In mid-1989, Gershon Baskin launched three Israeli-Palestinian working groups: Economics and Business, the Future of Jerusalem, and the water experts working group. In October 1992, he initiated a series of secret meetings in London with former Israeli security officers and Palestinian officials from the PLO. These talks laid down the framework for subsequent security undertaking in the Oslo Accords of September 1993. Baskin, together with other Israelis and Arabs, has worked for years to secure peace between Israelis and Arabs and has many key Arab contacts including leading Hamas officials.
Sarah Brown: Those on both ‘sides’ of this conflict often assert that a two state solution is no longer viable. Do you agree?
Gershon Baskin : I believe that the Israeli Palestinian conflict is essentially a territorial-identity conflictin which two peoples are trying to assert a territorial expression of their identity. They both want a land that they can call their own, on which they can raise their flag and determine who they are and what they want. The problem is that both sides claim the same piece of territory – the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. One side calls it the Land of Israel, the other side call it Palestine.
Both sides believe and claim that they have taken their identity from the land and that they have given their identity to the land. A solution has to be found that enables both sides to make good on their claims without denying the other side’s claims entirely. All of this is compounded by the religious claims of divine intervention in determining whose land it is.
This is not a conflict between Judaism and Islam, but the religious identification of the land and the history makes it more difficult to find rational solutions. It seems to me that the only solution that can put an end to the conflict is one including partition into two nation-states and agreeing that each side has historical, religious, and emotional ties to all of the land – even those parts that they will not have sovereignty over.
Making peace also requires getting to a point where people will have the right of movement in all parts of the land and where there could be national minorities with some kind of autonomous cultural rights in both states.
Sarah Brown: Could you tell our supporters something about your own proposals to foster a climate for peace in the region?
Gershon Baskin: Peace agreements must be made by the leaders of both nations. The agreements must deal with all of the core issues to the conflict: borders, Jerusalem, refugees, security, settlements, water, etc. Reaching agreements will enable both sides to establish the mechanisms for implementing the agreements. My working assumption is that the two sides don’t trust each other and they have good reasons for their lack of trust. So agreements cannot be based on good will, nice words and good intentions.
The agreements must be based on lack of trust and therefore must include mechanisms for monitoring and verifying their implementation. There must also be mechanisms for dispute resolution in real-time at the ground level. Those are some of the primary lessons learned from the failure of the peace process. We must also understand that peace does not come with the signing of a paper. Peace has to be built over a long period of time.
We can start before we reach agreements with very dramatic steps that will also help to change the consciousness of both societies as we move forward. Public messages by leaders that give positive attitudes to peace is an example. Deciding to review and rewrite text books for schools that begin to teach something positive about the other side would be most helpful. In addition, we need to begin to change the paradigm of peace as understood and projected until now.
Peace has been conceived as “us here and them there” – what I call peace with high walls and strong fences between the sides. This is not peace nor will it lead to peace. Peace is people crossing borders, people working together, studying together, trading and investing In each other’s economies. That is the kind of peace I talk about.
Sarah Brown: Do you think boycotts are an effective tool to put pressure on the Israeli government or a discriminatory step which inhibits dialogue and encourages hardliners?
Gershon Baskin: Boycotts in general are a legitimate tool and have proven to be effective. I have participated in boycotts since I was a child – against the abuse of migrant workers, against South Africa during apartheid and today I do not buy products from Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. The BDS movement has no clear strategy and no clear objectives. It refuses, as a political method if they believe that the occupation began in 1948 or 1967 – or in other words – are they trying to end the occupation and have a Palestinian state established next to Israel in peace, or do they want the State of Israel to cease to exist and to be replaced by the State of Palestine.
I believe it is the second. An example of their false strategy is that their call for boycott against SodaStream did not end when the factory left the occupied territories. Not only did SodaStream relocate to inside of Israel, it was built next to the poorest town in Israel, Rahat, a Beduoin town, it employs a lot of people from Rahat and it continues to employ Palestinian workers from the occupied territories. SodaStream has a very good employment record, paying fair salaries and benefits and did the right thing by moving out of the occupied territories. The BDS movement continues to boycott SodaStream.
I called on people to buy SodaStream because they did the right thing. In addition to all this, boycotting SodaStream or Ahava cosmetics does nothing to harm the Israeli economy or make Israelis feel the pressure. Neither does the cultural boycott. Israel’s economy is strong and insulated from the boycotts of BDS. If people wanted to really harm Israel it would have to boycott its high-tech industries and that means their iPhone and computers, software, medical devices like heart stents, etc.
A targeted boycott against companies in the occupied territories is more defined and has a greater potential to be effective. The general boycott against Israel is wrong, I believe, and also has no clear effective strategy.
Sarah Brown: Is there a single common belief held by zealous supporters of the Palestinians and/or Israel’s most uncritical supporters that you’d most like to challenge?
Gershon Baskin: Mutual non-recognition. The basis of any solution will be in the recognition of each side’s right to define itself as a people, a nation, and to have a nation-state. There are supporters of Palestine who refuse the right of the Jewish people to a nation state and their right to self-determination, and there are supporters of Israel who refuse to recognise the existence of the Palestinian people and their right to a nation state and self-determination. This must change.
Sarah Brown: As someone trying to broker peace in the region you must have encountered much opposition and hostility – can you tell us about any of the more positive experiences?
Gershon Baskin: As someone who has been working for Israeli Palestinian peace and understanding for 40 years I can look out at the reality in which we live and speak about failure. That is the reality that we are living. But I can also look at my reality – I live in peace. I cross those borders every day. I bring Israelis and Palestinians together all of the time. I am bringing investment to the Palestinian economy with solar energy developments. I continue to push for joint political action and we will be doing that in the coming weeks on the Israel Gaza border.
We are now creating a joint Israeli Palestinian list to run for the Jerusalem city council and I hope that the next Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem from the list that I am part of will be a Palestinian from East Jerusalem. My connections have enabled me to open a channel of communication between Israel and Hamas that led to the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit and many Palestinian prisoners. I continue to talk to everyone who is willing to talk to me and continue to serve as a channel of communication between parties that do not communicate openly and directly. I have thousands of friends and contacts all over the region but especially in Israel and Palestine and I will continue to do this every day that I am alive.
