One of the mysteries of world politics is the amount of attention being paid these days to the Arab-Israeli conflict. According to some estimates, almost half the time of the last session of the UN General Assembly was devoted to issues connected in one way or another with this conflict. A quantitative study of the uses of Henry Kissinger’s energies would probably show a similar pattern, and so would an analysis of editorial comment on international affairs. Indeed, any unsuspecting newspaper reader would get the impression that the future of the Golan Heights and the West Bank are more important than all the other problems in the world put together. Yet it would be only too easy to point to at least half-a-dozen danger zones of equal or greater weight in other parts of the world, not to mention sub-acute critical trends in the political and economic sphere whose long-term effects may have the gravest results.

Of course those who put so much emphasis on the Middle East argue that it is not the future of Golan that is at stake but the general stability of the area and the securing of the oil supply. They will admit that but for these overriding considerations, the Arab-Israeli conflict would be of no greater interest than the conflict between Bolivia and Peru, or at most between North and South Korea. But unless there is some “movement” toward a “lasting peace” in the Middle East, they say, there will be another war; and a new war would trigger an oil embargo, start a worldwide depression, put at least ten million Americans out of work, destroy NATO, allow Soviet power to engulf the Straits of Gibraltar, and bring Communist ministers into coalition governments in much of Europe. If, on the other hand, Israel withdrew from the occupied territories, permanent peace would follow—Middle Eastern governments would be stable, the oil would flow, its price would go down, bankers and exporters would make profits, generals and admirals would obtain bases, and American policy-makers would be able to devote themselves to building a new and more workable world order.

Now, the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict would in every way be desirable. But examining recent suggestions for the settlement of this conflict, or of the hopes held out for the consequences that would follow from such a settlement, one has to cut one’s way through a thicket of wishful thinking almost unique in an otherwise fairly cynical age.

To begin with, there is no cogent reason to believe that a settlement would add to the stability of the Middle East (let alone the stability of the entire world). The recent history of the Middle East is a story of conflicts: Algerian interests clash with those of Morocco and Tunisia; Libya is at loggerheads with Egypt and Sudan; there has been almost constant tension between Iraq and all her neighbors; South Yemen has a conflict of long standing with North Yemen, and is even now conducting surrogate war against Oman; Lebanon is in a state of civil war; and the survival of Jordan to this day is a miracle. The list could be extended without much difficulty. Moreover, the traditional rivalries among governments have been aggravated by the sudden influx of oil revenues.

Despite the Arab-Israeli confrontation, some of these conflicts have entered an acute phase, but thanks to the need to make common cause against the “Zionist danger,” there has by and large been a truce in the Arab world. For so long as the campaign against Israel continues, Arab solidarity is the supreme necessity, and any attempt to raise other issues or press other demands is attacked as an act of treason. Once this unifying factor is removed, once the “Zionist danger” decreases, the struggles between rich countries and poor, between haves and have-nots, between pro-Soviet and pro-American regimes are bound to escalate; and so are the grave domestic tensions between “moderates” and “radicals” within each country. The Arab world would then be rent by bitter civil strife and, very probably, war; and it is the oil countries like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait which would be in the gravest danger. For while it is sometimes argued that in the absence of progress toward peace in the Middle East, moderate policies and leaders will be superseded by more radical ones, this is far more likely to happen as the consequence of progress toward peace between Israel and the Arab countries and the resulting increase of tension elsewhere in the Arab world.

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Almost everyone believes that Israel’s return to the 1967 borders and the establishment of a Palestinian state are necessary to a settlement in the Middle East. Of course the basic issue in the Arab-Israeli conflict is not the border problem or a Palestinian state—the conflict existed before there were occupied territories and before there was a demand for a Palestinian state. The real issue, as Elie Kedourie puts it, is the right of the Jews, “hitherto a subject community under Islam, to exercise political sovereignty in an area regarded as part of the Muslim domain.” Why, Professor Kedourie asks, should the Arabs, who have been unwilling for twenty-eight years to grant this right to the Jews, suddenly be willing to do so just when Arab power and influence have so greatly increased?

But let us assume that the Arabs are willing to do so. Let us even assume that the PLO no longer regards the destruction of the State of Israel as its ultimate aim, that it is ready to accept the Jewish state, and peacefully to coexist with it in a Palestinian state of its own. What would be the nature of such a Palestinian state?

