We never believed that Israel would turn into another Bosnia or Belfast or Lebanon. But that is exactly what has happened during the past few months. The indiscriminate loss of so many lives makes us almost impervious to the next bombing. It has become almost inevitable that we will wake up tomorrow morning with the news that another suicide bomber has blown himself up inside a crowded cafe or bus station and that many innocent lives have been lost. And perhaps, also by the time we wake up, the army has already retaliated, targeting a Palestinian administrative or police headquarters, with some of the missiles missing their target and hitting a school bus or clinic by mistake.
By the time we switch on the morning news, Israeli television will be full of the bloody scenes from the wrecked cafe, while the foreign news channels will lead with a story that two children and their mother have been killed in an Israeli military operation in the West Bank. (If they have time, they may even deign to mention that the military operation was preceded by the terrorist attack inside Israel.)
Belfast and Bosnia are not around the corner — they are here right now. We are not heading into a full-scale war, because we are already in the thick of it. And neither our leaders nor theirs, the Americans or the Europeans, have the foggiest notion of how to get out of it.
If two years ago we were on the verge of negotiating about the final border separating Israel from a Palestinian state, about the decentralization of control inside Jerusalem and about a limited quota of Palestinian refugees, then today we are not even able to implement the Mitchell and Tenet plans to bring an end to the violence.
The fact remains that 80, if not 90, percent of the final agreement with the Palestinians has been in place ever since the Camp David summit back in July 2000. The main contours are clear to all: a Palestinian state within borders that are not too different from those that existed prior to 1967; compromise over sovereignty in the Old City of Jerusalem and over refugee return, which must contain some form of quid pro quo between the protagonists; and an end to all forms of terror, guerrilla warfare and anything that endangers the lives of Israeli citizens.
But just when an increasing number of Israelis, including those who have traditionally been against such a political and territorial solution, are coming around to this position, we are simply not able to actually make it to the negotiating table. Each act of terror, each military retaliation, has a double effect on Israeli society. On the one hand, it makes us understand how important it is to finally reach a solution to the conflict while, at one and the same time, the negotiating table moves farther beyond our grasp.
How, indeed, are we expected to sit around a table with people who have been responsible for some of the worst atrocities committed against Israeli civilians since the establishment of the state of Israel?
On the Palestinian side there are similar thoughts. How, indeed, can they sit around a table with politicians and army officers who have been responsible for the heaviest military bombardment of the West Bank and Gaza since 1967?
In one sense, the Palestinians have had a victory. They have succeeded in disrupting normal life in Israel. Fewer people frequent the cafes and shopping malls. The cinemas are half-empty, the hotels on the verge of bankruptcy for lack of tourists, and even the one thing that brought a temporary smile to our faces in recent months — the exploits of Hapoel Tel Aviv soccer team in the European competition — has been forcefully moved elsewhere so as not to endanger the lives of visiting sportsmen. True, many of us go on living our daily lives in a normal fashion, but that number decreases with each terrorist outrage.
But we, too, have had an important victory that should not be underestimated. Through many conflicts in history, periods of continuous violence have lessened the impact of subsequent incidents until the names and faces of the injured and dead become little more than statistics. However many terrorist incidents there are, we have not become immune to the scenes of carnage and suffering. We may not know the people wounded or killed in any specific bombing, but the impact remains as hard as it ever was. We continue to feel that it is a member of our family who has been maimed, and we feel depressed along with the victims themselves.
Nor do we parade in the streets firing our guns with joy when we hear of military retaliation. If there are extreme groups among us that desire to take revenge, then they are either very minor, or the Shin Bet, Israel’s security service, is making sure that they are unable to act.
They are not the victories we are seeking. The real victory will only come if and when the violence ever comes to an end and if we get back to negotiating a final agreement to this bloody conflict. But for as long as we are at war, we have to understand that an innocent life lost to this world is precisely that, regardless of what nationality (Israeli or Palestinian) or religion (Jewish or Muslim) that person represents.
Peace, if it ever comes to this tired land, will only be made by those who — despite exposure to the constant scarnage and destruction — are able to retain their essential humanity and continue to care intensely for every innocent life lost.