Violence is a symptom: Uri Avnery interview

This is a great interview with a very enlightened man.� It has been around for awhile, and you may have seen it already, but it is worth reading again.

I don't agree everything in it, particularly, Avnery's assessments of (1) David Ben-Gurion's statement about the legitimacy of Arab grievances, and (2)� Robert Fisk's assertion that Israel is fighting a colonialist war.� Perhaps from his point of view Israel is not a colonialist power, like apartheid South Africa, but certainly from the Arab POV, the Israelis are just more European invaders, like the
Crusaders.

But, in any case, I think Avnery's proposed solution is as just today as in 2003, and of course, his last paragraph about the reasons for the failure to make peace have been, sadly, borne out.� Perhaps with the changes in power that are going on
now in the Arab World, "the order is rapidly fading," and there will be opportunities for peace for those who are willing to struggle for it.

Hajja Romi/"Blue"

Violence is a symptom; the occupation is the disease
URI AVNERY and JON ELMER
FromOccupiedPalestine.org, 14 September 2003

[a shorter version appeared in:
The Progressive vol 68 no 4 (April 2004): pp. 35-38]

Jon Elmer, FromOccupiedPalestine.org: There is an 
active debate in Israeli society, in government and in the media about 
murdering Yasser Arafat. Have you ever heard of a discussion of 
assassinating the elected leader of another country taking place in a 
'democratic' society? What logic drives the open discussion of 
assassinating Arafat? What would the consequences of such an action be?
Uri Avnery: First of all, there is no public debate in Israel 
at all - on this subject or on any other. We have now a situation where 
there is a group of generals - including the Prime Minister, the 
Minister of Defence, the Chief of Staff, the army Chief of Intelligence 
and Chief of the Security Service - who decide all these methods alone, 
with the help of a compliant media that accepts everything the 
government says. 
For the past 30 years there has been a campaign to demonize Arafat in the media. I don't remember one single article saying anything positive about Yasser Arafat. So the public just takes this and the public also 
believes what it has been told since Camp David [of 2000] - that we 
offered the Palestinians everything and they rejected it; therefore, 
there is no partner for peace. Within Israel this is an axiom accepted 
by virtually everybody. When the public believes that peace is 
impossible, and that the suicide bombings will go on forever, they will 
accept everything the Prime Minister tells them. 
The act itself of assassinating Arafat, apart from its moral and 
legal aspects, will cause the greatest disaster in the history of 
Israel. It may put an end to the Israeli state in the long run, because 
it will put an end to any prospect of peace between Israel and the 
Palestinian people, and between Israel and the Arab world, for the next 
hundred years
Elmer: According to the US-Israel alliance, it is the 
Palestinians - more specifically, it is Arafat - who must take the 
initiative in ending the "cycle of violence". Edward Said has commented: "Since when does a militarily occupied people have responsibility for a peace movement?" Is it the responsibility of the Palestinians to end 
the violence?
Avnery: Violence is part of the resistance to occupation. The 
basic fact is not the violence; the basic fact is the occupation. 
Violence is a symptom; the occupation is the disease - a mortal disease 
for everybody concerned, [both] the occupied and for the occupiers. 
Therefore, the first responsibility is to put an end to the occupation. 
And in order to put an end to the occupation, you must make peace 
between the Israeli and Palestinian people. This is the real aim, this 
is the real task. 
Elmer: David Ben-Gurion is quoted having said: "If I were an 
Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; 
we have taken their country. It is true, God promised it to us, but how 
could that interest them? There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, 
Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see only one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept 
that?" What is your comment on this?
Avnery: This is complete nonsense, and David Ben-Gurion, with 
all due respect, was an idiot as far as Arabs themselves are concerned. 
He did not understand the Arabs, he hated the Arabs. There are hundreds - thousands - of documents to prove this. As far as the statement 
itself, Palestinians want a state of their own. They want to live in 
freedom. They want to get rid of the terrible misery in which they are 
living. They are ready after 50 years to accept a state of their own in 
22% of what used to be the country of Palestine. I think it is the 
height of stupidity on our part if we don't grasp this opportunity. 