A look at the map shows that it would consist of two separate parts. One part would be the West Bank, bounded on the east by the River Jordan and including Samaria and Judaea; the western border would run west of Tulkarm and Kalkilya, east of Lod and Ramla, from there to Jerusalem, then south to Hebron and the Dead Sea—altogether some 2,165 square miles. In addition there would be the Gaza Strip. The West Bank has a population of about 600,000, the Gaza Strip of some 300,000. The two sections are not connected, and they remind one of what the late Viscount Samuel said about an earlier partition plan: it would have the effect of creating a Saar and a Polish Corridor and half-a-dozen Danzigs and Memels in a country the size of Wales. If it is argued that Israel in its 1967 borders cannot be defended, a Palestinian state would be even less defensible.

Nor would such a state be economically viable. Annual rainfall in the northern part of the West Bank is fairly high, which has favored local agriculture, but industry is all but nonexistent except for some olive-oil and soap factories in Nablus. Hebron produces glass as well as wooden and mother-of-pearl souvenirs. Bethlehem and Ramalla cater to tourists. The Gaza Strip, whose population density is one of the world’s highest, has no industry either; there are citrus groves and some summer fruits such as watermelons. Given this economic situation (which has already forced many workers from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to work in Israeli industry and on building sites), the new state would not even be able to absorb more than a token number of Palestinian refugees.

Some Arab spokesmen have recently argued that the issue of non-viability is not really a very important one, since a great many countries in the modern world are not viable either. But this, though true, is hardly a reassuring argument. Arab spokesmen also claim that the Palestinians are a hard-working people (which is correct), that they have a great deal of know-how, and that they would get support from the oil-rich countries. According to various research papers prepared by the PLO studies center in Beirut, a Palestinian state could be economically viable—provided the Saudis gave billions for an unlimited period. Past experience has shown, however, that Arab solidarity does not extend to sharing oil revenues, except perhaps for the purchase of arms. Egypt in particular, which has received no major investments from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, has learned this lesson the hard way.

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In addition to being unviable, a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza would have all the makings of a permanent irredentism. If any single thought has gone into the proposals for establishing such a state (and this, unfortunately, cannot be taken for granted), it is apparently the idea that a partial fulfillment of Palestinian demands would lead to a deradicalization of the PLO. Thus it is said that once the Palestinians had to assume responsibility for a state, however small, they would have to drop their maximalist program for the conquest of Israel; nor could they afford to engage in terror any more. Yet even if one believes that there is a moderate element inside the PLO genuinely willing to coexist with Israel on the basis of the 1967 frontiers—a daring leap of faith indeed—it seems almost a foregone conclusion that the logic of events would drive those moderates toward extremism.

Once the state were founded, there would almost certainly be a struggle between the different PLO wings and, of course, the “Rejection Front” (primarily Iraq) and various Communist organizations. These groups, which stand for divergent political aims, deeply distrust one another, but the stakes are not at present sufficiently high to warrant open warfare. With control of a state in the balance, however, a bitter internal battle would begin. Units of Fatah and the PLPF stationed in the new state would regard it as a mere interim arrangement, a milestone on the road to the liberation of the entire homeland. Other Arab countries, weary of carrying the burden of Palestine, might well advise the Palestinians not to pass immediately on to the next phase of the struggle but to let a decent interval elapse. However, in the fight against Israel this would be dangerous for the Palestinians, for once the momentum were lost, it would not easily be regained. It is doubtful therefore whether they would be ready to listen to outside advice. And as to internal advice, though the merchants of Nablus and Jenin would certainly be interested in a climate conducive to business as usual, they could no more be expected to prevail against the irredentists than the bankers of Beirut have been able to do against the terrorists.

In some ways, indeed, it would be easier than in the past for the Palestinians to conduct their operations against Israel. With artillery and missile bases, physical infiltration would be largely unnecessary, while Israeli counter-shelling would be less effective since there would be fewer targets on the other side. Israeli retaliatory raids, on the other hand, would be severely condemned by world public opinion and sanctions might be taken against them.

