Berger’s Monochrome View of a Bilateral Conflict

By Published On: January 4, 2013

alan berger.jpg
Alan Berger

The narrow-minded refusal to see Palestinians as actors in the Arab-Israeli conflict continues to tempt some pundits. Look through today’s Boston Globe, and it’s there again: the stubborn, nuance-deprived narrative that fails to see Palestinian leaders as players with responsibilities, who are capable of making decisions that harm peace prospects, or who have and any role whatsoever in perpetuating the conflict.

In his column “Obama ought to meddle in Israeli vote,” former Boston Globe editorial writer Alan Berger states:

Israel must choose between occupation of the land conquered in 1967 and a conflict-ending peace that preserves the state of Israel created in 1948.

Never mind that Israeli leaders have made the choice again and again.

Menachem Begin traded land for peace with Egypt. Ehud Barak made a land-for-peace offer that was rejected by Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat, and accepted a follow-up peace plan by Bill Clinton that was likewise shunned by Arafat. Ariel Sharon turned over the Gaza Strip to Palestinian control. Ehud Olmert sought to end the occupation in exchange for peace, but was rebuffed by Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat’s successor. Abbas, meanwhile, has basically refused to even negotiate with current Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The concept isn’t very complicated: Palestinians, too, have choices to make. But apparently it is too complex an idea to make it into Berger’s column.

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