Day 8 (June 10): Yitzak Rabin Center

Liberal Israeli doves, such as Shimon Peres and Yitzak Rabin, are widely considered to be allies of the Palestinians, great purveyors of peace and accommodation. Today, at our visit to the Yitzak Rabin center, we received a heavy dose of propaganda on behalf of such liberal Zionism, as represented by both Rabin and Shimon Peres. Unfortunately, as a result of the high-minded rhetoric espoused by these doves, and the swarms of international correspondents who surround and happily lap it up, package it, and deliver it around the globe, they are mistaken for being wonderful champions of peace. It should come as no surprise to those who follow the actual situation, as opposed to the fantasy world painted on the pages of the New York Times, that this is quite far from the truth. The clips of Rabin's speeches we were shown were inspiring and wonderful; if they were a reflection of the actual policies and attitude of his government, the conflict would long be over. After all, the term “conflict” is barely adequate to describe the situation at all; one people, backed by tremendous military and economic force, is slowly but surely crushing and dispossessing another, a process which produces occasional resistance of various sorts. The fact that a crazed fundamentalist fanatic shot Rabin for even daring to suggest that the Palestinians should be mildly accommodated, through Israeli self-restraint, does not mean that he actually pursued measures beyond mere rhetorical flourishes.

Rabin's benevolent and generous plan for “peace,” unfortunately forever enshrined in the embarrassingly one-sided Oslo Accords, was to substitute direct control, in the form of Israeli troops antagonistically patrolling city centers, for indirect control, which meant allowing the PA to be responsible for mundane municipal duties and whose primary goal was to ensure Israeli security, while Israel retained unilateral control of entries and exits, water, overall security, and the right to invade Palestinian controlled areas at will, unresisted by the PA security forces. As Rabin and his staff repeatedly bragged publicly, this allowed the accelerated division of Palestinian territory into isolated bantustans, the building of even more settlements than the egregious Netanyahu, erecting more checkpoints, and so on. For example, in a television interview in March, 1997, Rabin advisor Yosi Beilin, a leading Israeli dove widely considered a friend of the Palestinians, said “I am in favor of building everywhere in East Jerusalem, including the building of Har Homa, since this is our right; the question is one of timing, and clever tactics. We [the Rabin government] increased settlements by 50 percent, we built in Judea and Samaria, but we did it quietly and with wisdom. You [the Netanyahu government] proclaim your intentions every morning, frighten the Palestinians and transform the topic of Jerusalem as the unified capital of Israel – a matter which all Israelis agreed upon – into a subject of worldwide debate. The main thing is to get the Palestinians to agree that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Without their agreeing to this, there will be no agreement.”

Likewise, Shimon Peres, that other “great man of peace,” in an interview with Der Spiegel on March 5, 1995, refused to accept that settlements were an obstacle to peace. Rather, the main issue was “how the settlers and Palestinians get on with each other.” The settlers, who have a right to settle in “Eretz Yisrael,” also thus have license to steal Palestinian land so long as they aren't too mean about it; meanwhile, the troublesome natives should learn their place and accept the inevitability of the takeover by the “chosen people.” When the interviewer said he found it “inconceivable that all the settlers should remain in the West Bank following the conclusion of peace,” the angelic Peres answered “that is your opinion, I find it conceivable.”

Despite the differences in style, the racism of Zionist ideology was just as ingrained in Rabin and Peres as it is with the likes of the despicable Netanyahu. As leaders, all three were radically committed to the superiority of Israeli Jews over Palestinian Arabs, perhaps all Arabs. None would seriously consider conceding sovereignty to the Palestinians, despite the self-declared noble intentions of the doves. All three see the Arabs as being required to satisfy the needs of Israel in political, economic and military (“security”) dimensions. Where they differ is in that Peres and Rabin manipulated naïve notions of a “peace process” to keep Israel in a position of superiority whereby it dictated the terms, the agenda, and every outcome, without giving up a single strategic objective. By contrast, Netanyahu felt no need for such a charade; his view was that Israel would have its way, and the Palestinians would be bludgeoned into a dazed acceptance by Israel's sheer military and economic might. We also cannot forget Peres' vicious and totally unrestrained terror bombing of Lebanon, land expropriation, sealing off Area A from Areas B and C (both under de facto or actual Israeli control, respectively), strangling the already decimated Palestinian economy.

While Netanyahu's contempt for the Palestinian people could not have been more central to his proclamations and policies, neither Rabin nor Peres cared in the final analysis what Israel's actions cost the Palestinians as a people. Netanyahu does not care what anyone thinks, while the most I can say for Rabin and Peres is that they sought moral approval from the Arab states and others for the policies of the Israeli government. While Peres and Rabin pursued the more indirect approach described above, Netanyahu wanted the Israeli settlers and military to be seen by the whole world, as a sign of overwhelming Israeli might. Netanyahu's electoral victory in 1996 did not mark a change of course in Israeli policy; it merely exposed the “peace process” for the fraud it always was. In the end, Oslo was not just a failure because it was grossly unfair to the Palestinians (which of course it was), but because Israeli leaders proved unwilling to take the necessary step forward from the long history of humiliating the Palestinians into submission. Rather than pursue the real steps which could have produced a lasting peace based on coexistance and equality, both Rabin and Peres tragically opted to proceed as they always had, consolidating their gains by force and with utter contempt for the Arabs.