One Voice – resisting polarisation

OneVoice’s priority is to resist the polarising forces of conflict, encourage Israelis and Palestinians, in parallel, out of their fixed narratives, and build a mandate for elected politicians to negotiate a settlement which establishes a Palestinian state.

Read about OneVoice Glasgow’s visit to the Israeli town of Sderot terrorised by bombs from Gaza, and the Palestinian town of Salfeet, harassed by growing Israeli settlements. Also read a Q&A session with OneVoice’s youth leaders. Dalia Labadi:

“At OneVoice, everything you’re doing is for a better future, geared toward ending the conflict and the occupation. This is a noble feeling, when you’re doing something for the people that you’re part of. Being part of the movement made me more attached to the society, because you’re caring about your people’s future. Like Lee said, the other thing I’m proud of is hearing the other side’s narrative. This is something that you can’t be introduced to through the media or watching television. OneVoice could bridge the narratives.”

Peace and reconciliation or victory over the other?

Benjamin Pogrund

Benjamin Pogrund advocates peace – a two state solution – on Comment is Free.

The idea of two states – Israel and Palestine – living side by side in peace is endorsed by most of the world. The one-state solution that some support is a non-starter. Yet the chance of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestine conflict is diminishing. It is imperilled by unceasing growth in the number of Jewish settlers on the West Bank, known officially in Israel by the biblical names of Judea and Samaria. In 1972, 1,500 Jews lived there; now, it is more than 289,000. The more settlers and the bigger their settlements, the less possibility of creating an independent and viable Palestinian state. The Gaza Strip is out of the equation at this stage because of failure by Fatah and Hamas to agree on a joint government.

Israel has repeatedly promised to halt expansion on the West Bank. It has done so through its leaders and by going along with the road map of 2003, the Wye Plantation agreement before that, the Annapolis accord and so on. Despite this, last year the number of settlers increased by 4.9%, and the year before by 5.5%.

The ongoing process will be challenged on 18 May when the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, will be in Washington DC for his first meeting with US president Barack Obama. The extent to which Obama insists that Israel keep its promises – and more importantly, how far he will go for fulfilment – will determine the future of the Middle East.

Obama has already declared his aim: the two-state solution. Secretary of state Hillary Clinton agrees. It’s also the policy of the Palestinian Authority. The European Union wants it. So does Russia. The Arab League has offered acceptance, with qualifications, through its Saudi peace initiative.

Former president George W Bush also wanted two states. Israel told him it would curb settlement growth. It did not. Every now and again secretary of state Condoleeza Rice visited Israel and gave a press conference to announce that she was telling the government to curb settlements. She was ignored.

The three years up to January this year tell the story. Ehud Olmert was prime minister. He began as a rightwinger, believing in Israel’s continued settlement of the West Bank, which it has occupied since the 1967 war. But he changed: during his last two years in office he increasingly supported a Palestinian state; by his last cabinet meeting he was saying passionately that Israel had to end its occupation. He warned that Israel was doomed if it stayed: its Jewish majority was threatened by Arab numbers and an apartheid situation would arise if it remained.

However, his government’s actions consistently contradicted his words. Statistics provided by the Peace Now movement, using census and UN details show that 5,111 new “housing units” (meaning anything from one to 20 apartments) were built from January 2006 to January 2009, and tenders were issued for more than 1,500 housing units.

The same pattern occurred in the “illegal outposts” set up without formal government permission. Israel has promised to evacuate them. But not one was evacuated during the three years; instead, the outposts acquired 560 new structures – mainly caravans but also permanent buildings. At the start of Olmert’s tenure, 475 roadblocks and checkpoints existed in the West Bank. Their purpose was and is security. With less tension and suicide bombings ended, the number was supposed to be reduced. Instead, according to the UN, by January this year there were more than 600.

East Jerusalem also features. It is intended to be divided and be a shared capital for Israel and Palestine. But the 250,000 Palestinians who live there have vast difficulty in getting permits to build houses and when they build illegally they are targets for demolition orders. At the same time, housing for Jews is fostered: during the three years, tenders were issued for 2,437 new housing units. These will add to the existing Jewish residential areas in East Jerusalem, which occupy 35% of the area and house 190,000 people. As far as is known, Olmert – who resigned as prime minister to face corruption charges – has never explained the discrepancy between his words and official deeds.

