The next few weeks may determine the future of Zionism. This is not an exaggeration. If the upcoming Annapolis peace conference ends the same way as the Camp David summit of 2000, the future of the Jewish state will be in jeopardy.
The Israeli people can deal with another deadlock in the endless “peace process.” Indeed, Israel can exist without peace for many years. We have one of the strongest armies in the world, and our economy proved its resilience during the war with Hezbollah. The question is: Will Israel be the Jewish, democratic and moral state at peace with its neighbors that our Zionist ancestors envisioned? Or will the ongoing occupation, and the unavoidable violations of human rights that are an inevitable part of controlling another people, turn Israel into an international pariah?
Fortunately, a clear majority among the Israeli public, as well as in the Knesset, has come to terms with the need to make the hard choice between a big-and-ugly and a small-but-beautiful Jewish state. Even once hard-core Likudniks, such as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, have realized that the two-state solution is the only way to stop the march of folly toward either an apartheid state or a bi-national state in which Jews are the minority.
Of course, for a two-state solution, as for a tango, you need a partner that is ready to follow the necessary steps. President Mahmoud Abbas and his team have made it clear that they are willing to dance in Annapolis. In fact, they have placed their credibility on the line. There is no guarantee that they would survive a failure at this juncture. If Abbas returns home empty-handed, then the remnants of the Palestinian peace camp may disappear. Hamas, Iran and Al Qaeda are waiting to fill the void. Without a Palestinian partner, the vision of a democratic Jewish state secure in internationally recognized borders would become a fleeting dream.
It is essential that both parties recognize that this is a critical moment. But that alone is not sufficient.
This is one of those instances in which the process is doomed to fail without an honest and active broker. The Camp David summit between Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat yielded a land-for-peace treaty between Israel and Egypt because President Jimmy Carter decided to get deeply involved in the negotiations. The Israeli people knew that the United States was fully committed to the agreement and was willing to back it up with the necessary political and military support.
American Jews can make a powerful contribution to helping diplomacy succeed. But doing so will require a break with the past.
We constantly hear that the Jewish community supports Israel — wherever its government stands. For more than 40 years, however, the community’s moral, political and financial power has been mostly occupied in building Israel’s strategic supremacy, and in containing any pressure from American administrations for Israel to change its policies in the territories.
In the early 1990s, Jewish activists were all over Washington, lobbying Congress to confront the first President Bush. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle stood up to the president, who had the chutzpah to push Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir to stop expanding settlements as the White House tried to organize a Mideast peace conference. Four years later, as President Clinton was bringing Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat together to douse the fires in the region, Aipac convinced Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole to introduce a bill demanding the American Embassy be moved to Jerusalem.
As we all know, the American Embassy still has not moved to Israel’s capital. It seems it’s much easier to lobby for empty bills than to call for an active American role in the peace process. It’s more popular to sign petitions against “dividing” Jerusalem (how can one re-divide a city that was never really reunited?) than to encourage Prime Minister Olmert to turn the phrase “City of Peace” from a cliché into a reality.
We Israelis who experienced the traumatic days of the eve of the Six Day War will never forget the great support we received at the time from our Jewish brothers and sisters in America. We will always remember the many young volunteers who lined up to get a seat on a flight to Israel.
Forty years later, Israeli flags fly in front of our embassies in Cairo and Jordan. Now, the other members of the Arab League are offering the prospect of opening their own embassies in Israel. Yes, in return for peace, Israel will have to give up the West Bank and Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem. In return, however, it will regain its Jewish, democratic and moral values.
As always, the final decision will be in the hands of the Israelis. But the American Jewish community has to decide whether it wants to be helpful in making peace or only in times of war.
Akiva Eldar is a senior columnist for Ha’aretz. He is the co-author of “Lords of the Land: The War for Israel’s Settlements in the Occupied Territories, 1967-2007” (Nation Books).
It is always a good idea for people who are pro-Israel to read what Al-Aretz writes and do the exact opposite.
