Benvenisti: Problem of the West Bank is ‘beyond Diplomacy’

Meron Benvenisti, who was the municipal administrator of the old city of Jerusalem from 1967-73, declared here today that the problem of the West Bank is “beyond diplomacy” because it is no longer a border dispute.

“Israel succeeded to internalize the Palestinian question,” he told reporters at a breakfast meeting at the offices of the quarterly, Foreign Policy. But he warned that this was not a solution but a “recipe for eternal strife.”

Benvenisti was in Washington to update his study, “The West Bank Project,” an analysis of the Israeli government’s policy on the West Bank, which he said he hoped would be published by the end of the year under the auspicious of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

When Benvenisti spoke to reporters at the AEI last October, he said the West Bank was at “five minutes to midnight.” But today he said it was at “ten minutes past midnight.” He explained that the era of settlements by “ideological” groups on the West Bank was now over, replaced by “Levittowners, middle class third generation Israelis” from the large metropolitan centers such as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem who are moving into new urban areas on the West Bank only 25 minutes driving distance from where they work in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem.

While the ideological settlers seek confrontations with the Arabs, these new settlers can drive along new roads throughout the West Bank on which they do not have to see any Arabs at all, he said. He noted that while attention is being paid to newer settlements being built in Judaea and Samaria which could hold at the most 60,000 people, three or four of the new urban areas will eventually hold up to 300,000 people.

SAYS POLICY BEGAN IN 1967

Benvenisti said the future of the West Bank calls for neither annexation nor diplomacy. He said most Israelis support the process as a continuation of the war of liberation. He said that Israeli Premier Menachem Begin “is not the villian,” since the policy began on the “seventh day of the Six-Day War.”

But he noted that the old settlement policy begun by the Labor Alignment governments was aimed at creating “geostrategic facts.” The new policy is aimed at creating a lobby with a “strong constituency” able to prevent any future government of whatever party from seeking a compromise.

Meanwhile, there is “growing boredom” over the West Bank within the international community, Benvenisti maintained. He said this includes the United States which no longer perceives the West Bank as posing an international threat and thus can be left to the Israelis and Palestinians to be worked out. He also said this includes the Arab states, who may pay lip service to the West Bank, but are no longer vitally interested. But the cost of doing nothing becomes “increasingly higher,” Benvenisti warned.

WARNS OF CONTINUOUS CONFRONTATION

He said the present situation means that there will be a continuous “struggle, friction and confrontation” between two societies that are “indigenous and integrated” in the land west of the Jordan River. He noted that West Bank’s 1.3 million Arabs and the 600,000 Israeli Arabs, who he said are identifying more and more with their fellow Palestinians, make up 30 percent of Israel’s population. He said he believes this demographic balance would not change over the years.

Benvenisti rejected the argument that Israel would create an apartheid system like South Africa. He said it was more like the situation in northern Ireland — with the Jewish majority seeking more land and the Arab minority fighting back through violence, demonstrations and civil disobedience. He said the U.S. could be helpful to the Palestinians by providing them direct economic aid and in promoting their civil rights. Benvenisti said he had been more hopeful last October because he had hoped that President Reagan’s peace initiative would provide the means for changing public opinion in Israel. But he said that when there was no Arab response, there was no way for Israeli public opinion to galvanize.

Benvenisti seemed unclear about the future. He said he did not believe that King Hussein of Jordan would enter the peace negotiations because like the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, he would be branded a traitor by other Arabs and assassinated when it became clear that Hussein could not prevent the growth of settlements. He said that growth of indigenous leadership on the West Bank cannot occur because it has been in the interests of both the Israeli government and the Palestine Liberation Organization to prevent such leadership from developing.

Benvenisti believes that American Jewry, which he called basically a liberal community, should be engaged in the West Bank situation as a struggle for civil rights. He said the outcome would not only affect the future of Israel but of all the Jewish people.