The fact is that the settlers do pretty much as they want. Many are driven by religious messianic belief that God gave Judea and Samaria to Jews and it is their right and duty to keep it so forevermore. Although the settlers are a tiny minority of the Israeli population they have become the tail that wags the dog. Successive governments have backed away from reining them in out of fear of violent resistance.

The settlers and their supporters – who include those who believe in possession of the West Bank for security purposes – permeate the government. That has enabled the illegal siphoning off of millions upon millions of shekels from departmental budgets to provide houses, build roads and lay on electricity and water to settlements and outposts – and to guarantee permanent protection by the army.

A government lawyer, Talia Sasson, appointed to investigate the illegal outposts, reported four years ago that the state was undermining its own rule of law. She has been ignored. None of it could be possible without the army’s active connivance. No Israeli can do anything on the West Bank unless the army agrees and helps. That is also a cause for government apprehension: the officer corps has changed in character and the proportion who are religious has increased to about one-fifth. They live in settlements, or have family or friends there. Will they accept orders to evacuate, if necessary by force?

The settlers and others who support them are deliberately creating facts on the ground to undermine the chance of a Palestinian state; and even if one comes into being to ensure that it is so divided and weak as not to present any security threat. The intention is also to establish a ring of Jewish settlements around Jerusalem to cut off the city from the West Bank so that it cannot serve as a Palestinian capital. Meanwhile, the new rightwing government’s policy on dealing with Palestinians is still being prepared and its statements are confused. Netanyahu, for example, says he wants to resume peace negotiations without conditions with Palestinians; in the next breath he says Palestinians must first accept Israel as a Jewish state.

Washington is sending strong signals: on Tuesday, Joe Biden and John Kerry told the pro-Israel Aipac lobby annual conference that Israel must freeze all West Bank building and make further concessions to the Palestinian Authority. It’s also reported that two weeks ago Obama proposed a new deal on Palestinian refugees to Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah.

But will Obama wield a stick if Israel does not embrace a two-state solution and work with Palestinians to get swift agreement on the core issues of ending the occupation, borders, Jerusalem, the Holy Basin and refugees? How big a stick is available as he contends with the economic catastrophe, domestic problems and Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan? How can he drive an Israeli government to do what it doesn’t want to do?

Benjamin Pogrund advocates peace – a two state solution – on Comment is Free.

Norman Geras on Antony Lerman’s latest Cif piece

Here.

Reconciliation and understanding, not boycotts and exclusions

In the NY Times.

Dealing with Conflict – an event organised by Wahat al-Salaam / Neve Shalom

Dealing with Conflict (School for Peace – Wahat al-Salam ~ Neve Shalom)
London 31/03/09 or Brighton 24/04/09

Workshop about our Education Resource Dealing With Conflict which is in line with national curricular requirements. Suits citizenship, RE, history, community cohesion, mediation skills, exploring identity, inter faith, Learning about the Israel-Arab conflict. Featured in TES, DEA RE Today, and DFES. Dealing with conflict is modelled after the international institute of encounter and conflict resolution, The School for Peace, in Neve Shalom ~ Wahat al-Salam, a joint Jewish / Palestinian village.

Workshop will also accommodate any non teaching professional who likes to learn about the methods at SFP.

More details: http://www.oasisofpeaceuk.org/5-dwc-01.htm
Office 020-89524717 M. 07843630760
daniel.z@oasisofpeaceuk.org

Daniel Zylbersztajn
B.A. hon. (SOAS), M.A. (Goldsm.), M.Sc. (Brunel),
Member of NUJ for PR / Press

Education Coordinator / Press & PR
British Friends of Neve Shalom~Wahat al Salam

For all Phone +44.7843630760

One Voice in 2009: breaking taboos

By email from OneVoice:

“2009 opened with a variety of new opportunities and unforeseen challenges which have dramatically altered the political landscape in the Middle East – elections and a war, new administrations and more violence. In some ways, the greatest challenge facing us this year is not what has changed, but what has stubbornly persisted: Palestinians still live under occupation, without freedom or independence; Israelis still live under threat from rocket attacks, without security or safety. The dream of two states for two peoples has not been realized.

The tragedy of the Gaza war widened the rift between Israelis and Palestinians – a schism that was acutely felt by OneVoice’s Israeli and Palestinian teams on the ground, threatening the very fabric of the Movement. None were more affected than our Gaza staff, who had to be evacuated following the war, and who have been temporarily relocated to the West Bank. But across all staff and members, there was an enormous amount of trust lost, which needed to be rebuilt.

