Worn out Heads

When they arrived, they looked like three students about to take a written exam. Overstudied and yet unprepared.

C: “You got my email, right? Did you read both?”

G: “No, just Golda’s. I am a subscriber to Foreign Affairs already, thanks to our talks.”

M: “Why those specifically?”

C: “Because they were specific. I am getting restless over too much abstract talk. I need to touch base.”

G: “Okay, let’s get the context straight.

The 1967 Six Day War: Typically seen as a surprise attack launched by Israel, but of course Israel will claim that the preceding amassment of Egyptian troops in Sinai, the sending home of UNEF soldiers and the closing of Strait of Tiran plus the Egyptian and general Arab rhetoric made it look like an impending Arab attack to which they decided on a strike-first strategy. It ended with Israel taking Golan Heights towards Syria, West Bank towards Jordan and the entire Sinai towards Egypt. Some buffer zone.

Aftermath: UN Security Council Resolution 242 (put back your toys and clean up the desert) and the diplomatic Jarring mission which failed to accomplish anything.

The 1967-1970 War of Attrition: Basically Egypt’s response to the outcome of the Six Day’s war. Three years of fighting along the Suez Canal, and basically status quo.

In late 1972 Anwar Sadat publishes the first of Christine’s articles: Where Egypt Stands.

In early 1973 Golda Meir publishes the second of Christine’s articles: Israel in Search of Lasting Peace.

The late 1973 Yom Kippur War: A surprise attack by Egypt and Syria in October.”

M: “Yes, so both articles are before the Yom Kippur War. Okay, let’s start. Christine, I think they fit nicely in our discussion, by the way. Thanks for sending them.

And God do I feel lucky for not being a diplomat!”

G: “You can certainly feel the very deep sensitivities in both articles. Israel and their Shoah, Egypt and their colonial past.”

C: “Both Sadat and Meir see their old enemies in their new ones.

But I can’t lie: Golda Meir lacks humility. She is just stubborn as she is accused of being. And I looked it up. Even inside Israel she was accused after the 1973 war of having been too rigid in negotiations after 1967. I can see why.”

M: “In a way I disagree with that whole ’no foreign influence’ talk that seems to infest the world. We are all so intricately entwined that every government ought to have their own small party in the parliaments of every other country. A small voice of Israel in the Egyptian government and a small voice of Egypt in the Knesset. I think proximity matters. It’s hard to other someone who is standing right next to you and can refute when you speak.”

G: “Good, then they can dig trenches right next to each other. Look at the nature of these mutual accusations. They are impenetrable. It’s not the arguments, it’s the way they say »we have tried everything«, like.. like it’s true, like they are at their wits end.”

Gerald was unable to produce words that pierced through the heart of whatever monster was in front of him.

M: “Yes, it’s the shock when we find out someone else is sincere about the opposite viewpoint than what we are sincere about. It’s the transition from »they are impossible to deal with« to »dammit! They are impossible to deal with!«.”

G: “Golda Meir’s interpretation of the Balfour declaration, now that is impossible to deal with.”

Arthur James Balfour - prime minister and philosopher

C: “He wasn’t a nobody after all. He was prime minister of UK from 1902 to 1905, and held prominent posts before becoming prime minister. An odd fellow who some say was rather detached from this world and its tribulations. Apparently he wrote this foreword in a book:”

ARTHUR BALFOUR - INTRODUCTION TO SOKOLOW - HISTORY OF ZIONISM

[The Zionist movement would] mitigate the age-long miseries created for Western civilization by the presence in its midst of a Body [the Jews] which it too long regarded as alien and even hostile, but which it was equally unable to expel or to absorb.

G: “Charming. Whatever he and Chaim Weizmann had talked about, Golda Meir has this to say:”

GOLDA MEIR - ISRAEL IN SEARCH OF LASTING PEACE - FOREIGN AFFAIRS APRIL 1973

Thus it was Arab intransigence that led to the compromise of the U.N. Partition Resolution by which the area encompassed by the Balfour Declaration was further cut so that Israel arose in one-fifth of the territory originally allotted for a Jewish homeland. (The first truncation had taken place in 1922 when three-fourths of the original Palestine area was severed for the establishment of Transjordan.)

C: “Yes, so in other words, Balfour’s promise, which says, and I quote in full:”

BALFOUR DECLARATION - 1917

His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

C: “This promise… did he mean all of Palestine as it was in 1917? Did he mean a Jewish state? Did he mean a place to stay they could call home?”

G: “Golda Meir’s stance is indisputable: For no reason at all the British would hand to the Jews an insane amount of land well knowing that other people lived there already.”

