Whither the 'Peace Process'?

New Left Review

Volumn , Issue 218, 1996, Pages 138-149

  Finkelstein, Norman G ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0346509783     PISSN: 00286060     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
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References (83)

1. Edward Said, Peace and its Discontents, New York 1996; Meron Benvenisti, Intimate Enemies, New York 1995. The author wishes to thank Noam Chomsky, Adele Oltman and Cyrus Vesser for their comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.
2. Edward Said, Peace and its Discontents, New York 1996; Meron Benvenisti, Intimate Enemies, New York 1995. The author wishes to thank Noam Chomsky, Adele Oltman and Cyrus Vesser for their comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.
3. Said, Peace and its Discontents, pp. 147, 12.
4. Benvenisti, Intimate Enemies, p. 218.
5. Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Washington, DC, 28 September 1995. Issued by the State of Israel, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem.
6. Oslo Agreement, Article XXXI.
7. Said, Peace and its Discontents, p. 11.
8. Ibid., p. 63.
9. Ibid., pp. 27-8.
10. Article XXXI.
11. Said, Peace and its Discontents, p. xxix.
12. Article XI.
13. Conceived soon after the June 1967 war, the Allon plan projected Israel's incorporation of roughly half the West Bank, the remaining areas of 'dense Arab settlement' consigned to some kind of self-rule.
14. Annex III, Appendix I, Article 40; Schedule 8, 'Joint Water Committee.'
15. Per capita water allotment for an Israeli is thus four times that a Palestinian. See Davar, 25 October 1993.
16. Annex III, Appendix I, Article 40.
17. Noam Chomsky, World Orders Old and New, New York 1994, p. 210.
18. Said, Peace and its Discontents, p. 103; see also pp. xxviii-xxix, 9, 18, 66, 154.
19. Article XX.
20. Said, Peace and its Discontents, pp. xxxii, 103.
21. Article 10.
22. Article XVII.
23. Annex IV, Article I, paras. 2, 7a.
24. Article XVIII, paras. 4-6.
25. Annex III, Article 29.
26. Article XXXI.
27. Articles X, XII.
28. Annex I, Article V; see also Annex I, Article XI, para. 3b for application of this provision even to 'territory under the security responsibility of the Council'.
29. Article XV, Annex I, Article II.
30. Annex I, Article XI, para. 4d; see also Annex I, Article V, para. 3b2.
31. Annex I, Article IX; see also Annex V, Article VII.
32. Said, Peace and its Discontents, p. 53.
33. Annex I, Article VIII, Annex I, Appendix V, Section F.
34. Annex III, Appendix I, Article 28.
35. Article XI.
36. Annex III, Appendix I, Articles 16, 22.
37. Said, Peace and its Discontents, p. XXV.
38. Ibid., p. xxiii.
39. Ibid., pp. 7-8, 73, 82-3, 120, 180-1.
40. No one knows better than Said that the impetus behind Israel's 1982 Lebanon invasion was not PLO 'folly' but rather its 'peace offensive' (Israeli strategic analyst, Avner Yaniv); for sources, see Norman G. Finkelstein, Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, New York 1995, ch. 6, note 52; and Norman G. Finkelstein, The Rise and Fall of Palestine, Minnesota, forthcoming, November 1996, ch. 3. For the more complex issue of the Palestinians' stance during the Gulf crisis, see my Rise and Fall, ch. 4 and epilogue.
41. No one knows better than Said that the impetus behind Israel's 1982 Lebanon invasion was not PLO 'folly' but rather its 'peace offensive' (Israeli strategic analyst, Avner Yaniv); for sources, see Norman G. Finkelstein, Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, New York 1995, ch. 6, note 52; and Norman G. Finkelstein, The Rise and Fall of Palestine, Minnesota, forthcoming, November 1996, ch. 3. For the more complex issue of the Palestinians' stance during the Gulf crisis, see my Rise and Fall, ch. 4 and epilogue.