To confront the situation, over the past two months, OneVoice has been engaged in a deep process of introspection, self-evaluation, political assessment, and strategic consultation to address the current situation and devise a way forward – we came together as a team, Israelis, Palestinians, and internationals, and in so doing were able to reach some conclusions about how we can strengthen the Movement, address the changing realities on the ground, and effect real change this year. After conferring with the OVI and OVP Youth Councils, the International Steering Committee, the International and Regional Boards, and staff from across the offices, OneVoice’s global leadership met together in Jerusalem in late February, and agreed on the following:

OneVoice can play a key role in the process – offering a concrete way forward to both peoples. We have built an unparalleled infrastructure and youth movement based on a unique premise: each side working in its own national self-interest to achieve freedom, independence, security, dignity, viability, and international recognition for both peoples.

But nothing will ever change if we don’t have the courage to say what needs to be said and do what needs to be done. Beneath the surface of the phrase “two state solution” there is a great deal of consensus that is yet to be forged within and between both societies – a great deal of understanding that is still missing. Even with our signatories and team members, we have recognized that Palestinians and Israelis have yet to acknowledge the legitimate concerns and perspectives of the other side. OneVoice has a critical role to play in civic education: in tackling the reality of the historic compromise that will be required of both Israelis and Palestinians in order to end the occupation of Palestine, to guarantee the security of Israel, and to resolve the conflict once and for all based on a formula of mutual recognition between two independent and viable states: Israel and Palestine.

Our programs for 2009 will be focused exclusively on the need to take courageous steps and break taboos on each side in order to make progress. It will certainly not be easy – but we simply have no time to lose. The window for a two state solution is closing, and this must be the year we make the critical difference.

We look forward to updating you with more detail in the coming weeks.”

At the Goldsmiths Gaza debate

We spread the word about ‘The Great Debate – The Gaza Issue’ at Goldsmiths last week – I took some notes. Somebody made a video recording – might be worth checking the SU Middle Eastern Society page in a few days.

This debate was envisioned by its organisers (an unprecedented and positive parnership between Goldsmiths Middle-Eastern Society, Jewish Society and the Palestine & Israel Peace Society) as a departure from the kind of Israel/Palestine event Goldsmiths is used to. But something untoward happened with the way the panellists were recruited and fairly late in the day the organiser who had arranged Eric Lee and John Strawson found out that the other two speakers were known provocateurs. John Rose in particular practically lives in Goldsmiths Student Union as a guest of the Goldsmiths Palestine Twinning Campaigners.

Maybe the clue is on the Facebook event page – four panellists “two representing each ’side’”. The dichotomy which disrupts so many campus debates about Israel and Palestine was also present here.

Consequently there were last minute worries on the part of the Student Union (the event was promoted as public on Facebook) who briefly attempted to limit the audience to Goldsmiths staff and students in the hope of avoiding the seemingly-inevitable controversy due to the choice of Israel-eliminationist panellists. During this last-minute flip-flopping about this, John Strawson cancelled (with the offer to return another time). In the end, the event remained public.

However there was a lot which was good about this event. The chair in particular was principled, firm, bright and something else – concerned that the audience should leave in a positive frame of mind. The mood was relatively tolerant despite some revolting statements from one ’side’ of the panel. Eric Lee, being without anybody else on his ’side’, was allocated the appropriate amount of extra time. The format was also good – three questions interspersed with panellists’ responses and questions from the floor. These well-conceived measures kept the toxicity which dogs SWP/RESPECT-organised events out of this one and distinguished the co-organisers as SU societies committed to improving general understanding of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Hopefully they will organise more events.

The notes I took at the time [pdf]. Worth noting is Ghada Karmi’s “extremely generous offer” to allow Jews to live alongside Palestinians in “my country”, and Eric Lee’s response. Karmi’s main argument was to insist that it was simple: Jews came, stole my country and threw me out. John Rose defended suicide bombing and Islamism as resistance to imperialism which deserve our “unconditional but critical support”. This deeply appalled Eric Lee on behalf of the Iranian workers who were betrayed by the Islamist counter-revolutionaries. For John Rose, the inclusion of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the Hamas charter was a “mistake”. He went on to evade a question on whether he’d condemn suicide bombing against innocent Israeli civilians by reading from a Darwish poem about a suicide bomber, making (regardless of Darwish’s intentions) the facile connection between suicide bombing and desparation. He closed with advice to “engage with the Jewish students” in order to change their minds as his mind had been changed. The SWP has been failing at this for decades.

