Mr. Speaker, as I rise to speak I am reminded, particularly because this is Holocaust Remembrance Day, of the reverence for human life. That is why I wish to begin almost by way of prologue with a statement that every person, be they Palestinian or Israeli, Arab or Jewish, is a universe, and the death of any innocent a tragedy.
I rise also to speak not only as the MP for Mount Royal but as a Jew, as one who has been engaged in the struggle for a just, lasting and comprehensive peace in the Middle East for over 35 years, who has family in Israel and friends among the Palestinians, and who has acted as legal counsel to both Israeli and Palestinian human rights NGOs. Accordingly, with this experience in mind, I would like to go behind the daily headlines, which cloud and sometimes corrupt understanding, to probe the real basis for conflict, the root causes, to use the popular metaphor, of conflict in the Middle East and the basis for conflict resolution.
I will organize my remarks around a set of foundational principles for understanding the conflict and for moving toward a just solution, many of which are themselves anchored in the basic principles of Canadian foreign policy in the Middle East.
Principle number one, which successive Canadian governments have described as the cornerstone of Canadian foreign policy in the Middle East, is respect for the security, well-being and legitimacy of the state of Israel. Indeed, this principle is itself rooted in a related notion or principle: the existential nature of the Israeli-Palestinian-Arab conflict. In a word, this is not a conflict about borders, though borders are certainly in dispute. This is not a conflict about territory, although territory is certainly in dispute. It is not a conflict about resources such as water, though resources are certainly in dispute. Nor is this even a conflict about Jerusalem, though Jerusalem is sometimes a metaphor for the existential nature of this conflict.
Simply put, the core of the conflict has been and for the most part continues to be the unwillingness of many among the Palestinian and Arab leadership to accept the legitimacy of Israel's right to exist anywhere in the Middle East.
Historical rejectionist evidence speaks for itself. In 1947 the United Nations recommended the partition of the Palestine mandate into a Jewish state and a Palestinian-Arab state. The Jews accepted the UN resolution. The Arabs rejected it and launched a war that by their own acknowledgement was intended to exterminate the nascent state of Israel.
It should be noted that at the time of this first rejection of a Jewish state there were no Palestinian-Arab refugees, no occupied territories, no settlements. Indeed, this was the beginning of a pattern of double rejectionism: the Arabs rejecting a Palestinian state if that meant having to countenance a Jewish one.
From 1948 until 1967 the West Bank was under the occupation of Jordan, and Gaza under the occupation of Egypt, so that only Arab occupation prevented the emergence of a Palestinian state during this period. In June 1967, again with no Israeli occupation or settlements in occupied territories, Egypt, Syria and Jordan waged a war against Israel, not to establish a Palestinian state but to once again extinguish the Jewish one.
In the Israeli exercise of self-defence, which the UN acknowledged, Israel gained control of the Sinai, the West Bank and the Gaza strip. Israel's offer in the immediate aftermath of that 1967 six-day war to return these newly obtained territories for a peace treaty was met with the triple “no” of the Arab Khartoum declaration: no recognition, no negotiation, no peace with Israel.
The pattern continued through the launching of yet another war of aggression against Israel on Yom Kippur until the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty in 1979 resulted in the return of the Sinai and peace between Israel and Egypt, just as a peace treaty was to be completed with Jordan in 1994.
In a word, therefore, and this is the reading of the Middle East history, fast forward now to the year 2000. It is not the Israeli occupation that has been the root cause of the conflict; rather, it is the rejection of Israel, even at the price of rejecting thereby a Palestinian state, that led to the initial occupation in 1967 and still sustains the less than 5% of the territory yet occupied by Israel as a result of the six-day war. In a word, over 95% of the territory captured by Israel in the exercise of self-defence in the six-day war has been returned within the framework of peace treaties with countries that were prepared to recognize Israel and, in the initial stages of Oslo, which have given Arafat control over 98% of the Palestinian people.
However, in the year 2000 in the Camp David talks and then again in Taba, Arafat rejected a Clinton and Israeli initiated proposal that would have ended what remained of the occupation and would have established an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital. This would have given the Palestinians almost everything that they themselves had been asking for, save for the right of return which, as Palestinian leader Sari Nusseibah put it, would have meant a second Palestinian state in place of Israel.
This would have required of Arafat and the Arab world to finally accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state in the Middle East alongside the 22 Arab states in the region. Arafat not only rejected this proposal, which recalls the refrain that the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity, but as the Arab scholar Fouad Ajami recently put it, Arafat launched a war of terror in the heartland of Israel of which the recent Passover massacre was a real life metaphor.
