By Natan Sharansky, minister of Diaspora affairs and Jerusalem, and co-author,
with Ron Dermer, of the just-released book The Case for Democracy.
November 25, 2004.
The death of Yasser Arafat has once again placed the search for peace at a
crossroads. Ten years ago, policymakers took the wrong road, believing that
peace could be made with a dictatorship. Today, we must instead embrace a
peace process that is anchored in the expansion of freedom within Palestinian
society.
The temptation to return to the Oslo formula will be very great. Today, many
hope to identify a Palestinian strongman as quickly as possible who can prevent
chaos, rein in the extremists, and reach a deal with Israel. Similarly, many view
the upcoming Palestinian elections as an opportunity to legitimize a Palestinian
leadership that could quickly be “strengthened” by Western and Israeli largesse.
This was exactly the misguided approach to peace that failed so miserably over
the last decade. According to the logic of Oslo, a “moderate” like Arafat should
be embraced and empowered by the free world so that he would be strong
enough to fight terror and reach an agreement with Israel.
Unfortunately, little attention was paid to how Arafat ruled. In fact, far from
being considered an obstacle to peace, Arafat’s repressive rule was seen as
facilitating peace. As prime minister Yitzhak Rabin put it only days after Oslo
was signed, Arafat would fight Hamas “without a Supreme Court, without
human rights organizations, and without all sorts of bleeding-heart liberals.”
What was not understood then, or often even now, is that a non-democratic
Palestinian regime will, by its nature, always threaten Israel. Non-democratic
regimes always need to mobilize their people against external enemies to
maintain internal stability.
This is why the regime in Egypt, having lost Israel as a political enemy
by signing a peace treaty, sponsors what is perhaps the most rabid anti-Semitic
incitement on earth. That is also why the Saudi regime funds a Wahhabi
fanaticism at home and abroad that is terrorizing our entire world. And that is
why the Palestinian Authority used all the resources, not to improve the lives of
Palestinians but rather to strengthen hatred toward Israel.
It is time to explore the road not taken, a road that could make all the
difference.
Toward the end of the Cold War, the free world began to link its policies toward
the Soviet Union to human rights within that nation. Rather than focus on what
Soviet leaders had to say about the West, the focus turned to how the Soviet
regime was treating its own subjects.
THE JACKSON Amendment, for example, linked most favored nation trade
benefits to the Soviet Union to that regime’s respect for its citizens’ right to
emigrate. By focusing attention on a concrete right that was easily measurable,
the Jackson Amendment proved a highly effective means of measuring the
degree of freedom within the USSR and, as a result, Soviet intentions.
We, too, should seek to find concrete means to determine whether Palestinians
are making progress on democratic reforms, so we can link our policies directly
to such reforms. In addition to the obvious need to preserve the Palestinians’
right of dissent – the quintessential mark of a free society – there are other
reliable measures of the new leadership’s commitment to reform.
First, that leadership can finally seek to end the suffering of the hundreds of
thousands of Palestinians who live in refugee camps. Four generations of
Palestinian refugees have been used as pawns in the Arab world’s struggle
against the Jewish state. These refugee camps should be dismantled as soon as
possible and the refugees resettled in decent housing.
A leadership that is willing to end the fantasy of destroying Israel and begin to
actually improve the conditions in which Palestinians live should be embraced
by the free world with a new international Marshall Plan that can put an end to
a shameful humanitarian disaster.
Second, the new leadership can stop poisoning Palestinians to hate Jews and
the Jewish state. Textbooks where Israel does not appear on the map and
PA-controlled television programs where kindergarten children beckon their
classmates to follow the path of suicide martyrdom should be replaced with an
educational system that promotes peace.
Third, the new leadership can expand economic opportunities for millions of
Palestinians. For a decade, Arafat hollowed out Palestinian civil society and
crushed its middle class. He monopolized basic industries, controlled work
permits in Israel, as well as the distribution of international aid.
A test of the new PA will be whether it, unlike Arafat, is willing to
embrace joint ventures that strengthen the Palestinian middle class while
inevitably lessening the control the new regime has over its subjects.
Finally, a new Palestinian leadership that is committed to reform will be our
partners in fighting terror, for as long as terror continues no reform will be
possible.
We should be under no illusions about the upcoming Palestinian elections. The
winner of these elections, like the elections that were regularly held in the
Soviet Union, will not have anything to do with democracy. The winner will be
chosen well before Palestinians go to the polls.
Free elections can only be held in a free society where people can express their
views without fear of being punished, let alone killed. Indeed, free elections are
never the beginning of the democratic process but one of its crowning
achievements.
Still, whoever emerges from the elections in January should be given an
opportunity to win the trust of the free world, including Israel. How can a new
Palestinian leadership win our trust? Simple. By trusting its own people.
If the new Palestinian leadership seeks to build a democratic society, then the
free world should support and encourage each step along the way. Such a
leadership should be provided with international legitimacy, money and, yes,
territory.
But if the new leadership is not interested in building a democracy, then
it should be given no legitimacy, no money, and no concessions. The formula
for peace is simple: Embrace leaders who embrace democratic reform and reject
leaders who don’t.
In the last 10 years, the state of the peace process was measured largely by
whether summits were being held, negotiations were being conducted, envoys
were being sent to the region, or concessions were being made. According to
these criteria, the peace process was either moving forward or stuck in neutral.
But I measured the state of the peace process by the degree of freedom
within Palestinian society. By that standard, the peace process was almost
always in reverse over the last decade as a fear society descended on the
Palestinians.
In the weeks, months, and years ahead, those who want to know the state of
the peace process might want to tune out all the chatter and ask themselves
one question: Is there more freedom today within Palestinian society than there
was last week, last month, or last year? If the answer is yes, then we will truly
be moving down the road to peace.
