CEASE FIRE
by Sherwin Wine

Will the ceasefire work?

It all depends.

It all depends on how much each of the antagonists wants peace and how much each of them is willing to pay for it.

Golda Meir, the Israeli premier, wants peace. But not at the price of East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, or Sharm el Sheikh.

Yigal Allon, the Deputy premier, wants peace. But not at the cost of a remilitarized West Bank, with Arab armies ten miles from Tel Aviv.

Menahem Begin, the fiery leader of the Opposition wants peace. But not at the expense of the new defensible borders which Israel achieved in 1967.

Gamal Nasser, the tarnished Arab Messiah wants peace. So long as Israel gives up all its conquered territory and does not insist on a formal Egypt-recognition of her right to exist.

Richard Nixon, the Republican president who owes nothing to the Jewish voter, wants peace. Provided that a military confrontation between America and the Soviet Union can be avoided and that American interests in the Arab states can be protected.

Leonid Brezhnev, the dullest of the dull commissars, wants peace. If only Soviet influence in the Middle East is not diminished and the Suez Canal is open to Russian ships.

But they all want peace at different prices.

Cynics say that no common price can be agreed upon. The war will simply start up again with new fury after 90 days.

The optimists say that the United States and the Soviet Union are so afraid of a military confrontation that they will not allow their satellites to renew the struggle. If Israel balks there will be no Phantoms. If Egypt balks, there will be no missiles.

For the optimists, many current developments support their stand.

There is the Russian fear of Chinese intervention. Already the Palestinian guerillas and the left-wing regimes of Syria and Iraq have turned to Peking for military assistance and training. China would like nothing better than to undermine the Soviet position among Arab radicals. Nasser, the darling of Moscow, is generally viewed by the Marxist left as a conservative tool of Russian caution. While Nasser denounces the feudal regime of Morocco and Baudia, the revolutionary left, in turn, finds him just as objectionable. Without peace, the pressure of Arab radicals, stimulated by Chinese agents, could force Russia into a military confrontation with America she dearly seeks to avoid. Russia’s self-interest dictates that she seek American help to resist China. To fight America in the Middle East would be a Russian gift to the Chinese.

There is the total Egyptian dependence on Soviet aid. The United Arab Republic has become a military satellite of the Soviet Union. Totally dependent on the subsidies and armament of the Russian Communists, Nasser is no longer a free agent. He dances to the tune that Moscow plays. He sacrificed his position as the Arab Messiah when he informally conceded the right of Israel to exist. He is now reviled in Damascus and Baghdad as a traitor to the Arab cause. Only determined Russian pressure could force him to make such a concession. If Brezhnev wants peace, Nasser is no longer able to say no.

There is the war resentment of the Egyptian people. While Algeria, Syria, and Iraq make brave statements of no surrender, the burden of the war is sustained by Egypt. Arab dolidarity against Israel has proved an expensive illusion. Neither money nor men are forthcoming from Algiers or Baghdad. Egypt has had to turn itself into a Russian satellite in order to carry on the Arab struggle. Statements by Nasser’s propaganda leaders seem to indicate an upsurge of Egyptian nationalism. War weariness has led many Egyptians to the conclusion that Nasser’s dream of an Arab empire with Cairo as its capital may be less significant than a prosperous Egypt. So long as there was no war, the illusion of Arab unity could be sustained. It is now too clear for even the Egyptians to ignore.

There is the narrow self-interest of the American people. Although it is difficult for American Jews to accept the fact, the loss of the Arab states to the Soviet Union was a telling blow to American power and prestige. Israel is no adequate substitute for the air bases, naval stations, and oil resources of the Arab homeland. It is no adequate compensation for the massive Soviet Presence in the Mediterranean. Outside the less convincing reasons of sympathy and admiration, the Israelis have nothing strategic to offer America. To persist in backing the Israeli hawk position is suicidal for the United States. Certainly, the inevitable loss of South Vietnam pales in comparison to the loss of North Africa and Western Asia. America has every reason to force Israel to accept peace on terms unacceptable to the present Israeli leadership. And, given its present desire to survive as a Jewish state, Israel has no alternative to American aid.

So much for the “optimists.” As for the skeptics who maintain that the ceasefire is only a respite between wars, there is much evidence to back their position.

There is the absence of any point at which Arab concessions and Israeli concessions meet. The overwhelming public consensus in Israel refuses to yield either the Golan Heights or East Jerusalem. The overwhelming public consensus in Egypt will settle for nothing less than a return to the old boundaries. Any Israeli government that yielded East Jerusalem would collapse before the people’s fury. And any Arab government that consented to the Jewish control of the Old City would lose its popular support. The return to the 1967 boundaries is acceptable to only a small minority of Israeli doves.

