Israel is now enjoying a period of relative national unity which fortifies us in the face of terrorist attacks. This unity is based on a national consensus that the previous government gave its all in the search for peace but found no partner. Under these circumstances Israelis see no choice but to stand firm until the violence stops, something that seems more and more like a distant hope.
In recent days, however, a Palestinian media blitz has aimed to pin the failure of the 2000 Camp David talks on Israel. In light of the dim outlook for the future, the Israeli psyche is quite tempted to embrace the concept that maybe we are the ones at fault and if we only change ourselves, we can achieve the lasting peace for which we long. However, we cannot afford to allow a revision of recent history to disabuse us of the painfully learned lesson that the current leadership of the Palestinian Authority is not interested in establishing a lasting peace.
We must not allow the Jewish tendencies to believe that everything will be ?OK?, to find fault with ourselves and to be desirous of international acceptance to weaken the cognitive underpinnings of our present national unity. Yet these tendencies, ingrained in the Jewish national character, currently threaten our ability to withstand the Palestinian Authority?s campaign of violence.
There is something in the Jewish soul that believes that in the end, all will turn out right. The source of this belief may be the traditional teleological hope that we are progressing toward a state of perfection, which will be crowned with the coming of the Messiah. As a nation, this hopefulness has helped us to persevere even in the worst of predicaments. It is, in general, a positive characteristic.
Unfortunately, this belief has a very negative side effect which has come to haunt the Jewish people over the generations. Many times in our history, misplaced hope that there would be a happy ending has prevented us from seeing the ?writing on the wall? until it was too late. Even in the darkest hour, the Jew, who trusted in God?s salvation, or in an inherent goodness found in man, looked for a way to find a reading of his predicament that wouldn?t indicate impending national destruction. In both recent and more distant Jewish history, millions of Jews paid with their lives for such inappropriate optimistic thinking.
Another double-edged facet of the Jewish character is the tendency, when faced with affliction, to turn inward and to seek the source of misfortune in one?s own deeds. The idea of performing an ?accounting of the soul? in response to personal adversity may be one of the most important contributions that the Jewish people have made to humankind.
While the ultimate cause of Jewish misfortune may be found in our misdeeds, over history the Jewish people have tended to miss the true proximate causes of our sufferings and placed the blame on our own ?too Jewish? behavior. Certainly in the modern period, Jews have consistently tried (and failed) to explain antisemitism as a response by non-Jews to overt displays of Jewish religion, culture and national identity. The Zionist enterprise of the last two hundred years strove to refute such self-abnegating logic and postulated that only by building a strong, proud ?Jewish? state could Jews escape antisemitic persecution in the Diaspora.
Nonetheless, even after the country was founded, Jews both in Israel and abroad have continued to maintain that the Jewish State should be less insistent on exercising its national rights so that Jews might be more accepted in the region and around the world. For generations, the Jewish soul has hungered to be accepted by the nations. This very human instinct, to be loved and appreciated, is easily understandable at an individual level. Our collective experience as a people, where each generation faced its own exile, crusade, pogrom or Shoa, has helped ingrain this trait at a national level, as well. In exile it could be expected that the Jewish minority would strive to be admitted into the society of the local majority. What is somewhat more surprising is that behind the stereotype of the defiant Sabra, Israelis, both individually and as a nation, hunger for the world acceptance, whether at United Nations? conferences, regional soccer competitions or local water purification projects.
The Palestinian campaign currently hitting the international media is calculated to break our resolve to stand up to the Palestinian Authority?s violence. The campaign, waged in Hebrew as well as English, plays on the above Jewish national character traits by undermining the belief that it was Arafat who turned down Barak and Clinton at Camp David.
Israelis must stop bending over backwards to find a reading of the events of the past year that indicates that the current leadership of the Palestinian Authority is interested in peace. We cannot delude ourselves into thinking if only Barak had made a little more generous offer we would be ?shepping nachas? over the second Israeli Prime Minister to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in a decade.
We must remember that in a civilized world, unsatisfactory peace proposals are met with counter-proposals and not with sniper fire at apartment blocks or mortar shells against kibbutzim. We need to tell ourselves that until the Palestinians are willing to stop shooting, carry out the agreements they have signed and fundamentally compromise on the right of return, there will be no peace, no matter how much we want the peace and the international acceptance that would come with it.
