The place: The Rimonim Hotel in Safed. The time: Almost four years ago. The event: A two day meeting of public figures from academia and the communications media, representing most of the broad spectrum of Jewish and Arab society in Israel. On the agenda: to ponder the scenarios written by the members of the group, the ?first harvest? of the seeds sown during many months of study (demographics, sociology, economics, security/defense, etc.) and intensive discussions, fraught with friction and crises. The purpose of the scenarios was to predict, on the basis of current available data, what Israel will be like in the year 2025. If the prognosis looked serious, then the members of the group would act ? vis-a-vis the government authorities and within their own communities ? to prevent the ?bad? scenarios from coming to pass (the definition of ?good? and ?bad? was problematic in and of itself, changing in accordance with the breakdown of the opinions present).
The participants had the first document before them. The scenario, concerning what might take place in Israel in 2025, did not include any diagrams ? demographic, economic or otherwise. It told a story. The exchange of small talk and jokes among those present, as is common among acquaintances that gather together once a month, tapered off soon after the first section was read. When the author of the document, who was a bit late, walked into the meeting room, he was met with pensive, even grave, expressions. Nothing was said. The man, who was usually greeted warmly and with friendly barbs by his intellectual adversaries, was startled by the silence. Later on, he said that for a minute, he thought that perhaps some disaster had occurred to his community or family and, as sometimes happens in Israeli life, news of the disaster had reached the participants before it reached him. Yet no secret was revealed before he arrived, except for the contents of the scenario, which had spawned the silence.
On Memorial Day eve, 5785 (2025), so began the scenario, the President of the State of Israel, Dr. Munir Al-Amin, announced that he would be unable to make it to the Western Wall to participate in the traditional ceremony that had been taking place at that location for 57 years. ?This is not the memorial ceremony for the fallen of the country that I symbolize,? the President wrote in his announcement, ?but rather that of the previous state, the Zionist one, that used to be here. The soldiers in whose memory the ceremony took place at Al Bouraq (the Arab-Islamic name for the Western Wall) killed my people, expelled them, demolished their homes, erased their villages from the face of the earth and stole their lands. We are now at the beginning of a new age,? the president added, ?a bold and honest attempt to create a common state for the Israeli Palestinians and for what remains of the Israeli Jews. Let us renounce official State commemorations of events and dates that separate us; henceforth, let us observe only those ceremonies that are acceptable to all the residents of this country.?
The President?s proclamation created a frenzy in the country. The Speaker of the Knesset, Abdul Aziz Ra?anam, immediately announced ? the statements were apparently coordinated in advance ? that the gala session of the Knesset, that takes place every year on Yom Ha?atzma?ut (Israel?s Independence Day) was also canceled. "It?s inconceivable,? he declared, "to hold a gala ceremony in which half the citizens celebrate the catastrophe of the other half. Inasmuch as a joint committee has already been convened in accordance with a decision of the Knesset to wrestle with the problem of writing a new national anthem and designing a new flag, the time has also come to find a replacement for Yom Ha?atzma?ut. We must find a new national holiday that will express the new commonality between Jews and Arabs, rather than what divides them.?
The pages of the scenario tell the story of that Yom Ha?atzma?ut. It also tells of how two Arabs were chosen for the high elective offices. Even after the high Israeli Arab birth rate endowed them with great political power, the Jewish political parties maneuvered the Arab parties into a situation in which they would get ministerial portfolios not connected with foreign affairs or security matters. The Arabs, with a sophisticated and discerning political sense, understood that from their perspective, it would be preferable to control the symbolic positions of president of the state and Knesset speaker, in addition to the communication, labor, housing, and national infrastructure portfolios. For the essence of the Jewish-Arab conflict had become one centering on symbols: the national anthem, the flag, holidays, language and historical narrative. The scenario also described how the families of fallen Israeli soldiers and the national organization dedicated to their commemoration reacted to the cancellation of the official memorial ceremonies by appealing to the High Court of Justice. As expected, the court ruled that the State must be considerate of the Arabs? feelings since they constitute close to 40% of its population. The scenario also tells of the reaction of the Jewish Knesset Members. A significant portion them agreed, albeit grudgingly, with the Knesset Speaker?s position. Others, defying the Speaker?s decision, tried to conduct the traditional ceremony, but the Knesset Guard prevented them from doing so. Even the traditional reception at the Presidential Residence for senior military commanders, retired generals and outstanding soldiers, held for 77 consecutive years, was of course canceled.