Portrait of a campus anti-Zionist twinning

My UCU branch has decided that acknowledging antisemitism on British campuses doesn’t strengthen its twinning with a Palestinian university.

Last week, at a relatively well-attended meeting, my branch Executive seconded a motion to support a twinning with a Palestinian university, building on existing Student Union work. A  few of us decided to propose an additional note about “the increase in antisemitic atmosphere on British campuses associated with Israel’s conflicts”. We are all broadly supportive of the twinning but conscious that in our institution it has been a vehicle for intensifying calls for the ostracisation and dissolution of Israel. Our intervention was fairly puny and didn’t say what needed to be said about this twinning – in retrospect since it was almost certain to fall we should have made more amendments. Five of the student twinning organisers had taken a break from their occupation of our administration building to attend the meeting and were lined up at the front. The chair (who is also the branch Secretary and an Israel boycotter) interrupted me hastily as I began to explain the problems with the current twinning. He then told the branch that acknowledging antisemitism on British campuses wouldn’t strengthen the motion and that they should reject our note. They duly voted against it. Some of us went on to vote for the twinning motion anyway.

The report of the meeting was circulated the next day made no mention of this discussion. On the branch site:

“We acknowledge that the actions of the Israeli state (such as the invasion of Gaza) could lead to an increased climate of anti-Semitism”.

For how much longer is my union going to push this fallacy that Israel is primarily responsible for British antisemitism? Where is its sense of responsibility to Jewish members? For years it’s been blatantly obvious that antisemitism lodges in the language and practice of prevalent forms of Palestine solidarity activism, and that this morphs with alarming ease into familiar allegations of Jewish conspiracy and dual loyalty. To pass over this so lightly is a shocking failure for a trade union which calls itself anti-racist.

“However, it should also be pointed out that anti-Semitism is a separate issue than support for twinning with a Palestinian university and these issues should not be conflated.”

I argue here that our twinning harbours and promulgates antisemitic ways of thinking about Israel, that this is long-standing and ongoing, and that my branch has voted to go along with it.

The twinning is an ongoing project (‘campaign’) in the Student Union. In 2006 students here began seeking a Palestinian twin. They hoped to link with An Najah, famous for the Sbarro suicide bomb art installation. I understand that An Najah was much admired and received far more invitations than it could handle. Goldsmiths’ overtures came to nothing and consequently the organisers linked with a place which had been overlooked so far (this in itself is reassuring) – Al Quds Open University, a distance learning institution with branches in the UAE and Saudi. Al Quds don’t need much from us. They hope that people will visit and report back, and they also propose post-graduate scholarships. Who wouldn’t support this? But as well as being a project to extend solidarity and material support to occupied Palestinians, the twinning is also a campaign about something else.

At Goldsmiths Debating Society last week, a twinning coordinator told the floor that Ismail Haniyeh, leader of Hamas, “wasn’t antisemitic at all, actually”. But Haniyeh leads a Jew-hating organisation whose charter confirms the validity of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. If he’s not antisemitic, then nobody is.

On the twinning Facebook group, the front page for a while declared that the campaign was “under surreptitious attack from three very vocal Zionists”. ‘Zionist’ is used to mean ‘dissenter’, so perhaps one of them was me. At any rate, my posting rights were suddenly withdrawn after I criticised the aggressive anti-Zionist nature of an event I went to and warned that it would alienate Jews from becoming involved in the twinning. The correspondence that followed was grim, summarised by the coordinator’s “it doesnt alienate jewish students, just maybe zionists. and i’m not in the business of catering to racists”, and on Hamas: “it’s simply they are the palestinian resistance”. Simple is right. My ideas weren’t welcome but I was invited, or rather challenged, to donate my money instead. Not to them, I decided.

So when my local UCU Executive decided to give the twinning £200 of our subs, I notified the branch secretary of my experiences. I got a bland reply with no reassurance and certainly no undertakings. I sent a few polite messages to twinning coordinators asking to be reinstated. Some time later I found myself slung out altogether. By then I no longer wanted to get back in.

