Jonathan Kuttab, a leading human rights lawyer in Israel and Palestine, was born
in West Jerusalem and raised there and in Bethlehem. After the Six Day War, Kuttab's
family moved to the United States, where he graduated from Messiah College and earned his
law degree from the University of Virginia. After practicing with a Wall Street law firm
for several years, in 1980 Kuttab returned to his homeland where he continues to handle
cases that have both Israeli and Palestinian officials squirming.
Kuttab co-founded the Jerusalem-based Palestinian Center for the Study
of Nonviolence; the West Bank affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists,
Al-Haq; and the Mandela Institute for Political Prisoners. He was interviewed earlier this
year in Jerusalem by Sojourners editor Jim Wallis.
Jim Wallis: People who support the Palestinian cause have also
supported the Oslo peace process. Now it has fallen apart and there's a second intifada—this
one more wild than the first. What are we to make of this?
Jonathan Kuttab: Everyone thought that the Oslo process, despite its
goblins, would lead to a Palestinian state—a two-state solution. The reality,
however, was the opposite. The Oslo process created an alternative to international law,
to the mechanisms of the United Nations, to international solidarity, and to a genuine
struggle for justice. It created a crazy partnership between the Palestinian leadership
and the Israeli occupation forces, whereby the Palestinian leadership was given the task
of maintaining peace and order for the Israeli settlers and the state of Israel in return
for privileges that were doled out a little at a time. In the end, Israel had all the
power on the ground. The Palestinians either had to accept the Israeli structure or simply
suffer with no recourse.
Wallis: U.S. opinion pages blame Yasir Arafat for the breakdown of the
peace process and the resulting violence. They say Oslo was the best agreement Israel has
ever offered. Why didn't Arafat accept this?
Kuttab: Very few people understand the structure of the Oslo process.
It cut the West Bank into three zones. The map showing these zones is almost never shown
in the United States because it reveals small enclaves of Palestinian control within an
overwhelmingly Israeli-controlled area.
With the zones, Israel has the capacity not only to control entry and
exit into Palestine and Israel, but also to control movement between and within
Palestinian villages, towns, and refugee camps in the occupied territories. Under this
system simply going to work or school, to church or the hospital is an absolute nightmare.
Palestinians are effectively denied taking their cars on roads in the West Bank. We must
either go by donkey or on foot, otherwise we risk violating the law and being shot.
Israeli settlers, on the other hand, have bypass access roads that link them directly to
Israel and to each other.
Palestinians are supposed to accept this as a permanent state of
affairs. Under this structure, it doesn't matter what percentage of land you turn
over to the Palestinian authority. The question is no longer about true sovereignty, but
rather about administering real estate on behalf of an overarching occupation. That is why
Arafat rejected the offer. He was faced with signing something that was totally
unacceptable to the Palestinian people, that would deny their right of return, that would
turn them into a Vichy-type regime. That agreement would have legitimized the illegal
settlements and made the Palestinians permanently under an occupation and
domination—all approved and legitimized by their own leadership. And all this would
have been called a "separate state."
Wallis: Was the Oslo arrangement worse than what preceded it?
Kuttab: Over the last few years Palestinians have seen enough of what
Israel had in mind when it talked about statehood. Human rights violations have increased,
as have the stealing of land and the expansion of settlements. International solidarity
and support for Palestinians has been utterly neutralized because everybody is supporting
the peace process. I mean, how can you be against the peace process? Under Oslo, the
day-to-day life of the Palestinian has become worse.
I don't want a passport that is invalid unless it is entered into
an Israeli computer. I don't want a Palestinian airport that you must travel to in a
sealed bus, which takes you first to the Israeli checkpoint to be examined, questioned,
and maybe arrested. A passport is supposed to allow you to travel freely. If I can't
travel, what is the use of a passport?
Wallis: Oslo led to a apartheid-like situation, making life for
ordinary people a nightmare, and the violent revolt began. Now, because of this violence,
people elsewhere are withdrawing support from the Palestinian cause and blaming the
breakdown on the Palestinians.
Kuttab: The brilliance of the Israeli occupation has been in the battle
of images. They present their occupation as the acceptable status quo, while any attempt
by the Palestinians to resist it is shown as violence, terrorism, disruption, and
opposition to the peace process. The peace and justice community has been also trapped
into this method of looking at things.
