Wednesday, October 01, 2003
On the third anniversary of the initiation of one of the most profoundly self-destructive campaigns in history, one Palestinian leader concedes that the intifada has not improved the condition of the Palestinian people. Mohammed Dahlan is safely out of office and in a position to be frank, but one hopes that his remarks are published in Arabic as well as in English.
The Achilles Heel of the Palestinian national movement has historically been an inability to separate questions of justification from questions of efficacy. One usually expects national movements to construe the rightness of their actions very broadly, but the more successful ones go beyond self-reassuring questions to ask if taking an action actually helped. The Palestinian national movement has failed to ask that question at various points.
Even today, I doubt that many Palestinians think that the decision of the Mufti to violently oppose the creation of the state of Israel, rather than accept a partition of the country was a bad move. Few would reconsider the movement's earlier rejection of the Creel partition plan, which gave them most of the country. Considering the grief that the image of Palestinian-as-terrorist has caused the movement, there has been very little rethinking of the efficacy of actions like Munich and Ma'alot. Now, as Dahlan ponders this question, there is the usual round of chest-thumping self-congratulation about the intifada that brought Sharon to power and destroyed the Palestinian economy and the Palestinian authority. Whatever misery this has caused Israel - and the grief has been substantial - the Palestinians are unlikely to reap any benefit from three years of bloodshed that they could not have attained through continued negotiation. American support for Israel has generally hardened in the wake of 9/11 (though the foolish blusterings of Sharon these days may dampen it) and the strategic balance in the region still favors Israel, all the more so following Saddam's fall.
Israel has made its share of mistakes, but it has survived them for the abundance of space that self-criticism and self-analysis enjoy in its public sphere. In the pages of Ha'aretz, the country's leading newspaper, columnists who want to see the survival of Israel freely criticize the errors of its government. The frank and open nature of Israeli public discourse is one of the country's greatest strengths. Many Palestinians recognize this, but Arafat is not one of them. Consequently, dissident Palestinians are threatened for speaking out, as Khalil Shikaki was for suggesting that Palestinians may be amenable to compensation in lieu of returning to their former homes.
The Achilles Heel of the Palestinian national movement has historically been an inability to separate questions of justification from questions of efficacy. One usually expects national movements to construe the rightness of their actions very broadly, but the more successful ones go beyond self-reassuring questions to ask if taking an action actually helped. The Palestinian national movement has failed to ask that question at various points.
Even today, I doubt that many Palestinians think that the decision of the Mufti to violently oppose the creation of the state of Israel, rather than accept a partition of the country was a bad move. Few would reconsider the movement's earlier rejection of the Creel partition plan, which gave them most of the country. Considering the grief that the image of Palestinian-as-terrorist has caused the movement, there has been very little rethinking of the efficacy of actions like Munich and Ma'alot. Now, as Dahlan ponders this question, there is the usual round of chest-thumping self-congratulation about the intifada that brought Sharon to power and destroyed the Palestinian economy and the Palestinian authority. Whatever misery this has caused Israel - and the grief has been substantial - the Palestinians are unlikely to reap any benefit from three years of bloodshed that they could not have attained through continued negotiation. American support for Israel has generally hardened in the wake of 9/11 (though the foolish blusterings of Sharon these days may dampen it) and the strategic balance in the region still favors Israel, all the more so following Saddam's fall.
Israel has made its share of mistakes, but it has survived them for the abundance of space that self-criticism and self-analysis enjoy in its public sphere. In the pages of Ha'aretz, the country's leading newspaper, columnists who want to see the survival of Israel freely criticize the errors of its government. The frank and open nature of Israeli public discourse is one of the country's greatest strengths. Many Palestinians recognize this, but Arafat is not one of them. Consequently, dissident Palestinians are threatened for speaking out, as Khalil Shikaki was for suggesting that Palestinians may be amenable to compensation in lieu of returning to their former homes.