The same coordinator is an administrator of the ‘I Support the University Occupations in Solidarity with Gaza’ group on Facebook. She permitted an article containing the following to remain conspicuously for weeks – it was still there when she turned up at my union meeting last week and it took a letter from J-Soc to get it removed:

“The Jews are so dominant, I had to scour the trades to come up with six Gentiles in high positions at entertainment companies. When I called them to talk about their incredible advancement, five of them refused to talk to me, apparently out of fear of insulting Jews. The sixth, AMC President Charlie Collier, turned out to be Jewish.”

It was a satirical piece about Jewish Power from the LA Times, but it had been reposted unsatirically under a thread titled “Boycotting Hollywood”. There was no mention of Israelis or Zionists at all, just Jews.

The anti-Zionism of our twinning tends to antisemitism because it is avidly and viscerally anti-Israel rather than soberly critical of Jewish nationalism and prepared to engage with its origins and argue alternatives. This selective blindness and its corollary, antisemitism minimisation, is characteristic of the SWP and RESPECT, with whom a number, if not most, of the twinning organisers have affinity. Indeed every Palestinian speaker at twinning events is flanked by somebody with SWP-compatible views on Israel, insulting our intelligence with hollow ideology, mendacious analogy and vacuous code words – Zionist, colonialist, imperialist, apartheid, Nazi. There are no speakers who diverge from these eccentric and limited politics. You’re not supposed to think, you’re supposed to swallow the ideologies of John Rose, Sabby Sagall, Suzanne Weiss.

Suzanne Weiss (who never went near the Warsaw Ghetto, contrary to explicit statements on her publicity) was invited by the twinning campaign to tell a packed theatre that Jewish people are naturally hated, we should think of Gaza as a latter day Warsaw Ghetto, Israel as apartheid and Israelis as Nazis. This perverted set of equivalences paved the way for the assertion that Israelis intend to enact a holocaust on the Palestinians, and effortlessly on to demanding that we boycott Israel and work to end its existence.  David Hirsh and I explain how Suzanne Weiss’ analysis promotes antisemitism. And yet she was invited, warmly endorsed and funded by the Student Union. At the vigil afterwards (later talked of as a march)  another coordinator informed me that the twinning was completely free of antisemitism and we were all welcome at the meetings. Given what had gone before, the former statement cancelled out the latter.

The Student Union is split by the twinning. Many students recognise it as anti-Israel activism cynically posing as concern for Palestinians, the work of a small, but loud, voice in the SU. There is also widespread disapproval at the way it was pushed through on an Executive rather than membership vote. The most recent challenge to the current status quo, which proposed a three-way including Israel, fell by only two votes. There are likely to be further challenges, although not to the existing links with Al Quds – these are generally recognised as positive.

It’s hard to know what to make of the fact that my UCU branch finds antisemitism cosmically unimportant. How could a motion in support of twinning be weakened by an additional acknowledgement that antisemitism is on the rise? Perhaps it’s because this ostensibly peaceful twinning is in fact so hate-inspiring that, having harried Jews into defending Israel, it then treats them as proxy Israelis, Zionists and therefore fascists. The bottom line seems to be that if you support or defend Israel it doesn’t matter whether you also support Palestinians – you are going to have a credibility problem when you try to voice concerns about antisemitism. Quite possibly, your comrades believe that antisemitism is your fault and your problem.

Anyone tempted to write me off as a sly and bloodstained Zionist waving my antisemitism shroud to divert attention from Israel as it finishes off the Palestinians should ask themselves, what does she want? I support links with Palestinians, oppose the settlements, and if at any time in the future Israelis and Palestinians feel secure enough about each other to melt their borders, fine. But what seems to be much more immediately my business – because it’s something uncontained which affects where I live and work – is that things are going in the wrong direction for Jews here at the moment.

As I said at the meeting, I want a better twinning. Last week I was at an unedifying talk about what British Jews should do about Gaza. I went because my friend was an invited speaker. Afterwards he rounded up a small group of us with whom he was friendly and took us back to his home. The way it ended up, Palestinians, peace activists, former IDF soldiers, one or maybe two refuseniks, a person who found it very hard to be around to former IDF soldiers, an Israeli peace activist who was converted to boycotting, and an activist against British antisemitism talked and listened together, asked questions, disagreed, drew lines, talked sharply, reached agreements, put some things to one side. As David Hirsh puts it, they were reshaping the broad narratives of Israeli and Palestinian so that they were compatible with each other. This is a requirement of coexistence. The reason that group of people could come together is the kind of atmosphere my friend created – one in which Israelis and Palestinians, in Britain as equals, can grope towards the mutual understanding and trust which is so badly needed whether you support two states, one state or none.

