A blueprint for international instability by Shlomo Avineri 1:15am Wed Aug 20 '03 How to bring more instability to an already frgile situation print article ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > A blueprint for international instability, By Shlomo Avineri > July 17, 2003 > The Jerusalem Post > > The atmosphere could not have been more tranquil: a former royal castle in > the rolling hills of the Taunus region near Frankfurt, hosting an annual > meeting, sponsored by a German foundation, of statesmen and politicians dealing > with > Middle Eastern problems. Europeans and Americans, Israelis and Iranians, > Egyptians and Turks, Palestinians and Tunisians rubbed shoulders. > > This year there was a novelty: representatives from post-Saddam Iraq, among > them an official from the Kurdish Regional Government as well as a high-ranking > Shi'ite representative. > > The new situation in Iraq, as well as the Middle East road map, were > naturally at the center of attention, and were most knowingly addressed on the > opening > night by a senior German government minister, himself deeply involved in > Middle Eastern affairs, with great sensitivity to Israeli as well as Palestinian > concerns. The evening proceeded along the expected trajectory, until a Lebanese > academic raised the issue of the right of Palestinian refugees to return to > Israel. > > The senior German minister listened attentively, and then said: "This is an > issue with which we in Germany are familiar; may I ask my German colleagues in > the audience to raise their hand if they, or their families, were refugees > from Eastern Europe?" > > There was a moment of silence - the issue is embarrassing in Germany, fraught > with political and moral landmines. Slowly, hands were raised: by my count, > more than half the Germans present (government officials, journalists, > businessmen) raised a hand: they, or their families, had been Vertriebene, > expelled > from their ancestral homes in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Yugoslavia > after World War II. > > It is estimated that up to 10 million were expelled; with their descendants > today they make up almost double that number - almost one in four Germans. > Amid the hush the German senior minister continued: He himself was born in > Eastern Europe and his family was expelled in the wake of the anti-German > atmosphere after 1945. "But," he added, "neither I nor any of my colleagues > claim > the right to go back. > > "It is precisely because of that that I can now visit my ancestral hometown > and talk to the people who live in the house in which I was born - because they > do not feel threatened, because they know I don't want to displace them or > take their house." > > The minister went on to explain that peace in Europe is today embedded in > this realization. Had Eastern European countries thought that millions of ethnic > Germans would like to return, "the Iron Curtain would have never come down." > It was a highly emotional response, one that Arab representatives chose later > on to ignore. But it was just one more expression of the context in which the > issue of the 1948 Palestinian refugees has to be addressed. > > As the German senior minister reminded the audience, there are numerous > parallels in recent history to the Palestinian refugee problem. Anyone who now > argues that the 1948 Palestinian refugees have a claim, in principle, to return > to > Israel, has to confront the question: Why not the millions of German > post-1945 expellees from Eastern Europe? The German minister supplied the > answer. > > Moreover: Had a German government insisted in talks about reunification in > 1990 that all German expellees from Poland and Czechoslovakia have, in > principle, a right to return to these countries, it would have been clear that > what > West Germany had in mind was not reunification, but undoing the consequences of > Nazi Germany's defeat in 1945. > > This is exactly the meaning of the Palestinian demand for the right of > return. The Palestinians' insistence on it at Camp David and Taba in 2000 made > clear > to most Israelis that what they have in mind is not undoing the consequences > of 1967 - but undoing the consequences of their defeat in 1948. > > At that time, it should be recalled, Palestinian Arabs and four Arab members > of the UN went to war - not only against Israel, but against international > legitimacy and the UN plan for a two-state solution. There is no other example > of > member countries going to war against UN decisions; this is what the Arab > countries - and the Palestinians - did. Obviously they prefer to forget it. > > Clearly there is a serious humanitarian issue involved. That the > Palestinians' plight has been compounded by Arab use of the refugees as > political pawns > for half a century is a measure of the cynicism and immorality of Arab politics. > > Nonetheless, the humanitarian issue remains - and the German senior minister > referred to it explicitly, both with regard to the Palestinians and to the > German expellees. > > But for him the political consequences were clear: A return of refugees - in > the German as well as the Palestinian case - is a call for instability, if not > war. > > The author is professor of political science at the Hebrew University of > Jerusalem. add your comments Source file