We have drifted away from what we know to be true. The settlements are
illegal. They are built on stolen property. They are racist because only Jews can live in
them. Jews in the settlements live under their own regime—separate courts, separate
roads, separate health system, separate economic structures—yet they are portrayed as
civilians whose security and protection is an absolute value. If the Palestinians resist
them, then it is Palestinians who are disrupting the peace process.
Wallis: Many people don't understand the politics of the
settlements. They are self-contained compounds with beautiful green grass, swimming pools,
and shopping outlets that include stores like Burger King and Home Depot. They are
upper-middle-class, First World enclaves surrounded by desert and Palestinians who
can't even access their own water.
Kuttab: The most extreme example is the Gaza Strip. It is about seven
miles wide and 20 miles long. There are 1 million Palestinians who live there, and about
2,000 Jewish settlers. These 2,000 settlers live in small, scattered communities, but they
control about 40 percent of the land and 30 percent of the water of the Gaza Strip.
One thing must be clear: Settlements are illegal under international
law. They are morally indefensible. They have no religious justification whatsoever. As
Christians committed to peace with justice, we must say that settlements must stop. As
long as there are settlements, the occupation is going to continue. A concerted effort at
boycotts and sanctions linked to settlements and settler activities can be very effective
and successful. Ultimately it's better for Israel to be rid of the settlements, and
many Israelis are opposed to them. The problem is that any Israeli leader who wants to
dismantle settlements, or even stop their growth, has had to pay a heavy political price.
There was no international solidarity movement demanding that the settlements be
dismantled. Still there is no political price Israel has to pay for continuing with the
settlement policy—no embarrassments, no boycotts, no demonstrations, no challenges to
Israeli policy.
Wallis: You have said that you think Israel is more vulnerable to
economic, social, and political pressure than South Africa ever was.
Kuttab: Apartheid South Africa had the internal resources to flaunt the
rest of the world, and in fact did so for many years. Israel doesn't enjoy these
advantages. It is a small country. It doesn't have many of the basic raw natural
resources. It depends economically on tourism and on donations from the outside world,
particularly Western Jewish communities. Its cultural, social, and economic life is linked
to the West.
Israeli policy, particularly the settlement policy, must be put under
genuine attack by the West. If Israeli aid, trade, and cultural life were made conditional
on the dismantling of settlements, on creating a just peace, I don't think Israel
could resist that pressure for very long. However, it would take a lot of courage and many
principled people to carry out such a battle because it would be fought against the
background of sympathy for the state of Israel and for the Jews that arises from the
Holocaust. Individuals who undertake such a campaign may come under attack by those who
support the state of Israel without question.
Wallis: Would you see involving Christian churches as critical to this
campaign, as was the case with South Africa?
Kuttab: Yes. There are Palestinian Christians and Palestinian churches
that can speak to these issues. Unfortunately, many of the churches in the United States,
particularly the evangelical churches, have allied themselves not only with Israel and its
settlement policy, but even with extreme right-wing Israeli politics. Ultimately this
policy calls for the expulsion of Palestinians. Ironically, the one community where this
policy is most successful is the Christian community. Christians are leaving the country
in large numbers. If we lose the Christian component, I think it will be a tremendous loss
for all Palestinians.
Wallis: Can one support the state of Israel as a Jewish state and still
say settlements are not only illegal, but are causing a brutal destruction of Palestinian
life? Can one be against settlements and for a two-state solution without being
interpreted as undermining the state of Israel?
Kuttab: That is the challenge. Israel has managed to blur the
distinction between the issues of state security and the policy of domination. Any
challenge to the policy of domination is viewed as a threat against the survival of the
state of Israel. We need to uncouple these two things before we can be effective in a
nonviolence campaign. As a Palestinian Christian, I can be for Palestinians, for the state
of Israel, and for God—while at the same time be against the illegal occupation and
the settlements.
Wallis: You would focus on the settlements as the primary target of a
campaign of nonviolent resistance. If the short-term goal is to end the settlement policy,
what kind of strategy or tactics would you recommend? Economic pressure?
Kuttab: Economic pressure is certainly one piece of the strategy, but
moral pressure is also needed. We must win the battle for the hearts and minds of people,
including the American Jewish community. In this respect we must be very careful to avoid
any alliance with those who hate Jews because they are Jews, with people who are
anti-Semitic. I have nothing to say or to do with those people. One must be clear that one
is doing this out of concern for justice and for love for both people, not out of hatred
for Jews.
Read other articles by:
Wallis, Jim
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