This isn't Cyprus
If we are going to hold it up as a model for a Israeli-Palestinian separation plan, we had better understand what it's really like on the divided island.
By Avirama Golan
LARNACA - As on other occasions when talk of peace negotiations filled the air, examples from around the world are being cited as models for settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Cyprus is one of the favorite models of comparison among jurists and political scientists. Proponents of the "Us here, them there" model for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are charmed by the island's total separation between rival population groups. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman even peddles his own distorted version of Cypriot history, which goes something like this: "There was a conflict, there was a decision to divide the island and since then, it's been quiet."
On the other hand, proponents of a binational Israeli-Palestinian state delude themselves that harmony reigns between the Greek and Turkish populations, forgetting that even before the Turkish Army's 1974 invasion, which led to the island's division, Cyprus was an ethnic-majority state in which the Turkish minority had civil rights.
Maybe now, as thousands of Israelis descend upon the Larnaca airport en route to the resort town of Ayia Napa or cross the border that runs through the capital of Nicosia to gamble on the Turkish side, we can step back and take an unbiased look at this beautiful island and understand that just like dysfunctional families, national disputes are each characterized by their very own unique and complex dynamics.
Those who cross Cyprus' own Green Line in Nicosia are mostly Greek speakers heading for the Turkish side - or in Greek, "the occupied territories." Traffic into the Republic of Cyprus from the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus, a polity recognized by Turkey alone, is sparse.
It is not only Israeli gamblers who use the crossing to head for the slot machines. Throngs of Greek Cypriots with wallets bursting with euro notes head north to buy cheap knockoffs of brand-name goods. On the way back, Greek speakers pass through without hindrance, while the rare Turkish speaker is subjected to a meticulous examination.
Here there is no intifada, but there are settlements. Since 1983 the Turkish government, in violation of the Geneva Convention, has sent thousands of immigrants from its mountainous Anatolian countryside into north Cyprus. It promised the migrants free homes and jobs, conveniently omitting the fact that the homes were "abandoned property" of owners who fled or were driven out (some 200,000 Greek speakers fled south in 1974 ).
The number of Turkish "settlers" is estimated today at 50,000 - a full quarter of all inhabitants of the north. In 2004, then-UN secretary general Kofi Annan floated a plan - which the Greeks rejected - to grant 45,000 of them Cypriot citizenship if and when the island is reunited.
In the indigent north, conflicts broke out between settlers and "natives," because the new arrivals were more religious, more conservative and more tied to Turkey than the veteran residents, who were secular and oriented toward Europe. Many of the veterans would like to migrate south. And while the northern government strives to develop the economy, it does so through real-estate and tourist ventures on land that doesn't belong to it.
Most of the buyers, incidentally, are Britons, seemingly convinced that colonialism is alive and well, and Israelis, for whom construction in occupied territory is a trivial matter.
In the south, by contrast, the booming economy draws thousands of migrant workers annually from the Balkans.
Both sides have peace camps that support reunification in the spirit of the UN proposal. Leading the campaign on the Greek side is the current president, Dimitris Cristofias, himself born on the northern side. But on the Turkish side, which has grown more radical, this camp is censored.
Confused? This is just the tip of the Cyprus iceberg. Those seeking to present the island as a model for the Mideast are both mistaken and misleading. But the key mistake made by those who favor Cyprus as a model for our conflict is that unlike Israelis and Palestinians, Greeks and Turks each have nation-states beyond the island.
This is not Cyprus. Here, in the Middle East, we need to look inward to see the true picture.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/this-isn-t-cyprus-1.310078
