Israeli Pacifists Embrace War as Key to Peace

In a painful break with their own traditions and their counterparts abroad, several of Israel’s most prominent peace activists spoke out Monday in favor of war in the Persian Gulf.

Authors Amos Oz, A. B. Yehoshua, Yoram Kaniuk and Yael Dayan told a Tel Aviv news conference that American and European demonstrations against the war in the gulf amount to appeasement of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

“There are wars that one should be against and wars that are necessary to bring peace,” Dayan said. “Peace Now in Israel really means war now.”

Peace Now, the Israeli grass-roots movement that promotes the creation of a Palestinian state to help bring peace in the Middle East, had been noticeably silent since the Gulf War broke out--and it became clear that most Palestinians back Iraq, even in its missile attacks against the Israeli civilian population.

The peace movement’s campaign for a political dialogue between Israeli and Palestinian leaders has been badly damaged by that pro-Iraq position taken by Palestinians, activists said, and the idea has lost serious ground with Israeli public opinion.

Oz called the Palestinian support for Iraq “abominable and unforgivable,” and Kaniuk predicted that “many of the Israeli public that were slowly beginning to believe that we can talk to them, that there is someone to talk to, now will take the other side.”

“I hear terrible things,” he said of the heightened hostility recently between Israelis and Palestinians. “I hear things that almost make me want to give up, but I can’t give up.”

A territorial compromise with the Palestinians will still have to be reached eventually, activists said, but now it will take longer to bring about.

“Nothing will be changed except that (the Palestinian problem) will be even harder to solve,” Galia Golan, an official Peace Now spokeswoman, said Monday in an interview.

“When all this is done, we will still be stuck with the same situation--the West Bank, the occupied territories, ruling over 1.7 million Palestinians,” she said.

Peace Now plans to issue an official statement on its position, Golan said--the authors were speaking Monday for only a dozen high-profile activists--but it has been waiting for moderate Palestinian leaders to first improve the “public atmosphere” by condemning Iraq.

Virtually none has done so. At most, Jerusalem-based Palestinian leader Faisal Husseini has come out in recent days saying he condemns both the bombing attacks on Baghdad and on Tel Aviv.

Despite heightened Israeli anger at the Palestinians, however, Golan said the war could ultimately help bring on a Middle Eastern settlement by convincing Palestinians that they have no recourse but to negotiate with Israel, and by convincing Israelis that, with America’s role in the region expanded, their country is more secure than it had believed.

In the meantime, she said, with the war still on, “we firmly believe that Iraq is a threat to Israel, and we cannot support any effort that would oppose stopping Saddam (Hussein).”

Golan said that Peace Now would not formally condemn peace protesters in other countries, recognizing their right to their own decisions. But Kaniuk said outright that “when I see the peace movement demonstrating around the world--the movement I’m a part of--I feel ashamed.”

Recalling the intellectuals who spoke out against Spanish dictator Francisco Franco and Adolf Hitler, he said the time had come once again to use such influence against political evil.

Oz called those who failed to fight against forces like Iraq “not peaceniks but appeasers and pacifiers.” He said he would even be willing to support a tactical nuclear strike against Hussein if it would save Israel from disaster and would be sure to kill the Iraqi leader.

The Peace Now members maintained, however, that their aggressive stance against Hussein does not mean that they are abandoning their principles.

“The Palestinian problem remains a vital and important problem,” Yehoshua said. “And after the war, we’ll become even more dovish than we were before. We think only peace can really guarantee the security of Israel in the future.”