Guest Editorial by Caspar F. Ewig

Can Talk Work?

At a recent, sparsely attended protest rally on Pioneer Street in Cooperstown, one of the protesters carried a sign pleading for a “cease fire,” and a call to “make talk work.” I really wanted to engage the gentleman in a dialogue, but had another appointment, so I just took the picture and traveled on. The more I thought about the sign, and the more I thought about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the more I was struck by how such a simple concept could become so entangled in the weeds.

Over the last two issues of “The Freeman’s Journal,” various aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been laid out. First there was an opinion piece by the Journal’s former News Editor, Wriley Nelson, essentially castigating and condemning the misery which the Israeli attack on the Palestinians in Gaza has caused. This was followed by a number of letters either criticizing or praising Nelson or his perspective, but not adding any more clarity on the issues underlying the present eruption of the omnipresent tension in that area of the world. Now, taking my cue from the protester’s sign, I add my voice to the pile.

“Make talk work.” It’s such an easy phrase, such a simple concept. Yet as applied to this dispute, it is neither easy nor simple. For starters, even the terms for a cease fire are contentious. The Israelis have insisted on a return of the hostages as precondition, and the Palestinians were using the hostage issue as a negotiating tool. In fact, the November cease fire collapsed for that reason. And a second offer for a cease fire in January this year required Israel’s acceptance of Hamas as the valid political arm in Gaza as a precondition.

Even assuming outside pressure could finally force both sides to actually meet, will any talk work? Can the parties agree on a set of facts from which to arrive at a compromise? After all, a compromise can only be achieved if both sides accept a reality it cannot change and each side is willing to acknowledge, understand, and respect the underlying assumptions of the adversary’s position. And therein lies the rub.

The stated aim of the Palestinians is reflected in the mantra “from the river to the sea, Palestine must be free.” And by free, there is no doubt they mean under Palestinian control with the expulsion or extermination of all Jews. After all, the land, they say, was essentially theirs until the events of 1947-1948 leading up to the Declaration of the Israeli State.

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s stated aim (and according to a December 2023 poll, with agreement of a substantial part of the Jewish Israeli population) is to eradicate Hamas. Because termination of prior intermittent conflagrations has left Hamas alive to fight another day, the slaughter of October 7, 2023 was possible, and the Israeli government repeated its mantra of “never again.”

With those stated objectives so far apart, it is difficult to imagine that any talk would work.

However, neither side’s objectives are realistically feasible. Certainly, Israel is not going to voluntarily cede its territory and bring a repeat Holocaust upon itself, and the Palestinian fighting force is not strong enough to obtain a military victory. On the other hand, Netanyahu’s pronouncement to “eradicate” Hamas is to play “whack a mole.” Given the widespread political and emotional support for Hamas among the Palestinian people, a destruction of today’s force will surely cause a new one to arise out of the ashes.

Enter reality. Assuming an ultimate recognition that fighting for unreachable goals is Sisyphean, and will result in never-ending wars, the only alternative is to make talk work.

The reality that the Palestinians cannot avoid is the right of Jews to live in the area called Israel, including the West Bank. Even limiting biblical references to the historical context, the Jews have been in the area a long time: Joshua 23.4: “I have divided to you by lot these nations that remain, to be an inheritance for your tribes, from the Jordan [the River], with all the nations that I have cut off, as far as the Great Sea [the Mediterranean] westward.” Admittedly, a lot incurred in between, but the Jews’ right to the area exists.

The Palestinians must also accept the reality of Israel as a religious state. It was founded for the express purpose of providing a homeland for a people who had historically suffered insecurity in other lands, the Holocaust being but the most recent example. There is nothing wrong with being a religious state (after all, Palestine is also one, de facto) and even though there are disagreements within Israel as to the nature of religion’s role, nothing will change that reality.

The reality for the Israelis is the undeniable deep hostility bordering on hate that their often imperious actions must have created in the Palestinian community. A disdain so deep that schoolchildren are brought up to recite virulent antisemitic concepts. This conduct started in the era of the British Mandate but culminated in the run-up and ultimate Declaration of Independence in 1947-48. During that time, the then-indigenous Palestinians were expelled or had to flee in the wake of an Israeli ethnic cleansing that was neither pretty nor peaceful. To diffuse that animosity is an essential reality and Jews must face the need to deal with Palestinians other than as a vanquished enemy. Yes, wars have consequences, but as the Allies showed in Germany, it makes sense to treat the losers as equals, not as subjugated victims.

If those realities are accepted and respected, talk can work. If not, there is the danger that the area is destined to experience eternal war. What solution the talks will find is anyone’s guess. Many thoughts are on the table, and all need to be identified and can then be explored.

What will, however, derail the entire endeavor is the use of pejoratives to describe either side’s present actions. There is an ongoing war between the parties, and war is hell. Civilians will always suffer disproportionately as each side seeks to enforce its unrealistic aims. And excessive brutality will undoubtedly be the hallmark of some actions by either side. But to accuse Israel, 21 percent of whose population is Arabic, of genocide is nonsensical. Similarly, to accuse any critic, no matter how purple his prose, as anti-Semitic is equally pejorative and unhelpful.

The use of inflammatory terms solves nothing.

That kind of talk will never work.

Caspar Ewig is a retired maritime lawyer and a freelance reporter for Iron String Press.