How Netanyahu Tore Down Jabotinsky's Iron Wall - Opinion - Haaretz.com
By: Dmitry Shumsky (Haaretz. com)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
How Netanyahu Tore Down Jabotinsky's Iron Wall
November 4 was the 100th anniversary of the publication of Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s seminal essay, “The Iron Wall: We and the Arabs,” in the Russian-language Zionist immigrant newspaper Razsvet, then based in Berlin. While many in the Zionist movement at the time held the paternalistic and naive belief that the Arab population of Palestine could be persuaded of the material and cultural advantages of Jewish immigration, Jabotinsky firmly asserted that the Palestinian Arabs would forcefully and unyieldingly resist the Zionist aspiration of converting Palestine into a land with a Jewish majority; since like any native population, the Palestinian Arabs see this land as their national home and would therefore be expected to vehemently rebuff any colonization attempt.
Jabotinsky argued that thePalestinian Arabswould only come to terms with Zionism’s overarching goal – creating a Jewish majority in Palestine – when they realized they could not prevent its realization. Therefore, he said, in confronting the Arabs’ resistance, the Jews must create an “iron wall” – that is, to ensure the continuation of Zionist settlement with the protection of an outside power and/or a strong Jewish military force, regardless of the Arabs’ fury.
When the local Arabs see that there is no crack in this “iron wall,” it will be possible to sit down with them at the negotiating table and seek a political agreement with them. “[I]t is only when there is no longer any hope of getting rid of us, because they can make no breach in the iron wall. Not till then will they drop their extremist leaders whose watchword is ‘Never!’ And the leadership will pass to the moderate groups, who will approach us with a proposal that we should both agree to mutual concessions. Then we may expect them to discuss honestly practical questions, such as a guarantee against Arab displacement, or equal rights for Arab citizen, or Arab national integrity,” Jabotinsky wrote.
With historical perspective, one could say that the “iron wall” doctrine has proved itself fairly well: Starting in the late 1980s, important figures in the Palestinian national movement, whose motto until then was, as Jabotinsky put it – “Never!” – began moderating their positions. They recognized Israel’s existence and were prepared to hold peace talks on the possibility of “national independence” for the Palestinian Arabs alongside the independent State of Israel – one of the legitimate objectives of the negotiations between Zionism and the “moderate groups” among the Palestinian Arabs as cited by Jabotinsky in his essay.
But the author of “The Iron Wall” could not have foreseen another critical development here over the past 14 years. He would have found it hard to conceive that the political movement he founded would eventually produce a man who, while portraying himself as Jabotinsky’s heir, would go to great lengths to strengthen the extremist elements among the Palestinians -- the “Never!” contingent that absolutely does not recognize Israel’s right to exist and is utterly bent on destroying it. He could not have foreseen that this same person would do his utmost to weaken and humiliate the more moderate Palestinian elements. This is exactly what Benjamin Netanyahu has done since he formed his second government, in 2009. He strove openly and proudly to empower thenational-Islamist terror group Hamasin the Gaza Strip with the declared strategic goal of splitting the leadership of the Palestinian national movement and preventing the worst “danger” of all, in his distorted worldview – the “danger” of talks on a final arrangement and the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Take a moment to ponder the depth of the contrast between this reckless andsuicidal conception that Netanyahupromoted throughout most of the years of his rule, and the security-diplomatic logic of Jabotinsky’s iron wall idea. The goal of the iron wall was to get the Palestinians to recognize that the path of moderation and willingness to accept the Zionists and their state was more advantageous than that of uncompromising armed resistance. Netanyahu’s destructive contribution was basically to ensure that the opposite idea took hold among the Palestinians – the idea that the “moderate groups” (the Palestinian Authority) were incapable of supplying any diplomatic goods, so it made more sense to adhere to the “Never!” path, the murderous path of Hamas.
Netanyahu’s successful “persuasion” efforts to the effect that it didn’t pay for the Palestinians to adopt the path of compromise with Israel ended up boosting the self-confidence of the terrorist leaders. And meanwhile, Hamas continuously upgraded its military capabilities with the infusion of millions of dollars from Qatar, whose transfer to Gaza Netanyahu generously approved. This self-confidence ultimately fueledHamas’ barbaric assaulton the Gaza border communities. This is how, with his own hands, Netanyahu contributed to the destruction of the Palestinians’ perception of the “iron wall.” This was the crowning “achievement” of the dangerous game he played with the Palestinian issue. For in order to ensure that it would never be possible to reach a political accord with the Palestinians, Netanyahu needed to get as many Palestinians as possible to believe that no iron wall exists, and that the idea of getting rid of all the Zionists is practicable and not preposterous.
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Hamas has never been interested in a "Palestinian state", having rejected this solution multiple times.
Conjuring up some wacky conspiracy theory in an attempt to pin this war on Netanyahu simply will not wash.
Once Hamas is destroyed, a coalition government is likely to be formed, at which time the foundation for a two-state solution might be laid.
I'm pretty sure that newspaper columnists who live and work in Israel know more about this than you do. It is evidently well known there that Netanyahu had given a freer hand to Hamas, in Gaza, in the hope that they would not react to his crackdown on the Palestinians in the West Bank.
This article, from an Israeli newspaper, clearly suggests that one of the biggest obstacles to peace in Israel is Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu has had a policy of pitting various Palestinian factions against one another in the hope none of them would ever get strong enough to be a good partner with Israel on a two state solution. In the course of this pitting Palestinian groups against one another he enabled hamas to gain strength to the point that we saw what happened on Oct 7.
I would also add Hamas, PLO, Hezbollah and Iran.