42. Said, Peace and its Discontents, p. 127.
43. For details, see my Image and Reality, ch. 6.
44. Said, Peace and its Discontents, pp. 35-7.
45. See Amos Oz's breathtaking disingenuousness in the wake of the February-March 1996 Hamas suicide bombings: 'There are hundreds of clauses and subclauses to the Oslo Accords, but the essence is clear and simple: we stop ruling over you and suppressing you, and you recognize Israel and stop killing us. But up until now we have delivered and you haven't.' 'Letter to a Palestinian Friend', New York Review of Books, 4 April 1996.
46. Said, Peace and its Discontents, pp. 70, 147. Benvenisti, Intimate Enemies, p. 232. Indeed, the Bantustan precedent is plainly uppermost in the minds of all the signatories to as well as dissenters from the Oslo agreement; see Graham Usher, Palestine in Crisis, London 1995, pp. 8, 10, 85, n. 6.
47. Said, Peace and its Discontents, pp. 70, 147. Benvenisti, Intimate Enemies, p. 232. Indeed, the Bantustan precedent is plainly uppermost in the minds of all the signatories to as well as dissenters from the Oslo agreement; see Graham Usher, Palestine in Crisis, London 1995, pp. 8, 10, 85, n. 6.
48. Said, Peace and its Discontents, pp. 70, 147. Benvenisti, Intimate Enemies, p. 232. Indeed, the Bantustan precedent is plainly uppermost in the minds of all the signatories to as well as dissenters from the Oslo agreement; see Graham Usher, Palestine in Crisis, London 1995, pp. 8, 10, 85, n. 6.
49. Said, Peace and its Discontents, p. 95; emphasis in the original.
50. Ibid., p. 155.
51. Verwoerd hoped that political separation would, in his words, provide a 'basis for the Western members...to prevent action agaisnt South Africa in the UN.' Gerhard Mare and Georgina Hamilton, An Appetite for Power, Bloomington 1987, p. 29.
52. Roger Southall, South Africa's Transkei, New York 1983, p. 149. Forming a lobby and aligning with the opposition political party, the white settlers resisted government plans. Ultimately, however, most returned to South Africa.
53. Jeffrey Butler, Robert I. Rotberg and John Adams, The Black Homelands of South Africa, Berkeley 1971, p. 31.
54. Christopher R. Hill, Bantustans, Oxford 1964, p. 59.
55. Ibid., p. 57.
56. Newell M. Stultz, Transkei's Half-Loaf, New Haven 1979, pp. 93, 96.
57. Said, Peace and its Discontents, p. 153. See also Usher, Palestine in Crisis, pp. 38-40 and Chomsky, World Orders, p. 254. Such an economic strategy serves the dual purpose of allowing for the exploitation of cheap indigenous labour while maintaining an exclusivist ethnic state, and enhancing the credibility of the Bantustan alternative by making it financially solvent.
58. Said, Peace and its Discontents, p. 153. See also Usher, Palestine in Crisis, pp. 38-40 and Chomsky, World Orders, p. 254. Such an economic strategy serves the dual purpose of allowing for the exploitation of cheap indigenous labour while maintaining an exclusivist ethnic state, and enhancing the credibility of the Bantustan alternative by making it financially solvent.
59. Said, Peace and its Discontents, p. 153. See also Usher, Palestine in Crisis, pp. 38-40 and Chomsky, World Orders, p. 254. Such an economic strategy serves the dual purpose of allowing for the exploitation of cheap indigenous labour while maintaining an exclusivist ethnic state, and enhancing the credibility of the Bantustan alternative by making it financially solvent.
60. As in Transkei, the real purpose of the January 1996 election in the West Bank and Gaza was for the subject population to 'democratically' ratify the annulment of its basic rights and to 'democratically' install a Quisling leadership. In neither case was the derisory settlement subject to a public referendum. Rather, the electoral victory of, respectively, Matanzima and Arafat was 'interpreted' as acclamation of it. Thus, a vote for Arafat purportedly signalled support for Oslo. The actual facts suggest otherwise. For an analysis of the Transkei election, the modalities of which exactly prefigured the recent Palestinian election, see Southall, South Africa's Transkei, pp. 120f . For the Palestinian election, see Norman G. Finkelstein, 'Arafat Victory Doesn't Equal Real Reconciliation,' Christian Science Monitor, 31 January 1996.
