A SINGLE STATE SOLUTION
(from the Shamir Readers list)
A few years ago, there was a bitter dispute between Greece and a breakaway republic of the former Yugoslavia. The new nation wanted to call itself Macedonia, but the Greeks were absolutely adamant that this was a name that belonged to Greece alone. To the 'Former Yugoslav Republic' they said : call yourself anything you like, but not Macedonia. To outsiders this might seem an absurd attitude, but James Frazer reminds us that once all tribes and all peoples were convinced of the power of the Name.
It strikes me that one of biggest errors ever made by the Arab world was failing to display the same tenacity as did the Greeks over Macedonia. Never should they have acquiesced in the use of the word 'Israel' to describe the state set up on Palestinian lands.
The name evokes too much: 'he who wrestles with El', that is to say God. It imbues a certain sense of divine sanction. It's a word that occurs not only in the litanies and prayers of Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans, but also in the Holy Qu'ran. Thus does the sacred become transformed into the diabolical. And thus the Blood Wedding at Qana comes to pass, largely - it must be said - to the indifference of the 'civilised' world.
Yet even in the midst of terrifying power and destruction, there is hope. As a wise old saying has it : 'Always be nice to people when you are on the way up, as you may met them again on the way down.'
Look at China in 1900 : large areas occupied by foreign powers, the entire country looted by speculators and awash with narcotics. Then compare the China of today with Britain, one of the main occupying powers of 1900. Though probably too courteous to show it, many Chinese must feel some satisfaction in the relative shift in power and prestige.
Once Napoleon was more mighty than Bush and Olmert put together ; then one day the Twenty Ninth Army Bulletin announced 'the destruction of the Grand Army'. So it is a mistake, though a very common one, to assume that the bullying, swaggering powers of today will remain ever-strong and dominant.
But it would also definitely be an error to assume that the Axis of Idiocy could ever have subdued the Muslim world. This Axis comprises as its leading members : one large country with profound social and economic problems, but a hefty armaments industry; one small country (ditto) ; and finally one even smaller country - tinier than Nepal. Anglo-America is bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan ; 'Israel' is in the same state in Lebanon. The successful resistance of Hizbollah must also be inspiring hopes of emulation, especially in Syria, and perhaps even in Egypt.
Before Englishmen become boring, tedious and corrupt - the 'empty suits' of New Labour come to mind - there was once a very interesting Englishman named Sir Richard Francis Burton, el-Hadj Abdullah. He saw the source of the Nile, and went on pilgrimage to the holy cities of Medina and Mecca. As a member of the Sufi order, he surely had a mystical streak, which may have led to following prediction of the future, written in the mid 1880s :
'As regards the restoration of Israel to the Holy Land, that favourite theme of prophecy and poetry, that day-dream of the Jew, at least until he found a country and a home in the far happier regions beyond his ancient seats, no supernatural gift is required to point out the natural course of events.
The civilized world would never endure the presence of a creed which says to man, "Hate thy neighbour unless he be one of ye"..... A year of such spectacles would more than suffice to excite the wrath and revenge of outraged humanity; the race, cruel, fierce, dogged, and desperate as in the days of Titus and Hadrian, would defend itself to the last; the result would be another siege and capture of Jerusalem, and the "Chosen People" would once more lie prostrate in their blood and be stamped out of the Holy Land.'
My good friend Anwar reminds me that relations between Arab and Jew, and indeed between Christian and Muslim, were generally excellent at the time Burton wrote the above words. Only later, after the time of Balfour, did the Palestinians come to the sickening realisation that they would eventually be supplanted in their own country.
It is exactly the same history of insidious displacement as was also seen with the American Indians. They too were driven away by settlers who believed in Manifest Destiny, justified again by a particular interpretation of the Torah and Tanach, otherwise the Old Testament. Initial sympathy turned into hostility for obvious reasons, and neither the Palestinians nor the Native Americans should be blamed for this natural change in attitude.
One is struck by the low percentage of rationality that prevails in human affairs. In Britain, the BBC spends hours warning about some fantastical plot by 'Islamofascists', who apparently want to bring down aircraft with exploding bottles of milk. Such stunts are bizarre and senseless, but aid in making the unwary and ignorant think that the victim is really the villain.
But it is surely the hour for some sense.
Time for the citizens of 'Israel' to listen to and heed Uri Avnery, Gideon Levy and other, even bolder spirits. Time to make T'shuva and beg for forgiveness from the wronged Palestinians - and Lebanese.
Otherwise, Sir Richard's warning will one day come true. Perhaps sooner than any of us imagine.
I must comment on the author's praise of Uri Avnery. As I
wrote to a friend who also spoke approvingly of that
person:
Uri Avnery is one of the "leftist" Israelis who drives me up the wall. He met and befriended Yassir Arafat early on and the way he talks about it, his friendship with Arafat was the crowning achievement of his life. He idolizes Arafat, and would deify him if he could. His kind are the major obstacle preventing decent, thoughtful Israelis from seeing what needs to happen. Of course, he totally bought into Arafat's fantasy of a "Palestinian State," of which he no doubt saw himself as Che Guevara to Arafat's Fidel Castro. At the time, some twenty to thirty years ago,the idea was actually still feasible, but that time has long since passed, and people like Avnery are now very much part of the problem, not the solution."
Roger