Confusing "Sacred" and "Material"

"How Words Could End a War"
WK12, Sunday 1/25/09, Op-Ed
By Scott Atran and Jeremy Ginges

Lives and dollars sacrificed “demonstrate the advantages of peace and coexistence; yet both sides opt to fight.” As if the title’s assertion that “words” could end this conflict isn’t enough to dim the lights in your house, there's this gratuitous equivalence in the opening paragraph.

The writers demonstrate a narrow view of “sweetening the pot”. It is not in the proposal of international aid that the Palestinians reject as extortion, but the very notion of compromise with Israel.

One conclusion reached involves “Palestinian hard-liners" who “were more willing to consider recognizing the right of Israel to exist if the Israelis simply offered an official apology for Palestinian suffering in the 1948 war.”

There are major problems with such an “official apology". Many Israelis rightly see Palestinian suffering in that war as a result of the Arab, and specifically the Palestinian-Arab, choice to launch that war. Issuing an apology, some conclude, would backfire, rendering legitimate the pretext for, and thus perpetuating, armed struggle.

"Similarly, Israeli respondents said they could live with a partition of Jerusalem and borders very close to those that existed before the 1967 war if Hamas and other major Palestinian groups explicitly recognized Israel’s right to exist.”

In proving their theses, the writers' language is flawed. According to the question posed to them, Palestinian hard-liners would “consider” recognizing Israel’s right to exist [which could just be some public pronouncement, as Fatah has done when politically expedient] in return for an apology not completely anchored in historical truth.

Meanwhile, Israelis were seemingly posed a more specific scenario [“living with”], which would include dividing Judaism’ holiest city and creating a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza…and only in return for a promise.

These scenarios are hardly similar.

The asymmetry continues as the writers stretch their thesis to oblivion when recounting their “discussions with political leaders from both sides.” Hamas Deputy Chairman Abu Marzook “said no [to] a trade-off for peace without granting a right of return.”

The writers overlook that “granting a right of return,” means the end of Israel. This is not simply a sacred value that can be catered to with pronouncements, but one that must be actualized, as Hamas has stated explicitly many times.

Abu Marzook, when asked about the Israeli apology “brightened,” but also revealingly said “it’s not enough because our houses and lands were taken away from us and something has to be done about that.” Drawing an uninformed conclusion on Hamas, the writers state “his response suggested that progress on sacred values might open the way for negotiations on material issues, rather than the reverse.”

Yet progress on return will not “open the way for negotiations,” only its implementation will placate Hamas, which has consistently expressed deep antipathy to the idea of ever recognizing Israel. Still, to better understand how twisted is the logic of these researchers, using terms these writers could understand, Hamas says: We’ll have an agreement with Israel when there’s no more Israel. Hamas has apparently not made this demand clear enough.

Netanyahu agrees to “seriously consider accepting a two-state solution following the 1967 borders if the Palestinians were to recognize the right of the Jewish people to an independent state in the region.” He offers a rational qualification that “the Palestinians would have to show that they sincerely mean it, change their textbooks, and anti-Semitic characterizations.”

This demand, as implied by the writers, isn’t simply a “sacred value,” meant to mollify long-simmering tensions. It is the most basic requirement for any tangible peace agreement to hold. Rather than qualifying a two-state solution on the other party’s demise (Abu Marzook’s stance that recognition of the right of return “is not enough,” and “something has to be done” about it), Netanyahu qualifies a two-state solution on the tangible promotion of peace – which manifests itself just as much, if not more, as a “material issue” than as a “sacred value.”

What was intended to be research to offer insight only served to mislead.