Israel risks apartheid-like struggle if two-state solution fails, says Olmert
Pastor Dale Morgan
Israel risks apartheid-like struggle if two-state solution fails, says
Olmert*
Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
Friday November 30, 2007
The Guardian
Israel's prime minister issued a rare warning yesterday that his nation
risked being compared to apartheid-era South Africa if it failed to
agree an independent state for the Palestinians. In an interview with
the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, Ehud Olmert said Israel was "finished"
if it forced the Palestinians into a struggle for equal rights.
If the two-state solution collapsed, he said, Israel would "face a South
African-style struggle for equal voting rights, and as soon as that
happens, the state of Israel is finished". Israel's supporters abroad
would quickly turn against such a state, he said.
"The Jewish organisations, which were our power base in America, will be
the first to come out against us because they will say they cannot
support a state that does not support democracy and equal voting rights
for all its residents," he said.
The Israeli government is usually bitterly resentful of any comparison
to the apartheid regime but Olmert's remarks looked like an effort to
galvanise support from a sceptical Israeli public for a return to peace
negotiations with the Palestinians in the days after the Annapolis
conference.
Israel has a 20% Arab minority who are citizens and can vote, although
they are frequently discriminated against and are described by some as a
"demographic threat". Within a few years the number of Arabs in Israel
and the Palestinian territories is expected to equal, and then exceed,
the number of Jews in Israel and the settlements. Some Palestinians
argue that they should campaign for a so-called one-state solution:
equal voting and citizenship rights within a larger country that
includes Israel and the occupied territories and in which Palestinians
will soon have a majority.
It is not the first time that Olmert has risked the South African
comparison. Four years ago, in another interview with Ha'aretz, he gave
a similar warning. But that was a time when, as deputy to the then prime
minister Ariel Sharon, he argued that Israel should unilaterally draw up
a border with the Palestinians, withdrawing from Gaza and holding on to
the major Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank.
He bluntly described his goal then as being "to maximise the number of
Jews; to minimise the number of Palestinians; not to withdraw to the
1967 border and not to divide Jerusalem". But in the wake of Hamas's
domination of Gaza and last year's war in Lebanon, unilateralism is
discredited among Israelis, at least for now.
Olmert's warning yesterday came on the anniversary of the 1947 UN
partition plan that would have divided British mandate Palestine into a
Jewish and an Arab state. His words resonated across the political spectrum.
Israeli historian Tom Segev wrote in yesterday's Ha'aretz: "It is not
easy to understand why so many Israelis still believe that a large
Israel without peace is better than a small Israel with peace." Israel
had most to lose, he said. "With every settler who moves to the
territories and with every Palestinian child who is killed by Israel
Defence Forces fire, Israel loses some of the moral justification that
led to the decision on the November 29 60 years ago. The Palestinians
have already lost almost everything they had."
Gerald Steinberg, chairman of the political science department at
Israel's Bar-Ilan University, said Olmert's comments reflected a
long-held belief. "The logic is precisely the same as the logic pursued
by all Israeli governments since 1967: the realisation that you can't
have a Jewish, democratic state and still control the lives of millions
of Palestinians," he said.
He said it was still open to question whether the Annapolis negotiations
would succeed. If they failed, the Israeli government might return to
the idea of a unilateral withdrawal from most of the West Bank, but one
that left the Israeli military deployed.