By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews
When the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia, the umbrella of the Anglican Church in Western Washington, brought two experts to speak about “Palestine at the United Nations: Elusive Answers, Enduring Hope” at Town Hall on Sept. 19, it wasn’t a fair discussion, says one of those experts.
“It’s a mismatch,” said Prof. Mark Rosenblum. “There’s unfortunate misrepresentation of the conflict.”
It’s not that credentials were in doubt; each is an expert in his field. Rosenblum runs a program at Queens College in New York that has brought understanding to students of ethnic or religious groups engaged in conflict. He has also been in a position to read the riot act to leaders like Yasser Arafat. Prof. Ilan Pappé has written several books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and is a professor of social sciences and international studies at the University of Exeter in the U.K.
But on stage together, Rosenblum posited that neither was the right person to be representing a position on this topic.
“Where’s the Palestinian and where’s the Israeli that actually are Israelis and Palestinians?” Rosenblum asked. “Ilan Pappé does not represent Israel. I don’t represent Israel.”
Pappé is Israeli but was asked to resign his position at the University of Haifa in 2007 following his attempts to lead a boycott of Israeli academics. His books, including The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine and Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel’s War Against the Palestinians, co-written with author and linguistics professor Noam Chomsky, argue in favor of a single, binational state in the region. Rosenblum believes two states are the only solution that would satisfy both sides.
He considers himself strongly pro-Israel, calling himself “a security dove.” Much of his immediate family lives there and has served in the army, yet he doesn’t hold back on criticizing the government for its actions.
“I have very critical things to say about Israeli policies and I think the Israeli settlements and the occupation in general in the West Bank — a word that I use, I think that it is real — is probably one of the worst, most terrible strategic mistakes that Israel has made since 1967,” he said.
But, Rosenblum added, Israel is not the only party that has acted badly.
“The Palestinians, even if they’re unequal, have co-responsibility in this. And talking about being a pauper and not having a state does not mean you have a right to act irresponsibly,” he said. “There were 10 months of a partial settlement freeze in which the Palestinians didn’t negotiate.”
For any process to work, however, the players have to recognize the other side’s grievances.
“There have to be people who are pro-Palestinian that are not anti-Israel, and people who are pro-Israeli who are not anti-Palestinian,” he said.
Rosenblum said he would defend Israel’s right to exist all the way to the United Nations’ declaration of its statehood, and had he been alive and able, would have been among the first in line to “defend the state of Israel that was recognized by the international legitimate body as a Jewish state.”
But he acknowledged he was the wrong person to appear at Town Hall.
The diocese “brought in an anti-Zionist Israeli who vilifies Israel and condemns it for ethnic cleansing and wants to see a Palestinian state emerge, and knows that a bi-national state can only emerge consensually, and the Israelis will not consent,” Rosenblum said. “And they’ve asked a supporter of the peace and security camp, who will say critical things about Israel and about the Palestinians, and they think they’ve talked about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?”
Rosenblum listed possible speakers that could have held a real dialogue — and with effective mediation could have laid groundwork for a starting point for real talks.
Akiva Tor, Israel’s consul general for the Pacific Northwest, would have been an excellent choice, Rosenblum said. “You could have brought in the representative of the Palestinians in the United Nations, and [had] a dialogue between the two of them. Real gaps, real differences, because it’s the real conflict.”
Ironically, getting the right players on the court is Rosenblum’s job.
His prescription: “Get the contestants in an issue, the real combatants in an issue, with a broad umbrella, and we try to structure the dialogue so the authentic people on either sides can meet and have an honest discussion.”
His course at Queens College, “Walking in the Other Side’s Shoes,” takes students on a year-long journey of living and understanding the life of someone who lives on the opposite side of a conflict, whether it’s Israelis and Palestinians, Greeks and Turks, or any other ongoing stalemate. At the end, he said, “you can be a greater advocate for a cause, your cause, if you believe in the other.”