The Rabin Vision: Maybe This is the Way Out
Nabil Al-Khatib, Executive Editor of Al Arabiya, based in
Twelve years have passed since the bullets fired by Yigal Amir managed to assassinate the Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzchak Rabin. A new reality has set in and we realize today that Amir’s bullets succeeded in killing, not only Rabin, but his vision as well.
People close to the late leader of Israel, and those Palestinians who used to sit on the opposite side of the table negotiating with him, always talked about his determination to end the conflict based on the “two-state solution.”
However, since then, Amir’s voice has remained the loudest, just like the loudness of his fatal bullets while the voices demanding peace have remained low.
Supporters of peace continue whispering in each other’s ears in workshops, using theoretical methods to try to reach a possible solution – on paper - for a far too complicated situation.
The paradox is that all current and former politicians share a common consensus that they keep repeating behind closed door: “The solution is known…the question is how to implement it?”
The solution Rabin paid his life for …, The solution President Clinton proposed to the parties when it was too late … The solution Taba negotiators worked on, and were too late… The solution the Arab Initiative proposed five years ago … The solution that President Bush highlighted more than five years ago …
The solution is there but no one is willing to be a leader and fight for its implementation, not only in the region, but among the international community as well.
Consequently, the concerned parties and mediators are still in a prison of the same old tragedy, with the U.S. escalating its efforts in the last months of the president’s term, and the negotiating parties in Jerusalem discussing the problem of controlling ten fighters in Nablus, as a prerequisite for negotiating a final agreement to end the conflict!!!
The problem, nowadays, is that all the efforts of the U.S. administration and the Middle East quartet and the Arab quartet to work along with the concerned parties to find a solution are starting from point zero. The concerned parties are like merchants trying to win a bargain in an ancient bazaar, with each side trying to give the other what it was forced to give and not what might make both of them winners.;It seems that both sides keep missing the big picture by concentrating on the details and forgetting the final goal
Thus, what if Dr. Condoleezza Rice came to the Palestinians and Israelis and presented President Clinton’s ideas/parameters announced January 8, 2001, and asked both to deal with them as the starting point for talks?
What if she asked Mr. Olmert and Mr. Abbas what their objections are on those ideas in order to try and work on closing the gap, while judging both parties based on the “Bush Vision”?
The fact that she did not, and the fact that President George W. Bush, just like President Bill Clinton, did not push for a solution until the last few months of his presidency might lead to the same result. And we will probably hear a speech by President Bush on January 8, 2008, repeating the same old story.
The scenarios for the future, if no solution will be implemented soon, are predictable.
Neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis will enjoy the kind of state that each of them has been dreaming about. Probably, the "Historical Palestine" will fall into a long painful "apartheid-like" situation for "practical reasons".
I do not think that late Yitzhak Rabin was ready to compromise by establishing a viable Palestinian state out of love to the Palestinians, but rather, because he realized the necessity of it and that the destiny of the Jewish state was at stake.
Sadly, Rabin paid with his life for trying to implement his vision.Meanwhile, Yigal Amir and all those who see only conflict and bloodshed as the solution are applauding themselves for their success and for the failure of the supporters of peace.
Hence, my advice, for all those concerned, is to try to build on what was achieved.
Starting from the beginning will only keep things permanently at the beginning.