Jerusalem (JTA) — The Israeli Labor Party has always believed that there is no military solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. It has always promoted territorial compromise as a road to a just and lasting solution.
The State of Israel’s policy must rest on three fundamental and mutually complementary elements: the fight against terrorism, a security separation and initiating a genuine political horizon.
The first element is continuing to wage unrelenting war on terror, wherever necessary. In so doing, we will implement our right of self-defense, a right possessed by every state.
It is our hope that as a result of the political horizon, the Palestinians will develop the will to put a stop to terrorism, accompanied by the ability to do so. If this does not transpire, we will be forced to continue defending ourselves and our homeland, including in their territories.
The second element is security separation. Unlike unilateral political separation, the Ben-Eliezer plan advocates a security separation designed to make it as difficult as possible for terrorists and means of destruction to enter the State of Israel.
It sees this as a vital component in reducing the friction between us and the Palestinians, and reducing the potential for escalation. Ultimately, we will need a continuous, integrated system combining a physical barrier with technological means, armed personnel, and command, control and monitoring systems.
We have no other alternative if we want to effectively block the wave of attacks by suicide bombers being perpetrated in the heart of our country. It should be emphasized that this kind of separation is not meant to demarcate a border line, but rather to leave all political options open.
‘Political horizon’
The third element is instigating a political horizon to act both as a compass and as a guide. We must instigate a genuine horizon that is both substantial and credible — for ourselves, for the Palestinians as a whole and also for the regional and the international community.
This horizon is grounded first and foremost in a vision of two states for two peoples, living in peaceful coexistence — Israel and Palestine.
The Arab minority will be integrated in the State of Israel with equal civil rights. The realization of the vision of not controlling another people will strengthen Israel as a Zionist state with a solid Jewish majority.
The basis for a settlement will be provided by U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242, 338 and 1397, and it will generally follow President Clinton’s parameters.
The political horizon should also include the initiative of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, with the all-Arab endorsement that it recently received at the Arab summit in Beirut.
Although this should not be adopted exactly as drafted, it should certainly be given due consideration, as an initiative that opens the door to a comprehensive all-Arab settlement with Israel, based on the idea of land for peace and an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The Palestinian state will include the bulk of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It will enjoy territorial contiguity in the West Bank, and there will be special passage arrangements between the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Israel will evacuate the settlements in the Gaza Strip area and the isolated settlements in the West Bank area. Most settlers will be able to concentrate in primary blocs adjacent to Israel, which will become part of Israel, in the framework of the agreement.
Their total area and form will be determined in negotiations. Israel will be willing to swap land with the Palestinian state, involving areas whose size and location will be agreed upon in the negotiations.
Concerning Jerusalem, the agreement will establish a reality in which an expanded western Jerusalem, including Jewish neighborhoods in the eastern part of the city, will be recognized as Israel’s capital for the first time.
From the territorial-demographic point of view, Israeli interests require separation from the manifestly Arab neighborhoods in the east of the city.
With regard to the Old City and the holy sites, a “special regime” should be applied. In this, each side’s special ties will be acknowledged, there will be no attribution of any final sovereignty on the Temple Mount, and there will be an agreed solution involving Islamic states and U.N. Security Council members.
Even for this sensitive point, it is not impossible to reach a solution as long as it is based on each side’s recognition of the other side’s special ties with that location. To date, the Palestinian side has not acted in this fashion.
There is no doubt that a solution must be found to the refugee problem, that involves symbolic, demographic and security aspects. But, whatever the solution, it must not be based on what is called the “right of return” to Israel and its application in the form of tens or even hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees entering Israel. Any agreement by the State of Israel to such an arrangement would undermine what have always been and still are its fundamental national ideological and demographic roots as the state of the Jewish people.
In practice, the solution to the problem will largely be achieved by rehabilitating the refugees and settling them in Palestine and in the locations where they are living, with the assistance of an international fund in which Israel will participate.
If we are dealing with refugees, we should point out that we also have refugees — from the Arab countries — and they should also be taken into account as part of an overall settlement.
The agreement must be based on strong security arrangements. The peace agreement as such can provide support for security, but it cannot guarantee security.
Consequently, in addition to our military might, we will need security arrangements that will provide stability to the agreement.
The basic conditions are the supervised demilitarization of the Palestinian state, so that it will have no army and none of the capacity and infrastructure of an army, and Israeli control of airspace that is indivisible as well as arrangements that will guarantee a response to emergency situations.
International supervision can be used for the application of at least some of the security measures, as well as international observer forces.
In the framework of an agreed arrangement, it will be desirable to rally the support of the international community — diplomatic support (including the formalization of the agreement achieved, in a new Security Council resolution, to replace all earlier relevant resolutions); backup on the ground as well as significant economic support.
Today, this vision seems far away, almost impossibly remote and extremely difficult to achieve. But we are duty-bound to present it, so that through it we can offer hope to both peoples. In practical terms, if we cannot implement it in one stroke, it can at least help both sides to progress toward it in a graduated manner.
Israel will have to make sure that during the interim period the settlements are frozen — with no construction of new settlements and no development beyond natural growth within their existing boundaries.
We will keep the door of negotiations open until there is somebody who will walk through it with us. In so doing, we will make it clear that implementing the political horizon is conditional on a return to the paramount principle of settling conflicts by negotiations, not by violence.
Benjamin Ben-Eliezer is Israel’s defense minister and the head of the Labor Party.
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