|
Breaking the chain of violence
in the Middle East
United States
Secretary of State, Colin Powell, is in the Middle East. This is
an important and timely visit. It should enjoy the support of everybody
within and outside the Middle East who is interested in the well-being
of the Palestinians, Israelis and everybody else in the region. As South
Africans the least we should do is to wish the Secretary of State God-speed.
Together with the rest of our people, we are deeply
concerned about the continuing conflict between Israel and Palestine.
We are greatly disturbed at the killing both of Palestinians and Israelis
and the atmosphere of despair that has enveloped this region. Most worrying
is the sense that the region is trapped in a bloody and destructive tragedy
from which it cannot escape.
At the same time, we know that it is impossible to insulate
ourselves, and the rest of the world, from the consequences of the deepening
crisis in the Middle East. Truly, this situation, despite the silence
of the UN Security Council in this regard, constitutes a serious threat
to international peace and security.
As a people, we know the pain of massive loss of life
due to political conflict. We know what it is to bury people everyday
as contending forces seek to inflict maximum harm on each other. We know
the frustration caused by the understanding that at the end of the killing,
people will still have to sit down and resolve their differences through
negotiations.
We can never wish that anybody should go through this
experience. Everyday we hope that a way will be found permanently to end
the violence, the death and suffering that has afflicted the Middle East
since 1948. Everyday we pray for the day when Palestinians and Israelis
will live together peacefully, co-operating and working together for mutual
benefit.
However, the reality that we see everyday is one of
death. The Israeli government is engaged in a sustained military campaign
within the Palestinian territories, which has cost many lives and imposed
extraordinary suffering on innocent Palestinians. The leader of the Palestinian
people, Yasser Arafat, remains confined to Ramallah, a virtual prisoner
in a small area of what should be a free homeland.
For their part, Palestinians are conducting their own
violent campaign against both Israeli security forces and civilians. Thus
we have seen innocent Israelis killed as they went about their peaceful
activities. Israel and its citizens are also paying a price for the unresolved
issue of the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
We cannot accept this death and destruction as it affects
both Palestinians and Israelis. When we call for respect for life we must
state this firmly that we refer both to Israelis and Palestinians. When
we assert the right of every individual to live in conditions of safety
and security, we must do so with respect both to Palestinians and Israelis.
When we say that the killing and the destruction must stop, we must make
this demand in defence of Israelis and Palestinians.
Fundamental to the resolution of the conflict that is
exacting such suffering is the establishment of an independent Palestinian
state. The incontrovertible reality is that the conflict will not end
until this objective is achieved. No amount of violence directed against
the people of Palestine will stop their struggle for the establishment
of their own independent homeland.
We unequivocally support the establishment of an independent
state of Palestine. We must continue to participate in the international
movement of solidarity for the achievement of this objective. We take
these positions because the people of Palestine have as much a right to
statehood as anybody else in the world has. We take them also because
it is impossible for the people of Palestine to pursue the goal of a better
life for themselves unless they have the possibility truly to determine
their destiny in a country they can call their own, in conditions of peace.
At the same time, we unreservedly recognise the right
of the Israelis to live in their own state within secure boundaries. They
too are entitled truly to determine their destiny in a country they can
call their own, in conditions of peace. It was to advance these objectives,
as well as promote the cause of Palestinian statehood and peace throughout
the Middle East, that Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia made the proposal
that Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, in exchange for recognition
by the entire Arab world.
For the reason that we support the right of Israel to
exist within secure and internationally recognised borders, we welcomed
the proposal made by the Saudi Crown Prince as well as the decision taken
by the Arab League on this matter. This created the possibility for an
historic process that could end the tensions and the conflict in the Middle
East.
However, having said all the foregoing, we must proceed
from the concrete reality that the Israelis have their own independent
state and homeland. The Palestinians do not.
Israel continues to expand its population, partly through
the absorption of new immigrants. Even as we write this Letter, because
of political and economic instability in Argentina, Jewish Argentineans
are emigrating to Israel in greater numbers. Over the years, to date,
we have seen an unceasing process of the building of Jewish settlements
in the occupied Palestinian territories.
On the other hand, we are confronted by the reality
of millions of Palestinian refugees who have no homeland to which to return,
with no prospect in sight that they have the possibility to return to
the lands from which they were evicted during the violent years since
1948. Even those who remain in today's Palestinian territories are now
confronted by the actuality of the destruction of their homes, the uprooting
of their olive trees and their further displacement as a result of the
same violence that turned millions of their compatriots into refugees.
