What Does Israel Fear from Palestine?

This is a well-written book that succeeds admirably at humanizing and building empathy for ordinary Palestinians suffering under Israeli occupation and a campaign of destruction that has veered into criminality. I was disappointed, though, at its verbatim repetition of Palestinian talking points tha…

This is a well-written book that succeeds admirably at humanizing and building empathy for ordinary Palestinians suffering under Israeli occupation and a campaign of destruction that has veered into criminality. I was disappointed, though, at its verbatim repetition of Palestinian talking points that date back at least 15 years, and that are intended to deny any self-determination to Jews living in the Middle East. In particular, towards the end of this short book, the author cautions Israel lest it not accept "a fully sovereign Palestinian state, living at peace side by side with it" (p. 100) and later warns, "There will be no lasting peace without resolving the refugee issue." The language in question comes from one of the Palestine Papers, published in The Guardian and Al-Jazeera in 2011. Precisely this formulation, and the reasoning behind it, were described in a 2009 May 03 memo to negotiator Dr. Saeb Erakat from his "Negotiation Support Unit" (downloadable from Al-Jazeera's website). Specifically, Dr. Erakat was advised not to give any impression that the state living in peace side by side with a Palestinian state would be a Jewish state. An older formulation, "two states for two peoples," should be avoided, says the NSU, because it may impair the rights of returning refugees. Rather, the second state in the "side by side" formulation, echoed by Shehadeh, is one whose Palestinian Arab population will be greatly enlarged, possibly by several millions, due to returnees. This, then, answers Raja Shehadeh's title question: what Israel has to fear is that it will continually be offered negotiation positions that are impossible for it to accept. A frustrating ending to what was up to then a very effective and affecting book.