61. As in Transkei, the real purpose of the January 1996 election in the West Bank and Gaza was for the subject population to 'democratically' ratify the annulment of its basic rights and to 'democratically' install a Quisling leadership. In neither case was the derisory settlement subject to a public referendum. Rather, the electoral victory of, respectively, Matanzima and Arafat was 'interpreted' as acclamation of it. Thus, a vote for Arafat purportedly signalled support for Oslo. The actual facts suggest otherwise. For an analysis of the Transkei election, the modalities of which exactly prefigured the recent Palestinian election, see Southall, South Africa's Transkei, pp. 120f . For the Palestinian election, see Norman G. Finkelstein, 'Arafat Victory Doesn't Equal Real Reconciliation,' Christian Science Monitor, 31 January 1996.
62. Trumpeting the abolition of apartheid within Transkei, the Matanzima regime claimed to have done more for black freedom in South Africa than any of the more militant liberation movements: 'The Transkei has...liberated 18,000 square miles...from the grips of apartheid - the pass laws, job-reservation, apartheid at our post offices and segregation at the numerous beaches along our...coast.' (Southall, South Africa's Transkei, p. 254.) No doubt Arafat will soon be making a similar pitch against his principled critics.
63. Said, Peace and its Discontents, p. 172; see also p. 157.
64. Although perhaps sincere, such fulminations also served Matanzima as 'proof that he was not a South African stooge. For that same reason, South Africa quietly abided them.
65. Mare and Hamilton, An Appetite for Power, pp. 3, 35-9, see also p. 82: 'We have created a springboard from which we can go forth to conquer in ever widening circles. We have created for our Black South Africa a liberated zone from whence we can mount our strategies and attacks on apartheid which are vital to the country as a whole.' Compare also Butler et al., The Black Homelands of South Africa, p. 35, quoting Buthelezi on 'self-rule': 'It may be a contribution to the unravelling of the problem, insofar as, if we attain full independence, our hand will be strengthened.' Echoing Buthelezi's rationale, Arafat told a crowd in Gaza upon his return: 'I know many of you think Oslo is a bad agreement. It is a bad agreement. But it's the best agreement we can get in the worst situation.' And his deputy maintained that Oslo 'will not automatically lead to national independence, but the political space it opens up enables us to set off an irreversible dynamic towards independence through the new national mechanisms we set in place.' Usher, Palestine in Crisis, pp. 1, 9-10; see also Said, Peace and its Discontents, p. 8.
66. Mare and Hamilton, An Appetite for Power, pp. 3, 35-9, see also p. 82: 'We have created a springboard from which we can go forth to conquer in ever widening circles. We have created for our Black South Africa a liberated zone from whence we can mount our strategies and attacks on apartheid which are vital to the country as a whole.' Compare also Butler et al., The Black Homelands of South Africa, p. 35, quoting Buthelezi on 'self-rule': 'It may be a contribution to the unravelling of the problem, insofar as, if we attain full independence, our hand will be strengthened.' Echoing Buthelezi's rationale, Arafat told a crowd in Gaza upon his return: 'I know many of you think Oslo is a bad agreement. It is a bad agreement. But it's the best agreement we can get in the worst situation.' And his deputy maintained that Oslo 'will not automatically lead to national independence, but the political space it opens up enables us to set off an irreversible dynamic towards independence through the new national mechanisms we set in place.' Usher, Palestine in Crisis, pp. 1, 9-10; see also Said, Peace and its Discontents, p. 8.
67. Mare and Hamilton, An Appetite for Power, pp. 3, 35-9, see also p. 82: 'We have created a springboard from which we can go forth to conquer in ever widening circles. We have created for our Black South Africa a liberated zone from whence we can mount our strategies and attacks on apartheid which are vital to the country as a whole.' Compare also Butler et al., The Black Homelands of South Africa, p. 35, quoting Buthelezi on 'self-rule': 'It may be a contribution to the unravelling of the problem, insofar as, if we attain full independence, our hand will be strengthened.' Echoing Buthelezi's rationale, Arafat told a crowd in Gaza upon his return: 'I know many of you think Oslo is a bad agreement. It is a bad agreement. But it's the best agreement we can get in the worst situation.' And his deputy maintained that Oslo 'will not automatically lead to national independence, but the political space it opens up enables us to set off an irreversible dynamic towards independence through the new national mechanisms we set in place.' Usher, Palestine in Crisis, pp. 1, 9-10; see also Said, Peace and its Discontents, p. 8.