Nevertheless, there is a limit to what the PLO could reasonably hope to achieve. The Israelis are not a minority like the Assyrians or the Kurds, nor is there any similarity between their position and that of the Maronites. Israel has a considerable military potential, and it would be unwilling to play according to rules established by the PLO. Fighting would not be limited to border skirmishes; there would be a general escalation involving other Arab armies and possibly also the Soviet Union, and the use of nonconventional weapons would not be ruled out.

In short, the moment one begins to scrutinize the practical implications of establishing a Palestinian state on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, it becomes abundantly clear that such a state, far from contributing to a peaceful solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, would more likely exacerbate it.

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Many among those in the West who favor the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state genuinely believe that it is the only way to peace, stability, and justice in the Middle East. Others are aware of the dangers ahead but see no alternative in view of the seemingly overwhelming pressures from all quarters; they have persuaded themselves that the worst does not always happen. Then there are those who have no illusions about the outcome of this policy, who know that it will lead to a new war, or wars, but who regard this as both inevitable and desirable, on the theory that a Middle East settlement (as they see it) will be possible only after further bloodshed. Finally, there are those who, unwilling to accept these as the only alternatives, have cast about for variants on the idea of a Palestinian state.

One such variant, a way of coping with the problem of viability, is federation with either Israel or Jordan. At the present time, one cannot envisage a scheme, however ingenious, of federating Israel and a Palestinian state that has a realistic chance of working. The “Jordanian solution,” which involves returning the West Bank to Jordan and which Israel now favors, might have worked in 1968, but it is unlikely at this point to break the deadlock. The Palestinians are against accepting Jordanian control in the short run, and King Hussein knows that in the long run a merger between the West Bank and the Hashemite kingdom (the majority of whose inhabitants even now are Palestinians) would make Jordan a Palestinian state.

Hussein’s loss, however, would not necessarily be the Palestinians’ gain. Even adding Jordan to a Palestinian state on the West Bank still would not provide sufficient scope for a large-scale resettlement of Palestinian refugees. For Jordan is a poor country. Its per-capita income is $270, lower than any other Arab country except the Sudan and Yemen; between 1965 and 1972 (the last figures available) it experienced minus economic growth. Whichever way one looks at it, a merger between the West Bank and Jordan would be no great bargain. Hussein and the Jordanians would lose, the Palestinians would not gain much, and Israel would still be threatened, only this time by one state rather than two.

Besides federation, there is of course the idea of a bi-national state. The establishment of such a state (“democratic and secular”), which was rejected for decades by the leadership of the Palestinian Arabs, is now the official aim of the PLO. The PLO formula should not be taken quite literally, for it clashes with two other Palestinian demands, namely that the character of the state must be Arab, and that the state should be integrated into the area and not remain an “outpost of the West.” But a democratic and secular state could not possibly integrate itself into an area that is neither democratic nor secular. Such a state would invite envy and hostility and would be regarded as a foreign body.

With these reservations, it may be quite true that the PLO wants a bi-national state of sorts, but does not know how to achieve this aim in the present circumstances. One of its chief spokesmen in the West recently stated in an interview that if he waved a magic wand and said, “Let all the Palestinian Arabs and all the Israeli Jews live tomorrow in a democratic, secular Palestine,” this would more or less immediately lead to a civil war: “All these years of conflict and tension are not a good background for the establishment of a peaceful and harmonious coexistence between two communities.”¹ Said Hammami is of course quite right; historical experience, including some of very recent vintage, shows that bi-nationalism works only very rarely.

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It will be argued that these speculations and objections are all too pessimistic, that the conflict will not necessarily escalate, that the Palestinians may well put up with the existence of Israel (and the Israelis with the existence of a Palestinian state), that there may be isolated acts of violence but no movement toward full-scale war. Yet even if an optimistic scenario for achieving a settlement is assumed, there would still remain the problem of guarantees by outside powers.

Who would these powers be? Among the various nominees who have been put forward, the United Nations and Europe can be dismissed without further comment. As for the Soviet Union, it is indeed true (as a recent Brookings Institution study group has noted) that the Russians, because of their relations with Syria and the PLO, have a considerable capacity for obstructing peace or even blocking further progress toward an overall settlement. Or to put the case even more bluntly: the Soviet Union could probably torpedo any settlement not to its liking. But is it at all certain that the Soviet Union would prefer a peace settlement to the present state of affairs? Those who argue that a new Middle Eastern war would be a disaster for the West and would greatly strengthen Soviet influence, paradoxically also maintain that it is in the interest of the Soviet Union to help make peace in the Middle East and to guarantee it. The logic underlying this argument is not readily obvious; governments seldom act for any length of time contrary to their own interests, and the Soviet government in particular is not known for excessive altruism in world politics.