Silly, pointless and blatantly deceitful, lying drivel - that what comrade Akiva had sold to your paper. A "small and beautiful" Israel which is his pipedream is an Israel ready for the final solution which is the real Palestinian aim. And they don't hide it, never did.
This talkback from an Arab on Jerusalem Post makes my point better than I could make it 16. Our steadfastness will win in the end Raed Kami - UK 10/31/2007 21:49 Mr Rubin is right that we are not compromising. We are not compromising because our cause is just and yours is not. In the end, we will get everything we want. Your willingness to divide Jerusalem tells the whole world it is not holy to you. You are like the mother in Solomons story who said"Divide the baby". The real mother would never divide the baby
i agree with Akiva Eldar. Some one finally walks with god. But this comment will most likely be posted.
The sad truth is that Palestinians will pick up the comments of Serge Barou and claim he speaks for all Israelis (or Jews) and the Israelis will pick up the comments of Raed Kami and claim he speaks for all Palestinians. Thus, the conflict will continue when, in fact, the majority of Palestinians and Israelis want a peaceful, two state solution. The Jewish diaspora must apply presssure towards this end.
Wishful thinking on Eldar's part. The "pro Israel" culture of the mainstream Jewish institutions has no room for subtleties. In it Israel is cause rather than a complex political entity. It can only be a victim and is only understood to be fightng for its survival. "Fighting for survival" is only understood to be via military means and can never be something diplomatic.
The Big Lie the Zionists have peddled since 1967 is that Israel is too small and with too fragile borders to survive attack, unless it be buttressed with lots of extra territory to abosrb the initial impact of a land invasion by its Arab neighbors. The truth is that in a period of overwhelming if unadmitted nuclear superiority, a firm alliance with a globally deployed US military, no more Cold War, a subdued Saudi Arabia, Syria and Egypt, sophisticated early warning systems and huge conventional forces-- none of which obtained in 1947, and which were relatively rudimentary in 1967-- Israel had no need to make a rod for its own back by keeping the OTs. The decision to solidify its quasi-colonial governance of the West Bank and Gaza was worse than a crime against purist, secular Zionist principles, not that the likes of Herzl and Jabotinsky really bought them; it was a strategic blunder of the first order. It incorporated a rapidly growing minority of non-Jews who were antagonistic to the very foundations of the original state, and whose enmity made Israeli Arabs disaffected. It sowed mutual suspicion among and beyond Israel's communities, instead of the international regional co-operation the first pre-WW2 settlers had envisioned. Territorial aggrandisement made Israel the rogue state of the Middle East: a proxy for a superpower instead of a truly independent, Hebraic, compact entity. Israel became a factor in America's domestic politics which was bound to produce irritation and blowback, instead of getting on with the job of ingathering Jews for peaceful purposes. The victory of 1967 and still more the close-run thing of 1973 were truly Pyrrhic, as was political pandering to the Orthodox. The rabbis argued themselves out of their anti-Zionism by the most bogus Talmudic rationales to grab a slice of the pie and privileges reluctantly dangled by Ben-Gurion. Their offspring are the settlers who stand in the way of reconciliation worse than ever. The evil consequences of these acts of realpolitik- discrediting the State, demoralizing its young sabras and deterring aliyah by their Diaspora counterparts- have been devastating. Today the ugly, corrupt face of a country whose elites plot and preach hate, while failing to feed their young and old, render Israel's midterm capacity to survive moot for all its covert weaponry, and even if you don't buy the theological argument against the presumptuousness of the unbelievers who set it up. And all the while the demographic time bomb ticks away. In the long run, honest men see futher than pragmatists. The warnings of Neturei Karta and the like fell on deaf ears. The rewards of anticipating G-d's purposes are fading like the shine on the Golden Calf.