GOLDA MEIR - ISRAEL IN SEARCH OF LASTING PEACE - FOREIGN AFFAIRS APRIL 1973

Let me review our record in the Middle East Though the Balfour Declaration promised a Jewish homeland in the area of historic Palestine — an area extending from the Mediterranean to the borders of present-day Iraq — we accepted the severance of three-fourths of that territory for the establishment of the Hashemite Kingdom east of the Jordan. We later accepted the further shrinkage of the original pledge through the U.N. Partition Resolution.

G: “I can understand why she must feel disappointed!”

C: “Her statement is doomed to come across as a pure provocation. That »we accepted« is sufficient in itself to incite trouble. As if they already in 1917 owned the land to the point that they were the legal wardens.”

M: “Careful now. Golda Meir is replying to Sadat’s version of events. What did he say in 1972?”

ANWAR EL-SADAT - WHERE EGYPT STANDS - FOREIGN AFFAIRS OCTOBER 1972

Israel now occupies all of Palestine, the part allotted to her by the 1947 resolution and all the part allotted by the same resolution to the Palestinian people. She also occupies Jordanian, Syrian and Egyptian lands. Israel is now bent on colonizing all the occupied territories and on creating in them what she likes to call new facts, in order to make this colonization permanent.

M: “You see? The problem is always that we can adjust the lens. In her view, Israel is entitled to more, but in the interest of peace, they are willing to forego a lot, except what is necessary for peace.”

C: “Interpreting the promise as more than a place to stay but rather a real country is blatant overreach.”

M: “Oh, no, no, not at all. You both seem to constantly let the proper way to handle conflict slip away. We move from consensus to consensus, from tacit explanatory agreement to new tacit agreements. Even a quick search reveals that the British leaders really did have talks with leading Zionists about an eventual state. So the term national home was already a directed concept pointing towards a sovereign state, in the ears of the Israelis! The Balfour Declaration is the British stepping back from that consensus and hedging options after having promised both Arabs and Israelis too much. All it takes are two-three overzealous government employees.”

C: “Okay. A child convinces himself that he would get a toy tractor for Christmas but doesn’t. For the rest of his life he will hold that against his parents whom he believe had led him to such a conviction?”

G: “Well, I see it, Miranda. A sense of betrayal can cut deep into your mental life. No doubt the Jews felt betrayed too.”

C: “God, we keep moving the goalpost here. What year is this? 1917? And the discussions preceding Balfour? 1900-1910? It was a dubious promise right from the start, and colonialism at its worst. Doesn’t she even feel a shred of remorse that the Jews were bargaining directly with the colonisers, not the actual population?”

M: “Would you have talked with them? Conducted business with the bellboy?”

C: “That is exactly why I don’t conduct business!”

M: “Then this is not a conflict between Zionists and Arab peasants but between skilled pragmatists and unskilled labourers.”

The 99 percent

G: “About the remorse part, I think the answer is no:”

GOLDA MEIR - ISRAEL IN SEARCH OF LASTING PEACE - FOREIGN AFFAIRS APRIL 1973

By the end of the British Mandate, 99 percent of that area had been allotted to the Arabs, one percent to the Jewish homeland. If there was any inequity in this distribution, surely the Arabs were not its victims. Hence we hoped, sincerely if perhaps naïvely, that Jewish and Arab independence would flourish peacefully side by side to the advantage of the entire Middle East.

C: “Crazy numbers. She is back to imagining that Israel would have been handed over the entire Middle East. And what is it with her when she talks about he disappointment that the Hashemite kingdom was parcelled out too? Jordan can hardly in her view count as »a land without a people«!”

G: “I’m with Christine here. Golda Meir’s uncompromising version is unforgivable. But in a toned down version, I would have accepted it. Frankly, I don’t even think I mind Zionism. But prejudicial, aggressive zionists, yes. I admire the mindset of hard labour that they applied, and I am probably leaning towards the view that if Israel had not been established, antisemitism would not have come to a grinding halt.”

Everybody wants to destroy everybody

M: “Well, that is contentious. Do you base that view on an idea of what drove antisemitism in the first place?”

G: “No, but neither does Golda Meir:”

GOLDA MEIR - ISRAEL IN SEARCH OF LASTING PEACE - FOREIGN AFFAIRS APRIL 1973

But Voltaire’s epigram — as long as men believe absurdities they will commit atrocities — reminds us of the bloody persecutions and wars that have stained the course of human history because men believed absurdities about others. The carnage of the Nazi epoch is only the most terrifying example of the depth to which people sink through the acceptance of imbecilic myths. For this reason I stress the obvious.

[…]

To suggest that Israel, no matter how able or energetic, seeks to “dominate” this vast expanse is of the stuff of the “Elders of Zion” forgery, according to which the tiny persecuted Jewish minority conspired to rule the world.

M: “I think if we start to delve into the Jewish literature on the Shoah, we will never get to our coffee.

I frankly don’t know what really drove the Nazi antisemitism. Plenty of theories, but I can understand if the madness is overwhelming to Jews.

But is she any better?”