This is not an abstract issue: if the Soviet Union had wanted to make a contribution to Middle Eastern peace, it could have put some pressure on the “Rejection Front” to moderate its opposition to any political solution of the conflict. This would certainly have made it easier for Arafat to produce an ambiguous formula satisfying the State Department (though not Israel) that the PLO might be willing under certain circumstances to consider according Israel something that could be interpreted by unsuspecting third parties as de facto recognition. But the Soviet Union has refrained so far even from making this minor effort. It is unlikely therefore that the Soviets will extend a bona-fide guarantee to a settlement which gives their Arab friends and clients less than they want. (This is not to say that the Soviet Union might not look with favor upon the establishment of a non-viable Palestinian state, asuming with some justification that it would sooner or later gain a foothold in this state.)

American guarantees are almost equally problematical. A guarantee that does not make provisions for military intervention is worse than useless, and given the isolationist mood of Congress, this is about all that can be expected. But even if a real guarantee should be provided, it would obviously apply only in the case of an extreme violation of the agreement, such as an all-out military attack. This, however, is a less likely eventuality than the kind of shelling across the border which has been practiced in recent years from Jordan and Lebanon. Israel would find such shelling intolerable, but would the United States? And even if there were a clear case of aggression, would there not be cries of “No more Vietnams” and the like? And even if all these fears were to prove groundless, it is still true that if present trends continue, America may no longer be in a position actively to intervene even if it wanted to, simply because it is steadily falling behind the Soviet Union in military preparedness.

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II

To accept the inherently unstable nature of Middle East politics and the intractability of its problems is not to preach defeatism and opt for inaction. It is, however, to ask for an end to false hopes in the West generally and in the United States in particular. For it is important to understand that even if there should be a settlement between Israel and the Arabs, major conflicts in the Middle East would persist. And so far as basic Western interests are concerned, these might be in even greater danger after a settlement were reached than in the present situation.

Yet whatever the consequences for other countries, it is certainly in Israel’s interest to work for a lessening of tensions in its relations with its Arab neighbors. There are things Israel can do, but these options cannot be discussed without reference to the immobilism of Israeli policy after 1967 in which they have their roots.

Psychologically, this immobilism is easy to understand. The 1967 victory had been complete, and it seemed only reasonable to assume that the Arabs would be willing to discuss peace terms. The old borders had been a nightmare, and since Arab leaders had threatened Israel with extinction so many times, it seemed right to insist that a return to these borders was out of the question. But the Arabs refused to meet Israel halfway, let alone to discuss a firm and lasting peace. In the circumstances, the military victors saw no reason to seize the political initiative. No Israeli leader was ready to take risks with the security of the country. It was the “safe-border” argument, not the mystique of the “Land of Israel” movement, which underlay Israeli policy between 1967 and 1973.

In retrospect, however, it is clear that this approach ignored the wider context of world politics. It underrated latent Arab power (economic and political rather than military); and giving absolute priority to security, it made the defusing of an inherently dangerous situation impossible. Again, it is easy to point to mitigating circumstances. Few countries in history have made unilateral concessions after a brilliant military victory. Psychologically, it would have been difficult to persuade the Israeli public to pursue such a course of action, especially since there was no guarantee that unilateral Israeli concessions would be reciprocated, and that the Arabs would not go to war again after a few years.

Mitigating circumstances, however, count for little in politics, and we now can see that greater risks should have been taken. Time was not working in Israel’s favor, and it would have been preferable to part with at least some of the occupied territories, unilaterally if necessary, from a position of strength rather than weakness. To be sure, territorial concessions might not have prevented a new war; in that case Israel’s position would have been worse. But it need not have been much worse, especially if arrangements had been made for the demilitarization of border zones. It is true that the Arab countries might still not have accepted the existence of the Jewish state. Certainly there would have been bellicose speeches and threats on the part of the Arab governments. Acts of terror would have continued and Israeli goods might not have passed through the Suez Canal. But not all the Arab governments would have felt the same overriding urgency to go to war and recover the lost territories. And since the Israeli problem was not the only one preoccupying the Arab world, the conflict might well have lost some of its acuteness. Israel would still have figured high among Arab grievances, but it might no longer have had top priority.

