This is the last article in a 5-part series on Middle East peace running this week. For the first four articles, on Obama's new style in the Middle East, the Arab role in making peace, getting Israel's message across, and Israel's internal politics, click here, here, here, and here.
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One of the biggest changes to have overtaken the Jewish people during the past century has been geographic. If prior to the Holocaust the vast majority of Jews lived in Europe (in particular eastern Europe) and Russia, we are now situated primarily between two poles - Israel and America. The present and future of the Jewish people will therefore be decided to a large extent by the relationship between the Jewish state and the American Jewish community.
The debate that has sprung up over the past several years regarding the proper contours of the Israel-Diaspora relationship is a crucial one. Simply put, the relationship needs to be rethought and updated for the twenty-first century. The ideas and emotions that served us so well for the past six decades simply do not resonate as strongly with the younger generation of American Jews, who have no personal memory of 1948 or 1967. Instead, what they see is a troubled Israel yearning for peace with its Arab neighbors, while unsuccessfully trying to extricate itself from over four decades of occupation over the Palestinians. They also don't understand why a minority - a powerful minority - believes that all of the land is God-given to us Jews, and that no compromise over it is possible.
As the first four articles of this series made clear, there are no easy answers. Yet I believe that the American Jewish community's relationship with Israel can have a positive impact on the prospects for Middle East peace and, by extension, a positive impact on Israel itself. As Israeli President Shimon Peres once told me, "In order to improve our relations with American Jewry, we must make a better Israel. Not better relations, but a better Israel. A better Israel will bring better relations."
But what would a "better Israel" actually look like? First, it has to be noted that the American Jewish community will only support a liberal and democratic Israel. These are not just slogans, and as I wrote earlier this week; they need to be backed up by the right policies and the right kind of political system. Maintaining control indefinitely over millions of Palestinians will inevitably lead to a demographic nightmare and cannot be sustained if Israel is to remain true to its founding principles.
Making this point publicly should not be controversial. The notion that as a Jew, one has to take the position of "my Israel, right or wrong," is deeply problematic. I would rather have the right kind of Israel. Moreover, calling anyone who criticizes certain Israeli policies a "self-hating Jew" is simply alienating and divisive.
In my frequent discussions with prominent Israeli and Jewish Diaspora leaders, we regularly air our own frustrations with the Jewish state's current direction, while at the same time also appreciating the country's many positive attributes. I am sure that these same types of conversations are repeated in synagogues and Jewish community centers and college Hillels all across the Diaspora. The beauty of Judaism is that it demands we ask questions, especially of ourselves.
Indeed, there is really no better sign that we care deeply and profoundly about Israel - otherwise, we would not spend our days working on its behalf, giving money, thinking about its future, or simply following events half a world away. We do it out of love.
The second way the American Jewish Diaspora can help actualize a "better Israel" is by the power of example. The majesty of the American Jewish experience is in its success marrying its unique Jewish identity with the larger, liberal values of the United States. There is no need anymore to choose between assimilation and separation. We are accepted as equals. (As I told David Ben Gurion when he inquired why my family and I weren't going to make aliyah: "Mr. Prime Minister, we Jews have found our Zion - it is America.")
The same general idea should hold true for Israel too. As my dear friend, the philosopher David Hartman once said to me, "Israel is a return to the particular, but not a ghetto.... It's not meant to be insulated from the world. It lives in discussion with the world." Yes, Israel has very real problems being accepted in its immediate neighborhood and by some in the international arena. And yes, these problems on the whole are not of its own making. But Israel should always be engaged in this wider "discussion with the world," and turn away from the "ghetto" mentality.
American Jewry can help in a number of other ways as well. The Israel-Diaspora relationship has to be a real two-way street and an honest partnership of equals. As Avram Burg, the former speaker of the Israeli Knesset, explained to me: "You believe that we are all heroes, and we believe that you are all rich. And unfortunately, only 50 percent of it is true." Stereotypes do us no good in our common mission.
Just as we send young American Jews to Israel through the Birthright program, we need to also consider a "reverse Birthright" for Israeli kids to come see America. Opening young Israeli minds to the outside world, particularly the vibrant American Jewish community itself, can only help the Jewish state.
Similarly, as former Ambassador and president of Tel Aviv University Itamar Rabinovich has argued, expanded student collaboration and exchanges between Israeli and American universities would also be beneficial, as would cultural tours of America by Israeli artists. Not only would these and other like-minded initiatives be useful in ensuring Israel maintains its "discussion with the world," but it would also likely support those segments of Israeli society most liberally inclined.
Yet another way American Jewry must continue to help Israel is by its traditional political support here in the United States. Only a strong Israel which feels secure will be able to make the compromises necessary to ensure its future. However, even as we extend this political support, we should never stop questioning how we can make a "better Israel" a reality. The answer, it seems clear to me, has to start with real peace via a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
It is far too easy to let cynicism and hopelessness become the norm when we discuss the prospects for Middle East peace. But we should never lose sight of what we need to do. "If you will it," Theodore Herzl famously said, "it is not a dream." A better Israel, living in peace with its neighbors, cannot be allowed to remain a dream.
First of all America is not a Liberal country. Second Palestinians are way more equal in Israel that they can ever hope to be in any of the Arabs countries. Were that not the case they would not be considered "refugees" in those countries every day since the 1947 war. When they were entreated to leave Israel by their Arab "brothers".
Even today they are referred to, and treated as, refugees.
Born is '74, research is only as good as the source, in a world where 'impartiality' is an abused and rejected concept.
So I am forced to take an admittedly over-simplified approach to the issue. Palestine and its people had nothing whatsoever to do with the persecution and mass murdering of the Jewish people during WWII, so why and how did anyone think it would be okay, or moral, or regionally prudent, to force out the Palestinian people and create a Jewish nation?
