Last update - 00:00 30/11/2006
A dangerous question mark
By Israel Harel
At the annual memorial for David Ben-Gurion this week, Ehud Olmert delivered a speech in Sde Boker, of all places, which focused on the vision of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. The same evening, the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) organized a panel to discuss "To whom does this country belong?"
Some 58 years after Ben-Gurion declared the independence of the Jewish people in the land of Israel, an important and influential Israeli institution calls into question (also in a book of the same name published by the institute) the principle of the Jewish people's connection to the land, which should have been inherently understood and followed by an exclamation point. The question mark was not placed next to Judea and Samaria, but to the areas within the State of Israel.
Olmert's vision of two states will not materialize, even though most Israelis either altogether agree with Olmert on this matter, or deadly terrorism has eroded their opposition to a Palestinian state. The Arabs obviously want their own state, but not a Jewish state alongside it. Had they wanted a two-state solution, they would have adhered to the Oslo Agreements and not launched a war of terrorism; they would have accepted Ehud Barak's far-reaching concessions at Camp David and not responded by murdering hundreds of Jews in terrorist attacks.
This truism, that the Arabs inherently reject a Jewish state alongside an Arab state, is one that many Israelis, especially those whose ideology favors a Palestinian state, are unwilling to come to terms with. They continue to deny it even when the Arabs, including those who attended the event at the IDI, throw it in their faces. The panel, which concluded a series of discussions that began around 10 years ago, was attended by some 20 Jewish and Israeli Arab intellectuals, who tried, in vain as it turned out to formulate a document that would outline ways for Arabs and Jews to live together as equals in a democratic-Jewish state.
Around two years after the meetings at the IDI started, the October riots took place. The Or Commission categorically determined the primary cause for them was the ongoing discrimination against Arabs. Had they bothered to read the protocols of the forum, they would have found this was a mistaken conception. Indeed there was and is discrimination against Arabs, but the primary motive for the riots, and the increasing alienation since then, is the total, deep and thorough rejection of a sovereign Jewish existence ("self-determination" in more refined language) even in part of the land of Israel.
Those who reject it are actually the ones who were absorbed well into the fabric of Israeli society, for example, in the universities. Dr. Adel Mana of the Van Leer Institute said, "The Jews' right to self-determination does not necessarily mean a Jewish state." And also, "The moment I agree to a Jewish state, I agree that I am a secondary resident. And I do not agree to that." "Depression," is how Carmit Guy, the moderator of the discussion, described the results of the sessions. "And if here [that is, in the liberal institute which has moderates from among the Jews and Arabs sitting side by side], it has failed, where can it succeed?"
In the sessions of nearly a decade ago and this week as well, the Jews advocated creating a Palestinian state alongside Israel, while none of the Arabs agreed to recognize a democratic Jewish state. And these are not MKs heading to Syria and Lebanon and being photographed with Israel's enemies nor are they leaders of the extreme Islamic movement; the liberal side is spearheading those who vehemently reject a Jewish state.
Even Prof. Sammy Smooha, a diehard leftist and communist for many years, clarified: "The Jews feel threatened by Israeli Arabs as well, not just by the Arabs in the region. A change in the character of the state is for them an existential threat."
"The left," he added, "argues there is no contradiction between 'Jewish' and 'democratic.' There is a clear contradiction. And therefore whoever wants a Jewish state must pay the price in democracy. The right admits this, whereas the left, that denies it, is hypocritical and lacks intellectual honesty."
It is not with joy over the calamity of others that these remarks are quoted. Many of those referred to as "rightist" often say to themselves: If only we were proven wrong. However again and again they find that the Arabs (and unfortunately, quite a few Jews as well) act according to the pessimistic realism that they have been warning of while those whose views are supposedly derived from an analysis of the reality cling to positions that reality contradicts on a daily basis.
Yesterday, November 29, marked 59 years since the passage of the United Nations Partition Plan and the start of the Arabs' war against the Jews to take away their independence. This event is noted today mainly by the mourning Arabs and not by the descendants of the Jews who, despite the painful partition, then danced in the streets. And if in the past, this date was commemorated primarily by the Arabs in the Gaza Strip and Judea and Samaria, recently the Arabs in Israel, in an act that reflects a move away from identification with the state, have followed in their wake. And when Jews and good Zionists asks, "To whom does this country belong?" they increase, with no previous intention of course, the move to widen the rift.