Stephens:
You do not make peace with enemies. You make peace with former enemies.
In the
history of political clichés, has there ever been one quite so misjudged as the
line—some version of which is attributed either to Israel’s martyred Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin or fabled Defense
Minister Moshe Dayan—that “you make
peace with your enemies, not with your friends”?
OK,
“give peace a chance” and “nation building at home” are worse. But the
Rabin-Dayan line is an expression of the higher mindlessness that passes for
wisdom among people who think they are smart. After Monday’s make-nice session
between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it’s time for a
reconsideration.
To wit:
You do not make peace with enemies. You make peace with former enemies—either because you have defeated them, as we
defeated the Axis Powers in World War II; or because they collapse, as the
Soviet Union did after the fall of the Berlin Wall; or because they have
defeated you and you’re able to come to terms with the outcome from a safe
distance. Witness Vietnam.
On rare
precious occasions, both sides realize their interests are best served through
a negotiated settlement they’re prepared to honor. That was the miracle of
1977, when Egypt’s Anwar Sadat flew to
Israel to show he sincerely accepted the Jewish state’s right to exist. He paid
for the gesture with his life.
Enemies,
however, do not make peace. They may desist from open combat, as Pakistan and
India have, even as Islamabad continues to support anti-Indian terrorist
proxies. They may arrange a long-term armistice of the kind South Korea has
with the North. But that’s a peace preserved by 700,000 active-duty South
Korean and U.S. troops, plus a million land mines in the DMZ.
For the
past 22 years—ever since Rabin signed the Oslo Accord with the PLO’s Yasser Arafat—Israel has been trying to
achieve something historically unprecedented: To make peace with an enemy that
shows no interest in becoming an ex-enemy.
Daniel
Polisar, an Israeli political scientist, recently published a fascinating study
in Mosaic magazine of Palestinian public opinion based on 330 polls conducted
over many years. It makes for some bracing reading.
“When
asked hypothetically if Israel’s use of chemical or biological weapons against
Palestinians would constitute terror, 93 percent said yes,” notes Mr. Polisar.
“But when the identical question was posed regarding the use of such weapons of
mass destruction by Palestinians against Israelis, only 25 percent responded
affirmatively.”
Other
details: A 2011 poll found that 61% of Palestinians thought it was morally
right to name Palestinian streets after suicide bombers. In December 2014, 78%
of Palestinians expressed support for “attempts to stab or run over Israelis”
in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Only 20% were opposed. Palestinians have also
consistently supported terrorist attacks against Israelis within Israel’s
original borders, “often by as much as six to one.”
Palestinians
routinely blame Israel for problems over which it has no control, such as the
bloody 2007 coup through which Hamas wrested power from Fatah in the Gaza
Strip. Ninety-four percent of Palestinians report a “very unfavorable” opinion
of Jews. A majority of Palestinians believe Israel will “destroy the al-Aqsa
and Dome of the Rock mosques and build a synagogue in their place.”
As for
the idea of sharing the land, only 12% of Palestinians agreed that “both Jews
and Palestinians have rights to the land.” More than 80% felt “this is
Palestinian land and Jews have no rights to it.” Most Palestinians also think
Israel won’t be around in 30 or 40 years, either “because Arab or Muslim
resistance will destroy it” or on account of its “internal contradictions.”
Where
is the sense in agreeing to relinquish through negotiations what is yours by
right today and will be yours in deed tomorrow?
None of
this is helped by Palestinian leaders who, when not inciting violence or
alleging Israeli conspiracies, are peddling the lie that Israel is creating an
apartheid state. The only person standing in the way of Palestinian democracy
is Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas,
who hasn’t held an election in a decade. The only force standing in the way of
a Palestinian state are the Palestinian people, who think they can gain their
rights by stabbing their neighbors.
Which
brings us back to Monday’s Oval Office meeting. Along with the forced bonhomie,
the administration has been sounding the usual two-minutes-to-midnight warnings
about the supposed end of the two-state solution. “For Israel, the more there
is settlement construction, the more it undermines the ability to achieve
peace,” says Ben Rhodes, the deputy
national security adviser, in an interview with Haaretz.
How
sweet it would be if all Israel had to do to make peace was dismantle its
settlements. How much sweeter if the American president would find less to
fault with an Israeli government’s housing policies than a Palestinian
political culture still so intent on killing Jews. If Mr. Obama wants to know
why he’s so disliked by Israelis, there’s the reason.