There is the massive mutual distrust. Arab governments see Israel as a European imperialist intrusion, determined to expand, and unwilling to yield any conquered territory. Israelis see the Arabs as savage fanatics prepared to kill every Jew and committed to using every diplomatic wile to achieve their goal. Israelis find it difficult to believe that Arab leaders are able to do anything but lie. They certainly find it difficult, after the 1967 experience, to imagine that Arab governments would keep their promises. The major problem is the memory of the Holocaust. The psyche of the Jew hovers in the shadow of the six million dead. Neither Israel nor world Jewry can transcend the events of the German War. A deep-seated paranoia paralyzes any attempt at Jewish-Arab reconciliation. Every concession becomes a prelude to Auschwitz. Arabs are seen through the eyes of concentration camp survivors and their rhetoric is heard with the ears of Belsen victims. Every enemy becomes “a Hitler”, and a Hitler understands only One language – the language of force.

There is the veto of the opposition. For Nasser his opposition lies on the left, in the Marxist and Maoist camps. Their accusation is the charge of treason, the assertion that Nasser and Hussein are selling the birthright of the Palestinian Arabs for a mess of bad Jewish pottage. Their weapon is the brush of self-righteous patriotism, which smears every compromise with the label of “surrender.” Even the Russians have to make their puppet look sufficiently patriotic to be effective. As for Golda Meir, her opposition lies on the right, in the nationalist camp of Manahem Begin, and his Gahal supporters. How can a patriotic Jewish government, reared on the literature of the Bible, turn over to strangers any part of the patrimony which was historically Jewish? There is sufficient residual “religious guilt” lingering in the most secular of the Israelis, especially of the older generation, to turn all territorial concessions into acts of disloyalty. Begin and his conservative followers were politically wise in departing the coalition government: They can now safely and irresponsibly pose as the party of patriotism.

There is the fanaticism of the Palestinian guerillas. Committed to the dissolution of the state of Israel, they will turn to whatever source provides them with help. If the Russians will not assist them, if Nasser betrays their cause, they will turn to the Chinese. As the only chauvinistic youth movement in the entire Arab world, they have the power to foment public disorder and to shake (if not topple) the tired Arab regimes (like Nasser’s) that were once revolutionary. With Iraqi help they have the power to destroy the Jordanian kingdom and to establish a guerilla government on the east bank of the river Jordan. Any attempt by Israel to occupy Jordan and destroy the new government would give the Jewish state one million more Arabs she does not need. Peace with Egypt will not be possible until the Palestinians are restrained. And the Palestinians can only be restrained if Nasser is willing to forego his radical and Messianic image, and actively cooperate in the destruction of the Palestinian armies.

There is the age of the Israeli leaders. Born in Eastern Europe and nurtured with the antisemitic fears of the shtetl, the Israeli cabinet lacks the kind of imagination the present situation demands. A host of formidable and irrelevant memories keep them trapped behind old fears. Young blood and young leaders who see through the old myths are needed. It may have been true that the Palestinian Arabs were once a collection of illiterate and incompetent peasants. But today their young men are just as often student idealists who are not willing to be the necessary victims for Jewish self-esteem. It may have been true that you could count on antisemitism to provide thousands of Jewish immigrants to match the Arab birth rate. But today antisetitism is a dying force among middle-class youth; and the concept of Israel as a refuge from persecution is an old man’s view of things. It may have been true that the people that had the strongest cultural bond to the Israeli Jew were the Ashkenizim of New York and the workers of the UJA. But, in the present, it is more likely that the educated Palestinian Arab has more in common with the sabra than a kibbutz lover out of Toledo. (At least Israeli Arabs speak Hebrew). Old men, conditioned by old wars and the culture of their childhood can neither see nor feel these truths. And, therefore, they fawn over the immovable Diaspora and ignore their next-door neighbor. The old leaders come to the peace table with eyes that see only the past.

There is the political pressure of the Diaspora hawk. Israelis are burdened not only by their own struggle for survival but also by the guilt of the American Zionist. The American Zionist is a man more hawkish than the orthodox fundamentalist. Unwilling to risk his life and his standard of living in the defense of his ideal, he offers Israel the gift of his super-patriotism – at a distance of course. He writes long letters to President Nixon; he marches on the Soviet embassy; he protests the Russian refusal to allow the Jews to leave for Israel, even though he cannot bring himself to leave America; he even predicts that, in the future, an antisemitic reactionary regime may force him to go to Israel – and then he will defend her. In the interim, he will play the hawk, and salve his conscience. It’s easy. He doesn’t have to live with Arabs.

Will the ceasefire lead to peace?

America and Russia may be able to enforce a temporary peace. But the resisting causes will prevent a permanent one.

A permanent peace will only be possible when the state of Israel will be willing, to make one concession – when it will be willing to affirm that the Arabs of Haifa are more important to its welfare than the Jews of New York – when it will be able to cast off the burdensome Diaspora and become a Middle Eastern state. Permanent peace will only come when Israel is more interested in a dialogue with her Arab neighbors than with the Jews of Leningrad.

