The unspeakable tragedy that unfolded in the sixth Israel-Arab war should force us to focus on what peace might look like. The building blocs are clear, but they are threatened particularly by those who stop thinking when it is most needed. The building blocs are:

[1] The UN Resolution 194 and UN Security Council 242, demanding the return of Palestinians who so want, and the withdrawal of Israel to the borders before the June 1967 war.

[2] The resolution by the Palestine National Council of 15 November 1988, thereby accepting a two state solution.

[3] The proposal by Saudi Arabia in 2002 that Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders in exchange for recognition by all Arab states.

Putting the building blocs in place we get two states side by side, with East Jerusalem and most of the West Bank reverting to Palestine (Israel has already withdrawn from Gaza), the Golan Heights to Syria, and some minor border problems solved, sometimes through creative adjustments. No big revolution. Only common sense.

But there are also minimum and maximum demands on both sides.

Palestine has three minimum, non-negotiable demands:

- a Palestinian state in line with [1] and [2] above, with
- East Jerusalem as the capital, and
- the right of return - as a right, numbers to be negotiated.

Israel has two minimum, non-negotiable demands:

- recognition of the Jewish state, Israel,
- within secure borders

All five goals are legitimate, and compatible.

The Palestinian legitimacy rests on continued residence, and the Jewish legitimacy on territorial attachment in their cultural narratives, and their residence in the past. It does not rest on their suffering at German and European hands. Any territorial bill on that basis would have to be placed at the feet of Germany.

The demands are compatible because they can be bridged by a two states solution with the 1967 borders, to be spelt out below.

But there are also maximum goals: an Eretz Israel defined by Genesis between the two rivers Nile and Euphrates (or something in that direction), and on the Palestinian/Arab/Muslim side no Israel at all, erased from the map. Their incompatibility is obvious. But they are also illegitimate. There is more than a de facto basis for a Jewish state, even if never anything with that extension.

How strong are the maximum demands? A major tragedy is that the war strengthened the maximalists, not only the "hatred". On the Israeli side some will feel the borders cannot be far enough out, at least where disarmament of anyone hostile to Israel is concerned. And their numbers were increasing by the days and weeks of war. On the Arab/Muslim side some will feel that the solution to Israel is no Israel at all; their numbers no doubt also increasing.

The two maximalist positions are emotionally and intellectually satisfying, being simple, easy to understand. And spell nothing but endless war. The Arabs have to accept some Israel state, but not the overextended, belligerent state of today. And the Jews have to understand that settler colonialism and occupation and continued expansion will never bring Israel secure borders. The road to security passes through peace. There is no road to peace that passes through security in the sense of eliminating people-supported Hezbollah and democratically elected Hamas. What perhaps might work against smaller and less firmly rooted groups will no longer work.

And new groups will be coming up all the time. Governments may be bribed or threatened into acquiescence, people never. Israel is supported by increasingly hesitant Western governments, some of them out of settler colonialist solidarity: USA, UK, Australia. Palestine is supported by the Arab and Muslim worlds. Maybe 1.3 billion and increasing, as against 0.3 billion and decreasing.

Hence, an in-between peace position must be made equally compelling. There is the 1967 possible meeting point, with mutually agreeable revisions, and the idea of two states with capitals in a Jerusalem that could become a confederation of two cities, East and West. But two demands still have to be met: the Israeli demand for security and the Palestinian for the right of some, limited, return.

However, Arab recognition is only a necessary, not sufficient condition for positive peace. Sovereign states may recognize each other and still go to war. They must be woven together in a web of positive interdependence making sustainable peace desirable to both.

Since Israel wants secure borders, why not focus on the border countries, Lebanon, Syria, a recognized Palestine, Jordan and Egypt? Imagine the five border countries and Israel start considering a Middle East Community, along the lines of the European Community, as a major carrier of sustainable peace in the region? Using the highly successful formula that accommodated Germany to accommodate Israel?

