The Myth of Land for Peace
A Cambridge student abstains the motion, ‘This House Would Pressurise Israel to Exchange Land for Peace’, arguing that failing to acknowledge a unilateral military occupation creates a false narrative of bilateral conflict, preventing any real discourse.
The Problem With The Framing
Whilst I believe the alternative academic framings of Israel-Palestine as apartheid, settler colonialism, or ethnocracy accurately capture the situation, these terms result from extensive reasoning and warrant debate. However, the rather moderate and sober term ‘occupation’ describes a factual state of affairs in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that has been explicitly described in virtually every international legal document discussing Israel since UNSC Resolution 242 in 1967. It is deeply disappointing that this uncontroversial term was excluded from the framing of this debate.
More problematically, the Union chose to restrict the debate’s scope in its description of military presence beginning in 1967. This fails to account for the 700,000 Palestinians ethnically cleansed from their homes in the 1948 Nakba, where Israeli leaders such as David Ben-Gurion had called for “the evacuation of the Arab community.” Furthermore, the right of return for the Palestinians who remain in refugee camps to this day is treated as a non-issue. The debate, at best, appears ill-prepared and, at worst, engages in a form of Nakba denial.
Lastly, the idea of ‘exchanging land for peace’ inaccurately presents the situation through a narrative lens of territorial dispute. By design, this immediately assumes an underlying two-state solution narrative that, in effect, excludes the opinion of the vast majority of pro-Palestinian thinkers who insist, most broadly, on freedom and equality from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
Why, then, not argue for the opposition? Simply put, the majority of supporters of Palestinian rights would feel conflicted about speaking in opposition to pressurising Israel and would not wish to be associated with the ideas of opposition speakers — the vagueness of the prompt elicited way more confusion than it did the diversity of thought.
Not a Conflict
The framing of ‘exchanging land for peace’ and refusing to acknowledge the unilateral military occupation as a starting point created an overarching false narrative of a conflict on both sides. This misconception of conflict is best exemplified by two falsehoods uttered by some members of the opposition last night:
- Israel Does Not Occupy the West Bank and Gaza Strip
The PA has autonomy. Israel-Palestine could be construed as a conflict under the misconception that there is unoccupied Palestinian territory with autonomous leadership, a misconception rooted in the Oslo Accords. The West Bank is, in fact, fragmented, with Area C comprising over 60% of it and remaining under the complete control of Israel, dominated by Israeli settlements, a flagrant violation of international law.
Whilst the PA has partial ‘administrative’ control across Areas A and B, the land remains occupied. Palestinians across all three areas are besieged by military checkpoints, frequent raids, arrests, extrajudicial killings, and home demolitions by Israeli authorities. The Gaza Strip remains under an air, land, and sea blockade by Israeli authorities who control Gazans’ freedom of movement. To pretend Israel does not govern these areas is an exercise in delusion, whilst placing the blame of Palestinian suffering entirely on Palestinian ‘leadership’ relies on misinformation and an orientalist trope of Arabs being too stupid to govern themselves.
2. Israel Is the Only Democracy in the Middle East
Whilst the treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories (see point 1) should be enough to disprove such a claim, one opposition speaker argued this on the basis that Palestinian citizens of Israel supposedly have equal rights. Palestinian within Israel are second-class citizens navigating a sea of racist laws. For example, they cannot buy or lease almost 80% of land due to state policies, whilst over 10,000 Bedouin structures were demolished between 2013 and 2019. For these reasons, a plethora of organizations like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and B’Tselem have deemed Israel an apartheid state.
To me, that all seems to clash with democracy just a tad bit. Understanding that the Israeli State is centred, not on democracy but on the systemic domination of one ethnic group, maintained through a violent military occupation, illustrates why this cannot be discussed in two-sided terms. There is no conflict without equal footing. Most crucially, understanding the power dynamic does not require that Palestinians are morally infallible and incapable of resistance, even violent attacks. It merely requires a basic understanding of the inherently one-sided nature of apartheid: it is domination. For that reason, any form of ‘exchange’ between an occupied people and a nuclear-armed State is illogical.
Lessons
I saw well-meaning people in that Chamber who were genuinely horrified by the images of violence they saw emerging from Palestine. Still, Palestinians have more to show than their bruises. Palestinians and allies advocate for solidarity and liberation, not sympathy. Palestinians do not
need sympathy when it is devoid of political awareness. For example, one speaker referenced co-existence and her encounters with Israelis married to Palestinians. Cute, but ultimately hollow. In fact, Israel has outlawed the naturalisation of Palestinians married to Israeli citizens, legally forcing such couples to emigrate or separate.
Real co-existence will not emerge before liberation from inherently racist structures that seek to prevent it. Descriptions of ‘violence’ and ‘peace’ without understanding the realities of occupation will do nothing but garner empty sympathy for Palestinians and continued impunity for Israel’s apartheid regime, and only momentary awkwardness in the Chamber.
The author of this article wishes to remain anonymous.
The opinions expressed in this piece are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Cambridge Union Society.
On May 4, Cambridge Union Society debated the motion, “This House Would Pressurise Israel to Exchange Land for Peace”. The motion abstained with a vote of 71 in favour, 80 abstentions, and 28 in opposition.