Elmer: Is Ariel Sharon and his generals' goal to turn 
so-called Greater Israel, from the Mediterranean to the River Jordan, 
into a Jewish State?
Avnery: That is their real aim. It is the aim of Ariel Sharon, and I strongly suspect that the core of whole higher office will follow him on this. His idea of a Greater Israel - or, as you call it in 
Hebrew, the entire Eretz (land of) Israel - is from the Mediterranean to the river Jordan, and to turn this into a purely, ethnically clean 
Jewish state. I would say this is the ultimate objective of all of these people, which would entail, of course, ethnic cleansing [of the 
Palestinian people]. 
Elmer: Can you talk a little bit about your years in the Irgun during the war of independence?
Avnery: I joined the Irgun when I was just 15 years old, and I left when I was 19 years old. I joined because I wanted to fight for 
our freedom and a state of our own, against the British colonial 
administration of Palestine at that time. I left it because I did not 
approve of the methods and the aims of the Irgun. 
What I would say is that I have always been aware and conscious of 
the importance and the strength of nationalism, and this has led me 
straight to the acknowledgement and recognition of the nationalism of 
the Palestinian people. I believe there is no way around this; we have 
to have a solution based on two national states, which will hopefully 
live and grow together and establish a relationship between them in 
something like a European Union. 
Elmer: Can you discuss your 1945 essay, "Terrorism: the 
infantile disease of the Hebrew revolution"? How was it different from 
the disease of Palestinian terror of their current revolution for 
statehood?
Avnery: When I left the Irgun, at the age of 19, one of the 
reasons was that I didn't like the methods of terror applied by the 
Irgun at the time. When they put, that is to say we put, bombs in the 
Arab markets of Jaffa and Jerusalem and Haifa, and killed scores of 
people - men, women and children - in retaliation for similar acts by 
the Arabs, I didn't back this. I thought there were other methods. But 
it left me with a lasting understanding of what gets people to join such organizations, and I understand the Palestinians who join these 
[terrorist/resistance] organizations. 
I am against violence on both sides. But I understand people who 
believe that without violence they will not achieve anything at all. It 
is our responsibility as the stronger party, as the occupying power, to 
convince the Palestinians that they can achieve their basic national 
aims, their just national aspirations, without violence. Unfortunately, 
the behaviour of the Sharon administration, and before this of the Barak administration, have shown the Palestinians the opposite; namely, that 
they will achieve nothing without violence. 
Elmer: Robert Fisk has said of the Israel-Palestine war: "This terrible conflict is the last colonial war". Although he wrote this 
before the American war and occupation of Iraq, do you agree that this 
is essentially a colonial war?
Avnery: No, I do not agree, I think it's a very simplistic, 
superficial view. What we are in is a conflict lasting for 120 years, 
between two great national movements: the Zionist Jewish one, and the 
Palestinian Arab one, who consider the same country their homeland. And 
it is a conflict which has no example anywhere in this world. And I 
object to people who make these easy comparisons and these easy 
analogies that are completely irrelevant. We are not South Africa. We 
are not in basically a colonial situation. There are aspects of the 
apartheid regime, there are aspects of the colonial regime, but it is 
something by far more profound, with much more profound historic roots, 
and you cannot come to a solution if you do not understand the nature of the conflict that we are in. 
Elmer: Admitting those deep historical roots, can there be a 
solution to the conflict that does not properly and justly deal with the Palestinian right of return? 
Avnery: The Palestinian right of return has many different 
aspects. There is the moral aspect, the political aspect and the 
practical aspect. I believe that Israel must concede to the Palestinian 
right of return in principle. Israel must, first of all, assume its 
responsibility for what happened in 1948, as far as we are to blame - 
and we are to blame for a great part of it, if not for all - and we must recognize in principle the right of refugees to return. 
In practice, we have to find a complex solution to a very complex 
problem. It is manifestly idiotic to believe that Israel, with 5 million Jewish citizens, and 1 million Arab citizens, will concede to the 
return of 4 million refugees. It will not happen. We can wish it, we 
can think it's just, that it's moral - it will not happen. No country 
commits suicide.
