| As his fascinating and deeply intelligent memoir makes clear, Nusseibeh is really an Israeli dream. Where Yasir Arafat and his lieutenants asserted that there was no historical Jewish claim to Jerusalem, Mr. Nusseibeh speaks of Jewish roots in Jerusalem as “existential and umbilical.”
While most Palestinian officials insist that Israel permit the 1948 Palestinian refugees to return to their homes within Israel in any peace deal, Mr. Nusseibeh has renounced such a demand as unrealistic, shouting at Mahmoud Abbas, the current Palestinian president, at one point: “Either you want an independent state or a policy aimed at returning all the refugees to Israel. You can’t have it both ways.” He has always publicly spurned all forms of violence. He was an early advocate of the argument that if Israel wants to remain both largely Jewish and democratic, it has to shed its hold over the lands captured in 1967, because there are so many Palestinians there. A Palestinian state in those areas, he said, is actually in Israel’s interest. This is now mainstream Israeli thinking, but 20 years ago it was viewed as a threat both by most Palestinians and by the Israeli government. Destined to live together, he argues, Palestinians and Israelis must get to know each other. He acknowledges that earlier dreams of coexistence have been shattered in recent years. But again he cites his father: “Rubble, he used to tell me, often makes the best building material.” March 29, 2007 |
