Life in Israel is bound to become more difficult if the U.S. attacks Iraq, said Professor David Menashri, Ph.D., a leading scholar on the Middle East, during a visit to Milwaukee last week.
“Israel will pay twice,” he said. “The first time, Israel might be attacked by the Iraqis,” as happened during the first Persian Gulf war in 1991.
“But now, the Iraqis may attack with biological or chemical warfare” instead of with a small number of conventional missiles, he said. “The likelihood is that this will be a very dirty war.”
“The second time the Israelis will be punished is after the war is over,” Menashri continued. “The United States will want to make peace in the Middle East and the pressure will be on Israel to make greater concessions.”
Though Menashri said that Israel would be better off making those concessions, he also said that the situation demands extraordinary leadership among both Israelis and Palestinians — leadership that is sadly lacking.
Menashri, senior research fellow at the Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Tel Aviv University, is one of the world’s experts on Iran. He spoke at Marquette University Law School on “Israel’s Prospects for Peace in a Dangerous Neighborhood.” He also spoke in the evening on “Israel in Her Troubled Neighborhood” at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
“It’s such an unpleasant job” to talk about the Middle East now, Menash- ri said. “We’re experiencing one of the most terrible times in the history of the Middle East,” marked by the collapse of the peace process, the current intifada, the war against terrorism and the prospects of a war in the Persian Gulf.
After Israel and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat signed the Oslo agreement in 1993, there was trust and joint progress, Menashri said. “We were on the path of peacemaking. Now, we’re going backward.”
In Israel, “The entire country is a victim of terror,” he said. “The economy is in very bad shape and … the prospects for resolving our problems are not very optimistic.”
“[H]atred and lack of trust is making resolution of the problem much more difficult,” he said. “There are no good channels of communication between the two sides.”
The most logical path of resolution is United States involvement, Menashri said. “The U.S. should be more directly involved in the Israeli/Palestinian problem. In the last two years, the U.S. has been less involved. The war on terrorism has occupied the U.S. more than those two children fighting in the Middle East.”
Though Israelis have lost faith in the peace process, Menashri contended that they “are not more rightist than they were two years ago,” a claim supported by public opinion polls. “The majority support a Palestinian state; they’re just not confident that there’s a valid partner in peace.”
Still, we have to find a formula to live side by side, and concessions will have to be made, he said. “Making peace with the Palestinians is not easy because Israel will have to withdraw from the settlements.”
“My understanding of Zionism is that Israel is both Jewish and democratic,” he said. If the West Bank and Gaza are annexed and the Palestinians become a majority there, Menashri said, “In the near future, we’ll have to decide between [being Jewish and a democracy] and I don’t want to make that decision.”
To reach a solution, Menashri concluded, “Both sides should be equally dissatisfied. But at least the main aim should be to prevent killing.”
Menashri’s visit was sponsored by Hillel Foundation-Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s Israel Center, the Milwaukee Jewish Council for Community Relations and the American Jewish Committee-Milwaukee Chapter.
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