounded by Jewish settlements. One angry Jerusalem-based human rights activist was pressed to explain how Jews, with their long history as victims of oppression, could justify such treatment of their neighbors. In answer, he quoted a line of W.H. Auden’s: “I and the public know what all school children learn; those to whom evil is done do evil in return.”

One tragedy of the present conflict is that the Palestinians and Jews have rather more in common than either side is usually willing to admit. Both are Semitic peoples, with ancient roots in the Holy Land. Both have suffered the agony of exile; both place a high value on education, culture and industry. By comparison with the Israelis, the Palestinians are something of a mystery to most Americans.* A TIME-Yankelovich poll taken last week disclosed that 30% of the U.S. public think Palestinians are best described as “terrorists”; 17% regard them as “displaced persons who will eventually settle in another country,” and 19% think of them as “refugees seeking a homeland.”

The stereotypes are more wrong than right. Of the world’s 4 million Palestinians, only about 47,000 are members of either the P.L.O.’s Palestine Liberation Army (12,000) or its six semi-independent commando groups (30,000 to 35,000). At present, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which assists in the running of the refugee camps, there are 1.8 million registered Palestinian refugees; but only about 650,000 of them live in 61 camps scattered throughout Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza. The great majority of the world’s Palestinians still live in the Middle East, mainly in Jordan (about 1 million), the West Bank and Gaza (1.2 million), Israel (650,000) and Lebanon (450,000), but there are also sizable communities in the gulf states, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. In Kuwait, the Palestinians constitute about 20% of the population, in Jordan, an estimated 65%.

Most are still peasant farmers or workers, but a surprising number are doctors, lawyers, bankers, poets. Throughout the gulf, Palestinians advise royal families on financial affairs and oil dealings, run airlines and construction firms. Remittances from foreign workers, mostly Palestinians in the gulf, add more than $800 million a year to Jordan’s economy. The Palestinians still demonstrate an extraordinary drive for education. Three years ago, according to one survey, there were 80,000 Palestinians enrolled in universities throughout the world, a remarkably high rate for an impoverished people. Surprisingly, some wealthy professionals have chosen to stay in the refugee camps, both as a form of protest and as a means of preserving their national identity.

Partly to justify their own right to settle in the Holy Land, Israeli leaders have tended to disparage Palestinian claims to the area as somehow flawed or even specious. In a famous statement that her political successors have come to regret, Golda Meir once said that “there was no such thing as a Palestinian people . . . It is not as though there was a Palestinian people, and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.”

In truth, the Palestinians have lived in the same general region on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean since ancient times. They trace their ancestry to the Canaanites, though it was the Philistines from whom the name of latter-day Palestine is derived. In Arabic, the country is called Filastin. The region has been ruled by a seemingly endless procession of conquerors, including the Ottoman Turks, who held it from the 16th century until World War I. For 30 years thereafter, Britain governed Palestine, which included the present territory of Israel, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza, under a League of Nations mandate.

At the turn of the century, there were only about 500,000 people living in Palestine; most were Arab peasants, but 25,000 were Jews, who owned less than 1% of the land. In 1917 the British, in an effort to gain Jewish support during World War I, issued the Balfour Declaration. That document, prepared by Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, endorsed the Zionist dream of establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine, though it contended that such a homeland should not “prejudice” the rights of its Arab inhabitants. As the number of Jewish settlers increased, so did the restlessness of the Palestinian Arabs, and in 1936 they attempted a rebellion against British rule.

In 1947, the United Nations proposed the division of the present area of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza into separate Jewish and Arab states; Jerusalem was to have special status as an internationalized city. Most Jewish leaders in Palestine accepted the partition; the Arabs did not. Fearful of impending civil war, 300,000 of the people whose existence Golda Meir did not recognize fled Palestine in the weeks before the declaration of the state of Israel on May 15, 1948; when Arab armies attacked the new country, another 350,000 took flight or were forced to leave, abandoning homes, farms, orchards and shops. Chaim Weizmann, Israel’s first President, described the exodus as a “miraculous simplification of Israel’s tasks.”

At first these 650,000 refugees rejected all attempts to resettle them. They even refused to leave their UNRWA tents, fearing that their transfer to the concrete huts offered them would be taken as a sign that they had accepted their dispersal. Other Arabs gave minimal support to the refugees, on the ground that the West had created the problem by recognizing Israel’s existence. That attitude is changing, however; last year Saudi Arabia contributed an estimated $12 million toward making up UNRWA’S ever growing deficits.

By the mid-’60s there were some 40 Palestinian nationalist groups, including the newly formed Palestine Liberation Organization. The Arabs’ disastrous defeat in the 1967 war swept the new commando groups into control of the Palestine National Council, which in February 1969 elected Yasser Arafat chairman of its executive committee. His continued leadership stems both from his abilities and from the fact that his own group, Al-Fatah, provides at least 80% of the P.L.O.’s commandos. The second-ranking group beneath the P.L.O. umbrella is the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, led by Marxist George Habash.

