a view from the other side

          A letter to Edward Said
               By Shlomo Avineri

               (October 22) - Dear Edward, - Over the past years we
               have often differed on many issues regarding the Middle
               East. Today I am writing to tell you that you were right,
               and I was wrong. 

               For those of us in Israel who thought that an eventual
               Israeli-Palestinian rapprochement would never wholly
               satisfy either side, but nevertheless give each a place in
               the sun, Oslo was the ray of hope. It has now been
               extinguished. 

               Back in l970, I published (in Commentary, then still a
               liberal journal) a plea for an Israeli approach to the PLO,
               and called for Israel to negotiate a two-state solution
               with the Palestinians. 

               Many Israeli moderates, still committed to what was then
               called the "Jordanian option," thought this ill-advised; still
               others considered a Palestinian state in the West Bank
               and Gaza a mortal danger to Israel. And for its part, the
               PLO was steadfast in its position of total rejection of
               Israel and of compromise. 

               Over the years positions have softened: because of our
               realization of the limits of our country's power; because
               of the intifada; because of the Palestinian leadership's
               opting for half a loaf, over hopeless moral absolutism,
               Oslo became possible. We imagined it the breakthrough
               to an historical compromise. 

               We have endured many vicissitudes since Oslo: the
               assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin; the
               massive bomb attacks in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv; the
               election of prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu; and the
               stalemate in the peace process - you know all this. 

               But those of us who believed, not only in the possibility,
               but also in the moral justice of an historical compromise,
               never lost hope that the process, for all its flaws and
               ambiguities, would continue - and that reason and
               moderationwould persevere. 

               You, on the other hand, joined the Rejection Front. For
               you, anything short of a total Palestinian nationalist
               victory - i.e. the elimination of Israel - was unacceptable.

               Many of us thought that you were being obtuse, morally
               irresponsible, and just out of touch with the newly
               emerging reality of reconciliation. We also thought - and
               hoped - that your views, harking back to the '60s and
               '70s, would end up in the dustbin of history. We thought
               that when fighters like Palestinian Authority Chairman
               Yasser Arafat and Rabin reach out to each other,
               intellectual absolutists like you become redundant. Or so
               we hoped. 

               But we were wrong. Last summer at Camp David,
               Arafat rejected the most generous offer ever made to a
               Palestinian leader by an Israeli statesman. As you know,
               Barak wagered his political future on these concessions,
               and lost his parliamentary majority in the process. Of
               course, what Barak offered was less than the Palestinian
               Authority's demands. 

               Arafat rejected them, and it appeared the Palestinian
               leadership behaved once more as it had in l947, when it
               first passed up an opportunity to have a Palestinian state,
               albeit only in part of historical Palestine. We all know
               how difficult compromises are: but they are the test of a
               statesman. 

               Likud leader Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount
               should never have taken place, and it was conceived in
               bad faith, in order to undermine the agreement. But then
               both you and Sharon believe that coexistence is
               impossible, that it is a zero-sum game, that a win-win
               situation is impossible. 

               And when Arafat did not restrain the Palestinian
               population - and one can understand their anger and
               frustration - it suddenly dawned on us that we do not
               have a partner: only an enemy, who cannot even find a
               humane word when our people are lynched. 

               Israelis understand your pain; and the sight of Palestinian
               stone-throwing teenagers being shot at by Israeli soldiers
               causes anguish and soul-searching in Israel. 

               No such soul-searching occurred on the Palestinian side.
               What came out - on the streets, among the Palestinian
               elite on CNN - was sheer hatred, and a fundamental
               rejection of Israel. 

               You were right, Edward: The compromise did not work.
               It was tried - despite your voice, despite the voice of
               Ariel Sharon. Yet it has now failed. 

               But now we know: there is no such thing as a Palestinian
               leadership with whom an agreement can be reached. We
               are at war - and you have been its clarion voice. You, at
               least, are honest. 

               Somehow, we shall have to pick up the pieces. Israel will
               have to decide how to withdraw unilaterally from most of
               the Palestinian territories, because we should not and
               cannot hold on to them. Your people will then have an
               oppotunity to have state of their own - it should have
               been achieved through an agreement, but if an agreement
               is impossible - better a unilateral action that leads to
               Palestinian statehood, than the continuation of the illusion
               of historical compromise. 

               And your voice, Edward, will always haunt us from the
               heart of the darkness which you so eloquently recognize
               and describe. Thanks again for your honesty. 

               (The writer, a professor of political science at the
               Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is currently a visiting
               scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International
               Peace in Washington, DC. 

               Said, a professor of English and literature at Columbia
               University, is a leading spokesman for the Palestinian
               cause.)