The events of that Yom Ha?atzma?ut end, according to the scenario, in a terrible tragedy. A terrorist bomb hidden in a cake is smuggled into the hall where the victory party organized by the Arab leadership for its two representatives, the President and the Knesset Speaker, is being held to celebrate their successful cancellation of the Yom Ha?atzma?ut and Memorial Day ceremonies. The ?cake? explodes near the Presidential dais killing a number of those present, among them the President and the Infrastructure Minister. Dozens are wounded. In the wake of the assassination, civil disturbances break out throughout the country. Hundreds of thousands of Arabs attack nearby communities and loot, riot and murder. Soldiers from the Palestinian State, called to the aid of their brethren by the general Arab media, exploit the prevailing chaos to seize control of a number of communities, including suburbs of Kfar Sava and Netanya. Israeli Arabs, mostly from the Negev, the Galillee and the ?Triangle? of communities northeast of Tel Aviv containing a significant Arab population, threaten to invade Israel?s most important cities. The reserves are called-up. Many refuse to stand for service. ?We swore allegiance to defend the country against an external threat,? they say. ?We are not obligated to the security of a country that attacks its own citizens.? The civil war quickly becomes a regional war and thousands are killed and wounded. The scenario does not tell of the outcome and the aftermath.
The Optimistic Scenario
It was only three years ago that a scenario like this was able to shock even the most hard-core optimists regarding the future of Jewish-Arab relations, especially within the State of Israel. Indeed, a number of those identified with the Israeli left that attended the forum, among them two of those who initiated the Oslo process, briefly lost their cool and their self-confidence, but quickly recovered. They quoted the two moderators of the group who repeatedly argued that futuristic scenarios never actually materialize, since the authors formulate them on the basis of the information at hand, hunches, beliefs and the timetable in which they frame their projections. History, said one of those identified with the Oslo Accords - an historian - is much more optimistic.
Indeed he is correct. The scenario?s timetable, for example, was without doubt mistaken. It is an indisputable fact: Hostilities by Israeli Arabs against Israel did not break out in 2025, but rather in the year 2000 and on a totally different background and the outcome was not as terrible as that of the scenario. Yet the scenario tells of a trend, of a general direction of events, of something that will almost certainly transpire one way or another, unless drastic steps are taken to prevent it. In any event, those who look to the future and prepare for it have a chance of avoiding a catastrophe or maybe even of molding a better future. On the other hand, those who deny what can clearly be expected to happen are liable to pay with our national existence. Currently, even those who are losing sleep over the tick of the demographic clock are burying their heads in the sand instead of confronting the issue.
The members of the group, over twenty individuals, wrote fourteen different scenarios. Most of them, perhaps because of the effect of the first scenario ? which was written before all of the others ? also predicted a fair amount of difficulty in the country?s future and for nearly the same reasons. In the end, through a difficult process of merging and combining the scenarios, the group united around four possible scenarios. The first, the one that was described above, was the most pessimistic. The second scenario forecast that in the year 2025, the deepening divisions during the first two decades of the 21rst century would cause the country to split into a federation of ethnic and religious groups. A frail and shaky central government would be maintained, but only in order to provide certain governmental services. The scenario also predicts autonomy for Israeli Arabs, with all the internal and external trappings of sovereignty.
The third scenario foretold of the rise to power of an extremist right wing political party in the wake of the demographic and security threat. This party, in the name of the Jewish majority, would not permit a situation in which the country lost its Jewish symbols. The Israeli Arabs, according to this scenario, are oppressed even more than they are oppressed now and would live under conditions of severe discrimination. This perpetuates the conflict with the Arab world and Israel becomes an isolated leper among the nations of the world. This was called the ?slave-ship scenario?.
The fourth scenario, the ?optimistic? one, written by a well known economist, argued that the whole world is on its way to an age characterized by the gradual disappearance of nation-state frameworks. Globalization, according to the scenario, is the nationalism of tomorrow. The race for the Lexus is the tomorrow for all of humanity (as was written a year later by Tom Friedman of the New York Times, the ?Prophet of Globalization?, in his book The Lexus and the Olive Tree).
In the aftermath of the disillusionment experienced by many as an outgrowth of the October 2000 hostilities by Israel?s Arab citizens, the (predicted or unpredicted) protracted war of attrition with the Palestinian Authority and the debacle of the Oslo process, it now appears to many that this reality, as foreseen in the scenarios, has been going on since time immemorial. However, that is not what happened. Only a little over a year ago, two and a half years after the Safed group completed the scenarios, none of the decision makers, news media, research and academic personages, or public figures to whom the scenarios were disclosed were primed and ready for the turn of events, despite the fact that they all expressed agreement with the essence of the prediction. This would occur in the ?distant future,? was the common belief, but ?not on my watch.?
[Part 1 of 2]
-------------------------------
The article has been translated and adapted from the Hebrew original, which appeared in the April, 2001 edition of Nekuda. Posted with permission of the author and Nekuda magazine.
Yisrael Harel, founding editor of Nekuda and a fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, is a regular columnist for the left- leaning Israeli daily Ha?aretz and an author of several books. Mr. Harel, a resident of Ofrah in the Shomron, founded the Yesha Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza and stood at its helm for 16 years.
Translated by Hershel Ginsburg. Comments can be sent to ginzy@netvision.net.il.
