Nonviolent Change Journal

     The Palestinian cause has never been further from establishing a state than it is now, three years after the Intifada. Israel's security has never been more fragile and loose than it is now, three years after the counter-Intifada sponsored by the ruling Likud and a clique of settlers. The lesson, which the 'Intifadists' from both sides don't care for is: either they lose together, as is the case now, or they win together.

     With Sharon, comes Ahmad Yassin, and vice-versa, and the catastrophe befalls everyone. With settlements, come suicide operations, and vice-versa, and disaster hits everyone.

     This is not lecturing. It is a description of the obvious that we are discovering, day after day, corpse after corpse, for three years. Declaring this simple fact is the only narrow space left to the mind and the conscience at the same time, away from the overwhelming incitement, mobilization and agitation. The equation that says that harming the other is a delayed harm for oneself has never been truer. It is true in Israel as much as it is in Palestine. True in human and political costs as much as it is true in economics. The logic, which is applicable in other places, is not applicable here; where confrontation, to both sides, is a matter of existence or nonexistence. When things are linked to existence and nonexistence, forget about reaping concessions under pressure.

     Moreover, we are facing a really special situation: Israel has the classic crushing superiority, the perpetuation of which is of its highest priority. The Palestinians have the non-classic crushing superiority, which has become, with the prevailing military asymmetry after the Soviet collapse, the perseverance of the subjugated, wherever they are. In the post-Cold War period, such a fight could multiply infinitely. In the end, the triumphant does not triumph, and the defeated is not defeated.

     In spite of this, feelings grow contrary to what experience dictates: we do not exaggerate if we say that the majority of both people agree only on rejecting each other in an absolutist way. Taking the geographic and economic interdependence between the Israelis and Palestinians, you either make peace or you make war. The luxury of something in between can not exist. No room in the Middle East for nuances and degrees.

     The last three years were a victory to all that is miserable, desperate, repellent and irrational among us as humans. The beasts within us, Arabs and Jews, fill the sky with hisses. The grace of the last three years, if we may use this term, is that they pointed out to 300 years that could be 'lived' this way; especially if those guided by the Intifadas remain faithful to their beliefs, and nothing from outside the region or from inside it, would impose on us what we do not want.

     Until further notice, hope is not coming from anywhere.

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