And our twinning? Worlds away.

Update 12th March: Goldsmiths UCU racialises itself by advertising an unnamed “Jewish speaker” for the upcoming Palestine Solidarity Campaign meeting.

“With national speakers from Palestine Solidarity Campaign(PSC), a Jewish speaker on Jewish support for the Palestinian cause and student campaign activists.”

You can only assume that somebody thinks touting speakers as Jewish is a good shield against charges of antisemitism. Well it isn’t. It’s what is said and done that counts.

Alex Stein on prospects for peace

Special offer from Alex Stein on FalseDicthotomies.com:

“…free hummus still on offer to anyone who can tell me of a single example in history of a group – other than Hizbollah in 2006 – succeeding in liberating territory and then attempting to goad the occupier back in…”

Peace not victory – Benjamin Pogrund

Benjamin Pogrund

This piece, by Benjamin Pogrund, is from The Guardian.

This is a hard time to talk about pursuing peace in the Middle East, only days after the horrendous war in the Gaza Strip, and with the possibility of further fighting and deaths and destruction. On the one side, Palestinian bitterness about the heavy toll suffered in Israel’s onslaught will not quickly be assuaged or forgiven. On the other side, Israeli mistrust about Palestinian intentions, exemplified by Hamas’s indiscriminate firing of thousands of missiles at civilians and its dedication to destroy Israel, will not easily be stilled.

Yet President Obama has moved swiftly and has appointed George Mitchell as his special peace envoy. It remains to be seen how far the United States will be willing to go in ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: whether it will rely on words and persuasion, or use muscle in applying pressure. And the extent to which it stays the course will depend on success in dealing with US priorities – the economy, Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran.

Mitchell flies in on Wednesday and starts with the advantage that the end goal is known and widely accepted: a two-state solution, with Israel and Palestine as friendly neighbours, and Israel accepted by all or most Arab states. The framework is also known: the end of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the opening of the Gaza Strip; agreement on borders and withdrawal of all or some settlements, or compensatory land swaps; resolution of the refugee issue; Jerusalem as a shared capital; shared control of the Holy Basin.

Much discussion has gone into these issues, at Camp David, in the Clinton Parameters, at Taba and the Wye Plantation, in the Road Map, at Annapolis. Inasmuch as details are known, agreement between Israelis and Palestinians has been reached to varying extents.

How will Mitchell approach his task? Will he bring Israelis and Palestinians into discussions in the hope that they will negotiate a final accord?

Another way is to go to the basics and satisfy the question: what does each side need?

Israel is the strong party in the conflict. But even with its military might and economic power, it has a deep-rooted existential fear that must be met. It is also supposed to have morality, springing out of the Judaism that underpins the existence of the Jewish state. Plus Jewish sensitivity to persecution, derived from centuries of terrible historical experience, magnified by the Holocaust, and brought into the present by unceasing Arab hostility since the state was founded in 1948.

The historically created anxiety about continued existence is not always a force for good: Israeli destructiveness hurts others and contradicts the state’s sense of moral purpose. The drive for survival pushed Israel into a pre-emptive strike against Arab neighbours in 1967. Unexpected victory led to hubris and later the growth of religious messianism. That was aided and abetted by the declaration by Arab states in Khartoum in September that year: no peace with Israel, no recognition, no negotiations. That hardened Israeli attitudes.

The consequences of 1967 are seen today in the continuing occupation of the West Bank, with nearly 300,000 Israelis in settlements and another 200,000 in suburbs built to extend Jerusalem. The settlers have permeated government, in the civil service and the army, and enjoy influence out of proportion to their numbers. The deceptions and illegal channelling of government funds for their cause are well-documented. The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, promised to curb settler expansion, but did very, very little. There has been no action even towards the more modest goal of evacuating the 80,000 settlers in 80 settlements beyond the new security barrier.

So much land has now been seized from the intended Palestinian state, so many settlements and roads have been built, that the possibility of two states is being questioned. Some say that the point of no return has already been passed. Others argue that it must be possible because it must be.