Israel, in other words, could not possibly have relied on Arab good will, but it could have relied on Arab disunity. It was this failure to accept anything less than peace, the insistence on a policy involving no risks, which paralyzed Israeli foreign policy between 1967 and 1973.

Some now agree that mistakes were made, but maintain that a democratically elected government could not have carried out a policy rejected by the majority of the population. Such fatalism is unfounded; public opinion would have accepted almost any policy advocated by a strong leadership, just as it accepted Ben-Gurion’s decision to withdraw Israeli forces from Sinai in 1956.

Others believe that nothing Israel might have done would have made the slightest difference. They are certain that no opportunities were missed during the interwar years—which is true in the sense that the phone call General Dayan expected from King Hussein never came, and that the Arab leaders decided at Khartoum not to negotiate with Israel. But the decisive question is, of course, whether it was indeed impossible to create opportunities, thus reducing the likelihood of a new war, and whether it would not have been worthwhile to pay a price to attain this end. There are no certainties, but it seems very plausible that Israel’s international position would have been considerably stronger today had it after 1967 pursued the policy it is now being forced to carry out, if it had made voluntarily and from a position of strength the concessions it has made (and is going to make) under pressure. At the very least, Israel’s position would not have been worse.

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Of course not even clarity about the past can produce a magic formula that will show the way out of the present impasse. This applies especially to the view that Israel should at all costs stand firm against outside pressure in the present circumstances and should not give up an inch, on the ground that the compromises suggested will lead not toward peace but to a new war under less favorable conditions.

There are serious problems with this approach, but to reject it out of hand for ethical reasons, as certain commentators do, is to apply moral standards to Israel that are not applied to any other country. After all, it was not the fault of the Israelis that the Arabs went to war against the Jewish state in 1948 and that, as a result, new realities came into being which can no longer be undone. The Arab argument that the injustice done to the Palestinians is somehow unique is based either on ignorance or on hypocrisy. All over the world many millions of people have had to leave their native countries in recent decades without hope of repatriation. Nor have the many millions of square miles of territory conquered in war over the same period been subject to demands that they be returned. As to the case for a greater Jewish state, it was put most succinctly by Jabotinsky in his evidence before a British Royal Commission on the eve of World War II:

. . . I do not deny [that] the Arabs of Palestine will necessarily become a minority in the country of Palestine. What I do deny is that this is a hardship. That is not a hardship on any race, any nation possessing so many national states and so many more national states in the future. One fraction, one branch of that race, and not a big one, will have to live in someone else’s state; well, that is the case with all the mightiest nations of the world. I could hardly mention one of the big nations, having their states, mighty and powerful, who had not one branch living in someone else’s state. That is only normal and there is no “hardship” attached to that. So when we hear the Arab claim confronted with the Jewish claim—I fully understand that any minority would prefer to be a majority: It is quite understandable that the Arabs of Palestine would also prefer Palestine to be the Arab state No. 4, 5, or 6—that I quite understand—but when the Arab claim is confronted with our Jewish demand to be saved, it is like the claims of appetite versus the claims of starvation. . . .

Today a Palestinian state would not be the fourth, but the twenty-fourth Arab state. The Palestinians may reason that they are as much entitled to their own state as all other Arabs, but all Arab leaders and political movements have solemnly declared on many occasions that the Arabs are one nation, divided by artificial frontiers; if so, the Palestinians are at home in every Arab country. Nor is there any lack of space in the Arab world. When it was decided to partition Palestine in 1947, less than one-sixth of one per cent of the territory inhabited by the Arabs was set aside for Israel; one-half of one per cent of the Arabs was to become a minority and to live in the Jewish state. This compromise was accepted by the Jews and rejected by the Arabs.

