Negotiated transition averted mass bloodshed
COMMENT
Saeb Erakat and Yossi Beilin
These feel like the worst of days. Last week saw Israeli air raids on the Palestinian headquarters in Tulkarm, in retaliation for the killing by a Palestinian gunman of six Israeli civilians at a bat mitzvah or coming-of-age party. That was a revenge attack for Israel’s killing of a Palestinian militant, and now Israeli tanks have gone into Tulkarm.
There are times when Palestinians and Israelis fear that this cycle of violence might never stop. But there are moments of encouragement, one of which came last week when we took part in a retreat at the Spier Estate outside Cape Town, hosted by Thabo Mbeki, the president of South Africa. For us both it was an inspiring window into the South African experience of negotiated transition and replete with lessons that we believe are relevant for our own predicament.
Our delegations were not symmetrical. The Palestinian team included four Palestinian Authority ministers; the Israeli counterparts were all from outside the current government. It is indicative of a situation in which official channels of communication are severed, but also demonstrates the commitment of the respective peace camps to maintain dialogue.
Alongside President Mbeki, our South African hosts consisted of senior African National Congress officials, government ministers and others who had played key roles in the transition, as well as former National Party officials from the old regime. The respectful interaction between these former adversaries was fascinating, but even more striking was their shared dedication to building a new future.
The past year of violence and suffering in our region has left us short of security, but also of sanity and hope. To see both present in such abundance was invigorating.
The years of transition in South Africa were not simple. In hindsight we know a descent into total chaos and mass bloodshed was averted; at the time it was not so clear. Even when there was a mutual commitment by the main parties to pursue a political and negotiating track, some forces were difficult to rein in.
But there was a shared clarity that there could be no military victory or military solution for either side; that apartheid itself bred violence and that the political channel must remain open at all times. Both sides understood that there could be no maintenance “of the status quo” or way of keeping violence at a “tolerable” level: if there is no political progress, violence only deepens. In South Africa the political path of negotiations, once engaged in, was never severed. Even in the worst days contacts continued. Talks became clandestine, but they continued.
The contrast with our situation is stark. At the insistence of Ariel Sharon, the prime minister of Israel, there have been no negotiations for almost a year. The result has been an escalation in violence. The apparently innocent request for “seven days of total quiet” hands the veto over returning to a negotiated process to the last extremist on either side, and raises suspicions that the real agenda may be to avoid negotiations altogether. When the ANC minister and former negotiator Valli Moosa revealed that both sides in South Africa had refused to allow extremists to derail the process never breaking off talks in response to a terror action all Israelis and Palestinians present smiled wryly.
Our South African hosts described how they sought to engage with and understand each other’s fears. No two situations are identical, and inferences should be drawn with caution, but conflict situations are inherently human in their making and human in their resolution.
Endless demonisations of the “other”, enjoyable as they may be in their simplicity, are of limited value in building a better future. Decrying the irrelevance of the other side’s leadership, or bemoaning the lack of a suitable negotiating partner, are ways of avoiding decision-making.
Our two peoples deserve better. They deserve to live in peace and security and to have the cycle of bloodshed and hatred end. There is a way forward: an immediate end to violence and an unconditional return to negotiations. The Tenet plan and Mitchell recommendations should be implemented as they stand, including a freeze on settlements and steps to improve the security situation.
The principles for an agreement are known: an end to occupation that will lead to a two-state solution; implementing United Nations security council resolutions 242 and 338 with Israel and Palestine living side by side, based on the June 4 1967 borders, with both their capitals in Jerusalem; a fair solution to the refugee problem and security guarantees for both parties.
We are committed to continuing the process begun at Spier, to studying and applying the lessons of the South African experience and to building a shared vision for peace.
Saeb Erakat is the minister for local government in the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian chief negotiator. Yossi Beilin is a former Israeli minister of justice and one of the architects of the Oslo accords