“Palestinians are seen by other Arabs with a combination of fear, suspicion, guilt and pride,” says Sociologist Sari Nasir of Amman University. The Palestinians return these ambivalent feelings. In the “Black September of 1970,” Arafat’s guerrillas, fearing that Jordan was usurping their power, turned against King Hussein’s troops, lost a bloody ten-day battle, and were forced to move their base of operations from Jordan to Lebanon. Beginning in 1975, they took an active role in the Lebanese civil war. The Syrians first intervened against them, not wanting the Palestinians and the Lebanese leftists to gain too powerful a position. Though the quarrels were later patched up, the Palestinians learned that their survival would depend solely on their own efforts.

For more than 15 years, the P.L.O. has waged a war of terrorism against Israel, and the list of atrocities is long. One bitterly remembered example: the March 1978 bus massacre in which 38 Israelis died. Terrorist attacks directed against targets in Europe have largely ceased, as the P.L.O. has mounted a diplomatic offensive for recognition and has transformed itself, in effect, into a government in exile with a “legislature” (the council), a “Cabinet” (the executive committee) and 82 offices around the world. The 100-member council, which meets twice a year, includes Palestinians from every walk of life and is probably the most democratic institution in the Arab world.

Remarkably, the P.L.O. has also managed to devote time and resources to a wide range of services and businesses. It runs hospitals and clinics, dispenses social security benefits, sponsors trade unions and even associations for writers, poets and painters. It maintains 35 small factories that produce clothing, blankets, furniture and toys and a film center.

Younger recruits burn with zeal to destroy the Zionist enemy, but some of the leaders speak warily about the dubious rewards of a life of making terrorist war. Yasser Arafat’s brother Fathi, a doctor who heads the Palestinian Red Crescent (equivalent of the Red Cross), remarks almost whimsically: “I think the world is divided into four classes: first, second, third and Palestinians. All the governments have decided this. Maybe there should be a zoo for us. You know, with a sign reading HERE IS A TERRORIST.”

Diplomatic offensive or no, the Palestinians still take military training seriously. TIME Middle East Bureau Chief William Stewart, visiting the Rashidieh refugee camp in southern Lebanon, found 16 boys between the ages of eight and 16 engaged in a sort of small-arms training. Wrote Stewart: “They marched across a tiny parade ground, presented arms with mock Kalashnikov rifles and offered an openhanded salute. In unison, they broke into Biladi, Biladi (My Country, My Country), a patriotic song. The scene is repeated every day in this windswept corner of Rashidieh and in every camp in Lebanon. Ahmed Abu Karim, who teaches karate, says: ‘We train them to believe we cannot lose more than we lost in Palestine. We tell them there is no meaning to life without sacrifice.’

“When I last visited Rashidieh in 1974,” Stewart continued, “the mood was one of fortitude and resolution. But several years of tangible success have raised expectations. There is a realization that much of the world no longer sees them as just refugees but as a people. Recognition is a form of justice, and for many in Rashidieh it is deeply satisfying.”

Those expectations are not likely to be satisfied, however, by the forthcoming Washington talks. In fact, the Administration has downplayed the meetings to such an extent that, as one diplomatic analyst puts it, the participants “have one great advantage: nobody in the U.S., Europe or the Middle East expects them to accomplish anything.” Many in the Administration may see Begin’s settlements policy as an outrageous obstruction to peace. But the realities of election-year politics make it just about impossible for a U.S. Administration, concerned about the Jewish vote, to be overly critical of Israel.

At most, President Carter may be able to talk Begin into allowing East Jerusalem Arabs to vote in elections for the autonomy council; Begin might accept some limits on expanding settlements during the five-year transition period. Carter might persuade Sadat to drop his demand that the autonomy council have some legislative powers. Such concessions could keep the Camp David peace process on its current slow track, but would ignore the real problem. There is unmistakable evidence that the Palestinians, in the occupied territories or in exile, simply will not accept any autonomy plan that does not offer the prospect of true self-determination. And that means the possibility of a Palestinian state.

Such a prospect is totally abhorrent to Begin, and indeed to a majority of Israelis. Nonetheless, there is a growing sense within Israel that Begin’s begrudging view of autonomy does less than justice to the Palestinians’ reasonable demands. For this and other reasons, Begin’s shaky coalition could collapse at any time, thereby forcing new elections. The certain winner ­perhaps even with a clear majority in the Knesset, according to recent polls ­would be the Labor Party, which has never been particularly enthusiastic about settlements for settlements’ sake. The Labor solution to the West Bank problem has traditionally involved a “territorial compromise” with Jordan, perhaps leading to a West Bank-East Bank state whose population would be roughly 80% Palestinian.

