Found Turki al-Faisal's piece on Israel-Palestine, and Saudi Arabia's relationship with Israel, in my inbox the other day, circulated by the Middle East Insitute.
The former Saudi Ambassador to the US, and the former head of Saudi Intelligence, writes quite clearly that peace will only be possible if Israel ends it military occupation of West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
He writes,
In order to achieve peace and a lasting two-state solution, Israel must be willing to give as well as take. A first step should be the immediate removal of all Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Only this would show the world that Israel is serious about peace and not just stalling as it adds more illegal settlers to those already occupying Palestinian land.Read the entire piece on the NY times website here.
At the same time, the international community must pressure Israel to relinquish its grip on all Arab territory, not as a means to gain undeserved concessions but instead as an act of good faith and a demonstration that it is willing to play by the Security Council’s rules and to abide by global standards of military occupation. The Arab world, in the form of the Arab peace initiative that was endorsed by 22 countries in 2002, has offered Israel peace and normalization in return for Israeli withdrawal from all Arab territories including East Jerusalem — with the refugee issue to be solved later through mutual consent.
No country in the region wants more bloodshed. But while Israel’s neighbors want peace, they cannot be expected to tolerate what amounts to theft, and certainly should not be pressured into rewarding Israel for the return of land that does not belong to it. Until Israel heeds President Obama’s call for the removal of all settlements, the world must be under no illusion that Saudi Arabia will offer what the Israelis most desire — regional recognition. We are willing to embrace the hands of any partner in peace, but only after they have released their grip on Arab lands.
One of the biggest hurdles to the Middle East Process is the fact that Arab Governments (save a few) refuse to recognize Israel, at all. If Arab leaders are going to continue saying that Israel should not exist, and to us Israel does not exist, they might as well be behaving like the pigeon who closes his eyes to deal with the danger of a cat in its vicinity. It has been over sixty years now, and Israel exists. As much as that hurts me, Palestinians, Arabs, and other Palestine supporters, it is a fact that we have to deal with. If by some miracle of International Relations, Israel were to actually not exist anymore, we would be doing to the Israelis exactly what they did to the Palestinians. We would be ousting them from a land that millions of them live on, some blissfully unaware of how the land became Israel. Two generations down, we cannot dismantle the country, no matter how unjustified, unfair, and bloody, the basis of their foundation was. So where do we go from here? Do we continue to call for Israel's annihiliation? Do we continue to not acknowledge its presence? Do we continue to assassinate leaders who recognized its existence?
The more we do that and the more we harp on how they shouldn't be here in the first place, the more opportunities we provide to the Israelis to expand their territory, control the West Bank, and Gaza Strip, and build settlements.
If an actual viable solution to Israel-Palestine has to be drawn, Palestinians have to realize that what has been done sixty years ago, now cannot be undone. And thus, their aim should now be to gain control over the West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, and to build their nation from scratch, allowing opportunities for the refugees who remain dispersed in an unfriendly Arab world.
And of course for all this to happen, Israel needs to listen to what Turki-al-Faisal is saying- Land first, then peace. Sixty years ago, they took what was certainly not theirs, and now they need to stop. If they want the rockets to stop and "peace" in the neighborhood, then they need to stop decreasing the green areas in this map, remove their checkpoints, breakdown that damned wall, and allow the 1.5 million prisoners of Gaza a way out of the area they bombed and destroyed earlier this year.
I wholly understand and deeply feel the anger about the existence and growth of Israel. And in no way am I saying the events of 1948 and those preceding it, as well as the events of the last sixty one years were justified, correct, or close to being humane. But, living day after day, year after year, on anger, and allowing the fact that you were victimised to take over everything, is greatly worsening the situation. Thus there is a need to stop coming up with plans to erase Israel, but to chart out practical, realistic steps to get back control of the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, and to tear down new settlements.
Israel was evil and horrible, and still needs to be a taught a lesson too many, but now its time to get over it, pick up the pieces and not allow it to bully you any further.
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