Israelis and Arabs: No One Is Right

THE NEWS OF THE renewed outbreak of war in the Middle East must be greeted with sorrow. The loss of lives and resources and of funds that could be allocated to help people instead of destroy them is regrettable no matter how just the cause or how great the provocation.

It would be easy to blame Egypt and Syria for resuming the bloodshed. All neutral reports indicate that the Eygptians and Syrians initiated the new hostilities in the Middle East. But to place the blame for renewed fighting squarely with one side or the other would be beside the point and would ignore the complexities of an inherently tragic situation.

While informal negotiations regarding the occupied territories have remained deadlocked, the Israelis have excited Arab anger by acting as though they intend to hold onto the lands permanently. Before the war, Israeli settlement of the West Bank of the Jordan River and the Golan Heights was well underway, and movement of Israeli settlers into the Sinai had begun.

Meanwhile, Israeli leaders have continued to mouth expansionist sentiments. One of the most inflammatory spokesmen has been the popular Defense Minister, Moshe Dayan.

"Our fathers had reached the frontiers which were recognized in the 1948 partition plan," Dayan said in 1969. "Now the Six-Day Generation has managed to reach Suez, Jordan and the Golan Heights. This is not the end. After the present cease-fire lines, there will be new ones. They will extend beyond Jordan--perhaps to Lebanon and perhaps to central Syria as well."

Actions since 1969 have substantiated Dayan's statement. Israeli oil rigs have stepped up exploration in the Sinai. Construction of tourist resorts has begun. As Dayan put it in 1971, "Other countries end their wars with the idea of going back to the points they started from. In our case, we want something new, new borders, new relations, a new state."

With statements and conditions like these, it is not surprising that the Arab governments would feel pushed to recapture the occupied territories after six years of stalemate at the bargaining table.

Both the Arabs and the Israelis have lived a history of oppression--the Arabs through the brutalizing effects of European colonialism; the Israelis, through centuries of vicious bigotry which culminated in Nazi genocide. The history of each group forged in its members a special pride along with a fragile sensitivity against being trespassed upon.

Historical coincidence has thrown these two groups together on the same tract of land, limited both in size and in resources. The Arabs, especially the Palestinians, could only see the Israelis in 1948 as foreign intruders. The influx of outsiders promised by the creation of the state of Israel meant that Palestinians would be displaced and a new, foreign polity introduced just at a time when nationalism was awakening in the Third World. As the Arabs were trying to expel the last elements of European colonialism, the Israelis--a new group whose external appearance and way of life seemed largely European--intruded. It is not surprising that the Arabs reacted with hostility.

Equally unsurprising was the Israelis' militant response. A dispersed people--including many refugees from Nazi oppression--who had come together from all over the world to establish a homeland was forced to struggle against a new threat to its existence.

AFTER 25 years, even the most intransigent Arab leader accepts that the Israeli people are in the Middle East to stay. In the current conflict, for example, there have been no Arab calls to push Israel into the sea.

Yet this softening of rhetoric is no indication that the Arabs have accepted Israel's right to exist as a nation. The right is a real one, it must be guaranteed; the Arabs must accept it. Their failure to do so will continue to harden Israel's position.

One of the more unfortunate consequences of the continuation of hostilities in the Middle East is the blocked growth of progressive elements both in the Arab countries and in Israel. Feudal Arab governments like Jordan and Egypt have diverted their people's attention from social reforms needed at home by sounding clarion calls against Israeli expansion. And Israel, once envisioned as a progressive, pioneering experiment, has sacrificed some of its dreams to support a war economy.

Peace will boost the chances that the thorniest Middle Eastern question--the grievances of the displaced Palestinian people--can start to be resolved. The Palestinians are a people with no country. Only in a peaceful Middle East, with an Israel confident of the long-term stability of its situation, can the Palestinians hope for the fundamental concessions which Israel must offer if an even partially Arab Palestine is to become a reality.

The United States and the Soviet Union can play a constructive role in improving the situation in the Middle East by staying out. The two superpowers must lead an embargo on the sale and shipment of arms to/all potential Middle East combatants. Only then can the Israelis and Arabs resolve their differences through discussion rather than continuing to kill each other without settling anything.

Before anything else can happen, the present war must stop, with a cease-fire established in place. Then the combatants can begin to talk--directly, with each other--about reducing the tensions that have brought wars. The Israelis must recognize that the Arab nations, particularly the Palestinians, have legitimate grievances and fears, and Israel should work to resolve those greviances and reduce the causes of those fears. Similarly the Arabs must recognize the sovereignty of Israel and that country's need for security.