Now the question is: how do we solve the problem by allowing a number of refugees to return to Israel, allowing a number of refugees to 
return to the Palestinian state, and allowing a number of refugees to 
settle, with general compensation, where they want to settle. It is not 
an insolvable problem; there are possible solutions to this problem that concerns human beings. It is not an abstract problem, it involves 4 
million human beings, and more than 50 years of various sorts of misery. It is possible to find a solution for them, and it can be done: it 
involves some good will, and a readiness to give up historic myths on 
both sides. 
Elmer: I know that Gush Shalom has done some work with the 
ISM. I was wondering if you could comment on the role of internationals 
in the conflict.
Avnery: The International Solidarity Movement is very 
important and does a very good job protecting the Palestinian population in the Occupied Territories, giving testimony to all the terrible 
things that are happening there. Gush Shalom is glad to cooperate with 
them wherever we can. We have organized jointly several demonstrations 
in the Occupied Territories and we are both engaged in the fight against this terrible wall that is being erected by Sharon. Some of them, or 
all of them, are very courageous people, doing very courageous work. I 
want to mention here the name of Rachel Corrie, who gave her life in an 
effort to defend the Palestinians against the destruction of their 
homes. Her parents are in Israel right now, and I want to salute them. 
Elmer: But ultimately the solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict lies with the Israeli and Palestinian people? 
Avnery: The only solution that can come about must be between 
Israelis and Palestinians. Others can help, assist, mediate and do many, many important jobs. But finally, it rests with Israel and the people 
of Palestine to find the way of peace and reconciliation - and 
reconciliation is more important than peace. 
Elmer: It is a popular refrain - in North America at least, 
where I live - that there is no hope. The two sides have been fighting 
for thousands of years and there is just no solution. Israelis and 
Palestinians will always kill each other. After all your experience: 
from independence fighter, to frontline journalist, to member of the 
Knesset, to peace activist - what is the solution to the 
Israel-Palestine conflict?
Avnery: The solution is perfectly clear. All parts of the 
conflict have been amply debated and discussed. Many plans have been put on the table - hundreds. And everybody knows by now exactly the 
parameters of a peace solution. We at Gush Shalom have published a draft text of a peace agreement, and I am fairly certain that when peace comes about, it will be more or less on these lines.
The solution is this: there will be a state of Palestine in all of 
the occupied territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The 
so-called Green-Line, the border that existed before 1967, will come 
into being again. There may be small adjustments, a small exchange of 
territories, but [the Green-Line] will be the border between Israel and 
Palestine. Jerusalem will be the shared capital - East Jerusalem will be the capital of Palestine, West Jerusalem will be the capital of Israel. All settlements must be evacuated. The security must be arranged for 
both people, and there must be a moral solution and a practical 
solution. 
On these lines, there will be peace. And if you ask me, they could 
make peace in one week. The trouble is that both people find it very 
difficult to come to this point. And when I say both people, I don't 
want to establish a symmetrical situation - there is no symmetry here: 
there are occupiers, and the occupied. And as the occupier, we have the 
responsibility to lead this process. This is what I, as an Israeli 
patriot, tell my own people.
________________________________
Uri Avnery is a founding member of Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc). In his 
teenage years he was an independence fighter in the Irgun (1938-1942), 
and later a soldier in the Israeli Army. A three-time Knesset member 
(1965-1973, and 1979-1983), Avnery was the first Israeli to establish 
contact with the Palestinian Liberation Organization leadership, in 
1974. During the war on Lebanon in 1982 he crossed "enemy lines" to be 
the first Israeli to meet with Yasser Arafat. He has been a journalist 
since 1947, including 40 years as Editor-in-Chief of the newsmagazine Ha'olam Haze, and is the author of numerous books on the conflict. 
Jon Elmer is currently reporting from Israel-Palestine and is the editor of FromOccupiedPalestine.org
This interview appears elsewhere:
> The Progressive, "Uri Avnery", April 2004, p.35-39
> Znet, "Violence is the Symptom", 18 September 2003
> The Dominion, "Israelis criticizing Israel", 1 December 2003

http://www.fromoccupiedpalestine.org/node/764