____________________________________________________________________________
Samuel Schwartz has worked for the Israeli Consulate in Boston and Los Angeles and is currently a Ph.D. candidate and researcher in the Department of Political Studies at Bar Ilan University.
In recent days, however, a Palestinian media blitz has aimed to pin the failure of the 2000 Camp David talks on Israel. In light of the dim outlook for the future, the Israeli psyche is quite tempted to embrace the concept that maybe we are the ones at fault and if we only change ourselves, we can achieve the lasting peace for which we long. However, we cannot afford to allow a revision of recent history to disabuse us of the painfully learned lesson that the current leadership of the Palestinian Authority is not interested in establishing a lasting peace.
We must not allow the Jewish tendencies to believe that everything will be ?OK?, to find fault with ourselves and to be desirous of international acceptance to weaken the cognitive underpinnings of our present national unity. Yet these tendencies, ingrained in the Jewish national character, currently threaten our ability to withstand the Palestinian Authority?s campaign of violence.
There is something in the Jewish soul that believes that in the end, all will turn out right. The source of this belief may be the traditional teleological hope that we are progressing toward a state of perfection, which will be crowned with the coming of the Messiah. As a nation, this hopefulness has helped us to persevere even in the worst of predicaments. It is, in general, a positive characteristic.
Unfortunately, this belief has a very negative side effect which has come to haunt the Jewish people over the generations. Many times in our history, misplaced hope that there would be a happy ending has prevented us from seeing the ?writing on the wall? until it was too late. Even in the darkest hour, the Jew, who trusted in God?s salvation, or in an inherent goodness found in man, looked for a way to find a reading of his predicament that wouldn?t indicate impending national destruction. In both recent and more distant Jewish history, millions of Jews paid with their lives for such inappropriate optimistic thinking.
Another double-edged facet of the Jewish character is the tendency, when faced with affliction, to turn inward and to seek the source of misfortune in one?s own deeds. The idea of performing an ?accounting of the soul? in response to personal adversity may be one of the most important contributions that the Jewish people have made to humankind.
While the ultimate cause of Jewish misfortune may be found in our misdeeds, over history the Jewish people have tended to miss the true proximate causes of our sufferings and placed the blame on our own ?too Jewish? behavior. Certainly in the modern period, Jews have consistently tried (and failed) to explain antisemitism as a response by non-Jews to overt displays of Jewish religion, culture and national identity. The Zionist enterprise of the last two hundred years strove to refute such self-abnegating logic and postulated that only by building a strong, proud ?Jewish? state could Jews escape antisemitic persecution in the Diaspora.
Nonetheless, even after the country was founded, Jews both in Israel and abroad have continued to maintain that the Jewish State should be less insistent on exercising its national rights so that Jews might be more accepted in the region and around the world. For generations, the Jewish soul has hungered to be accepted by the nations. This very human instinct, to be loved and appreciated, is easily understandable at an individual level. Our collective experience as a people, where each generation faced its own exile, crusade, pogrom or Shoa, has helped ingrain this trait at a national level, as well. In exile it could be expected that the Jewish minority would strive to be admitted into the society of the local majority. What is somewhat more surprising is that behind the stereotype of the defiant Sabra, Israelis, both individually and as a nation, hunger for the world acceptance, whether at United Nations? conferences, regional soccer competitions or local water purification projects.
The Palestinian campaign currently hitting the international media is calculated to break our resolve to stand up to the Palestinian Authority?s violence. The campaign, waged in Hebrew as well as English, plays on the above Jewish national character traits by undermining the belief that it was Arafat who turned down Barak and Clinton at Camp David.
Israelis must stop bending over backwards to find a reading of the events of the past year that indicates that the current leadership of the Palestinian Authority is interested in peace. We cannot delude ourselves into thinking if only Barak had made a little more generous offer we would be ?shepping nachas? over the second Israeli Prime Minister to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in a decade.
We must remember that in a civilized world, unsatisfactory peace proposals are met with counter-proposals and not with sniper fire at apartment blocks or mortar shells against kibbutzim. We need to tell ourselves that until the Palestinians are willing to stop shooting, carry out the agreements they have signed and fundamentally compromise on the right of return, there will be no peace, no matter how much we want the peace and the international acceptance that would come with it.
____________________________________________________________________________
Samuel Schwartz has worked for the Israeli Consulate in Boston and Los Angeles and is currently a Ph.D. candidate and researcher in the Department of Political Studies at Bar Ilan University.