Israel's Security Is Paramount

A lasting peace depends on the PLO guaranteeing Israel's security.

Today, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres will speak in Memorial Hall to an audience of nearly 1,000 students. On the occasion of his address, I cannot help but recall hearing Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's refrain at last September's ceremony in Washington: "Enough of blood and tears. Enough!" I and the 40 other students watching the ceremony with me at Hillel were moved by Rabin's noble words on behalf of peace.

But our reaction to the surreal sight of Rabin shaking hands with PLO leader Yassir Arafat that day was very different. We, like most Israelis, knew of Arafat's murderous history of terrorism, and his tactics of choosing children as targets and shopping malls as battlefields.

Members of the Israeli Likud opposition party have characterized Arafat as a man who has "more Jewish blood on his hands then anyone since Adolf Hitler." These claims accurately reflect the revulsion long felt for Arafat by Israelis and Jews cognizant of his violent past. If peace is to be made in the Middle East, Arafat must replace these memories of terror with new realities of conciliation.

Rabin was visibly distressed as he shook Arafat's eager hand. The Prime Minister began his remarks that day by calling the signing "not so easy" for himself or for the Jewish people in the Diaspora, who, he said, were "watching with great hope and apprehension."

It was reassuring to hear Rabin give expression to the intense, yet mixed feelings present in the pro-Israel community. We wished the Palestinian leader who shook Rabin's hand would be a courageous leader, like Sadat, who flouted Arab rejectionism and flew to Jerusalem in pursuit of peace. Instead, we were greeted by Arafat's grinning visage on the cover of Time magazine.

But, as Rabin and Peres have emphasized in the past few months, peace is never made with friends, only with enemies. Israel can't choose its negotiating partners--the ineffectiveness of the non-PLO Palestinian delegation to Madrid proved this point. For a negotiating partner with authority and legitimacy in the territories, Israel was forced to turn to Yassir Arafat and the PLO.

In doing so, it is important to realize that Israel did not accept the PLO on the basis of a profound change in the organization's ultimate goals. Indeed, Arafat has still not moved to revoke the clauses in the PLO charter that call for an armed struggle to destroy the Jewish state.

Moreover, even if the charter is amended, we still can't be certain that the Palestinians will be satisfied with Israel's territorial concessions. Extremist groups like Hamas have stepped up their attacks on Israelis in recent months in protest of the agreement. Even Arafat's own Fatah Hawks have engaged in violence in the past few weeks, in violation of the agreement.

While Jews every-where hope and pray for peace, many of us worry that without extreme prudence, the agreement could lead to a foothold on the mountain ridges of the West Bank for terrorist attacks on the Israeli population.

These anxieties are the result of Israel's long struggle for existence against rejectionist Arab states and terrorist organizations who have struggled to fulfill Gamal Abdel Nasser's dream to "push the Jews into the sea."

The only answer to these anxieties is a strong commitment to Israeli security in any further arrangements made in the peace process. Toward this end, Rabin and Peres have prudently held out over a number of outstanding issues. Most important among these is the issue of who will control the borders of Gaza and Jericho with other Arab states. Israel has insisted, justly, that Israeli authorities should have veto power over entry of some foreigners into the West Bank and Gaza.

Palestinians should understand that this peace plan can only work if they convince the Israeli people that they harbor no hostile intentions. Popular support in Israel for concessions will disappear unless Palestinians bolster the shaky Israeli confidence in the PLO's commitment to Israeli in security. The PLO should cooperate with Israel in securing against infiltration by potentially violent anti-Israel extremists.

Indeed, historic injustices suffered by the Palestinians have only occurred because of the threat to Israeli security. Israel never intended to hold the territories of Gaza and the West Bank under military occupation, but was compelled to do so as a security measure, in the face of steadfast aggression by neighboring Arab States. The previous border--ten miles wide, facing mountain slopes on one side and the Mediterranean Sea on the other--would have been indefensible against attacking armies.

Likud governments financed settlements in the territories to establish further control over the land, pessimistic that Arabs would ever trade full peace for just a portion of the "Palestine" they claim. Based on Israel's brief but difficult past, these previous administrations believed that Palestinians and Arabs would forever consider Israel an alien presence in the Middle East and work for its annihilation.

Shimon Peres, a man who has been with the State of Israel through all of its struggles, represents a new optimism in the Middle East. He has worked tirelessly to give Palestinians a chance at achieving autonomy and social justice. The genius of his plan is its reliance on interim periods of gradually increasing Palestinian autonomy, during which the Palestinians may prove their commitment to peaceful coexistence with Israelis.

Peres and Rabin are taking a calculated risk in their concessions to the Palestinians. They recognize that giving the Palestinians their legitimate rights of self-government represents a noble effort in the pursuit of Israel's quest to be a "light unto the nations." More importantly, the Israelis have recognized that they and the Palestinians are fated to exist on the same land, and that long-range security can only be guaranteed if the Palestinians receive some measure of justice.

Israelis yearn for an end to military confrontation and the Intifada. With the Gaza-Jericho agreement, Israel has taken a calculated risk and given the Palestinians a chance. Now, it is the Palestinians' turn to prove their commitment to peace.

Along with every Jew and supporter of Israel in the world, I hope and pray that the Palestinians rise to the occasion. Moderates on both sides should follow the noble example of Shimon Peres, aligning themselves against the extremists and obstructionists and creating the bonds of economic and social interdependence that make wars unlikely. Martin Lebwohl '96 is co-chair of Harvard Students for Israel.