A Durable Peace (52 page)

Thus, instead of a process in which Israel would retreat to the virtually indefensible pre-1967 line even
before
final settlement negotiations were concluded, I sought and achieved a different result at Wye: that most of the West Bank
would remain in our hands pending the start of these negotiations. Israel would retain some 60 percent of the territory with
all the West Bank’s Jewish population; the Palestinian Authority would have some 40 percent of the area with virtually the
entire Palestinian population. Naturally, this is a much improved position for Israel to negotiate from; one that bolsters
our defenses against external attack and the threat of terrorism, while leaving us in an advantageous position for the final
settlement negotiations.

We aslo achieved a second objective at Wye: We incorporated the principle of
reciprocity
into the agreement. Palestinians would get 13 percent of Judea-Samaria (West Bank) territory in three successive stages only
after they implemented their own commitments undertaken at Wye. No more free lunches.

The first stage in the implementation of Palestinian commitments involved mostly formalities, such as naming Palestinian delegates
to various joint committees and issuing decrees against incitement and the possession of illegal weapons. The Palestinians
met these obligations, and we promptly discharged ours: We withdrew from 2 percent of area C and transferred 7 percent of
area B, hitherto under joint Israeli-Palestinian security control, to full Palestinian control.

The second stage—which covered the next four weeks—was a different story. At this point the Palestinians were obligated to
repeal
the articles in the Palestinian Charter, which called for Israel’s destruction, and take the first concrete steps against
the terrorist infrastructure. On December 14, they repealed the charter—a genocidal document without parallel in today’s world—in
a Gaza gathering addressed by President Bill Clinton.

Many claimed that from a strictly legal viewpoint the repeal was invalid. According to the charter’s own provisions, it can
be amended only in a special session of the Palestinian National Council by a vote of two-thirds of the membership—conditions
that were not met in Gaza. But the purpose of the exercise—to make the rejection of the charter irreversible—was achieved.
After renouncing the charter in a public display before the world’s cameras and in the presence of the U.S. president, it
would be impossible to claim that it was still a valid document.

But the Palestinians seemed to feel that rejecting the charter was all they had to do. And they expected us not only to reward
them for disavowing genocide, but to ignore their failure to discharge their other obligations.

To us, the other commitments undertaken at Wye were at least as pertinent, for they constituted the first concrete steps to
be taken by the Palestinian Authority against the terrorist organizations. The Palestinian Authority was supposed to arrest
wanted terrorists and have representatives of the U.S. verify their incarceration; implement the law prohibiting membership
in terrorist organizations; collect illegal weapons held by civilians and hand over such prohibited weapons as mortars, anti-tank
missles, and land mines held by the Palestinian Authority police; cease daily incitement to violence; stop organizing anti-Israeli
riots; submit a report on the number of Palestinian Authority police in excess of the 30,000 permitted by the Oslo agreement;
and maintain “comprehensive, intensive, and continuous” cooperation with Israel on security matters.

The Palestinian Authority complied with none of these commitments. They did, to be sure, display a few assault rifles and
handguns, presumably confiscated from civilians, and they detained some wanted terrorists and Hamas political leaders. But
after Arafat himself
asserted that there were at least 30,000 illegal weapons in Gaza alone, the collection of a few illegal guns for the benefit
of network cameras appeared to be little more than a public relations exercise. And the arrest of Hamas operatives was of
little consequence. Some of the most notorious participants in planning and executing suicide bombings against Israeli civilians
(some of whom were American citizens) were among the scores of Hamas detainees released by the Palestinian Authority within
weeks after their arrest.

Adhering to the principle of reciprocity, the Israeli government announced that there would be no further withdrawals until
the Palestinian Authority complied with the aggrement. This was the guiding principle of my policy from the day I formed the
government in 1996, and I was not about to abandon it at this crucial time.

