Coffins on Our Shoulders: The Experience of the Palestinian Citizens of Israel

Chapter Six

Chapter Six The debate regarding Palestinian citizens no longer involves political extremes. It takes place in the mainstream, invoking concepts and configurations that often confuse and conflate the Zionist “left” and “right.” Moderate right-wingers in Israel are sometimes more committed to liberal policies than are the Zionist left, the latter’s image as the voice of reason and enlightenment notwithstanding. During his first months in office as prime minister, the Likud leader Ariel Sharon, born and raised in a moshav associated with the right flank of the Labor movement, met with Palestinian leaders more frequently and more attentively than did Ehud Barak—who comes from a kibbutz associated with the left of Labor—in his entire term as prime minister. In debates about the meaning of liberal democracy in Israel, right-wing spokespersons sometimes articulate views that are more flexible than those espoused by Labor politicians.1 167 One obstacle to a normative turnabout that might facilitate genuine integration of the Palestinian citizens into the project of the state is common to both Labor and Likud: the self-righteous attitude that has colored public discourse in Israel since October 2000. Self-righteousness—the feeling that one side has a monopoly on justice—is a vice under most clement circumstances. At times of crisis and conflict it becomes particularly vicious. Convinced that only his or her own view of reality is true, a self-righteous person easily loses touch with opposing narratives. Failing to identify and legitimize the basic needs and interests of others, refusing to admit any shade of doubt, and absolving themselves of blame, self-righteous collectives are prone to adopting simplistic views of their opponents as the incarnation of all evil.2 When this disposition is compounded with disproportionate power, the danger that the situation could flare into violence becomes acute. To a large extent, the righteousness that gripped Israel after the eruption of Intifadat al-Aqsa stems from Ehud Barak’s ability to convince the Israeli mainstream that the failure of the Camp David summit in July 2000 was entirely the fault of the Palestinians. Barak has an extraordinary talent for defining the basic categories of a debate in terms that narrow the range of plausible conclusions to fit his own convictions. In the autumn of 2000, after the failure of the Camp David peace talks, his main discursive effort was to reassure the local and international public that Israel was being led by responsible, rational, peace-loving statesmen. The problem, he argued, speaking with the devastating conviction reserved for narcissistic, charismatic leaders, was that Israel now has no Palestinian partner for its honorable intentions. When it comes to peace, Barak said, the Palestinians are not only hard to strike a deal with: they are also disingenuous. Their participation through the 1990s in the Oslo process, he claimed, was nothing but a duplicitous bluff: a mask of willingness that came off at the moment of truth, as he put it, when, during the Camp David summit in July 2000, he exposed what he described as the bloodthirsty and dishonest nature of the Palestinians. Ironically, Barak’s sanctimonious insistence that, in July 2000, the Palestinians had rejected what he described as the most generous proposals an Israeli politician is ever likely to make them, sowed the seeds 168 c h a p t e r s i x of his political demise. In the elections forced on him in February 2001, his opponent, Ariel Sharon, based his winning campaign on Barak’s own argument that the Palestinian intransigence at Camp David reflected irrationality, dishonesty, and inherent violence. The voters were easily persuaded by his logic: if this indeed is the essence and style of Israel’s chief enemy, who better than the seasoned, hard-line veteran warrior Sharon to lead it into battle? Not surprisingly, after Sharon’s election victory , this narrative became the self-evident justification for Israel’s consistent refusal to accept proposals for political settlement, a refusal that contributed to the ever-increasing bloodbath.3 Tragically, Israel’s intransigence intensified when Palestinians started using firearms against IDF soldiers and settlers in the territories, and it was solidified even further when suicide bombers began exploding in Israeli cities within the Green Line, killing civilians by the dozen and wounding hundreds. The refusal of the Palestinian leadership during the early stages of the intifada to...