The international community should disabuse those Palestinians promoting boycotts of the idea that they can avoid these compromises. By failing to take that stand against the boycott campaign, professor Hawking has done nothing for the cause of peace. If anything, by encouraging behaviour that entrenches the conflict, he has set it back.
Dr Toby Greene is director of research at BICOM
Two weeks ago I attended the annual policy conference of the Institute for National Security Studies, Israel’s premier strategic think tank based at Tel Aviv University. On the panel, Fatah Central Committee member Jibril Rajoub exchanged views on how to reach a two state solution, in fluent Hebrew, with Israeli academics, current senior Israeli officials, and retired senior IDF officers.
If a leading elected Fatah official feels it appropriate to participate in a conference on Israeli security, at an Israeli university, hosted by retired IDF generals, it surely makes no sense that Professor Hawking should boycott a conference on human interaction hosted by Nobel peace prize winner Shimon Peres. So what explains this strange discrepancy?
Apparently professor Hawking was persuaded to take this action by Palestinian academics. No doubt they convinced him that this was the only way they could put pressure on Israel and secure their human rights. If so he was misled. The reality is that many of those promoting the boycott are not interested in achieving their rights through a peaceful two state solution, but mistakenly believe a greater goal is attainable for the Palestinian people: international isolation of Israel which leads to a single Arab majority state.
Negotiate for peace
To justify their rejection of negotiations, they claim that talking doesn’t lead anywhere. This is not the case. We are approaching the twentieth anniversary of the 1993 Oslo Accords. This agreement, the single most significant breakthrough to date in efforts to create peace between Israelis and Palestinians, came about as the result of unofficial meetings held between PLO officials and Israeli academics. It was these contacts which laid the groundwork for mutual recognition between the PLO and the State of Israel, and the creation of a self-governing Palestinian Authority. Since then Israeli and Palestinian leaders have twice attempted to address the final status issues and forge a final status agreement. On both occasions, in 2000 and in 2008, the talks led to very progressive Israeli proposals, which were not taken up by the Palestinian side.
Rather than not leading anywhere, negotiations have repeatedly led the Palestinians to a point where they must face up to the compromises required for a peaceful two state agreement. It is precisely these compromises that those promoting boycotts, and opposing dialogue and negotiations, apparently want to avoid.
Legitimate concerns on both sides
Professor Hawking should have listened instead to moderate Israelis and Palestinians like those active in the Bereaved Families Forum or One Voice, whose plea to the rest of the world is not take sides, but to understand that Israelis and Palestinians both have legitimate concerns that need to be addressed.
By not coming to Israel, professor Hawking has denied Israelis the opportunity to hear his views directly, and denied himself the opportunity to hear the Israeli side of the story. Most Israelis would like to end the situation in which they control the lives of so many Palestinians. This is why a large majority support in principle the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank, a position that has been held by every Israeli government since 1999. But Israelis will not accept this without Israeli demands on security, and the future of Israel’s status as the national home of the Jewish people, also being met.
The international community should disabuse those Palestinians promoting boycotts of the idea that they can avoid these compromises. By failing to take that stand against the boycott campaign, professor Hawking has done nothing for the cause of peace. If anything, by encouraging behaviour that entrenches the conflict, he has set it back.
36 Responses to “Peace makers promote peace, not boycotts”
Arakiba
Not everyone gives Israel a free pass for the injustices it perpetrates against the Palestinians. You would think that after the horrors the Jewish people endured, they would have the compassion not to steal the land, property, and livelihood of others. Being victimized in the past doesn’t give anyone an excuse for victimizing others.
centrist
The horrors Jews endured in the past taught them that if they do not wish to be exterminated, they would have to give up the luxury of helplessness and of outsourcing their survival to others. That is the only logical and rational lesson Jews had to learn from their past experience. Arakiba doesn’t get that. For him, the fact that Jews were nearly extinguished should have taught them other things, like suicidal altruism, and giving up their most basic human rights so that other people’s human rights would not be harmed. And never mind that those people whose human rights were to trump the human rights of Jews had exhibited little, if any, concern for human rights of anybody but their own.
http://contentious-centrist.blogspot.ca/2013/04/on-irony-of-history-i-re-read-today.html
______________
“In “Shoah” you knew what you wanted to tell. You were dealing
with a dark past which had to be wrenched from the clutches of oblivion.
In “Tsahal” on the other hand, you are talking about the present. An
incredibly difficult task, don’t you think?
[Claude Lanzmann:] You are mistaken. In “Tsahal” I also knew exactly what I wanted to tell: the creation an army, the construction of an army, the creation of courage. This army represents a victory of the Jewish people over themselves. There had never been a Jewish army before. My film tells how Jews took
their fate into their own hands to avoid ever become victims again. I show how they overcame the victim role and overcame a mental predisposition.”
http://www.signandsight.com/features/1893.html
sandra350
there has not been ONE single genuine voice for peace from the Israeli govt in these endless decades of useless “peace talks” — not ONCE in any of those talks did Israel ever fully commit to a GENUINE, complete withdrawal from the occupied territories — that doesn’t just mean settlers, it means total recognition and respect for the air space, water & resources of those territories, no incursions by the IDF, full respect for the sovereignty of Palestine. Not ONCE has Israel EVER bargained in good faith-EVER. The pathetic “generous” offer zionists constantly point to was a laughable, tragic plan to turn the territories into bantustans governed by repressive satraps controlled by & paid for by Israel. Which is what Arafat’s govt was in the West Bank-a repressive security force that tortured and jailed dissidents for Israel. Palestinians hated his govt.
The very reason Palestinians have now embraced a boycott is precisely BECAUSE of this reality: terrorism hasn’t worked, negotiations involving the US & Europe haven’t worked. Now Palestinians are using nonviolent demonstrations, civil disobedience and a boycott to end this vile anachronistic obscenity that belongs in the 19th century, not in 2013.
Palestinians have never had any genuine partner to negotiate with because Israel has NEVER intended to get the hell out of the West Bank. PERIOD.
talk nic
//”the talks led to very progressive Israeli proposals”//
Hilarious. Israel proposed the Palestinians forgo their LEGAL rights and a swap of Israeli occupied Arab territory with the Palestinians for Israeli occupied Arab territory so that Israel could keep Israeli occupied Arab territory, thereby legalizing its illegal facts on the ground in order to circumvent the law.
What has eventuated in the interim is that Israel has expanded its illegal settlements, build more illegal facts on the ground and continued to ignore UNSC resolutions reminding Israel of binding Law, the binding UN Charter and binding relevant resolutions.
@DaranUK
Quite Interesting to see that the same names always pop up in defending Isreali actions and talking about sitting down with the hope of persuading a people who have taken someones home by force to give it up. i wonder how you would react if someone took over your house and kicked your family out onto the street. after 60years of discussing and waiting for governments to discuss the issue i think its time for the ordinary people to take control of the situation (just like they did against apartheid).