The Jews and the Americans and the whole of the various 'Christian' nations decided that God gave the land to Jews and it should be returned to them. Zionism.
Much as it is an unpopular thing to say, I must agree with Helen Thomas. The correct thing for the Jews to do would be to get the heck out of Palestine! It was not their home and they took it from people born there for generations.
Am I wrong? I admit to being fairly ignorant to the intricacies of this issue, but did this whole thing not start as a hostile take-over of people who did nothing to provoke it except living in ancient Israel?
Israel is the land of the Bible and has been loved by the Jews for thousands of years as their homeland. It is not some place randomly selected by Jews.
Immigrating Jews did not displace the Palestinians. At the time of the partition plan, there were 600,000 Jews and 1.2 million Arabs. Today Israel holds 7.6 million people.
The idea of a Jewish country was not solely a result of WWII. For instance, the Peel Commission offered plans for separate Jewish and Arab states in 1937.
Originally Jews thought they could live peacefully alongside the Arabs in the land of the British Mandate. Following years of violence, mostly Arab attacks on Jews and British, it was decided by the United Nations that the best course would be for each group to have its own country.
In the 1947 partition plan, the Jews were a majority in the land partitioned to Israel. The Arabs would
have been a majority in the land partitioned to them, but they refused the plan and the land deciding
that they would force the Jews out with war.
Just look at how ridiculous and misleading that statement is ? How did a total of 1.8 miillion Arabs and Jews turn into 7.6 million ?
The land was, in part, stolen, confiscarted or just robbed from the indigenous non-Jew Palestinians. It was deliberate, it was systematic, it was terrorism. The practice continues to this day despite UN resolutions to the contrary and despite opposition from all US Presidents, since 1967 - ALL WITHOUT EXCEPTION.
Landloss map : http://lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/photos/maps/landloss.html
Isn't it the same basic concept? Ancient claim to a land no longer owned by them?
There were always Jews and Arabs living in that area during the Ottoman Empire and the British Mandate. The name Palestine was given to the area by the British. All the independent Arab states were created in the 20th century just like Israel, Egypt in 1922, Jordan in 1946, Lebanon in 1943 etc. After the partition Jordan was supposed to become the Arab state and Israel the Jewish.
After Israel became a state the surrounding Arab countries started the war against Israel and about a million Arabs fled and became refugees. About the same time about one million Jews were expelled from the different Arab and Muslim states. The difference is the Arab refugees and their descendants are still refugees and none of Arab states was or is willing to grant them citizenship while most of the Jewish refugees became Israelis.
the minority can believe what it wishes -----however their power comes from the weakness of the political leadership.-------there was a day when extremists were castigated and ostracized as nut balls -----now the are courted and coddled ------for cheap shortsighted political gain ---
p.s. Israel excepted the boarders the UN gave it was the Arabs that rejected the partition.
http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/palestinian-child-confronts-israeli-forces-over-fathers-dete.html
With the Soviet collapse and the subsequent immigrant tsunami Israel again became what it was at its founding, a middle eastern state with an Ashkanazic (and therefore westernized and culturally European) majority caught between a sea of ethnic hostility to the north, east, and south and the literal sea to the west. How can such a state survive other than as a militarized bastion of western culture, dangling its advantages under the noses of its (mostly corrupt and tyrannical) neighboring countries and their understandably resentful populations?
IMO there's no easy answer and not all the much political will to devise and implement one.
You also fail to make the vital distinction between between a relatively small native Palestinian Jewish population (there "for over a thousand years") and the wave of Europeans encouraged by Zionism -- the former was part and parcel of the local culture before 1948, the latter remained European in every way, dominated the new state, and built it as per western values which remain anathema to the rest of the region. If only the native Palestinian Jews (who'd always spoken Arabic, not Hebrew, Yiddish, or English) were counted, the state of Israel would probably be about the size of Prospect Park.
I reiterate: the current state of Israel is geographically and demographically untenable; there's no easy answer and not all the much political will to devise and implement one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bznLR3-kCtU&feature=player_embedded
Read Harv: http://theHARVview.blogspot.com
check out my gift site: www.attitudejewelry.com
We do not wish, we do not need to expel the Arabs and take their place. All our aspirations are built upon the assumption — proven throughout all our activity in the Land — that there is enough room in the country for ourselves and the Arabs.
David Ben-Gurion, 1937
I am very close to many young Jews, and they seem to describe Israel not as "unsuccessfully trying to extricate itself" but as trying to take and hold and "settle" territory in the occupied lands.
And again, speaking from the outside, the Birthright program seems like a nice face on a bad policy. What would we call it if any other nation or territory exclusively sought out members of a specific religion or ethnicity, and imported them to colonize territory captured in war?
he Jewish settlements in Egypt were removed, the Ras tanour oil fields given back. The whole Sinai was given back. All this happened becuase Sadat went to Jerusalem and said "lets make peace".
Israel gave back 100% of Gaza and the next day the rockets from Hamas started.
The moral of this story is peace for land works and land for peace doesn't.
It wasn't a "peace process", it was a "bribe process"!
Sadat was ready to walk out until Jimmy Carter offered him the keys to the Treasury.
I believe that your definition of "Gave Back" is totally off.
They still controlled who and what goes in and out of Gaza, controlled their water sources and power, and controlled their natural gas.
Giving back means that you give the residents autonomy and since Israel never gave the Gazans any control over their life or borders, "Gave it Back" is only in Israel's imagination.
"Once we squeeze all we can out of the United States, it can dry up and blow away"
It well past time to reevaluate this so called love affair with israel and fast.