Even though the rockets from Gaza and south Lebanon proved the opposite, for rigid ideolgical reasons Eldar and his cohorts on Haaretz delude themselves into believing that a dismantling of settlements and a withdrawal now from the West Bank will bring peace and not a new barrage of rockets, this time in unison from all around Israel. And, after Israel's failure to successfully counter the rocket attacks, they continue to delude themselves into believing that it has achieved the military supremacy that would permit such a precipitous withdrawal. The choice is not between "occupation" and peace (which only a fool can believe will actually be honestly offered by the Arabs) but between continued control of the hostile population until the genocidal Arab mindset changes, however long that takes, and annihilation. As for the settlements, built on vacant land on which Arabs had no claim of right except through their aggression in 1948, they are not part of any "occupation" and should not be ethnically cleansed of Jews.
David Nilsson makes the classic argument of anti-zionists. However, the crux of the matter is for people like mr Nilsson, one Jewish state is too many, while 56 Muslim states are not enough. The victories in 1967 and 1973 were Pyrrhic-If Israel had not won those wars, it would be destroyed The warnings of Neturei Karta fall on deaf ears- NK has provided moral support to terrorists. Whether they have provided financial support to terror should be investigated "instead of the international regional co-operation"-that did the Jews a lot of good during the Holocaust
Even though the rockets from Gaza and south Lebanon proved the opposite, for rigid ideolgical reasons Eldar and his cohorts on Haaretz delude themselves into believing that a dismantling of settlements and a withdrawal now from the West Bank will bring peace and not a new barrage of rockets, this time in unison from all around Israel. And, after Israel's failure to successfully counter the rocket attacks, they continue to delude themselves into believing that it has achieved the military supremacy that would permit such a precipitous withdrawal. The choice is not between "occupation" and peace (which only a fool can believe will actually be honestly offered by the Arabs) but between continued control of the hostile population until the genocidal Arab mindset changes, however long that takes, and annihilation. As for the settlements, built on vacant land on which Arabs had no claim of right except through their aggression in 1948, they are not part of any "occupation" and should not be ethnically cleansed of Jews.
What madness. Give up the West Bank? Surrender part of Jerusalem? Supposedly for peace? No, good sir, not for peace, only for a piece of paper promising peace. And signed by those who have signed documents before and never, ever delivered. Mr Eldar should remember that it is a Muslim religious duty to rid Dar-al-Islam of the intruding Jewish presence, and they will do or say anything to that end. Mr Eldar, being a reasonable man, projects his values and moral frame of reference onto his antagonists; this is a mistake. But the title of this article is much more relevant; the future of Israel is indeed at a critical juncture. The Arab strategy is simple: come to the conference making absurd demands; if Israel accepts substantially all, she will be critically weakened, and if she rejects them, she will incur further world-wide opprobrium, and be critically weakened. For the Arabs, it's win-win. The solution to this is ideally to demand before any conference that the Arabs make good on some of their prior committments, following which demonstration of good faith negotiations would be possible. Since that precondition has been lost, to salvage the meeting the Israelis should present their own self-interest proposals instead of weakly and defensively responding to Arab demands. Will this happen? Not likely, since Israeli PR (and its government)seems constitutionally unable to do anything except adopt a losing defensive posture, while telling the world how many Nobel Prizes we've won. Big whoop.
It is sad that AIPAC is more right-wing and intransigent than the majority of Israelis. We need someone else to represent us in the US Congress...who won't threaten to destroy any politician who doesn't take the most uncompromising positions, as AIPAC has. AMEINU and Americans for Peace Now and Brit Tzedek are trying to make that happen--good luck to them (and to Israel!).