GOLDA MEIR - ISRAEL IN SEARCH OF LASTING PEACE - FOREIGN AFFAIRS APRIL 1973

In June 1967, Sinai, Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem were all in Arab possession. Nevertheless, the Arabs concentrated their troops in Sinai, established a blockade and announced, in Nasser’s words on May 27, 1967, that the object of the war was “the destruction of Israel.” […]

The heart of the problem is what caused the Six Day War, not the territories administered by Israel after the war. Simply put, the root issue is the Arab attitude to Israel’s very existence and security.

[…]

We did not seek to “expand” but neither did we dismiss Arab threats of a holocaust as “rhetoric.”

M: “We have now gotten used to see quotes out of context. Nasser did hold a speech in 1967, but an internal one to trade unionists. Let’s see if we can get a feeling for it.”

PRESIDENT NASSER SPEECH TO TO ARAB TRADE UNIONISTS, 26 MAY 1967:

The problem today is not just Israel, but also those behind it. If Israel embarks on, an aggression against Syria or Egypt, the battle against Israel will be a general one and not confined to one spot on the Syrian or Egyptian borders. The battle will be a general one and our basic objective will be to destroy Israel. I probably could not have said such things five or even three years ago. If I had said such things and had been unable to carry them out my words would have been empty and worthless.

Today, some eleven years after 1956, I say such things because I am confident. I know what we have here in Egypt and what Syria has. I also know that other States Iraq, for instance, has sent its troops to Syria; Algeria will send troops; Kuwait also will send troops. They will send armoured and infantry units. This is Arab power. This is the true resurrection of the Arab nation, which at one time was probably in despair.

C: “We will no longer be kicked like dogs! That is what he is saying. He is talking about the same kind of brutal defence as Israel is.”

M: “To be fair, Sadat is just as rich on lurid suspicions:”

ANWAR EL-SADAT - WHERE EGYPT STANDS - FOREIGN AFFAIRS OCTOBER 1972

This domination is an old Zionist dream. If this ever happens and if the Zionist state were really to dominate our area, what would become of our three objectives? What would become of our freedom, of our effort to develop our resources for all, under a Socialist system of social justice? What would become of the consolidated Arab efforts to rebuild their lives, and to try, once more, to make a contribution to world peace and progress?

M: “The Jewish reaction is nothing we haven’t seen before. The West constantly does this with Russian journalists, take the conditional statements of what to do if this and that, and leaves them as unconditional desires of brutality. Everybody does this.

Why? Because we search for a hidden danger in the hearts of our neighbours. This is indeed the true source of war.”

G: “And Nasser grossly overstepped his ethical mandate here! Being the voice of millions of Egyptians, he should not gamble with words. He may be the voice of a generation, but that voice can articulate dangerous new waves of perception.”

C: “I have another point of contention: The famous reading of UNSC Resolution 242. Should Israel withdraw from … territories or from … all territories?”

GOLDA MEIR - ISRAEL IN SEARCH OF LASTING PEACE - FOREIGN AFFAIRS APRIL 1973

The Arab states, on the other hand, continue to reiterate their demand for Israel’s “total withdrawal” to the June 4, 1967 lines. By this demand they distort Security Council Resolution 242 which never called for total withdrawal, or withdrawal from all the territories. The language of the Resolution is withdrawal “from territories,” acknowledging Israel’s right to live within “secure and recognized boundaries.” All attempts made to insert in the Resolution the demand for total withdrawal or withdrawal from “the” territories were rejected by the Security Council.

G: “Here I need to interject with a clarification: Meir is to my knowledge right that the preceding discussions did indeed reject the notion that Israel ought to withdraw from all the gained territories.”

C: “Yes, but of more importance: The Arabs would not have consented to 242 if the interpretation was not total withdrawal. That’s negotiation for you. You can try to leave things open just to create a plausible middle ground, and then hope that the difference will not explode later. I can easily imagine that the bickering continues unabated. »They knew we meant some«, »No, but they knew we meant all!«”

G: “Israel’s geographical situation is genuine. If I were Arabs, I would consent to at least the Allon plan allotments. Give them a defensible territory.”

M: “The dice is already rolling. The initial settlements were located according to the Allon plan. Then the religious Zionists started dreaming big. In fact, the government tried at first to control them. This is exactly the kind of slippery democratic slope that both sides field as argument for not giving an inch.”

C: “So both Arabs and Israelis are deceiving themselves about their own intentions: They forget to calculate with the loose elements in their own country?”

M: “Yes.”

G: “So where are we then? These articles are easy to sum up:

Golda Meir: We want peace and irrigation of the desert, they want the destruction of Israel. We need a buffer zone between us and them.

Anwar Sadat: We want peace and social development, they want to expand across all of the Middle East. We want our borders held inviolable.

Then the conflict can continue over the disputed border zone. Exactly like between Ukraine and Russia, I might add.”

/ПРИЗРАК