Quotes of the Day

Exactly 30 years have passed since the abrupt and traumatic beginning of the '73 war, when the Egyptian and Syrian armies attacked Israel. Three years and a week have passed since the outbreak of the El Aqsa intifadeh, a violent outburst that has become a cruel struggle of attrition. These are two sad anniversaries of two unnecessary wars.

At Camp David in 1979, six years after the '73 war, the Egyptian leader, Anwar Saadat, managed to gain by political negotiation the same achievements he failed to gain by the power of arms. It's utterly frustrating, then, to realize that three decades later, the main players in the Middle Eastern conflict are refusing to learn the lessons of history.

Of course, there are some major differences between the current intifadeh and the Yom Kippur war. For one, Sharon and Arafat are not the visionaries than Anwar Saadat (who later paid with his life for this peace agreement) and Menachem Begin were. Also, the Palestinian Authority is not a sovereign country, as Egypt was. The third and crucial difference: the objectives of the fighting parties. At Camp David in 1979, the Egyptians got back the Sinai peninsula in return not only for a peace contract, but also for a vague agreement of autonomy in the Occupied Territories. Begin, then head of the Likud Party — which is lead today by Ariel Sharon — was willing to give up Sinai as the price for keeping control of the Occupied Territories.

But at the Camp David negotiations in 2000 — the failure of which eventually led to the outbreak of the El Aqsa intifadeh — there was already no way of distracting the main issue of the conflict in the Middle East: the same Occupied Territories let aside by Begin and Saadat 21 years earlier.

Not that such distractions were not attempted. The Lebanon War of 82' — a war led by Ariel Sharon — was an attempt to liquidate Palestinian national aspirations by force of arms. It clearly did not work. The other important attempt at a distraction — this time a political one — came from Ehud Barak. At Shepherdstown in January, 2000, he tried to reach an agreement with the Syrians before setting out to negotiate with the Palestinians. Barak, then Prime Minister, calculated that an arrangement with the Syrians would reduce the Arab pressure on him and thus allow him to demand more from (and give less to) the Palestinians.

In Barak's defence it can be said that he really meant to get a proper agreement with the Palestinians, as well as with the Syrians. He failed on both counts. By the time he got to Camp David to negotiate with Arafat, the Palestinian leader, as well as his people, had lost faith in Barak's goodwill; they thought that the power of arms — which had worked so well for the Hezbollah in Lebanon — would deliver the Territories from the Israelis. They were wrong, as the past three years have proven.

But we in Israel and Palestine have a tendency to ignore the lessons of our history. Our leaders seem to have forgotten that distraction for the main issue — the Occupied Territories — and the use of armed struggle are getting us nowhere.

Just consider Israel's airstrike this week on a terror training camp in Syria, after the horrible terror attack at a Haifa restaurant. This attack, though easily justified if that camp produces terror, looks more like another attempt at distraction from the main issue, than a real solution to Israel's security problems. Blaming Syria for sponsoring terrorism may be an efficient distraction in the short run, but a pretty harmful one in the long run, especially if it re-opens a northern front. By now, we should have already realized that no distraction comes without destruction.

• MICHAL LEVERTOV
• The Occupied Territories continue to be at the heart of the Palestinian problem