Soccer Dad

Arabs for Israel

Just after I received the latest from Daniel Pipes, "Pro-Israel Palestinians", (derived from his "The Hell of Israel Is Better than the Paradise of Arafat" I saw a reference to a website "Arabs for Israel." (I don't remember the source.)
This recalls that in the early 1980's, Prime Minister Begin appointed academic Menachem Milson to head the civilian administration over Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Milson had written an article in Commentary, "Peace with the Palestinians" in which he argued that Israel should cultivate a Palestinian leadership that it could work with.
The Palestinian elections in 1976 (?) had brought pro-PLO politicians to power at the expense of the old line pro Jordanian ones. This had greatly radicalized the Palestinian political landscape. Milson's job was to undo the results of those elections somehow.
However the world accepted the outcome of the Rabat conference that the PLO was the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people." It mattered little that the Rabat conference was essentially a declaration of war against Israel's existence the support for the PLO became the norm. Somehow the idea of Palestinian statehood became so important the means by which it would be obtained no longer mattered.
So Milson's approach was heretical. He was villified by the likes of Flora Lewis and Anthony Lewis in the NY Times. Arabs who cooperated with his "village league" idea were routinely reported to be "corrupt."
Yet even now I wonder what would have happened if Milson had been able to continue. (He resigned his position after Operation Peace for the Galilee.) Were there enough moderates that he would have had a critical mass of Palestinians to do business with?
I also remember that in the mid to late 80's that there was an Arab soda factory that hired Yeshiva students from Bet El (yes, settlers) to give Hashgacha on their product so it could be sold in Israel.
What if initiatives between Arabs and Jews had been cultivated on a grass roots level circumventing the PLO? Might the death and destruction of the Oslo years have been prevented?
In his column "Israel Draws the Line" arguing for disengagement, Charles Krauthammer wrote:

And the Israeli left has grown up too, being mugged by the intifada into understanding that you do not trust the lives of your children to the word of an enemy bent on your destruction.

I disagree. The Israeli Left does not, even now, acknowledge its error. It still thinks it was correct. Nor does anyone in the international arena who deodorized Arafat apologize for the resulting mayhem that was the all too predictable result of legitimizing a terrorist organization.
It's too late now to reverse the damage. But are these people enough? Or are they doomed to the margins risking being denounced as collaborators?
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

Posted by SoccerDad at May 11, 2005 6:59 AM