The foregoing describes the disequilibrium without whose
correction there can be any peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians,
and between the Israelis and the Arab peoples as a whole. Any policy that
seeks to maintain the status quo is nothing but a condemnation of both
the Israeli and the Palestinian people to permanent conflict.
Clearly, everything must be done immediately to end
the violent conflict that is currently claiming the lives of many Palestinians
and Israelis, daily. Equally clearly, everything must be done immediately
to restart the political process to find a negotiated settlement of the
fundamental causes of this conflict.
The argument that there will be no substantive negotiations
until peace is achieved is unsustainable, if indeed all concerned are
interested to address the central reasons for the absence of peace. The
peace negotiations are necessary to end the violence. To argue that it
is necessary to end the dialogue of arms to prepare the way for a peaceful
dialogue, is to give violence the right to veto peace.
In these circumstances, thus to attribute to the need
to end the violence, critically necessary as it is to end this violence,
the status of an absolute pre-condition for everything else, is to decree
that the violence must continue.
During the course of our own struggle, many did not
tire in their effort to remind us that violence begets violence. Daily,
we witness the truth of this statement in the Middle East. The fact of
the matter is that the more the Israelis inflict violent death on the
Palestinians, the more the latter will do everything they can to fight
back.
The actions of the Israeli government have demonstrated
that the more the Palestinians hit back, the greater will be the ferocity
of Israel's response both to avenge itself and protect itself from future
attacks. Thus do we end up in an unending spiral of violence that cannot
be stopped by mere pleas to accept the limited perspective only a paradigm
of a cease-fire and the disengagement of combat forces.
Inevitably, to end the violence, more has to be done,
outside of the deadly logic of attack and counter attack, and thus break
this logic. This intervention cannot be found within the logic of war.
It can only be found in processes that are the antithesis of war. Cease-fires
do not destroy the logic of war. They confirm the possibility to resume
violent conflict. To deny this possibility, requires the assurance of
the preponderance of the processes of peace.
During our struggle, the forces of repression attributed
the rebellion of our people to 'agitators and terrorists'. They did not
want to recognise the reality that the people had risen against servitude
because they were no longer willing to be oppressed. They refused to understand
that the people had nothing to lose but their servitude.
The youth, in particular, were ready to march against
tanks and armoured vehicles because it was no longer possible for them
to live as slaves. To shoot them only served as justification for the
justice of their cause.
The rulers of Israel are repeating the costly mistakes
made by the captains of apartheid in our country. Everything that has
happened in the Palestinian territories in almost two years says, in action,
says that the Palestinians, and especially the youth, are ready to march
against tanks and armoured cars because it is no longer possible for them
to live as a dispossessed people. To shoot them only serves to emphasise
the justice of their cause and their actions.
Their martyrdom gives meaning to their existence as
human beings. The attempt to search and destroy so-called agitators and
terrorists in their midst, in the belief that these are the instigators
of the rebellion, without whom the rebellion would cease, is to live in
worse than a fool's paradise.
To attempt to impose on them leaders approved by those
they consider their enemies, is to invite not less but more conflict.
It is also to create a situation of greater violent anarchy, of the expression
of extreme anger by those who have nothing to lose, in a situation where
they have no leaders they respect, because these have been destroyed by
the enemy they hate.
Furthermore, our own history tells us that those who
are strong have an obligation to create space for those who are weaker
than they, in their own interest. It tells us that to use one's superior
strength to force those who are weaker to make concessions such that they
lose credibility with those they lead, is to deny one anybody with whom
to negotiate.
The peoples of Palestine and Israel are condemned to
live together, cheek by jowl. Like ourselves, they have no choice but
to succeed or perish together. The same circumstances that lead some among
them to view the Other as the immediate enemy, are precisely the imperatives
that dictate that they must strive to live together peacefully in one
neighbourhood, sharing the salt to season the food they eat.
These are some of the realities that Secretary of State
Powell must confront during his visit to the Middle East cauldron of hatred,
violence and death. He has no choice but to grapple with all these realities
to help produce a new situation of hope rather than despair.
The leaders of both the people of Israel and Palestine
have a common responsibility to take advantage of the presence of the
Secretary of State to break the chain of violence. It is on the grave
of Yitzhak Rabin and others like him, that the flowers of a humane world
will bloom. We wish Colin Powell success during his Middle East visit
of peace.
|
