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January 10,,1998
Remarks at the GTU Conference
“What is or ought to be the role of human rights in the process
of
reconciliation between Palestinians and Israelis?”
By Bassem Eid
I expect this conference to include the word ‘reconciliation’
quite often.
In the years I have been a human rights activist, I have almost
never seen it.
If you are familiar with my work, then you know that I have been
researching Israeli violations of human rights since the
beginning of the Intifada in 1988. In a sense, I owe my career
as a human rights violations.
One category of human rights violation is based on the behavior
of a particular individual, who failed a moral choice. The
Israeli soldier who shoots a child at close range with a rubber
bullet, or the Civil Administration employee who buried
Palestinians up to their necks with a bulldozer certainly fall
into this category. In general, such people when caught do not
express of his command by the Military Court of Appeals, was
given an appeal by the President. Even after his conviction, he
never indicated that he thought his actions were wrong.
Another category would be ‘institutional evil.’ The mechanism
that drives Palestinian residents out of Jerusalem, or imposes
the closure, or destroys homes to pave the way for a bypass
road, are all such examples. There is no individual pulling the
trigger in such cases. The guilt is not localized. The entire
bureaucracy, and by extension the people of the State of Israel,
are all responsible. I have never seen an official expression of
remorse for the pain that this kind of violation has caused.
My point, is that reconciliation seems like an awkward term to
introduce in my line of work. It does not actually exist except
in the minds and words of academics. It is my prediction, that
any former senior military officer who would express remorse,
with an eye to reconciliation, would immediately be seen by both
sides as an extreme exception. The only remorse I have
encountered is among lower ranking soldiers, who weren’t
actually guilty of severe violations. In expressing themselves,
I felt that their primary concern was distancing themselves from
the actual violators, not in approaching the victims- who are of
minor importance in the Israeli mind.
Everything I have said about Israeli violations goes for
Palestinian violations against other Palestinians. Thousands of
people are busy oppressing their own brothers. You would think
that somewhere along the line, a person would break down and
express remorse. But this has not happened. Not even in cases
where two old friends, tortured together by Israel, meet again
in Palestinian jails. Only this time, one of them is going to
torture his former comrade. The only time I met self-criticism,
was in the case of former Intifada activists who killed
suspected collaborators and ‘anti-social elements’ who ‘may not
have deserved to die after all.’
Dealing with the human rights violations that each society has
committed on the other is an essential aspect of reconciliation.
Sidestepping the issue is a problematic logic which lies at the
heart of the Oslo peace process. How can Israel be persuaded to
avoid committing additional human rights violations, when it has
never acknowledged that these were committed, illegally and
immorally, in the first place?
Reconciliation does exist within Israeli society, but in a
strange form. My Israeli friends and colleagues from B’Tselem
would probably reconcile with Palestinians, but for what? As
individuals, they have little to nothing to reconcile. As
representatives of Israeli society, I can only say that they are
not. They should not concern themselves with trying to express
any sort of generalized Israel morality or tendency, until such
a morality or tendency makes itself known within ‘official’
Israel.
Many official Palestinians, such as Sufyan Abu Zayda, the head
of the Israeli desk for the PA, acknowledge their role as
‘terrorists’ in the past. This segment is led by President
Arafat, who in turn was only following the grassroots demand of
Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza who demanded peace.
This is different than Rabin, for example, who led his people a
few steps too far ahead, and was shot down for precisely that
reason.
Taking a minute to look at South Africa, I have the feeling- as
someone who is not an expert- that white South African society
is not proud of apartheid. They are in agreement with the Black
majority, not only that white rule was not feasible any longer,
but that it was no longer moral. This was the basis for
reconciliation.
In Israel, this basis is absent. Rabin, for all his effort in
advancing peace, never expressed any remorse in the name of the
Israeli people for the evils that he was responsible for. He
never said publicly, that the order to break bones during the
Intifada was perhaps wrong. Israeli society saw peace as a ‘good
deal,’ which did not mark any break in the continuity of the
grand Israeli project, morally and historically. It was a
strategic peace, not a moral peace. Israel sees peace as a
concession to the Arabs, or a necessary stage, not as a
consequence of the moral failure of previous policies. No peace
has been made between the minority of Israel which sees
occupation as wrong, and the majority which sees it as perhaps
no longer feasible.
At this stage, the reconciliation within our two societies is as
important as the one between them. Both of our societies contain
elements whose hostility to each other spills over into the
relationship between Jew and Arab. The other way around is true
as well. Peace and reconciliation has to be built up from the
ground up; if not, it is like a building without foundations.
I wish for my people and for the Israelis, that the moral
dimensions of our history be confronted. Without it, there will
be no reconciliation. Without a recognition that the balance of
wrongs, has not been equal, that responsibility for the conflict
has not been equal, we cannot accept this peace as genuine. Both
sides can be wrong, but the more powerful side is usually far
more wrong, as a consequence of its ability to inflict harm.
Palestinians are for some kind of apology which I think will be
greeted with forgiveness, if it is felt in deeds and not only as
words.
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