Editorial: Israel Still Searching for Peace

5/16/2008

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Israel is a country rife with contradictions. Surrounded by enemies, yet emerging victorious in war time after time; arid and lacking natural resources, yet making the desert bloom; rejected by its neighbors, yet still searching for peace.

The Jewish state’s regional isolation is not for lack of effort to integrate. Israel has been willing to make painful sacrifices for peace even before the state was officially established. This history must never be omitted from any conversation about the Arab-Israeli conflict.

When, in 1947, the United Nations proposed to divide British-controlled Palestine into two states, Arab and Jewish, the Jews rejoiced and accepted the plan, despite its flaws. The Arabs were slated to receive not only all of Gaza and what later became known as the West Bank but also large parts of the Galilee and the Negev Desert.

Nevertheless, the Palestinian leadership and the Arab nations rejected the Partition Plan and went to war with the stated objective of destroying the Jewish state. When the dust settled in 1949, the Arabs controlled all of the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem’s Old City. Israel again reached out for peace, offering to sign treaties that would have made the new borders permanent. The Arab states rejected Israel’s offer, as recognizing borders would have meant recognizing Israel.

It would be 30 difficult years before an Arab state finally reached out for peace with Israel. When Egyptian President Anwar Sadat abandoned the path of war, Israel returned the entire Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in exchange for peace. Israel again made territorial concessions to Jordan in the 1994 peace treaty, and agreed to cede virtually the entire Golan Heights to Syria in 2000. Syrian insistence on access to the Sea of Galilee, and its refusal to stop supporting terrorist groups, scuttled the deal.

On top of all this, Israel had by the end of the 1990s given the Palestinian Authority (PA) control of nearly all Palestinian civilian areas. In 2000, Prime Minister Ehud Barak was ready to withdraw from almost all disputed territories in exchange for a final peace deal, but Yasir Arafat rejected the offer and initiated a horrific campaign of violence. (Israel withdrew from Gaza anyway in 2005.)

Under U.S. auspices, Israel is now conducting intensive peace talks with PA President Abbas. In doing so, Israel is continuing its 60-year tradition of leaving no stone unturned in the search for peace.

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