Mid-East at Harvard

An Israeli-Palestinian symposium that took place; at Harvard earlier this month began as one more meeting on this well-known, sometimes boring, conflict. But it finished as one of the most encouraging gatherings ever in the history of Israeli-Palestinian conferences.

The symposium was initiated and chaired by Cabot Professor of Social Ethics Herbert C. Kelman, who has been working in this field for the last decade. From Israel came a delegation of Knesset (Parliament) members from the Alignment (the Labor and Mapam parties) and from the Shinui party--both of them in the opposition to the governing Likud coalition. The head of the Israeli delegation, Yossi Sarid, 43, is the most salient dove in the Labor party and one of the most talented members of Knesset. He is, in a way, the flagbearer for tens or hundreds of thousands of people in Israel, who believe in a dialogue with the Palestinians and the Arab states and strongly oppose the war in Lebanon.

Public political talks involving such a high-ranking Israeli delegation do not guarantee a practical result--not in the present nor the near future. But if the Alignment regains power (the next elections in Israel are scheduled for November 1985) then a ground was set at Harvard for fruitful and constructive negotiations.

The head of the Palestinian delegation was Jerusalem-born Professor Walid Khalidi, a permanent research fellow in the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard, one of the founders of the Institute of Palestinian Studies, and a professor of Government at the American University in Beirut since 1957. Other Palestinian delegates were scholars and editors from the West Bank, Jordan. Belgium and the University of Tennessee.

Harold H. Saunders, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and former Assistant Secretary of State for Near-Eastern and South Asian Affairs, made the first address. He presented a somewhat anachronistic framework for solution to the Palestinian problem, which was shaped in the '70s by the Kissinger school. Generally, he said, it seems that the present government in Israel does not see the core of the conflict in the Palestinian problem, but rather in the refusal of the Arab states to recognize Israel's right to exist and to live in secure borders. The Palestinians, on their side, would not join negotiations unless Israel recognizes their right for self-determination.

The answer to this, according to Saunders, is American mediation, based on an American public declaration of policy encouraging the Palestinians to join the talks. After hearing the specific outlines of Saunders' proposed declaration, my impression is that there is but little doubt whether any Israeli government, not only the Likud, would join any talks on this basis.

If there is a meaning to the expression about taking the wind out of someone's sails, that's what Yossi Sarid's speech did to Saunders' address. Although pre-prepared, Yossi Sarid's speech appeared to be a direct response to Saunders' lecture. Said Sarid, after emphasizing the essential interest that Israel also has in solving the Palestinian problem: "We, the moderates, must deliver the two nations from the vicious circle of just claims... When just claims face just claims, the two sides become involved in a sterile, trite, endless debate; who ought to take the first step, who will be the first to recognize the other? Many long years have been lost over this pointless argument. Now, the time has come to put an end to it."

Sarid then presented what he called the "Archimedian Point" of the Palestinian problem (and of the Middle East conflict as well), being--"mutual and simultaneous recognition of the right of self-determination of the two nations." This was the first in a line of three principles that Sarid detailed. The second principle dealt with the question of whom Israel should carry on negotiations with: "Israel should talk peace with anyone who adopts this first principle of mutual recognition. Whoever recognizes Israel's right to exist as a sovereign, secure state in the Middle East, should be considered by it a legitimate and acceptable partner at the negotiating table."

According to the third principle, "the final decision [which relates to the form in which the Palestinian Arab Nation will realize its right to self-determination] must be taken--when the time comes--by the Palestinian Arab nation itself" However, Sarid indicated that there are many in Israel, the Arab world, and elsewhere who believe that the solution should take into account "the close links and the strong ties between the West Bank and the East Bank--the Kingdom of Jordan."

Very gently, Prof. Khalidi rejected Saunders' suggestion for U.S. mediation between the Israelis and the Palestinians. "We and the Israelis are the historical protagonists of the conflict We are the direct bearer of the Palestinian problem Reconciliation between us should be our business only, and not the business of a third party, be his intentions as good as could be. No third parts could bring about the beginning of a reconciliation process."

Prof. Khalidi declared--to the astonishment and relief of several Israelis in the Forum Room that he had no problem in accepting the formula that was presented by Yossi Sarid, in its precise language.

We, in Israel and in the Middle East, are not pampered with such kind talks. Being here at Harvard for the last seven months, away from home and from the rhythm of Israeli life, I might have been carried away with the talks. In Israel I might have reacted to this differently--perhaps more skeptically. Since 1977, when the Likud won the elections and took over, Israel has gone through some severe changes. It has become hard-hearted and less attentive to its real needs and to reason. There was a time when Israel was ready to negotiate with members of the PLO, as long as they didn't publicly wave their identity. But in recent years, the Likud government has made consistent efforts to delegitimatize the PLO and its leader Yassit Arafat. After the PLO left Beirut in 1982, the Likud government believed, and so declared, that the PLO was exterminated once and for all.

Bearing this mind one could sense how surrealistic this symposium at Harvard seemed sometimes. But still, for me and perhaps for other Israelis who stay here and share my views, this symposium was also very interesting and encouraging, and above all a reminder that there are still in Israel people who hold the right direction and would exercise it when the time comes. The meeting with some of them here at Harvard was for me, to put it in Prof. Khalidi's words, "a breath of fresh air" and a good hope for a better future.

Dalia Shehori, on leave from the Israeli newspaper Al-Hamishmar, is a Nieman fellow.