It's time to become two separate states
JERUSALEM -- In the bloodiest single Palestinian terrorist attack on Israelis since the beginning of last September's Palestinian uprising, Khaled Abu Olbeh from Gaza rammed his bus into a packed bus stop near Tel Aviv, killing eight people and injuring 25. Now emotions are running high, fighting words fill the air, and escalation seems inevitable. Many people in Israel are losing hope in the peace process.
There is, however, a way out.
As I was about to start my car and head to work recently, I saw Abed approaching. He moved swiftly, trying to keep a low profile. The morning after the terrorist attack, it wasn't the most pleasant experience for an Arab to walk around in a Jewish neighborhood. He quickly disappeared into my neighbor's apartment, where he is employed doing maintenance jobs.
I have known Abed for more than 20 years. Rain or shine, he never missed one day of work. Sometimes, after terrorist attacks carried out by his fellow Palestinians, Israel would impose closure on the West Bank and Gaza. Yet he would show up anyway. I never asked him how he managed to do it, how he avoided the roadblocks and the patrols, because I didn't want to embarrass him. But I knew why he did it: He had a wife and six kids at home, and he just had to feed them, no matter what.
When I served under the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, he used to get so furious after every terrorist attack that his knee-jerk reaction was to impose a closure on the Palestinian territories. But quickly he would cool down, remembering that if the Palestinians were left without any in- come, their despair might push them into the hands of the Hammas and the Islamic Jihad. A solution was found: Only those over 35 years old, married with children, would be allowed in, assuming that these people wouldn't be involved in terrorist activity.
Yet Abu Olbeh is a 35-year-old, he has a wife and five kids, a good job and an Israeli work permit -- a precious commodity among Palestinians today -- and he hasn't been associated with any of the terrorist groups. Definitely not a suspicious type. Still, on Feb. 14 he drove his metal monster into a crowd of unsuspecting victims.
God forgive me, but as I watched Abed, I couldn't help but wondering: Would he ever do such a thing?
Abed lives in Gib, a small village just north of Jerusalem. Gib's biblical name comes from Gibeon. When Joshua conquered the Land of Canaan, the people of Gibeon were so frightened by his ruthlessness that they disguised themselves as foreigners and tricked him into signing a truce. When he found out who they really were, it was too late. But Joshua had the last word: He cursed the Gibeonites and doomed them to become ``hewers of wood and drawers of water'' for the people of Israel.
It seems that Abed is following his ancestors' path. Today he and thousands of other Palestinians do most of the menial jobs Israelis are not willing to do anymore: gas-station at- tendants, restaurant dish washers, construction workers, etc. They are the modern-day hewers of wood and drawers of water for the Israelis. But whenever one of them goes berserk, they all suffer. Especially the workers of Gaza, who can't sneak into Israel. These people lose their jobs, stay home with their large families, use up whatever savings they have, listen to the inciting Palestinian media and seethe with frustration, rage and hate.
The only way out of this quandary is to partition this land into two states. Abed will have to stay home in the Palestinian State and find a job there. Israel will have to adjust its economy and workforce accordingly.
It would be in Israel's interest not just to erect a big fence to keep the Palestinians away but also to lend them a generous, helping hand -- because a happy and prosperous neighbor is a good neighbor. The world community should assist as well.
I hope that Abed then will get a visa and visit us, and I promise to get a visa to see his family in Gib. But right now, this entanglement is causing both of us too much pain. It's time to separate.
Uri Dromi is the publications director at the Israel democracy Institute in Jerusalem. This article was originally published in The Miami Herald on February 23, 2001.
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