Twenty years ago, we observed that 44 years ago, in 1973, Israel was saddled with a peace ‘process.’ Not ‘peace’ — but a ‘peace process’ — relentlessly aggravates Israel’s sense of insecurity and inflames the region.
The following editorial, “Lethal linguistic bullet: Peace ‘process,’” was published in the IJN 20 years ago, March 28, 1997. Remarkably, this editorial shows that not only has the essence of the ‘peace process’ not changed for Israel, but even many of the details remain unchanged.
More remarkably, the second editorial, “Let’s end the peace ‘process’ in the Middle East,” published in the IJN 35 years ago, April 30, 1982, reflects the same reality.
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Lethal linguistic bullet: Peace ‘process’
March 28, 1997
Peace. It’s clear what it means. War. Also clear.
But peace process?
It’s a term that’s disturbed us ever since 1982, when we remarked in these columns [box below] on the Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai, as Israel’s “land” for Egypt’s “peace.” The diplomats and commentators then did not speak of “peace” between Israel and Egypt; they spoke of the “peace process” between Israel and the Arabs, of the important “step” in the peace “process” that the Israeli withdrawal signified, and of the coming, necessary “steps” in the peace “process” — necessary for the peace “process” to retain its “momentum.”
Get the idea? There’s political reality here driven by a linguistic preference. At first glance, it may seem absurd to suggest that a single word can control the minds of powerful rulers and elected officials, but history is replete with both peace and war due to false, slippery or quite deliberate formulations. Somehow, ever since the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israel has been burdened with a peace process.
Formulated this way, Israel will never be at peace. There will always be some additional concession, compensation or compromise demanded of Israel. We noted this in 1982, and this is exactly the way it’s been. Only now, the dimensions of the, if you will, process are reaching the absurd.
In 1982, Israel commanded a region from the Golan in the north to the Nile River in the south, and from the Mediterranean to the Jordan. This was deemed too much. It was not conducive to peace. And now, 15 years later? Israel commands no Sinai and virtually nothing of the West Bank of the Jordan. Its territorial mass is reduced several-fold. But Israel is not one step closer to being at peace. The land returned is not enough, it is said.
• Israel must now reduce its presence in Jerusalem; Har Homa is the battle cry; “forget a unified Jerusalem under Jewish sovereignty,” as we wrote in January, 1996, based on the inherent logic of the peace process.
• Chillingly enough, Israel must now contemplate returning parts of Israel — pre-1967 Israel, nay, pre-1947-UN-partition Israel. (See this week’s Carl Alpert’s “Dateline Haifa.”) Again, all predictable on the basis of the logic inherent in the so-called peace process.
There is no end to this peace process. What should be ended is this terminology. In it are planted the seeds of Israel’s destruction.This is happening before our eyes, piecemeal, if you will.
Those who have advocated this peace process have much to answer for. They have set in motion the slow but gradual strangulation of Israel. There is all the difference in the world between peace and a “peace process.” The latter has no stop. It keeps going, until there is no Israel left. Let’s start hearing about peace. With a measurable, quantifiable, definable end.
If it becomes illegitimate to argue for peace, rather than a peace process, then indeed the Arabs have triumphed, using the peace process as but another tool of war, with the same end: the end of Israel.
Let’s end the peace ‘process’ in the Middle East
April 30, 1982
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No nation in history in a comparable state of strength did what Israel did last Sunday: Hand over to an ex-enemy, which tried to destroy it three times in 26 years, a piece of conquered territory much bigger than itself.
But Israel did it, and it did it with writhing and tears, remorse and trembling — and for good reason. All the shuddering and all the joylessness in Israel in the past few weeks have far less to do with regret over peace or distrust of Egypt than with the enormous dangers which a tiny, truncated Israel entails.
It is amazing to us how all the nations and commentators — starting with The New York Times and the Washington Post in their editorials on the day of the withdrawal — devoted their energies to figuring out what should come next in the Middle East. The commentators asked: how can Israel “build on” the peace? How can Israel “secure” the peace? How can Israel “look beyond” the Sinai withdrawal, or implement the “second half” of Camp David? How canIsrael keep the “peace process” going?
How brazen! You would think that western democracies, with all of their territory and all of their might, would have the basic decency to let Israel pause momentarily and absorb the implications of the enormous strategic and economic strength which it just voluntarily surrendered.
The shuddering in Israel has far less to do with it ideological beliefs about the sacredness of the Land of Israel or with its intentions for the Golan or the West Bank than with its searing memories of the would be acts of Arab genocide which were almost successful because of Israel’s lilliputian proportions (the size of New Jersey).
Israel is going to be much more jittery and defensive and much less flexible and open now. That is the price which the West is going to have to pay for peace in the Middle East. Israel had to pay a price for peace — the renunciation of territory — and it did. The world loved it. Well, the world is now going to have to pay a price too: A tiny Israel, which means a nervous Israel.
Everybody thinks that Israel should be ecstatic now that it has peace. The reason that Israel is not ecstatic does not reflect a repudiation of all that began with [Egyptian President] Sadat’s journey to Jerusalem. Israel is not an ingrate. It hates bloodshed not one iota less than it always did. It appreciates the opportunity to try to live without wars with the Arabs not one less degree than it did in 1977. No, it is not second thoughts which make Israel tremble. It is not unquenchable land hunger or a desire to dominate the Arabs (which the commentators now read in to Israel’s anguish over the Sinai withdrawal) that pervades Israel. No, it is none of that which twists the Israeli gut. It is, rather, the simple, elemental memory of an elementary fact: Smallness invites, aids, and abets aggression.
The inability of the commentators and the nations to pick up this all pervasive ground of Israel’s mood only shows how detached the world is from Israel’s sacrifice, how truly unaware the world is of the traumas which extreme, unparalleled smallness entail.
And so, we have now the indecent chorus, the call for Israel’s next sacrifice just moments after the last bulldozer pulled out of Yamit. One of the main causes of the chorus is, surprisingly, semantics. We have all become accustomed to the continued and malevolent use of the term, “peace process.” Anybody can tell you that a process never ends. By incessantly harping on the “peace process” in the Middle East, the West makes known its expectations of Israel: To give up, to renounce, to cede and concede once again, over and over, continuously, without end.
Why can’t we just hear the term “peace”? Is there not now peace between Egypt and Israel? Has not Israel renounced enough? In the name of decency and fairness, why must the term peace PROCESS be sounded? What more is there left for Israel to process? What more must Egypt be given? Have we not reached a stopping point? Cannot Israel rest for a moment? Do we not have peace now, simple and unqualified?
Of course, there are challenges and difficulties on the West Bank. But why call these part of a “peace process,” as if Israel is endlessly to be put through the meat grinder and cannot justly claim that with respect to one of its Arab neighbors it can now expect a final, unequivocal, unbudgeable peace, and not some bottomless pit termed a “peace process”?
We are sick and tired of hearing what Israel has to do next. Israel has done, period. It has lived through four wars which Egypt launched, it has lost its precious soldiers to aggression. It has given up all that the erstwhile enemy wanted, down to the last square inch. Enough. Israel has done; it has created a new reality. That is not process, it is a fact. Let it be appreciated as such.
As for the future, let the present enemies step forward with a plan for an unequivocal, just, final peace. It is their turn to do something. In the meantime, let all others have the decency to let Israel pause in its contemplation of the strategic implications of all the oil, land, air-bases, and economic and emotional investments that it just now gave away.
