Cooling the Middle East rhetoric

In recent weeks the David Horowitz Freedom Center has been placing half- and full-page advertisements in the mainstream U.S. press including the New York Times under such titles as “The Palestinians’ Case Against Israel is Based on a Genocidal Lie.” The ads continue: “The Palestinian Authority on the West Bank and the Hamas Government of Gaza both claim that Israel is ‘Occupied Palestine.’ This is a lie.”Technically, the Horowitz Center is correct in that there has never been an internationally recognized political entity, state or country called Palestine in the Middle East. Furthermore, the lands we refer to as Palestine have been repeatedly overrun and ruled or claimed by outsiders for most of recorded history. There never was a Palestine state in the political sense.Nevertheless, “statehood” is not what the “occupation” issue is all about, in the minds of members of the United Nations, the United States government or Israelis and Palestinians concerned with human rights. The underlying issue is that Israel has occupied real estate property owned by local Palestinian families without consent and without due process of law. Such local land ownership, stretching back a couple of hundred years and more, is increasingly difficult to prove since most municipal land records evidencing this ownership have been systematically destroyed. Furthermore, in the face of calls by the United Nations and others for restraint, the expansion of new settlements has continued unabated. This is the central problem.Considering the historical territorial conquests of Palestinian lands by Neanderthals, Persians, Mongols, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Turks, Crusaders, French, Britons and others, it is difficult to conclude that a benevolent deity intended the land for only one preferred group or the other. Furthermore, the argument over “who got there first” is a dead end, especially since genetic studies show that, recent immigrants aside, the bloodlines of long-term resident Jews and Palestinians, who are practically close cousins, go back over 2,500 years in equal measure. Extremists on each side falsely accuse the other side of “genocide,” that is, the systematic eradication of a racial, religious or cultural group. These accusations are simply false, and intended for inflammatory purposes. It is time to cool the rhetoric down on both sides. It’s time to ask what most of the people, Israelis and Palestinians alike, actually want.Formal and informal polling by the United Nations, the World Health Organization and other independent agencies and researchers demonstrates that the vast majority of Israelis and Palestinians, well over 70 percent in each case, seek peace and security for all, preferably under a “two-state solution,” subject to mutual agreement to safeguard free trade, travel, land and water rights and the exercise of democratic self-determination without outside influence. Both sides will have to give up some of their claims relating to national security, boundaries, refugees, settlements and resources. This requires detailed negotiation. Meanwhile, let’s cool down the hyperbolic rhetoric by minority factions on both sides who have an interest in promoting endless conflict and violence. Let’s listen to the majority of Israelis and Palestinians who want reconciliation and cooperation now to avoid future catastrophe and to ensure the betterment of all.Sharon resident Anthony Piel is a former director and general legal counsel of the World Health Organization.