68. Mare and Hamilton, An Appetite for Power, pp. 3, 35-9, see also p. 82: 'We have created a springboard from which we can go forth to conquer in ever widening circles. We have created for our Black South Africa a liberated zone from whence we can mount our strategies and attacks on apartheid which are vital to the country as a whole.' Compare also Butler et al., The Black Homelands of South Africa, p. 35, quoting Buthelezi on 'self-rule': 'It may be a contribution to the unravelling of the problem, insofar as, if we attain full independence, our hand will be strengthened.' Echoing Buthelezi's rationale, Arafat told a crowd in Gaza upon his return: 'I know many of you think Oslo is a bad agreement. It is a bad agreement. But it's the best agreement we can get in the worst situation.' And his deputy maintained that Oslo 'will not automatically lead to national independence, but the political space it opens up enables us to set off an irreversible dynamic towards independence through the new national mechanisms we set in place.' Usher, Palestine in Crisis, pp. 1, 9-10; see also Said, Peace and its Discontents, p. 8.
69. Even Bophuthatswana, the one Bantustan initially protective of individual rights, ended up as a police state.
70. Said, Peace and its Discontents, pp. 173-4.
71. This is especially so since pressures will undoubtedly build to 'normalize' the status of Palestinians and a relatively stable Palestinian elite beholden to Israel will undoubtedly crystallize. See the reported view of influential Labour Party 'dove' Yossi Beilin: 'Beilin is not afraid to say that when finally we have the five parameters that Rabin presented in the Knesset - the Jordan river as the security border, no dismantling of any settlement, no return to the 1967 border, Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and no right of Palestinian return - it will be possible to discuss a Palestinian state.' All indications are that Arafat would accept such terms. (Haaretz, 29 November 1995; Yediot Ahronot, 29 February 1996; News From Within, March 1996, pp. 17-18.) After this article was completed, the Labour Party officially dropped its opposition to a Palestinian state.
72. This is especially so since pressures will undoubtedly build to 'normalize' the status of Palestinians and a relatively stable Palestinian elite beholden to Israel will undoubtedly crystallize. See the reported view of influential Labour Party 'dove' Yossi Beilin: 'Beilin is not afraid to say that when finally we have the five parameters that Rabin presented in the Knesset - the Jordan river as the security border, no dismantling of any settlement, no return to the 1967 border, Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and no right of Palestinian return - it will be possible to discuss a Palestinian state.' All indications are that Arafat would accept such terms. (Haaretz, 29 November 1995; Yediot Ahronot, 29 February 1996; News From Within, March 1996, pp. 17-18.) After this article was completed, the Labour Party officially dropped its opposition to a Palestinian state.
73. This is especially so since pressures will undoubtedly build to 'normalize' the status of Palestinians and a relatively stable Palestinian elite beholden to Israel will undoubtedly crystallize. See the reported view of influential Labour Party 'dove' Yossi Beilin: 'Beilin is not afraid to say that when finally we have the five parameters that Rabin presented in the Knesset - the Jordan river as the security border, no dismantling of any settlement, no return to the 1967 border, Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and no right of Palestinian return - it will be possible to discuss a Palestinian state.' All indications are that Arafat would accept such terms. (Haaretz, 29 November 1995; Yediot Ahronot, 29 February 1996; News From Within, March 1996, pp. 17-18.) After this article was completed, the Labour Party officially dropped its opposition to a Palestinian state.