Insistence on reciprocity became particularly pertinent after the Wye conference, because Arafat and other Palestinian leaders
took to threatening to unilaterally declare a state on May 4, 1999, regardless of what happened in the negotiations. By thus
predetermining the result of the Oslo process, they made a mockery of the negotiations.

To hand over territory under such circumstances would have been an act of national irresponsibility. The Palestinians’ refusal
to combat the terrorist groups ensured that the relinquished land would be used to facilitate attacks against us and to shelter
terrorists. And their threat to declare a state—which by the very manner of its establishment would be hostile, dangerous,
and unbound by any agreement with us—rendered the forfeiture of territory on our part nothing short of reckless.

I made it clear that Israeli redeployment could only follow the faithful and complete implementation of Palestinian obligations,
and that conclusive negotiations over territory would have to await the final status talks.

The negotiations over territory will be the most complex and difficult in Israel’s history. They will involve balancing Israel’s
national interests, foremost of which is security, with the Palestinians’ wish to increase their own territorial domain. These
negotiations will determine whether Israel will have the territorial bulwarks necessary
to defend itself and safeguard a future peace. But they are only one of the two crucial issues for permanent peace negotiations
with the Palestinians. The second is the question of the status of the Palestinian entity. Many in the world have blithely
accepted the notion that the Palestinians must have their own independent state. They have not asked themselves what powers
would accrue to such unbridled Palestinian self-determination. Could the Palestinian state make military pacts with Iran,
Iraq, or Syria? Could it be allowed to place troops from these countries on the hills above Tel Aviv? Could it build an army
of its own? Could it arm itself with the most sophisticated weapons, such as ground-to-air missiles that can shoot down the
planes of the Israeli air force, thereby endangering Israel’s very existence? Could it bring in untold numbers of Arabs, nonrefugees
as well as refugees, under the banner of the “right of return,” position them along the seamline with Israel, and begin to
infiltrate the country? Clearly, a Palestinian entity with all these powers is a recipe not for peace but for disaster.

My view of an equitable and secure arrangement for the status of a Palestinian entity is based on a simple principle: The
Palestinians should have all the powers to run their lives and none of the powers to threaten Israel’s life. This means that
the Palestinian entity can enjoy all the attributes of self-government, which include its own legislature, executive, judiciary,
passports, flag, education, commerce, tourism, health, police, and every other power and institution controlling the collective
and individual life of Palestinians within the Palestinian entity. In fact, the Palestinians have by now received nearly all
of these things in the first two stages of the Oslo Accords. What remains to negotiate are those few powers relating to
external
security. In a permanent peace settlement, the Palestinians should have all the powers to administer Palestinian life; some
should be shared with Israel, such as those relating to the environment (since mosquitoes, for example, do not recognize territorial
divisions), and still a few other powers, primarily those relating to external security, should be retained by Israel. Thus,
the Palestinian entity should not be able to form military pacts with sovereign states, or build and arm
a standing army, or import weapons without Israel’s consent. Israel must maintain control of the airspace, vital for its very
survival, and the international entry points through which dangerous arms and terrorists could penetrate into the Palestinian
areas and from there into Israel itself. The issue of the Palestinian refugees must be settled responsibly. The overwhelming
majority should be given full rights and rehabilitation in the respective Arab countries where they reside. Israel should
not be put at risk of being flooded with refugees sworn to its destruction.

