ABRAHAM SHUMSKY
457
ing, to make a land-for-peace deal. (Employing the same logic, some
Likud members defend their own obduracy by masquerading what
is really an ideological conviction as a mere negotiating tactic. Why
agree to land-for-peace in advance of negotiations, they ask?
Rather, let Arabs first recognize Israel and then negotiate. Those
Arabs, as it were, in theory willing to recognize Israel, see that rec–
ognition as a consequence of a deal, not as a precondition to negotia–
tions. They see Israeli willingness to trade land for peace as the
precondition. The Likud, however, does not want to play its cards
openly before the game begins, falsely implying that the card is in its
deck.
There is, finally, no substance to claims of moral equivalency:
the Zionist leadership accepted the 1947 partition of Palestine; Arab
states and the Palestinian leadership rejected it. When push comes
to shove , this model has held. With both Israel and the United States
going to the polls, things are on hold. The
intifada
appears to be
waning. An in-depth look at Palestinian tactics and goals is not
meant to distract attention from a discussion of what Israel should
and should not be doing. Yet those of us who argue for an Israeli in–
itiative cannot do so effectively without understanding the nature of
Palestinian politics and aspirations. We do Palestinians no service in
failing to take them seriously. And we do Israel no service in asking
it to do something, anything, just so long as it acts to defuse the im–
ages on our television screens.
David Twersky
MEDIA TACTICS
I had heard so much about an evenhanded policy towards
the Mideast that I looked for it in the treatment of the Palestinian
demonstrations in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Instead, here
are some of the things I found.
In a recent article in
The New York Times Magazine
the vice
president of the American Hebrew Congregation stated: "Welcome
