Independent Media Center, Israel
http://indymedia.org.il

A blueprint for international instabilityWednesday 20 Aug 2003
author: Shlomo Avineri

summary
How to bring more instability to an already frgile situation



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

> 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.

(C) Indymedia Israel. Unless otherwise stated by the author, all content is free for non-commercial reuse, reprint, and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere. Opinions are those of the contributors and are not necessarily endorsed by Indymedia Israel.