Any such plan obviously requires the cooperation of King Hussein. He not only rejects the Camp David accords but has steered clear of direct involvement in West Bank affairs since a 1974 Rabat summit of Arab leaders recognized the P.L.O. as the sole representative of the Palestinians. Last week Hussein canceled a trip to Washington scheduled for April 17. In its inimitable way, the Carter Administration had neglected to tell him of the Sadat and Begin meetings. Furious, the King informed the White House that the proposed timing of his trip would make it seem as if he were being drawn into the peace process. West Bankers these days would not mind if that were the case. Although they felt neglected and suppressed during the 19 years of Jordanian rule (1948-67), they feel that the King has mellowed somewhat, and they welcome the financial aid he gives to the West Bank ($70 million last year).

Israel’s fears about the risks posed by a Palestinian state on its vulnerable borders are certainly legitimate. After all, the P.L.O. still refuses to concede Israel’s right to exist, more than a dozen years after the United Nations Security Council, in Resolution 242, called for “acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every state in the area.” Worse yet, some P.L.O. hard-liners still have not abandoned their call for Israel’s destruction­a good reason for the U.S. and its European allies to move very carefully before recognizing the organization. Nonetheless, the principal arguments against such a state are not entirely convincing. Items:

1) A Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza would be Soviet influenced and run by the P.L.O. Possible but not likely. With the exception of South Yemen, the Arab world is generally wary of Moscow’s intentions. Radical Iraq is loosening its ties with the U.S.S.R. Syria has refused to sign a friendship treaty with Moscow, though the Soviets are its principal armorers. The Soviets also give weapons to the P.L.O., but most Arabs believe Arafat when he says: “I am no one’s employee.” There are pro-Moscow leaders in the P.L.O., but they stand little chance of gaining power unless the present leadership fails to achieve its goals.

2) A Palestinian state would be a military threat to Israel. Not necessarily. Israel is still the greatest military power in the Middle East, and is likely to remain so. Now that Egypt has been neutralized by the Camp David accords, Syria, Jordan and the P.L.O. do not add up to a credible military threat to Israel. Beyond that, any new state on the West Bank and Gaza would have to recognize Israel’s right to exist, as many responsible Palestinians are prepared to do. Moreover, in return for self-determination, the Palestinians would have to accept demilitarization for the foreseeable future. To maintain internal security, they would need a police force equipped with small arms, but they would not be allowed to receive such offensive weapons as artillery, planes and tanks. The combination of Israeli military power and a detection system capable of monitoring troop movements and air maneuvers should be a deterrent to attack. Any breach of the demilitarization agreement would bring a quick response by Israeli forces­and probably a return of the Israeli presence.

3) The P.L.O. would continue its terrorist struggle against Israel. Many Palestinians answer that such terrorism-minded freedom fighters as Begin (leader of the Irgun) and Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir (a member of the Stern Gang) gave up guns for politics after Israel became independent. Why, they ask, should not Arafat do the same? True, weapons could be smuggled into the West Bank by irredentist radicals and used against Israeli border settlements. Perhaps the most effective deterrent would be the Palestinians’ knowledge that such activity would lead to a swift Israeli response, as it has in southern Lebanon.

4) An impoverished Palestinian state could not support all the returning exiles. Perhaps not. In any case, some are now deeply rooted in other lands and would return as visitors, not residents. But the rehabilitation of those still in the refugee camps would require considerable aid, both from the West and from the oil-rich states of the region.

A for the Jewish settlements, they would probably have to be abandoned, unless their residents were willing to live under Palestinian sovereignty. Although the settlements have a symbolic importance to nationalist zealots, even some Israeli military experts agree that the outposts would be of little use in forestalling an external attack. Moreover, the animosities aroused among Palestinians by the settlements would seem to outweigh whatever minor security advantages they provide. If anything, the presence of the settlements has merely strengthened Palestinian resistance. Observes Columbia University Professor Edward Said, a noted Palestinian, with a touch of pride: “Throughout the occupation, and with all the intimidation and temptations the Israelis have tried, they have been unable to produce a class of collaborators among our people. We do not produce quislings.”

The future of East Jerusalem is unquestionably the thorniest problem of all. Certainly no Israeli government could renegotiate its status and hope to survive. The Palestinians are adamant that East Jerusalem must be returned to Arab sovereignty, yet they also agree that the city should not be redivided. It is conceivable that an eventual compromise might be reached by which West Jerusalem would remain the capital of Israel and East Jerusalem would become the Palestinian capital. According to one such plan, the city could be operated under a borough system, with a council elected by both communities, and with Jewish and Arab mayors alternating every four years.

Such a blueprint, of course, is not at present acceptable to either side. Nonetheless, it is clear that the U.S. and its allies must soon address themselves not only to the immediate procedural questions inhibiting the peace process but also to the larger issues that will shape the future of the region. It will not be easy, particularly in this election year, for the U.S. to lean heavily on Israel, a traditional ally. But that may become unavoidable. There are those who argue that the U.S. should not do so because, with the power vacuum in the Middle East as a result of Iran’s upheaval, Israel’s military strength is needed more than ever as a stabilizing force. But continued failure to resolve the Palestinian problem could prove an even greater force for destabilization, radicalizing the Palestinians themselves and fatally weakening the moderate Arab states in the region.