[I think this article by former speaker of the Knesset Avraham Burg is so valuable, I've taken it out from behind the paywall of Haaretz where it was published and posted it here so everyone can read it. Haaretz, I hope you don't mind. Hopefully, if enough people see and value this kind of writing, they'll pay the premium to get onto your site for everything you publish (as I do) and get access to all your articles. -- David]
Say a big 'thank you' to Martin Schulz
Why
are we debating the exact disparity in access to water between Israelis and
Palestinians, if Netanyahu admitted his belief that Jews deserve more of it?
By Avraham Burg | Feb. 14, 2014
A bit of disclosure: First, to me, Economy Minister
Naftali
Bennett (Habayit Hayehudi) is one of the shallowest people I’ve ever
encountered here in recent years. Give me Moshe Feiglin, give me Uri Elitzur,
give me Shlomo Ben-Zvi, but spare me this hollow charisma.
Second, in my view, Habayit Hayehudi is a party of
people who hate Arabs and non-Jews, of people who are eternally frightened,
driven by the Holocaust and are, above all, horribly simplistic. If my father,
one of the founders of the party that later became Habayit Hayehudi, were alive
to see his
political descendents in the Knesset on Wednesday (and not only on
Wednesday), I have no doubt (to borrow the analogy so beloved by some of the
Internet commenters so dear to my heart) that he would have died on the spot,
if only to be able to turn over in his grave.
Third, I was the first Knesset speaker to allow a
German president (the late Johannes Rau) to deliver a speech there in the German
language. That speech was full of the love and humanity which are so rare in
the Knesset plenum. It turns out that every language can be either beautiful or
ugly, depending on the speaker and his worldview. On Wednesday, for instance,
we saw Hebrew in all its ugliness. So what? Because of them, we should forbid
speaking Hebrew in the Knesset?
And fourth, Martin Schulz, the president of the
European Parliament, is a close friend of mine. On most issues connected to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict we disagree. He is closer to the Israeli
mainstream, and his positions resemble those of Labor Party chairman Isaac
Herzog. He once told me, during a frank and stern conversation, “For me, the
new Germany exists only in order to ensure the existence of the State of Israel
and the Jewish people.” He’s a brilliant intellectual and a thoughtful
politician, and we don’t need to worry – he won’t give up his existential
friendship so easily. And certainly not because of Bennett or his colleague
Orit Strock, the party whip.
But if he sometimes needs to think a bit before he
accepts the messages delivered by Israeli cabinet ministers, I’ll understand
him, for Martin Schulz doesn’t come from that branch of the Bnei Akiva youth
group I’ll call “the occupiers.” Nor was he a soldier in an elite unit. He’s a
European public figure who learned in his parents’ home to stand up against all
tyranny, evil and discrimination. He and his family were social democrats
before Naftali Bennett knew anything about high-tech or how to shoot a gun, and
even before Bennett’s parents moved to Israel. For him, equality is something
he imbibed at home. The same as how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu imbibed
discrimination and victimhood at home.
But beyond these personal disclosures, we ought to
be grateful to President Schulz. Perhaps the disparity in access to natural
resources isn’t precisely what he was told in Ramallah. Perhaps it’s even
greater or perhaps it’s smaller. But that is completely unimportant. What
matters is that he did to Netanyahu what Netanyahu loves doing to others: He
removed a few masks from the prime minister's arrogant, hysterical face.
“Those figures aren’t accurate,” the prime minister
charged. “So what are the correct figures,” opposition members shouted back.
What difference does it make?! What matters is that the prime minister admitted
there are disparities between Jews and Arabs, between Israelis and
Palestinians. So we’ve agreed on the principle; now we’re just arguing over the
numbers?! Big deal.
I have no doubt that not many hours will pass
before this newspaper's major talents, like Uri Misgav and others, make us much wiser about
exactly how large this disparity is. But let’s get back to the principle. The
current Israeli government, headed by that man of “moral confusion,” accepts
the premise that the Jews deserve more. And this is the fundamental moral
premise that is ticking like a bomb at the gateway to any present or future
peace agreement. For only an agreement based on full equality has even the
faintest chance of proving durable.
Now that the mask has been stripped from the face
of the current Israeli government, a rare opportunity has arisen, if only for a
moment, to think of an alternative to the built-in Israeli discrimination. For
several years now, we – a joint group of Israelis and Palestinians with similar
views – have been trying to formulate principles utterly different from the
premises of separation, discrimination, exploitation and arrogance. And this is
what we have agreed on so far:
Twenty years after the signing of the Oslo Accords,
47 years after the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip by the
Israelis and 66 years after the establishment of the State of Israel and the
Palestinian Nakba, we have reached a stalemate in which there is no freedom for
the Palestinian people or security for Israelis. We have not even come close to
a just and sustainable solution of two states for two peoples. For all
practical purposes, we all live under a single regime of discriminatory Israeli
rule. In addition, many of us have given up in despair and are no longer
capable of imagining any such just solution in the foreseeable future.
In an effort to pave a new path toward historic
reconciliation and true political commitment between both nations, we must give
up the view of the current solution that is based on many layers of separation,
isolation and acts of built-in discrimination. We need to replace that solution
with a completely different method and set of principles. Many of our members,
Israelis and Palestinians, both here and in the diaspora, have reached this
conclusion and, as a result, share a commitment and an understanding that it is
both possible and vitally important. The purpose of these principles is not to
propose practical, detailed solutions, but rather to lay out a completely
different groundwork for a just and sustainable Jewish-Israeli and Palestinian
partnership. Our starting point is founded in the belief that the fate of both
nations is bound up in an unbreakable link; that the Jewish Israelis and
Palestinians are part of the Middle East, and neither of them has a surplus of
rights or exclusive sovereignty over any part of the land between the Jordan
River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Therefore:
* Every person who lives (or has the status of a
resident) between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea shall be assured
equal personal, political, economic and social rights. These rights include:
the right to protection and security; equal treatment without regard to sex,
race, ethnic origin or religion; freedom of movement; ownership and possession
of property; the right to bring a lawsuit to court; and the right to vote and
hold elected office.
* The collective rights of Jewish Israelis and
Palestinians - linguistic, cultural, religious and political - shall be ensured
in every political setting. It is understood that neither side shall have
exclusive sovereignty over any part of the land between the Jordan River and
the Mediterranean Sea (including exclusive ownership of land, exclusive access
to natural resources, and so on).
* All remaining exclusive rights possessed solely
by Jewish Israelis, including ownership of land and access to natural
resources, shall be abolished. All resources - material and political - shall
be redistributed on the basis of principles of affirmative justice.
* The right of return of the Palestinians is an
integral part of UN Resolution 194. The implementation of this resolution shall
take into account the existing reality. The moral and political injustice of
dispossessing the Palestinians in the past shall not be remedied by creating
new injustices.
* The new political institutions shall make
democratic immigration and citizenship laws. However, Jews and Palestinians who
live in the diaspora will be able to receive immunity in situations of danger
(according to UN resolutions) and will have special status in the process of
obtaining citizenship in comparison with any other ethnic or national group.
Like many people, both among my colleagues and
others, I believe with all my heart that mutual recognition based on these
principles could advance a different political reality, in which memories of
exile and being refugees would give way to a comprehensive realization of
rights, citizenship and belonging. They would turn bereavement into life, and
despair into hope. And so, I want to say a big “thank you” to Martin Schulz,
one of Israel’s last and best real friends in the world.
This article was originally published at http://www.haaretz.com/