74. Stultz, Transkei's Half-Loaf, pp. 133-4; emphasis in the original.
75. Benvenisti, Intimate Enemies, p. 222.
76. One can argue that the two-state settlement which gave the indigenous Arab population 20 per cent of Mandatory Palestine and the Jewish settlers who displaced them 80 per cent was also far from equitable. My own view was that this proposal was a pragmatic application of justice, that is, an application of Max Weber's formula, 'Given the existing conflict, how can one solve it with the least internal and external damage for all concerned?' (H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, eds, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, New York 1975, p. 9.) Granting Palestinians independence in the derisory areas of 'self-rule' sketched in Oslo II cannot, I think, be plausibly justified by any standard of justice.
77. Hill, Bantustans, pp. 5, 41. It is an open question whether the apartheid regime ever actually envisaged a total separation. 'The dominant Republican Afrikaner attitude to race relations', T.R.H. Davenport observes, 'held in tension the conflicting notions of territorial separation (as an insurance against numerical swamping) and domination (baasskap) to ensure control over labour.' (South Africa, A Modern History, Toronto 1991, p. 518.) At any rate, one cannot but be struck by the identity of socioeconomic visions between the masterminds of apartheid and the Oslo accord. Verwoerd projected 'one national economy [with] the opportunity of separate government, the opportunity of living separately,' while Shimon Peres calls for a 'political divorce and an economic marriage.' Mare and Hamilton, An Appetite for Power, p. 30; Usher, Palestine in Crisis, p. 35.
78. Hill, Bantustans, pp. 5, 41. It is an open question whether the apartheid regime ever actually envisaged a total separation. 'The dominant Republican Afrikaner attitude to race relations', T.R.H. Davenport observes, 'held in tension the conflicting notions of territorial separation (as an insurance against numerical swamping) and domination (baasskap) to ensure control over labour.' (South Africa, A Modern History, Toronto 1991, p. 518.) At any rate, one cannot but be struck by the identity of socioeconomic visions between the masterminds of apartheid and the Oslo accord. Verwoerd projected 'one national economy [with] the opportunity of separate government, the opportunity of living separately,' while Shimon Peres calls for a 'political divorce and an economic marriage.' Mare and Hamilton, An Appetite for Power, p. 30; Usher, Palestine in Crisis, p. 35.
79. Hill, Bantustans, pp. 5, 41. It is an open question whether the apartheid regime ever actually envisaged a total separation. 'The dominant Republican Afrikaner attitude to race relations', T.R.H. Davenport observes, 'held in tension the conflicting notions of territorial separation (as an insurance against numerical swamping) and domination (baasskap) to ensure control over labour.' (South Africa, A Modern History, Toronto 1991, p. 518.) At any rate, one cannot but be struck by the identity of socioeconomic visions between the masterminds of apartheid and the Oslo accord. Verwoerd projected 'one national economy [with] the opportunity of separate government, the opportunity of living separately,' while Shimon Peres calls for a 'political divorce and an economic marriage.' Mare and Hamilton, An Appetite for Power, p. 30; Usher, Palestine in Crisis, p. 35.
80. Hill, Bantustans, pp. 5, 41. It is an open question whether the apartheid regime ever actually envisaged a total separation. 'The dominant Republican Afrikaner attitude to race relations', T.R.H. Davenport observes, 'held in tension the conflicting notions of territorial separation (as an insurance against numerical swamping) and domination (baasskap) to ensure control over labour.' (South Africa, A Modern History, Toronto 1991, p. 518.) At any rate, one cannot but be struck by the identity of socioeconomic visions between the masterminds of apartheid and the Oslo accord. Verwoerd projected 'one national economy [with] the opportunity of separate government, the opportunity of living separately,' while Shimon Peres calls for a 'political divorce and an economic marriage.' Mare and Hamilton, An Appetite for Power, p. 30; Usher, Palestine in Crisis, p. 35.
81. Nearly 10 per cent of the South African budget was earmarked for the Bantustans. 'Rather surprisingly,' reported the authors of one standard study, 'the rapid growth of spending on the homelands...has not been challenged by white public opinion or politicians.' Butler et al., The Black Homelands of South Africa, p. 143.
82. Benvenisti, Intimate Enemies, p. 221.
83. Said, Peace and its Discontents, pp. 3, 20, 119, 125. To be sure, Said reports (p. 174) that he too endorsed the two-state settlement with great reservations, although apparently not because of doubts about its viability.