If ever there were disproof of the viability of the Israel-Palestinian “peace process,” it was the Abraham Accords signed last year. Four Muslim countries made, not a peace process, with Israel. They made peace.
A process never ends. The Israel-Palestinian peace process was first envisioned after Egypt’s rapprochement with Israel in 1977 — 44 years ago.
It’s still going.
In November, 1977, Anwar Sadat, who had launched an unsuccessful war against Israel on Yom Kippur in 1973, came to the conclusion, radical at the time, that it was time for peace.
Dramatically, he came to Israel (a move that ultimately got him assassinated at home). Sadat did not come to initiate a peace process; he came to make peace. Negotiations for peace concluded at Camp David in March, 1979.
I was in the room with Sadat and Israel Prime Minister Menachem Begin at a press conference in Jerusalem when each of them spoke about . . . peace. They rhapsodized. “No more war,” said Sadat.
No Palestinian joined the Israel-Egypt end to war. No Palestinian leader spoke of peace with Israel. Sadat, however, insisted that the next step in Israeli-Arab peace be with the Palestinians.
The Palestinians did not step up. Israel offered the Palestinians autonomy. The Palestinians did not make a counteroffer. Instead, they sustained war, i.e., terrorism against Israel. Under these circumstances, the only alternative for the Palestinians was a peace “process,” envisioned not by Palestinians but by outsiders, such as Sadat.
So it has been since 1979.
An endless process.
Egypt made peace with Israel.
Jordan made peace with Israel 15 years later.
Now four Muslim nations have made peace with Israel.
The Palestinians, however, are mired in a peace process. It has no end because its goal is not peace. Its goal is a “two-state solution.” It sounds the same as peace, but it’s not. That’s why it’s never happened.
A “two-state solution” that does not acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state, and does not represent an end to the conflict — a final renunciation of all political and territorial claims by both sides — is not peace. It’s not what Sadat did. It’s not the Abraham Accords.
The Palestinian leadership states that it “recognizes Israel,” but not as a Jewish state, and not as a permanent country against which no future political and territorial claims can be made.
For the Palestinian leadership, “recognizing Israel” is just another stage in the “process” — to put an end to Israel.
Don’t take my word for it. Ask Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, whether a Palestinian state would mean the end of all future claims against Israel. He has said no. He has said that the Palestinians will reserve the right to bring some five million descendants of the Palestinians of 1948 into Israel as Israeli citizens. This would end Israel as a Jewish state. As for Hamas, it does not even “recognize Israel.”
“Systemic racism” is like a “peace process.” When something is “systemic,” its solution cannot be defined short of the destruction of the system.
Just as there is a clear alternative to a peace process, namely, peace, there is a clear alternative to systemic racism. It is a change in measurable behavior.
Racist behavior can be defined, and on that basis, it can be changed.
Racist behavior can be defined in terms of politics, marriage, schools, neighborhoods, the work place, voting and policing. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights movement was successful because it fought, not “systemic racism,” but racist behavior and racist laws.
They could be defined, therefore they could be changed.
They have been changed in these ways:
Politics. No longer is it impossible, odd, unrealistic or unpalatable for a person of color to be elected to public office, from the lowest to the highest in the land. A black mayor who decries systemic racism in his city is a contradiction in terms. Black mayors, legislators, judges, city councilmen, governors, congresspeople are common. Not only common, but few even give it a second thought.
Marriage. Interracial marriages before the Civil Rights movement were very rare, and the couple was often persecuted. Today? Virtually nobody cares.
Voting. Georgia passes a much criticized voting law that nonetheless leaves Georgia with less restricted voting than Connecticut and other states. The lack of universal voting methods throughout the country cannot obscure the fact that voting rights, and actual voting by minorities, have risen beyond recognition compared to the Jim Crow era.
Accommodations. No longer is it legal, or realistic, to impose separate bathrooms, drinking fountains, restaurants, schools, neighborhoods and other places of public accommodation on the basis of color. So endemically has this reversal of Jim Crow become that, legal or not, any such discrimination even in private spaces, such as work places and clubs, is virtually impossible today.
Does this mean that there is no racism in a city with a black mayor? Does this mean that voting laws are beyond improvement? Does this mean that racist attitudes have completely died? Or that there is no racism in public or private spaces, or that interracial marriage is universally accepted? Of course not. But there has been a radical shift because the changes sought were behavioral and measurable.
What about the criminal justice system? Is it “systemically racist?”
It depends on definitions. If the basis of the definition is non-contextual — the percentage of people of color who are shot, arrested or incarcerated as a portion of the population — then the whole system is racist. On this definition, the only solution is the dismantling of the entire system.
If one aks why people of color are shot, arrested or incarcerated in numbers disproportionate to their percentage of the population, a contextual picture of all causes may emerge. A contextual picture, I would argue, may lend itself to a faster, fairer and more concrete eradication of the racist behavior that remains.
One pertinent question is whether there are more people of color in the criminal justice system because more crimes are committed by people of color. This should be measurable.
Why would this be so? Our families are failing. Our mental health services are failing. Our schools are failing. Our values are failing.
These are all measurable. Therefore, these are all solvable. Only with difficulty, only with sustained focus, but solvable.
Peace solves problems. A peace process does not. Concrete policies to improve mental health, schools, families, and values in America solve problems. Enunciation of “systemic racism” does not. It leads, for example, to defunding police for citizens who will then suffer from increased crime.
We need to take yes for an answer when major progress on the racial front is achieved and identified. This generates enthusiasm for new policies that address remaining issues. The noncontextual approach — “systemic racism” — is, in part, intended to make people who aren’t guilty of racism feel guilty, and can generate a different response: “If all the progress is worthless, and no concerete goal short of self-destruction can be defined, why bother?”
Copyright © 2021 by the Intermountain Jewish News