(On the face of it, a one-state solution is the natural goal. Jews and Arabs live in the same tiny part of the world, and universal values point to a single, shared state where people will live happily together. Unfortunately, it does not stand up to scrutiny: first, the vast majority of Israel’s 6 million Jews will not agree to it now or in the foreseeable future. Who will force them to enter into an arrangement that they see as the death-knell of their existence? Second, a single state is not remotely a practical possibility for the foreseeable future given the intense fear, hatred and prejudice that divide the two peoples. It is fantasy to believe that they can be persuaded to live together. A loose confederation between Israel and Palestine, based on shared economic interests, with Jordan joining in, is a possibility. With time, if trust develops, it could grow deeper. But that’s another story.)

Tell Israelis that there must be a Palestinian state on the West Bank and, while opinion polls show majority agreement, many will worriedly say that Palestinians cannot be trusted and it would be foolhardy to allow them within missile range of Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion airport. In evidence, they will point to Gaza, which Israel quit in 2005 only to be pursued by thousands of missiles. Respond that Israel did not really quit but kept Gazans locked inside and you will be told that Palestinians had the chance of creating something – as with the prosperous greenhouses and the buildings they took over from settlers, but chose instead to plunder them and give violent vent to their hatred of Jews.

Trust is impossible in this cycle of accusation and counter-accusation. Yet trust is needed for Israel to end the occupation of the West Bank and allow Gaza to breathe. The end of occupation will not in itself bring peace, but it is the crucial first step to make all else possible.

How to get Israel to take the first step? Palestinians have to convince them that mass murder does not await them and that their Jewish state is secure. The Palestine Liberation Organisation, representing the mainstream, has already made a mighty and painful compromise in acknowledging the reality of Israel inside the 1967 borders. It has also turned away from suicide bombings, which did so much during the second intifada to drive most Israelis to the right and reject any notion of achieving peace with Palestinians.

The world has to be intelligent and understanding in persuading or pushing Israel to change its ways. If it commits human rights abuses, it must be as subject to international condemnation as any other nation; but singling it out as the singular source of evil is so bizarre and contrary to truth that it achieves nothing except anger and derision. The yelling and accusing and boycotts are counterproductive because they only entrench Israeli beliefs that they are the victims of prejudice and hypocrisy; rather try to pledge security and safety.

For Palestinians, the imperative need is the end of occupation so that they can have freedom, the right to govern themselves, the right to a life of dignity, security and economic empowerment. The Palestinian Authority must have continued support in developing effective and corruption-free government, so that it can show its people that it can produce peace dividends for them.

Palestinians also have to reach accord among themselves to bring both Fatah and Hamas into government. As matters stand at present, Israel, the US and the EU demand that Hamas accept Israel’s existence, that it forswears violence and endorse previous treaties agreed by the Palestinian Authority. Is it able to do this? Will its Islamist ideology, bedded on hatred of Jews and the Jewish state, permit it? Will Iran, its patron and arms supplier, intent on its own power-seeking agenda in the region, allow it?

If these anxious questions cannot be resolved, uncertainty and instability will continue, with the ever-present danger of missile attacks by Hamas and the inevitability of Israeli counter-attacks. The civilians on both sides of the border will continue to be victims of violence.

Some argue, however, for another approach: the reality of Hamas cannot be denied and it must be part of the solution; further, that Hamas cannot be forced into meeting the recognition and other demands; instead, Israel must seek to make contact, however informally, to achieve at least a de facto relationship, in the hope that, over time, Hamas will be nudged into accepting the reality of the Jewish state. Contact, invaluable in itself, will also help to overcome Sharon’s blunder in 2005 in withdrawing unilaterally from Gaza and ignoring the common-sense need to deal with Palestinians as partners on shared practicalities such as border access and health control.

Whether the hardliners inside Hamas will agree to any contact with Israel is unknown. But the only way to find out is to try it, is the argument. As for worry that giving Hamas status will undermine Fatah, that can be met by Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and ensuring that Fatah is enabled to run a genuine government.

These are the strands that George Mitchell will be picking up. He can also turn to the Arab Peace Initiative: Sharon brushed it aside when the “land for peace” offer was first announced in 2002. Olmert has been more encouraging, but, astonishingly, it seems that no practical steps have yet been taken to talk to the Arab states to find out what devil might lie in the details or what compromises might be possible.

Whatever President Obama, via Mitchell, does or doesn’t do, he cannot impose a whole new order. Ultimately, the solutions are in the hands of Israelis and Palestinians. Both sides need leaders whose vision of the future, and fear of sliding into catastrophe, will cause them to lead their people towards mutual acceptance and peace. For Israel, might such a leader possibly emerge from the general election on February 10?

This piece, by Benjamin Pogrund, is from The Guardian.