There would still be the problem of Palestinian return, half a million in Lebanon alone. And there is the problem of some parts of the West bank being a part of the Israeli narrative of the past. So why not exchange one for the other? Some Jewish cantons in a West Bank under Palestinian sovereignty in exchange for some Arab cantons inside a sovereign Israel? Both states could become federations rather than unitary states that are relics of the past anyhow.

The latest Camp David negotiations were non-starters because they fell short on three rather major points:

- East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine,
- a non-negotiable right of return wih negotiable numbers, and
- making borders reasonably secure in a peace community, like the Nordic Union, the European Union, and ASEAN.

No big revolution. Compelling by being obvious, common sense.

But not obvious to some Israeli and Western leaders travelling down the Viet Nam trail. USA did not win, and withdrew. The same happened to Israel, and will happen next time. Further down that trail of mad stupidity 9/11 and Iraq (read Iran) are waiting. There is now the idea of Lebanon in two parts, with international forces pacifying a South isolated from two evil outsiders, Syria and Iran. As doomed to failure as in Viet Nam. Hezbollah is a part of Lebanon like "Viet Cong" of Viet Nam. And arms are available and producible.

There was the indiscriminate killing of civilians, in line with the two points made by the Israeli army chief of staff, General Dan Halutz: to bomb ten buildings in the shiite district of Beirut for each Katyusha missile launched against Israel, and to "bomb Lebanon 20 years into the past" (El Pais 28/7, Haaretz and Jerusalem Post). Hezbollah also kills civilians, but the ratios are more like the 10:1 used by Dr Best for each German soldier killed by "terrorists" (they also used that term): Lidice in the Czech Republic, Oradour-sur-Glane in France, Kortelisy in Ukraine. During this war much bigger parts of Lebanon were the victims of collective punishment. Are Israeli lives worth that much more than Arab lives?

There is the naive idea that violence disappears if Hezbollah is disarmed, along UNSC 1559 lines. But 1559 makes no sense without 194 and 242. Israel cannot pick the resolution it wants, relying on USA forever controlling the UN. And Hezbollah will be reborn.

There is a conflict, the conflict cries for a solution, and the solution is a Middle East Community one day as obvious as the EC/EU.

Everybody should work for real peace as political complement to cease-fire. To help Israel stumble down the Viet Nam trail is blind solidarity, not acts of friendship. Friendship is to help Israel become a peacefare state.

Europeans could mobilize the talent and experience of the European Community/Union for a sustainable peace, not for infinite and escalating warfare. That would be an act of true friendship.

And Israel itself? A coming generation might do well to question the wisdom of the major right wing Zionist ideologue, Vladimir Yabotinsky, inspiring Begin, Netanyahu and now Olmert. To Yabotinsky there seem to be only two options, either "impotent, humiliating self-sacrifice or militant, invincible rage" (Jacqueline Rose, "The Zionist Imagination", The Nation, June 26, 2006, s. 34) To Yabotinsky Jews had been humiliated, shamed by violence, and the answer is militancy, violence. This vision, apart from making violence a cornerstone of human existence, excludes the third option: peace proposals, negotiation, settlement, peace. Peacefare.

And the Arabs, Muslims? Something similar. But Islam opens for the third possibility, not only dar-al-Islam and dar-al-Harb, the House of Peace and the House of War. There is also the dar-al-Ahd, coexistence with the infidels, possibly in a community, not too close, not too distant. Possibly also as an Organization for the Security and Cooperation in the Middle East. The coming political generations would do well to elaborate this in more detail. Today.

When will such generations come to power? How far have we been set back? Difficult to tell. The three building blocs for peace have been there for some time. But nothing seemed acceptable to Israel. They never let them into their collective mind and public space. And outside pressure will only confirm the stark Yabotinsky dichotomy. If Israel wants security, mainstream Israel must learn to want peace.

That leaves us with the maximalists. Their strongest argument against the moderates is "your line doesn't work". And the strongest counter-argument, like for ETA, for IRA, is to prove them wrong.

29 August 2006