March 1, 2007
Mon, July 31, 2006
Israel doesn't seem to understand what it takes to be a nation of Jews and to maintain a Jewish nation state. The conservative friends of Israel are as bewildered as Israel is dumbfounded. So, we have decided "to break with the failed policies of the past" as Rabin and Peres used to say when they sought to rationalize the Oslo Accords that initiated the Peace Process of death and destruction. Herein is a new solution to the Middle East crisis.
We hate to be the ones to say that SANE told you so, but now that almost all of the conservative friends of Israel have recognized and conceded that Israel was never in this war to be won, we thought it time to draw some lesson from the experience. But, before we do that, it is worthwhile examining what it is the Israel-friendly conservative pundits missed. We say missed because they now act so surprised. Obviously, none of them were reading, or at least admitting to reading, SANE’s David Yerushalmi when he wrote on Israel’s afflicted soul of national existence and peoplehood here, here, here, and here. For those not inclined to go to the links, the following were Yerushalmi’s predictions on July 20th when conservatives were still praising Israel’s bold move to clear out the “terrorists”:
The Prediction. This one is easy. Exactly the same [as in 1982-2000]. History will not change drastically, if at all. Israel will continue the air assaults. If Hezbollah pulls off something drastic, like the use of WMD (should Bashar Assad of Syria allow them use of some of what is stored in Syria from Iraq’s old arsenal), Israel will send in ground troops. If Hezbollah sends missiles into Tel Aviv, Israel will also send in troops to clear out the missile sites in southern Lebanon. It is possible that Israel will send in ground troops in a week or so to get the last of the missile sites and to clear out the last strongholds of resistance, but they won’t stay long. Hezbollah has so mined the buffer zone and set up such an intricate system of tunnels and ambushes that the casualties on the Israeli side would be too great. Israel no longer has the stomach, if it ever did, for such a fight. Granted, a massive full-scale war against Israel will be met by overwhelming force. But like all of its wars, it will end in a cease-fire, not surrender. Israel's belief in its right to exist is a defensive one.
Thus, Israel will pull out once the international community demands it do so, especially if that demand is supported by the US. In time, President Bush will acquiesce. We already are hearing of the planned trip by Secretary of State Rice. Eventually, before the defeat of the Muslims, the US will tell Israel to stand down. Israel will obey. Possibly some peace keeping forces will occupy parts of the border but that won’t last; it never does. The blue helmets run at the first sight of trouble, unless of course they are the ones pillaging -- as in Africa.
Hezbollah, which can reproduce and clone faster than any federally funded stem cell research program, will be well redeployed within one to two years. The “cycle of violence” will continue. Eventually, another US president, typically a Democrat looking to acquire a Nobel Peace Prize and to leave behind a legacy of peace on earth, will work to convene another Peace Process, Road Map, Two-State, One-State, Federated-State, Borderless State Camp David Agreement. All the parties will be convened. Papers will be signed. Money and arms transferred. Conferences held; books written and sold. Israel will abandon yet more land and shrink further. And the cycle of violence will continue. When you feed the devil, you will end up giving the devil its due, one way or another.
The problem with our Israel-friendly conservatives and their misguided hope that Israel would act like a nation at war is that they still can’t figure out why Israel never wins wars. They are confused by the fact that Israel has all of the logistical assets and geo-strategic positions to vanquish the enemy but halts in mid-stream and calls it quits. This has been Israel’s pattern in every single war. No one contests that Israel could have ended the Arab and Islamic threat against its existence in 1967 and 1973 (we will leave 1948 and 1956 to the historians to argue over). Israel chose not to. Israel’s leaders claimed that they had to bow to international pressure, but this excuse is simply a ruse. The Middle East is one messy cauldron and all Israel has earned for its acquiescence are an emboldened enemy and even greater international pressure to make “sacrifices for peace.”
