It is not difficult to understand those who have lost faith in recent years – those who have concluded that our conflict is not solvable and those who want to move from solving the conflict to managing it. But unless we take the extra step forward, unless we reach the moment of truth and make the necessary effort to reach a solution whose details we all by now know by heart, the situation cannot be managed.
There are those who believe that we can bypass the basic, solvable issues by implementing massive economic investments. But at a time when we don t know where the borders are, when the capital cities are not recognized and the rules of the game are unclear, these parties are simply fooling themselves. Quantitatively, the funds directed toward our region in recent years have been without precedent. This fact alone is sufficient to explain that money doesn t solve everything.
Then there is the approach that argues in favor of aiding the Palestinians in the West Bank and creating an economic garden of Eden there while turning Gaza into an economic hell. This is not only inhuman, but has no chance of achieving its objective. Anyone seeking to strengthen the pragmatic actors and weaken the extremist actors and inciters cannot adopt such a childish and hopeless approach. Without an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement there will be no economic prosperity in the West Bank, just as economic hardship in Gaza will only increase its residents anger. The latter will blame the entire world for their deteriorating situation – but not Hamas. Such a policy will likely strengthen the extremists rather than having the opposite effect.
The right approach is to afford Palestinians in the West Bank a more normal life alongside an intensive political process that leads, via the international conference set for this November, to a permanent status agreement. This means removing a significant portion of the checkpoints and allowing more Palestinians to work in Israel. As for Gaza, we must reach a ceasefire with Hamas that comprises the release of Gilad Shalit, the opening of passages for imports and exports and permission for Gazans to work in Israel.
Such a ceasefire is the most significant response possible to the unceasing Palestinian rocket fire on the western Negev. It would also prevent sabotage of the international conference by Hamas and enable Israel to reach agreement with the PLO in the West Bank. And it would leave open the option of expanding to include Gaza as well if the current regime there is willing or if, alternatively, Gazans prefer a different leadership.
The idea of using economic tools as the central variable in solving the conflict has repeatedly proven to be an illusion. Of course economic development is important: we cannot ignore the mass unemployment, the poverty and the hardship and their ramifications for public health, education of the younger generation, etc. But economics is an auxiliary tool: it cannot replace a political process and is not the central tool for leveraging other processes in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Then-Defense Minister Moshe Dayan believed the open bridges policy he instituted after the Six-Day War would produce the calm he needed to wait for a phone call from the other side. After the 1991 Madrid conference, Israel insisted on commencing economic cooperation within the framework of the multilateral talks, an approach that did produce a few interesting developments. Following the signing of the Oslo DOP in 1993, major global efforts were made to aid the Palestinian economy. But everyone learned, time and again, that any economic development is totally dependent on the political situation. No economic process can exist when political and security tensions are worsening.
The ideas that are associated with President Shimon Peres, based (not entirely accurately) on his book The New Middle East , that it is possible to create economic interests in our region so strong they are immune to political deterioration and that economic interests can bring peace, have repeatedly been proven unrealistic. I have been there. I headed the Israeli delegation to the multilaterals. Later, as a member of the government, I was involved in the regional economic conferences and in planning joint projects with the Jordanians and Palestinians. I watched all the beautiful plans collapse the moment we confronted terrorism and tension. I witnessed what happened when PM Binyamin Netanyahu in effect ended the Oslo process, after which there were no more economic conferences; how the multilateral process collapsed; how regional economic plans were shelved in the absence of a peace process.
The conclusion is clear. In looking at this cause-and-effect, chicken-and-egg issue -whether significant economic processes can be developed in order that the two sides understand that it is worth their while to make peace or it is preferable to sign a final status agreement and only then develop economic interests – I am convinced that the latter option is the better one. I certainly agree that when peace exists and is accompanied by economic interests that promise profits to both sides, it is harder to damage the peace. Hence I will always support the development of economic relations with our neighbors. But I am not prepared to support the illusion that the opposite direction of development – first economics, then peace – is feasible.
Member of KnessetYossi Beilinis chair of the Meretz-Yahad party. This commentary is published by DAILY NEWS EGYPT in collaboration with bitterlemons.org.
