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Arabs to get
their
act together and evince a readiness for peace?"
The pessimists say, "For all intents and purposes, Israel has com–
pleted the de facto annexation of the West Bank." Some doves and
moderates cling to the traditional position that the ultimate status of
the West Bank has not been determined yet, that the "massive"
Jewish settlement campaign, however unadvisable and even damag–
ing, has not foreclosed the question. Furthermore, they claim, while
certain limited moves can be made, unilaterally, to render the situa–
tion more acceptable, no steps should be taken which may reinforce
the "megaforce" undercurrent pulling towards annexation. Theyop–
pose increased parliamentary control over the West Bank, arguing
that the Arabs prefer the transient nature of a military government
which rules without their consent to the nearly permanent nature of
civilian parliamentary control which also rules without their con–
sent. The only answer is that the focus of the national debate must
shift from questions of ultimate sovereignty and Israeli borders,
which unfortunately have been already answered, to that of the
human rights of Arabs in the territories.
The most eloquent support for the de facto annexation thesis
belongs to Meron Benvenisti who has conducted a series of studies
on
the exact nature and the cumulative effects of Israeli policies in
the West Bank. Benvenisti argues that the forces working to attach
the area to Israel permanently are far stronger than those counseling
some form of territory-for-peace swap. He is somewhat more am–
biguous about his conclusions in Hebrew (see for example his article
last June in the weekly
Koteret Rashit)
than he is in English (as in the
version of his
Koteret Rashit
article in
The New York Review of Books
in
October 1983). Yet he is no less influential here among liberal-left
activists and intellectuals, possibly because of a predilection to
despair, in the face of six and a half years of Likud rule and the
massive settlement campaign it continues to sponsor.
In part, Benvenisti attempts to shock domestic Israeli attention
into an awareness of just how far down the road towards a grossly
unequal dual society Israel has travelled. In part, it is an attempt to
persuade the Arabs, as well as the foreign policy elites in the West,
that time is not on the side of a peaceful compromise as envisioned In
resolution 242: a swap of territory for peace and recognition. This
strategy has triggered many unexpected and not always welcome re–
actions. Many Israeli doves accept the overstatement as the full
truth. (Curiously, the annexationists of Herut, Gush Emunim, and
