The value of apology

As the 10th anniversary of the Gaza disengagement approaches, the media in Israel have naturally started looking back on that event. Last Shabbat, Yedioth Ahronoth featured a photo essay showing once-thriving Jewish communities now used as launching pads at Israel.

The pictures brought me straight back to the anger, frustration and the abiding sadness not only of the summer of 2005, but of the 12-year period leading up to it. To a large degree, 1990s-era politics were defined by two things: stubborn refusal by supporters of the peace process to even acknowledge potential flaws in the Oslo Accords, and by the collective accusation that skeptics of Oslo were enemies to be vanquished. Even before the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, opposition to the Oslo process — or even questioning its administration — was enough to render one at best an outcast, and at worst an enemy of Israel.

Disengagement was carried out in that context: The withdrawal from Gaza was a legitimate political decision. The open theft of 1,800 homes and livelihoods by the government bordered on criminal. A decade later, some of Gaza’s Jews continue to live in caravilla mobile homes in “temporary” communities, and many have yet to rebuild their lives. One might use the word refugees.

On a personal level, it is clear that Ariel Sharon planned to “deal” with the West Bank settlers — with me — the same way he’d taken care of his previous allies in Gaza in just four days.

As I simmered again over it all this week, it occurred to me just how far an apology would go. It got me thinking about how much a visit to Efrat by former Meretz MK Yossi Sarid, one of the architects of the “settlers are the enemy” approach, would mean. Not for him to stand down on his left-wing principles, but to apologize for the needless hurt that he, and so many of his colleagues, caused for making me out not to be wrong in our opinions, but to be an enemy.

“I still believe that Israel and the Palestinians must separate into two states for the benefit of Israel,” he could say, “and I think we were right to do what we did during the 1990s, and even that we were right to pull out of Gaza in 2005.

“But we were wrong to have painted you and your community as enemies. Your opposition was principled and legitimate, and I apologize to the people we hurt with our attitude.”

All of which got me thinking about the nature and value of apology between Israel and the Palestinians. I believe the overall picture of the Israel-Palestinian conflict shows a clear moral victory to Israel: The Arabs started wars, Israel defended itself, and usually tried to act morally under difficult circumstances.

But too often, we have hidden behind that fact in order to inure ourselves to Palestinian suffering. Regardless of the justice of Israel’s cause, many Palestinians have gotten hurt as a result. No, Israel need not — must not — apologize for becoming a successful nation, for welcoming and absorbing millions of Jewish refugees from the Arab world, from Russia and elsewhere, and for building a thriving cultural and economic life.

But is our society mature enough at least to identify with Palestinians’ pain over the loss of a culture that was annihilated as a result? Can we recognize the fact that despite our best efforts, we have failed morally on too many occasions?

Furthermore, would a listening ear and true empathy help create space for the children and grandchildren of 1948 refugees to internalize that that war is over and to begin the process of admitting there will be no return to Sheikh Munis, Talbiyeh or Al-Ja’una?

And what about the sins we have committed, such as the 1956 killing of 49 civilians at Kfar Kassem, an Arab town inside Israel’s 1948 border? But we stopped short of apologizing for the killings, perpetrated by IDF border police units. Or the deaths of 13 Israeli civilians protesting IDF tactics at the start of the Second Intifada in October 2000. Or the thousands of Palestinian homes that have been violated — often with just cause, and often without — by IDF troops searching for terror suspects.

The last example is a strong case in point. Of course, we must search for terror suspects, including in private homes. But those searches are a violation, and they necessarily violate the privacy of many innocents. Can we identify with the humiliation, the shame, the rage they must feel?

No, the War of Independence was not
Israel’s fault — had the Arab states not invaded, there would have been no war in 1947-48. Palestinians will say the opposite: Their parents and grandparents became refugees through no fault of their own, but rather because of Zionist “bandits” raging through Palestine.

This sort of argument will lead nowhere. The emotion of competing historical narratives makes discussion of that period, and of so many events since then, impossible. It is critical today to leave history to the historians, and to work together toward a joint future. That process can begin only by agreeing to disagree on historical narratives and concentrating instead on sharing emotions, feelings and a commitment to a joint future.