By Miriam Tramer in Israel
While Israelis long for peace, they seem unwilling to yield anything for it. In the current election campaign, both Labour and Likud are adamant in rejecting an independent Palestinian state.
While Labour, unlike Likud, is willing to give up some territory, its proposals would still retain 40% of the occupied territories and most of the Jewish settlements in those areas.
The Labour plan would leave four geographically separated areas of Palestinian population: around Nablus in the north, around Ramallah and Jerusalem in the centre, around Hebron in the south and, of course, Gaza.
The current Israeli proposal for municipal elections has to be seen in this light. Such elections, held in geographically and administratively separate areas, would set up parochial local and individual interests which would be barriers to the coordination and organisation needed to work for a single Palestinian state.
As well, the proposal involves only what the Palestinians call "rubbish autonomy": control of defence and resources would remain with the Israelis, while the Palestinians would obtain only such administrative tasks as organising rubbish collection.
A "peace proposal" gaining support in Israel is called Peace in Stages. It is of interest more for what it reveals about Israeli illusions than for any chance of bringing peace.
Among other things, it proposes an initial period of five years in which not a single Israeli soldier is withdrawn, and a subsequent 10-year period in which Israel would retain army units along the Jordan and patrol the skies over the West Bank. The Arab states would be required to sign peace treaties with Israel, while Israel could renounce its vague commitments to the Palestinians if the latter engaged in "hostile propaganda"!
A January survey found 60% support for this proposal. That so many Israelis could believe that this program has any chance of acceptance by the Palestinians indicates the unreal world inhabited by the Israeli psyche.
The universal statement is, "You can't trust the Arabs". Never asked is the question: "What basis have the Arabs, particularly the Palestinians, for trusting us?"
A woman who, in the Israeli context, is quite progressive, warned me earnestly against going to East Jerusalem. "Tourists are regularly stabbed there", she said. "The Israeli censorship blocks publicity of such incidents." I found Arab shopkeepers and others there thoroughly helpful; one even gave me a lift to where I was going when I had lost my bearings.
Even those Israelis troubled by the situation of the Palestinians say, "What can be done?" They believe that, if military vigilance is eased in any way, the Arabs will take advantage of their "weakness" and "drive us into the sea".
This a like an article of faith, blocking any perception that the Arabs and Palestinians, however reluctantly, have accepted the existence of the Israeli state.
The media and education system constantly emphasise the historical persecution of Jews — in particular, of course, the Holocaust.
At the Museum of the Holocaust in Jerusalem, parties of young army recruits are taken around for their injection of Holocaust. But it is all one-dimensional, ahistorical: the only "lesson" drawn is the absolute necessity of a Jewish state based on unassailable military strength. But as one Israeli said to me, "The Holocaust was too terrible an event for Zionism to be the answer".