Israel and Middle East

The call last week by the heads of state of Egypt, Jordan and Palestine for Israel to desist from further aggression and expansionism in the Middle East is indeed very timely.

It came close on the heels of reckless Israeli bombardments of southern Lebanon, which resulted in the senseless Qana massacre, where more than 100 innocent civilians were killed.

Characteristically, the Israeli military lamely excused the carnage as an "unfortunate mistake" due to a "cartographic error".

The upcoming "final status" talks between Israel and its Arab neighbors are going to be long and tough. The dismantling of the Jewish settlements, withdrawal of Israeli troops from all occupied territories and a just-financial compensation for more than one million Palestinian refugees, are just some of the basic issues that have to be settled.

Another issue that may also prove difficult to resolve is how to reconcile Israeli security need for the expansion of the Jerusalem corridor on one hand, and the Palestinian strategic need for a safe corridor to link the West Bank and the Gaza strip on the other hand.

Even if the final negotiations result in the Arabs regaining East Jerusalem (including the inner Old City) and even if all the Jewish settlements were dismantled, like those in the Sinai desert in 1982, the Jews would still come out as the unjust winners.

From a small and insignificant minority (about 5 percent of the population) at the beginning of the British mandate early this century, they have come a very long way, thanks to the persistent and unswerving support of the West, to the present situation where they control 80 percent of the former Palestine, leaving the Arabs with only 20 percent.

Perhaps this would explain, at least from the Arabs' point of view, why any peace agreement that may come out of the current negotiations would openly be a cold peace at best. Israel will never be considered an integral part of the Middle East because the compromise it is making is based essentially upon militaristic rather than historic reality.

Indeed, Israel is likely to be seen by the Arabs as merely an interloper from the West, a modern day version of the medieval (and doomed) crusader state straddled along the cost of Palestine.

In our part of the world, however, a likely source of aggression seems to be the People's Republic of China. Its acts of aggression started soon after its birth in 1949 with the invasion of Tibet in October 1950.

This was followed by massive attacks on various parts of Kashmir and north-eastern India in November 1962, then involvement in the abortive communist coup attempt in Indonesia in September 1965 and a military or illegal occupation of the Paracel Islands in 1974.

To this list must also be added China's invasion of northern Vietnam in February 1979, its military incursions into the Spratly Islands and the Philippines in 1988 and 1995 respectively, and last but not least, its threat to invade Taiwan.

The main difference between the Israeli and Chinese types of aggression is this: The Jews claim that Palestine belongs to them because their ancestors used to live there 3,000 years ago and because the land was promised to them by their God. The Chinese, on the other hand, simply base their claim on various parts of Southeast Asia on tenuous or pseudohistorical grounds.

MASLI ARMAN

Jakarta