Principle number two and related existential principle which has emerged as a basic tenet of Canadian foreign policy is that the Palestinians are a people who have legitimate rights and needs, including the right to self-determination and the right, as I myself have been maintaining for more than 30 years, to an independent, democratic, rights protecting state in the Middle East. Only a democratic Palestinian state will protect the authentic Palestinian right to self-determination while affording the best security for Israel.
Israelis have acknowledged their willingness and readiness to negotiate an independent Palestinian state. The core question then is not whether there will be an independent Palestinian state on which Israel is prepared to agree. The question is whether the Arab world is prepared to make room for a single Jewish state alongside 23 Arab states.
Principle number three refers to UN security council resolutions 242 and 338 agreed upon for conflict resolution in the Middle East, a formula sometimes known as the land for peace resolutions. These UN security council resolutions have been further refined and built upon by the Madrid and Oslo process, including the importance of a just solution to the refugee question.
Principle number four is an end to any Arab or Palestinian government sanctioned incitement to hatred and violence. It is this government sanctioned teaching of contempt, this demonizing of the other, this culture of incitement, is where it all begins. In the words of Professor Ajami:
The suicide bomber of the Passover massacre did not descend from the sky; he walked straight out of the culture of incitement let loose on the land, a menace hovering over Israel, a great Palestinian and Arab refusal to let that country be, to cede it a place among the nations, he partook of the culture all around him--the glee that greets those brutal deeds of terror, the cult that rises around the martyrs and their families.
Principle number five is the danger of the escalating globalizing genocidal anti-Jewishness. It is a tragic irony that on the occasion of today's International Holocaust Remembrance Day, where Jews in concert with our fellow citizens remember the worst genocide of the 20th century, international holocaust and genocide scholars warn once again of a genocidal anti-Semitism rearing its ugly head. In particular I am referring to the state and terrorist sanctioned public calls for the destruction of Israel and the murder of the Jewish people which I have documented elsewhere.
Principle number six is terrorism. The deliberate maiming, murder and terrorizing of innocents can never be justified. It is important to recall and reaffirm the foundational principles of international and Canadian counterterrorism law and policy as they apply also to the Middle East. These include that terrorism from whatever quarter for whatever purpose, as the Prime Minister put it, can never be justified; that the transnational networks of super terrorists with access to weapons of mass destruction constitute an existential threat to the right to life, liberty and security of the person; and that freedom from acts of terror, freedom from fear of terror constitute a cornerstone of human security. In the words of our Prime Minister:
There is nothing in our experience that can capture the fear that Israelis live with every hour of every day.
They further include that there is no moral equivalence or similitude between terrorism and counterterrorism, between deliberate acts of terror against civilians and acts of self-defence against terrorists; that support and sanctuary for groups responsible for terrorism, as the foreign minister has put it, is unacceptable; and that counterterrorism must always comport with human rights and humanitarian norms.
Principle number seven is respect for human rights and humanitarian law as a cornerstone for the protection of human security. If human security were an organizing principle of Canadian foreign policy then it is human insecurity which is the most serious dimension of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict today. What is needed therefore is a culture of human rights in place of a culture of hate, a culture of respect in place of a culture of contempt. As the foreign minister put it recently at a meeting of the UN commission on human rights in Geneva, “security is sustainable only in an environment where human rights are protected” including in particular the protection of civilians in armed conflict.
Principle number eight is support for the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Lebanon. In accordance with UN security council resolutions Canada supports the progressive extension of the Lebanese government's authority over all of its territory and the withdrawal of foreign forces from Lebanon.
Principle number nine is the implementation of the Tenet security work plan and Mitchell commission recommendations. Close to a year ago I described in this place a tenuous Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire that hung on a thread and threatened to explode into violence and stated that it was more necessary than ever that the parties adhere to the recommendations of the Mitchell commission. I reiterate these words today with all the urgency that today's situation commands.
The Tenet security work plan and the Mitchell recommendations are a carefully calibrated set of procedures and substantive requirements to end the incitement, terrorism and violence, to proclaim a ceasefire, to enter into mutual confidence building measures and to proceed to negotiations leading to a political settlement.
Principal number ten is confidence building measures, the parliamentary and people to people contributions. I want to associate myself with the initiative represented and mentioned earlier by my hon. colleague from Cumberland--Colchester of an Israeli-Palestinian-Canadian parliamentary peace forum.
Principle number eleven is the end game. UN security council resolution 1397 states: “the vision of a region where two states, Israel and Palestine, live side by side within secure and recognized borders”. For this vision to be reached, the culture of incitement, hate and terror will have to end, as stated by Professor Ajami.
Indeed, that is the core of what Tenet and Mitchell seek to build upon. For that to happen we must realize that saying yes to Palestine means also saying yes to Israel. Otherwise we will have learned nothing from history and will never realize the vision of a peaceful future for all peoples in the Middle East that we all desperately yearn for.