How to Cure a Fanatic by Amos Oz

Author:Amos Oz
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784700690
Publisher: Random House

Postscript to the ‘Geneva Accords’

THE PROTESTS FROM those who oppose the ‘Geneva Accords’ are absolutely without foundation. The authors of these agreements know perfectly well that Sharon and his Cabinet are indeed the legitimate government of Israel. They know that their initiative, the fruit of years of negotiation conducted in the greatest secrecy, is no more than an exercise. And that its goal is only to offer to Israeli and Palestinian public opinion a window through which they can see a different landscape: no more car bombs, no more suicide bombers, no more occupations, no more oppression or expropriation, the end to endless war and hate. In their place, we propose a detailed, cautious solution, which does not skirt round any of the fundamental questions. Its central principle is this: we put an end to the occupation, and the Palestinians put an end to their war on Israel. We give up our dream of a Greater Israel, and they give up their dream of a Greater Palestine. We surrender sovereignty of certain parts of the Land of Israel which are dear to our hearts, and the Palestinians do likewise. The problem of the 1948 refugees, which is at the heart of our national security predicament, is to be resolved once and for all, and strictly outside the frontiers of the State of Israel, and with international assistance.

If these agreements are put into action, not a single Palestinian refugee camp, weighed down with its burden of despair, negligence, hate and fanaticism, will remain in the Middle East. In the document we have in our hands, the Palestinians accept, contractually, definitively and irrevocably, that they will not, either now or in the future, claim against Israel.

At the end of the conference, after the signature of the ‘Geneva Accords’ a representative of the Tanzim declared that perhaps one could now make out on the horizon the end to the hundred-years war between Jews and Palestinians. He added that this would be replaced by a bitter conflict between those on both sides who defend compromise and peace, and those on both sides who are mired in fanaticism. This conflict has already begun to rage. Sharon kicked it off, even before the ‘Geneva Accords’ were published. And the leaders of Hamas and of the Islamic Jihad rushed to echo him, using exactly the same discourse of hatred.

So what is it that is missing from the ‘Geneva Accords’? The ‘Geneva Accords’ have no teeth. The ‘Geneva Accords’ are no more than fifty pages of paper. But, on the other hand, if the two sides accept them, tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, they will discover that the foundations for the peace have already been laid. Right down to the last detail.

If Sharon and Arafat want to use this document as a basis for an agreement, its authors will not claim copyright. And if Sharon works out a better plan, different, more detailed, more nationalistic, and which is accepted by the other camp, what will we do? We will let him do it.

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