Sixty-four years have passed since the Nov. 29, 1947, adoption of the U.N. Partition Plan, which stipulated that Palestine be divided into Jewish and Arab states. At the time, Palestinians and Arab states violently opposed the plan. Now, however, they are willing to accept a partition along the 1967 lines, which are different from those in the Partition Plan. With their recent U.N. petition for recognition of a Palestinian state, the Palestinians have come full circle. They are admitting they made a historic mistake, for which they have paid a heavy price. Some Palestinians and Arab states seem to have learned that violence is not an effective way to realize one's political goals and that they cannot forcibly deny the Jews' right to establish a state in part of the land of Israel. They seem to have realized that you need international legitimacy to establish a state. The Palestinian bid at the U.N. ties up a historical loose end, with the fiercest opponents of partition willing to accept it under different conditions. Still, it is difficult for the Palestinians to establish their state by means of an agreement with Israel because they would have to recognize it as the nation state of the Jewish people an Israeli demand that has in recent years become a mark of sincere Palestinian willingness to end the conflict. Get the Israel Hayom newsletter sent to your mailbox! While the Palestinians may be ready to accept the idea of partitioning the land, they cannot accept another aspect of the original Partition Plan: its explicit call for the establishment of a Jewish state alongside an Arab one. They perceive recognition of a Jewish state as a threat to their national identity and even a denial of it. They also interpret it as a victory for Zionism. At the same time, many elements in Israel perceive the conflict as one of identity and have difficulty compromising over Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and the settlements. They perceive these lands as a biblical patrimony that is exclusively Jewish and cannot be transferred to foreign sovereignty, even at the price of achieving peace. Israel did undergo a transformation in its consciousness, from non-recognition of the Palestinian nation to a willingness to realize a two-state solution. However, there are still many Israelis who refuse to accept Palestinians' demand to establish a country on land they perceive as exclusively Jewish. From Nov. 29, 1947, until today, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has not been a mere territorial dispute or dispute over borders but a conflict of identity. A conflict of identity is one in which one or both sides view the national identity of the other and its right to establish an independent state as a danger to their own national identity. A conflict of identity is a zero-sum dispute. It is a clash of deeply held values that neither side can compromise, and is therefore difficult to resolve. Indeed, both the Oslo and Annapolis processes failed due to both sides' inability to move beyond a conflict of identity, which constitutes a principle obstacle to peace. As long as the sides continue to engage in such a conflict, it is unlikely to be resolved. In fact, both sides appear to be growing more extreme, thereby aggravating the identity conflict, with religion and its earthly ambassadors playing a central role in denying the rights of the other, and forestalling the compromise necessary to achieve peace. The writer is a professor of conflict resolution at the Hebrew University and director of the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies.
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Reflections on partition
מערכת ישראל היום
מערכת "ישראל היום“ מפיקה ומעדכנת תכנים חדשותיים, מבזקים ופרשנויות לאורך כל שעות היממה. התוכן נערך בקפדנות, נבדק עובדתית ומוגש לציבור מתוך האמונה שהקוראים ראויים לעיתונות טובה יותר - אמינה, אובייקטיבית ועניינית.
