Israeli-Palestinian conflict becomes issue of human rights

Pro-Israel assumptions hinder conflict resolution

Chelsea Moore, Staff

Popular assumptions about the role of Israel could ultimately prevent a solution to the Israel-Palestine peace process, according to Dr. Jeff Halper.

Halper, the coordinator of the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions, spoke to U of M students and faculty on Nov. 10, questioning the underlying assumptions that have made peace so hard to achieve.

In his speech, called “Reframing the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: a Problem of Security and Terrorism or Human Rights?” Halper broke down the “popular” framework within which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is widely talked about and brought the discussion to a new level — one based on human rights.

Halper explained how there are false assumptions embedded in the popular pro-Israel framework, which focus on the idea that Israel is a victim who must secure itself against terrorism.

“If you accept a pro-Israel approach, you actually begin accepting certain assumptions that may not be right,” said Halper.

He added that “to be a victim is very convenient and self-serving. A victim has no responsibility. A victim has no accountability,” he said. “We’re the fourth largest nuclear power in the world. If you can combine tremendous power and being the occupying power with being the victim and not being held accountable for anything, that’s a very powerful position to be sitting in.”

Another key assumption that is simply not true, according to Halper, is the notion that Israel is a Western democracy. In the West, “the state belongs to its citizens . . . and anybody can become a citizen.”

In Israel, there is a policy of “exclusivity” whereby the Arabs that live there “do not add up to a people with collective rights of self-determination. Therefore the flip side of the coin is that the Arabs reside there by sufferance and not by right.”

Fagie Fainman, an ex-lawyer who currently works on human rights issues, described her experience as a Jewish person who does not follow the mainstream pro-Israel view.

“Basically, unless I start defining the terms with some of my Jewish friends . . . . We both will be deaf to each other and we won’t hear each other,” she said. “I found that [Halper] accomplished making us aware of how we can dialogue better with people who have different opinions than we have.”

The human rights framework that Halper and others have adopted counters the view that emphasizes security and Arab terrorism, and focuses on Israel being an occupational force.

“Not only is there an occupation, but it’s proactive, and this contradicts the whole idea of security,” said Halper.

“You can’t explain the building of two hundred settlements. You can’t explain the massive expropriation of Palestinian land, the demolition of 12,000 Palestinian homes, the uprooting of a million fruit and olive trees, the de-development of the occupied territories, the impoverishment of the population. You can’t explain any of those elements by security.”

Marko Jaff, a third-year political studies student, noted how information is lacking in discussions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “As they say in the Middle East, Israel and Palestine have basically become the gum that everybody chews on . . . everybody talks about it but nobody really knows what the problem is,” he said.

Halper also stressed that no pro-Israel spokesperson has ever admitted to the fact that Israel is an occupational power partly because it is assumed that this statement is directly related to anti-Semitism and therefore anti-peace.

According to Fainman, “If you don’t agree with [pro-Israel] views, you get called a self-hating Jew or an anti-Semite, and so you’re kind of marginalized by a lot of mainstream,” she said. “The thing is, they like to brand you as being anti-Israel. I’m not anti-Israel, this is very important, I’m anti-Israeli policies.”

The solution to a more peaceful state, according to Halper, could only be possible if some form of Palestinian recognition were to develop.

“There has to be an expression of Palestinian self-determination. Either in a Palestinian state . . . or, if that’s impossible, than there might have to be a single-democratic state,” he said. “Only a just, win-win approach that’s based on human rights and international law can actually resolve the conflict and create a sustainable peace.”

Alon Weinberg, a native studies student at the U of M, noted: “If any one knows of something other than human rights to refer to in this situation that would lead to justice and peace and mutual recognition to the Israelis and Palestinians, they should speak up. But for now, I think that the leading global discourse is on human rights.”