Akiva should read this before he shoots off his mouth: Here is why the left will never learn: "Anti-Semitism and the Left that Doesn’t Learn" by Mitchell Cohen: From the article: "LAST YEAR, Denis MacShane, British Labour Parliament Member, chaired a committee of parliamentarians and ex-ministers that investigated rising anti-Semitism in Britain and beyond. “Hatred of Jews has reached new heights in Europe and many points south and east of the old continent,” he wrote recently in a very brave article in the Washington Post (September 4, 2007). He describes a wide array of incidents. “Militant anti-Jewish students fueled by Islamist or far-left hate” seek on campuses “to prevent Jewish students from expressing their opinions.” There is “an anti-Jewish discourse, a mood and tone whenever Jews are discussed, whether in the media, at universities, among the liberal media elite or at dinner parties of modish London. To express any support for Israel or any feeling for the right of a Jewish state to exist produces denunciation, even contempt.” MacShane points out that this sort of behavior is distinct from specific disputes about this or that Israeli politician. Criticism, the investigatory committee “made clear,” was “not off-limits.” Rightly so; the same should be true with the policies and office- holders of every government on the globe. But MacSchane also warns that something else has been going on, that old demons are reawakening and that “the old anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism have morphed into something more dangerous.” The threat, he says eloquently, doesn’t only concern Jews or Israel, but “everything democrats have long fought for: the truth without fear, no matter one's religion or political beliefs.” What is “truth without fear” when we speak of the relation between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism? Is it to be found in Tony Judt’s declaration to the New York Times that “the link between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is newly created”? (January 31, 2007). How a historian—or anyone else—could assert this is astonishing. Consider what it airbrushes out of the twentieth century—the anti-Semitic binge of Stalin’s later years, just for starters. And surely Judt, who is based at New York University and is now taking what has turned into obsessive anti-Zionist campaigning to the École Normale Supérieure in Paris [1] NYU’s Remarque Center, which defines its goal as “the study and discussion of Europe, and to encourage and facilitate communication between Americans and Europeans” is opening a center there and Judt, its director, will, according to its website, inaugurate it not with an address European or French politics or transatlantic relations but rather: "Is Israel Still Good for the Jews?" recalls the arrests and assassinations of the leading Jewish cultural figures of Soviet Russia on the grounds that they were “Zionist agents of American imperialism.” Surely a historian of Europe like Judt—who was once a hard leftist but then rose to intellectual celebrity in the United States in the 1980s (that is, during the Reagan era) by attacking all French Marxists for not facing up to Stalinism—recalls the charges of “Zionist conspiracy” against Jewish communists who were victimized in the Czech purge trials in the early 1950s. If he doesn’t recall them when he speaks to the New York Times, he might check them out in his own book on postwar Europe. There he cites Stalin’s secret police chief, Lavrenti Beria, urging Czech Communists to investigate the “Zionist plot” among their comrades. Surely a historian of Europe, especially one who now refers to himself as an “old leftist,” recalls the campaign in 1967 and 1968 to cleanse Poland of “Zionist” fifth columnists (I suppose they were the Israel Lobby of the Polish Communist Party). If Judt doesn’t recall it when he talks to the New York Times, he might again look at his own book which cites Polish Communist chief Wladyslaw Gomulka’s conflation of his Jewish critics with Zionists. Since he is a historian of Europe and not the Middle East, perhaps Judt hasn’t noticed how “anti-Zionism” in broad swaths of the Muslim and Arab media has been suffused by anti-Jewish rhetoric for decades—rhetoric against “al-Yahud” not Ehud Olmert or Ehud Barak. Remember how air-brushing was done in the bad old days? Trotsky (or someone else) would suddenly disappear from a photo. Lenin or Stalin and the cheering crowds would still be there. The resulting picture is not entirely false. Does all this make Judt an anti-Semite? The answer is simple: no. It does make his grasp of the history of anti-Semitism tendentious. And tendentious history can be put to all sorts of pernicious use." Read the rest here: http://dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=972#footnote1
Well said Mr. Eldar. I agree totally!
What Akiva does not undestand is that if a democratic Israel (which includes approx 22% Arabs) gives away the holiest site for Jews, The Temple Mount, this will spell the end of Zionism. The power of Iraeli politics is in the hands of secular Jews. Palestinian leadership is very much connected to Islam. It's absurd that a secular Israeli leader would be willing to negotiate on this most sensitive area. Israel does not need short sighted leaders and journalists.
This is both a secular and non-secular issue and those who promote or dismiss any side of discussion based on the premiseof either do not have the interest of our people or Israel.