Permanent peace would require Israel to take tile following steps:

(1) Israel would have to become a secular state. A secular state is one in which religious identity is irrelevant to status. Being a Christian, Muslim, or Jew would be irrelevant to any public office a citizen might occupy. And the state would identify with no particular religious tradition, the Bible would cease to be a national textbook; and rabbis, mullahs, and priests would exercise no secular Power: A secular state, for the sake of convenience might choose to make Christian and Muslim, as well as Jewish holidays, national days of rest. In the realm of education it would provide state schools in which all children, regardless of religion, could be trained as Israelis.

(2) Israel would define its uniqueness by its language, not by the family tree of its citizens. Its official language would be Hebrew. As a Hebrew-speaking state, any individual who learned and mastered Hebrew would be a full participant in the national culture, regardless of religion or ethnic origin. After all, most Israeli Arabs learn Hebrew more quickly and speak it more fluently than most European Jewish immigrants. Minority language groups, like the Arabs, would simply be bilingual, and where desired, could attend bilingual schools. But the same ruling could apply to individuals who preferred English, French, or Yiddish. If Hebrew is regarded as a convenient administrative language, rather than as an expression of the ethnic soul (like English in America where there are many ethnic groups) its use by Christians and Muslims, as well as Jews would be acceptable. In a state whose culture is defined by the use of the Hebrew language a Hebrew-speaking Jew would have more in common with a Hebrew-speaking Muslim than with an English-speaking American Jew who chooses to live in St. Louis.

(3) Israel would have to become a territorial nation. A territorial nation embraces all people who choose to live within its boundaries regardless of their racial, linguistic, or religious origins. While it may choose one language to be the official vehicle of common communication, it welcomes secondary languag and encourages their use. America has become a territorial nation. Although, at one time, it was an Anglosaxon Protestant nation, it has become (sometimes relucta a mixture of many ethnic, racial, and religious groups united by a primary language. If Israel were a Hebrew-speaking territorial nation, it would have no diaspora. Jews in other countries would find their homeland in the territorial nation they live in. If they chose to live in a secular Hebrew-speaking environment, they could immigrate to Israel. But if they chose to remain in America or England, they could not ask Israel to be their homeland, and to give them a special status that was not accorded to non-Jewish Hebrew-speaking Israelis. The concept of the ethnic nation, united by tribal memories, and scattered throughout the world would become irrelevant. Israel would exist for Israelis, for those people who with their feet (not their mouths) have chosen to live within the boundaries. It would not exist for the half-baked Zionists of Buffalo or Los Angeles who wish to derive their self-esteem from what other people do or who wish to pay for an insurance policy against pogroms. A Diaspora that will not emigrate except in dribbles will not turn a ceasefire into a permanent peace.

(4) Israel would have to go beyond Zionism. Modern Zionism and the old leadership of Israel exists with the illusion that antisemitism will force thousands of American and Russian Jews to flee to Israel for refuge. (As though Israel could Continue to exist if the American government became- viciously anti-Jewish!) That dream is. a Current fantasy that prevents the old men of Mapai and Cabal, of Left and Bight, from taking the kind of dramatic and imaginative steps that would open an effective dialogue with the Arabs. If the primary con- cern of the potitical leadership were With the personal safety and happiness of the Jews now in Israel, and not with the “ingathering of the exiles,” avenues of reconciliation would open up with the Palestinian guerillas whose acceptance of peace is, in the long run, more important than Nasser’-s.

(5) Israel would have to declare an open immigration policy. Having established an annual quota based on the potential of economic absorption she would open her doors to any individual, regardless of religion and ethnic origin, who desired to live in a Hebrew-speaking state. Palestinian refugees who wished to return would be allowed to return. Palestinian refugees who did not wish to return would be fairly compensated. If non-Jewish Czech exiles, excited by Kibbutz living, wished to live in Israel and speak Hebrew, they would be as welcome as French-speaking Jews from Morocco. The criterion for entry would be ‘first- come, first-served.” A progressive Hebrew-speaking state, with no necessary connection to Judaism and with the freedom to turn its energies from war to social experiment, would be attractive to many young idealists, both Jewish and non-Jewish.

(6) Israel would accept its old boundaries. In a secular Hebrew state with no necessary connection to the religious shrines of Judaism, possessing East Jerusalem and the Western Wall is no more important than possessing Haifa. In a secular Hebrew state, which has made its peace with the Palestinian refugees, possessing the Golan Heights is no longer strategically important. If the Arabs of Jordan and the West Bank wish to establish a secular Arabic-speaking Palestinian state, in which Jews can choose to live, all the better. Two secular states, divided only by administrative languages, and with complementary economies, would be a feasible solution to the present problem.

Is peace in the Middle East possible?

Not if the most liberal Israeli price never touches the most liberal concessions than an Arab leader can afford to extend.

If the war continues after the ceasefire, or after a short and very temporary armistice imposed by America and Russia, the present Arab governments will be succeeded (with Chinese help) by more radical and more irrational regimes. In such a world, all possibilities for peace will vanish. And Israel will be condemned to fight a perpetual war at a fearful cost in lives and ideals.

The six proposals for permanent peace may, in the long run, prove more realistic than they seem. But they are competing against the memories of the Holocaust and the illusions of a played-out Zionist dream.