Oh, that Yitzhak Rabin

Last week, on the anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the New York Times published an op-ed by former-President Bill Clinton urging the parties to "Finish Rabin's Work." Part of the problem we face in achieving a solution to this conflict is the constant creation of new yesterdays - attempts, that is, to capture what seemed like hopeful moments a few years back because the situation today is so much more dismal. In retrospect, such moments seem much better than where we are now. The problem with this is that while they may seem better than where we are at the moment, those yesterdays were not successful because they were inherently flawed, unjust, and failed to address the root causes of the conflict.

Nostalgia for such moments are not helpful; they are in fact dangerous. That's why I wrote the letter below to the NYT regarding President Clinton's op-ed glorifying Yitzhak Rabin. The op-ed was nostalgia for a flawed yesterday which typified how regularly the root of the problem - 1948 - is marginalized in the discussion, instead of grappled with.

To the Editor:

I was amazed at how former President Bill Clinton perfectly captured everything that is wrong with the American approach toward mediating Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Mr. Clinton urges the parties to finish Yitzhak Rabin’s work, but many, like me, whose families were ethnically cleansed from the Palestinian towns of Lydda and Ramla by then Lieutenant Colonel Rabin, know that Israel is today finishing the work Mr. Rabin started in 1948.

Through consistent expansion of illegal colonies on Palestinian land, the revocation of residencies of Palestinians in Jerusalem, home demolition and ethnically biased economic policies, Israel continues taking Palestinian land at the expense of the Palestinian people.

The fundamental flaw in Mr. Clinton’s argument is that simply talking in good faith will lead to a solution. Because of the great power imbalance between Israel and the Palestinians and the failure of American presidents, including Mr. Clinton himself, to press Israel to end its continuing colonization, Israel has been able to easily continue in the spirit of Mr. Rabin’s darker, underdiscussed work.

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