Shorn of certain dubious historical-religious arguments, then, the case for Israel to stand firm and refuse to give an inch is not a weak case at all. The difficulties arise on the level of reality and power, not on that of morality and reason. For the truth is that there is not one law for strong and weak alike. When the Soviet Union and its East European satellites expelled many millions of Gemans after World War II, world public opinion expected the Germans tacitly to accept their fate. When they protested, they were denounced as fascists and warmongers. But Israel is not a power like Russia, and the Palestinians have stronger protectors than the Germans from Poland and the Sudeten region. The fate of the Palestinians is regarded by world public opinion as a grave injustice, to be remedied as quickly as possible. If the Palestinians were politically weaker, and Israel were stronger, less dependent financially and militarily on outside help and good will, it could sit out the storm for a few years or even a few decades. Such a policy would find few supporters outside Israel, though; the idea frequently voiced by Herut and its supporters that all Israel needs is hasbara—more effective political propaganda—is quite illusory. What really matters in the last resort is whether Israel could get along without outside financial support, whether it could accept the risks of political isolation, whether it could produce at home all the arms that are and will be needed for its defense.

But even if it could do all these things, the size of the Arab minority in the Jewish state would still be a major problem. It is unlikely that the Arabs living in a “greater Israel” would be assimilated; there would always be a strong pull toward the other Arab countries. The improvement of Arab living standards in Israel would do nothing to assuage Arab nationalism or contribute to the solution of what is essentially a political problem. Thus a “greater Israel” would, to put the point bluntly, either cease to be Jewish or cease to be democratic.

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Except for the idea of standing firm, there is no coherent strategy being advocated within Israel, and for a long time now there has been no overall concept behind the government’s foreign policy. This is a general weakness of democratic societies, what with conflicting domestic pressures and the absence of strong leadership preventing major foreign political initiatives. There have been no such initiatives in Israeli foreign policy for a long time, merely responses to the actions of others. But historical experience has shown that a free society is not doomed to impotence; a democratically elected leader, or group of leaders, need not be unsure and indecisive, they need not be dependent in their every action on public-opinion polls and popularity contests, they can act without paying undue attention to their own political careers.

What, then, might Israel do? It would be a realistic policy on Israel’s part to reaffirm unequivocally in conformity with Resolution 242 that there is no intention of incorporating Arab territories into the state. Israel could also declare that these territories will be evacuated step-by-step over a period of five to ten years within the framework of a general peace settlement involving recognition of Israel and a regulated rectification of the 1967 borders in the interest of security. Each Israeli concession would depend on Palestinian and Arab willingness to carry out the terms of the settlement. If, for instance, acts of terror were to continue, Israel would no longer be bound to fulfill its part of the bargain. (Such arrangements have been made before in history; they were used, for instance, in Central Europe after World War I.) Israel would also have to insist on transferring these territories to a representative Arab body—it would be pointless to deal with leaders whose authority is not recognized by the Palestinians. This would mean free elections, under the supervision of Israel, the Arab states, and some third parties. The PLO would of course compete in these elections, but it is obvious that there could be no dealings between Israel and the PLO unless and until the PLO were ready to accept the existence of Israel.

A procedure of this kind would not by itself solve any of the difficulties that have been mentioned. But it would to a certain extent reduce the risks, and it would make it possible in the interim period to work for a more lasting solution, either in the form of a confederation or some other framework that would safeguard the security and the political and economic viability of both states.

It is a long time since Israeli leaders have made concrete proposals to the Arabs for coexistence. This is not surprising, for such proposals would probably have fallen on deaf ears. The Arab-Israeli conflict may well have been inevitable; it is not inevitable, however, that it go on forever. It has to be recognized at long last that the Zionist attempt to “solve the Jewish question” resulted in the emergence of a Palestinian Arab question, and that Israel has to play its part in helping to solve that question. This does not imply that Israel has to sacrifice its own existence. Many Palestinians know quite well, and the others will learn, that speeches about the “total liquidation of Israel” will get them nowhere, for present-day armies, unlike the Crusaders, fight not with swords but with weapons of mass destruction. The PLO and the Rejection Front may want to destroy Israel, but they do not want to pay for it with the annihilation of their own people and their own future. Once they realize that the only alternative to coexistence is mutual extinction, a solution of the conflict will become possible. One hopes, though there can be no confidence, that this realization will come without recourse to yet another war.

But if one asks whether a lasting peace is possible in the Middle East at the present time, the answer must be no—whichever way one looks at it, and least of all as a result of the measures suggested so frequently these days with so little thought of the consequences. All one can hope for is the absence of war. If that can be achieved, the time gained can be used for thinking about new ways and means to find a stabler basis for coexistence between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

¹ Said Hammami, quoted in New Outlook, October-November 1975.