Peace activists who claim neutrality are giving Israel a license to kill.
A friend recently said that she had come to believe the level of Israeli violence against Palestinians is now so great that a balanced approach to the two sides - the middle way promoted by so many peace groups – has become totally untenable.

An Israeli-American friend, just returned from several months in Israel, witnessed such a level of state violence, not only against Palestinians but even against Israeli protesters, that she decided she could no longer “protect my own skin” by simply standing by.

These two friends have recognized and are strongly protesting the sham of taking a neutral position between the sides in this most unbalanced of conflicts. Neutrality in any conflict in which there is a gross imbalance of power is probably impossible and certainly immoral. It effectively removes all restraints on behavior by the powerful party. Yet this is the posture of many American peace groups that put themselves forward as advocates for Palestinian-Israeli reconciliation. They take no position between the Palestinians and Israel, but only promote peace plans such as the unofficial Geneva Accord without also taking action or even speaking out forcefully against Israel’s occupation. The consequence is that these groups have given Israel the time and the license to devastate the land, begin its ethnic cleansing, and destroy any prospect for Palestinian independence.

But when in history have decent people seriously accepted balance and neutrality as a proper response in moral or national conflicts that pit one very powerful party against a powerless party?

Consider this analogy: activists in mid-nineteenth century America seek to end slavery by proposing that the two sides strive for reconciliation, that slaves sit down at the mediation table with slave owners and attempt to work out their differences through negotiation. Imagine them proposing a middle way, recognizing that both are responsible for the conflict (slaves have shown a propensity to rebel, causing the slave owners to tighten their oppressive grip) but believing that both slaves and owners have a right to free, peaceful and secure lives and that the only way to achieve this is to avoid blaming either side.

Do we think this is absurd? Imagine a similar scenario involving an attempt to mediate in a balanced, blame-free atmosphere between Catholic priests and the children they have sexually abused. The absurdity of neutrality is equally obvious.

As regards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, peace activists who seek neutrality are in fact siding with Israel. Because they refuse to see realities on the ground, centrists cannot even imagine the scale of the oppression that Palestinians face at Israel’s hands. They cannot fathom the checkpoints, the roadblocks, the sniper shootings, the aerial bombardments, the assassinations, the settlements and Israeli-only bypass roads, the land confiscations, the bulldozing of olive groves, the demolition of homes and entire residential neighborhoods, the foul labyrinth of walls and fences that have imprisoned entire Palestinian villages, halted all movement, separated farmers from farmland, children from schools, the sick from hospitals, brothers from brothers. The centrists’ silence and averted gaze grease the wheels of oppression that are in no way balanced by the occasional suicide bombing.

Thinking back to some of the colonial conflicts of the twentieth century, is it possible to imagine a scenario in which peacemakers or public commentators and opinion molders ever believed these conflicts could be resolved by simply splitting th difference? In Vietnam, Algeria, South Africa and other colonial conflicts no mediator, no commentator, no activist group ever credibly proposed that the conflict be resolved by working from a neutral position to try “reconciling” the opposing sides.

Yet this is essentially how virtually everyone - public discourse in general, from opportunistic US politicians of both major parties, to mainstream media commentators, to most peace activists - proposes to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The notion of being “neutral” is soothing to most people because it is ostensibly fair, it is optimistic, it is positive, obviating the need for negativity and unpleasantness. But a balanced position in an unbalanced situation inevitably is a miscarriage of justice. Neutrality in Palestine-Israel is no different from refusing to take a stand between slaves and slave owners, or between children and abusive priests.

Kathleen Christison is a former CIA political analyst who has worked on the Middle East for more than 30 years. She is the author of Perceptions of Palestine and The Wound of Dispossession.