These arrangements would leave the Palestinian entity with considerable powers, and certainly all the ones necessary for self-government.
Yet they are not compatible with the idea of unlimited self-determination, which is what many normally associate with the
concept of statehood. Statehood has a dynamic of its own, which implies powers that self-government does not necessarily warrant.
Among other things, it will enable the Palestinian Arabs to join the United Nations, where they will easily receive the support
of most governments and quickly free themselves of any limitation that they may contractually assume to obtain our consent.
That is why when I am asked whether I will support a Palestinian state, I answer in the negative. I support the Palestinians’
ability to control their own destiny but not their ability to extinguish the Jewish future. As I have indicated earlier in
this book, I believe that this functional solution, giving the Palestinians all the powers necessary for self-administration
and Israel those essential powers necessary to protect its national life, is a model for the kind of solution that could be
replicated in many similar disputes around the world. It offers the only reasonable alternative between two unacceptable options:
military subjugation on the one hand, and unbridled self-determination on the other. The first option is morally unacceptable,
the second a prescription for catastrophe. But at the heart of the solution that I advocate is not only a fair and durable
division of territory and powers but also a reasoned hope that the Palestinians will recognize that no other solution will
be acceptable to the overwhelming majority of Israelis;
and that this realization in turn would foster over time a gradual, if grudging, reconciliation with the permanence of Israel’s
existence and the need to come to concrete terms with it. It nullifies the hope of using the Palestinian areas as a base to
launch the future destruction of the Jewish state, while offering the Palestinians a life of dignity, self-respect, and self-government.

But it is not only Israelis and Arabs who have roles to play in bringing a lasting peace to a region so important to the entire
world. As the Camp David Accords demonstrated, the moral, strategic, and financial assistance of the West can play a decisive
role in making peace possible. An important step was taken with the commencement of multilateral talks under the auspices
of the peace talks begun in 1991. This international support was later reaffirmed and expanded under the Oslo Accords. Foreign
involvement in areas such as the development of water resources and protection of the environment would be of major significance
to the region, and it would alleviate some of the sources of tensions that could easily contribute to renewed hostility and
war.

In particular, there are two areas demanding substantial commitments from Western governments, without which the possibility
of achieving peace would be seriously, and I believe irrevocably, impaired. The first is the resettlement of the remaining
Arab refugees.
As
we have seen time and again, the various refugee districts scattered throughout the Middle East are the breeding ground for
misery and hatred. Without them the PLO would have a hard time even existing, and a major source of instability would have
been removed from the region. In this effort, the continuation of the problem is not a matter of disinterested morality to
the states of the West. They too have a stake in dismantling the camps as a step toward ending the long campaign of terror
that the rulers of the camps have waged against Israel and the West. Western assistance will be necessary to undertake the
large-scale construction of housing projects and infrastructure necessary to transform the camps into towns, as well as educational
projects and investments
in businesses intended to raise the standard of living. The Western countries should also offer to absorb those refugees who
prefer a new home in North America or Europe to continuing to live in Israel or the Arab states. Among them, the Western countries
could handily absorb even the entire refugee population if necessary, settling the matter once and for all.

It is true that the Arab states possess sufficient funds to easily pay for this effort themselves, but given their past record
of refugee relief (the entire Arab world contributes less than one percent of UNRWAs budget
^*
), it will be a triumph if they can be prodded into assisting at all. Such Arab involvement in the resettling of refugees
should be demanded, both because the Arab states are responsible for originating and sustaining the refugee problem and because
their participating in resolving it would signify a real commitment to ending the conflict with Israel.

But the West, including the United States, has so far refused to put its foot down even on a matter as straightforward as
ending the Arab fantasy of one day implementing the “right of return.” When asked if the United States still supported UN
Resolution 194 from December 1948 (in the middle of the War of Independence), which called for the return of the refugees,
the United States couldn’t muster the simple word
no.
It stammered for three days and finally came up with a circumlocution (“The Resolution is irrelevant to the peace process”)
¹⁰
that leaves the Arabs still with the hope of one day thrusting upon Israel the burden of absorbing the hundreds of thousands
of people whom the Arab regimes have cruelly maintained as lifelong refugees. On the refugee issue, as with other outdated
or unjust UN resolutions (like the 1947 UN Partition Plan allotting the Jews only half of the present-day Israel, and the
resolution
calling for the internationalization of Jerusalem), the United States and European nations must alter their formal positions
and flatly declare the resolutions to be null and void.