The political leadership of Israel was and is simply incapable of fighting anything more than a defensive war. We have explained why in the essays cited and linked above. But suffice it to say that a nation surrounded by Muslims (and now we are all surrounded by the Muslim Ummah) which does not recognize its divine roots and instead finds its raison d’étre in the ashes of the Holocaust and a vote of the League of Nations will never muster more than a defensive war. Born of a world state democratic methodology, Israel will always be subordinate to that methodology. That is not national existence. That is democracy. Democracy never founded any real national existence and never will. (If you don’t understand why this is demonstrably so, you might read here.)
Since Israel doesn’t yet understand national existence and Peoplehood, since conservatives remain befuddled by Israel’s manifest weakness and self-destructive behavior, and since the Arabs seem to sense all of this, we thought we might take a different tack. Maybe this one will get better traction.
We hereby make a bold suggestion to the Arabs. Get smart. What they and the Jews need is a One State Solution. Begin demanding a real democracy. Put down your arms and agree that if Israel will allow all Palestinians the right to join their Arab Israeli brothers and cousins, the ones who did not run after 1948 or who were not trapped on the wrong side of the border after the War of Independence and so became Israeli citizens, and if these Palestinians will be granted the same political and economic rights as all citizens of Israel, then Israel will in turn be given sovereignty over all of Israel proper and the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. (Israel will have to deal with Syria on the Golan Heights, but that would be a small matter.)
Imagine, Israelis, Jews and Arabs, Muslims and Christians, all living in peace and harmony as one people. (We reject the older version of the One State Solution -- or “one state for two people”). The 1,000,000 or 3,000,000 Palestinians, who knows exactly how many are living abroad, could join the 1,000,000 Arab Israeli citizens. (Recall that these Arab Israelis are just as Palestinian as the Palestinians.) Then, all of Israel’s citizens will vote in elections and sing peace songs and hold hands. We can encourage mixed villages as peaceniks do now in Israel and even encourage mixed marriages. It goes without saying that homosexual marriages will be welcomed.
Why must we create two states which will likely war against each other over this little parcel of land when Israel already accepts Arab Muslims (and Christians) as citizens in its Open Society democracy – the only real liberal democracy in the Middle East as we are told by the Zionist Hasbara (i.e., cheerleadering) crowd? Israel’s economy would flourish with the cheap labor of the Palestinians. Soon, the Palestinians would begin taking advantage of the free secular education in Israel and attend colleges and technical schools and join the hi-tech wizards of Israel in the 21st Century Global Economy.
Israel would of course want to finally get around to writing that constitution that was called for in the resolutions of the League of Nation which created the new state and this would be a wonderful opportunity to establish an absolute separation between Church-Mosque-Synagogue and State so that never again would Israel be just a Jewish State but a state of its citizens. The prejudice and racism felt by all of Israel’s Arab citizens would melt away. We might even suggest some forms of affirmative action but let’s at least get things started. We don’t wish to be too bold. While Jews would be granted a special absolute constitutional right to immigrate to Israel (as they have now under the Law of Return – meant to provide Jews worldwide a safe haven against eruptions of Jew hatred and genocide), the Palestinians could be give that right too. Imagine the magnificent public relations effect and good will that would result from such liberal and democratic gestures by Israel. Finally the Jews would be acting like the Jews of the Reform Movement – embracing all faiths as one.
Israel could also begin to teach its Jewish citizens the ways of Islam, the religion of peace -- as a purely cultural mandate to be sure lest we run afoul of the new constitution -- and Muslims could be taught the ways of Judaism. Israel would become one big interfaith convention, a veritable love fest. Israel would also promote new liberal Islamic day schools and universities which would teach Islam as the true religion of peace that it is. Democracy, liberality, human rights, plurality, the Open Society. These would be the 3Rs of the new madrassas.
We firmly believe that it is fair and reasonable to suggest that ANY ONE who would oppose this solution is a priori a racist and wed to policies of hatred, murder, and bloodshed. The argument, based upon Islamophobia, that democracy's majoritarian rule could lead to the Islamization of what is now referred to as Israel, is antithetical to the ideals of tolerance and the universal human desire for freedom and liberty.
We encourage all those who read this essay, to vote in the survey at the home page of SANE Works for US – top right, and let us know how you feel. We will forward the results to the democratically elected Palestinian and Israeli governments.
Source: SANE