The participants had the first document before them. The scenario, concerning what might take place in Israel in 2025, did not include any diagrams ? demographic, economic or otherwise. It told a story. The exchange of small talk and jokes among those present, as is common among acquaintances that gather together once a month, tapered off soon after the first section was read. When the author of the document, who was a bit late, walked into the meeting room, he was met with pensive, even grave, expressions. Nothing was said. The man, who was usually greeted warmly and with friendly barbs by his intellectual adversaries, was startled by the silence. Later on, he said that for a minute, he thought that perhaps some disaster had occurred to his community or family and, as sometimes happens in Israeli life, news of the disaster had reached the participants before it reached him. Yet no secret was revealed before he arrived, except for the contents of the scenario, which had spawned the silence.
On Memorial Day eve, 5785 (2025), so began the scenario, the President of the State of Israel, Dr. Munir Al-Amin, announced that he would be unable to make it to the Western Wall to participate in the traditional ceremony that had been taking place at that location for 57 years. ?This is not the memorial ceremony for the fallen of the country that I symbolize,? the President wrote in his announcement, ?but rather that of the previous state, the Zionist one, that used to be here. The soldiers in whose memory the ceremony took place at Al Bouraq (the Arab-Islamic name for the Western Wall) killed my people, expelled them, demolished their homes, erased their villages from the face of the earth and stole their lands. We are now at the beginning of a new age,? the president added, ?a bold and honest attempt to create a common state for the Israeli Palestinians and for what remains of the Israeli Jews. Let us renounce official State commemorations of events and dates that separate us; henceforth, let us observe only those ceremonies that are acceptable to all the residents of this country.?
The President?s proclamation created a frenzy in the country. The Speaker of the Knesset, Abdul Aziz Ra?anam, immediately announced ? the statements were apparently coordinated in advance ? that the gala session of the Knesset, that takes place every year on Yom Ha?atzma?ut (Israel?s Independence Day) was also canceled. "It?s inconceivable,? he declared, "to hold a gala ceremony in which half the citizens celebrate the catastrophe of the other half. Inasmuch as a joint committee has already been convened in accordance with a decision of the Knesset to wrestle with the problem of writing a new national anthem and designing a new flag, the time has also come to find a replacement for Yom Ha?atzma?ut. We must find a new national holiday that will express the new commonality between Jews and Arabs, rather than what divides them.?
The pages of the scenario tell the story of that Yom Ha?atzma?ut. It also tells of how two Arabs were chosen for the high elective offices. Even after the high Israeli Arab birth rate endowed them with great political power, the Jewish political parties maneuvered the Arab parties into a situation in which they would get ministerial portfolios not connected with foreign affairs or security matters. The Arabs, with a sophisticated and discerning political sense, understood that from their perspective, it would be preferable to control the symbolic positions of president of the state and Knesset speaker, in addition to the communication, labor, housing, and national infrastructure portfolios. For the essence of the Jewish-Arab conflict had become one centering on symbols: the national anthem, the flag, holidays, language and historical narrative. The scenario also described how the families of fallen Israeli soldiers and the national organization dedicated to their commemoration reacted to the cancellation of the official memorial ceremonies by appealing to the High Court of Justice. As expected, the court ruled that the State must be considerate of the Arabs? feelings since they constitute close to 40% of its population. The scenario also tells of the reaction of the Jewish Knesset Members. A significant portion them agreed, albeit grudgingly, with the Knesset Speaker?s position. Others, defying the Speaker?s decision, tried to conduct the traditional ceremony, but the Knesset Guard prevented them from doing so. Even the traditional reception at the Presidential Residence for senior military commanders, retired generals and outstanding soldiers, held for 77 consecutive years, was of course canceled.
The events of that Yom Ha?atzma?ut end, according to the scenario, in a terrible tragedy. A terrorist bomb hidden in a cake is smuggled into the hall where the victory party organized by the Arab leadership for its two representatives, the President and the Knesset Speaker, is being held to celebrate their successful cancellation of the Yom Ha?atzma?ut and Memorial Day ceremonies. The ?cake? explodes near the Presidential dais killing a number of those present, among them the President and the Infrastructure Minister. Dozens are wounded. In the wake of the assassination, civil disturbances break out throughout the country. Hundreds of thousands of Arabs attack nearby communities and loot, riot and murder. Soldiers from the Palestinian State, called to the aid of their brethren by the general Arab media, exploit the prevailing chaos to seize control of a number of communities, including suburbs of Kfar Sava and Netanya. Israeli Arabs, mostly from the Negev, the Galillee and the ?Triangle? of communities northeast of Tel Aviv containing a significant Arab population, threaten to invade Israel?s most important cities. The reserves are called-up. Many refuse to stand for service. ?We swore allegiance to defend the country against an external threat,? they say. ?We are not obligated to the security of a country that attacks its own citizens.? The civil war quickly becomes a regional war and thousands are killed and wounded. The scenario does not tell of the outcome and the aftermath.
The Optimistic Scenario
It was only three years ago that a scenario like this was able to shock even the most hard-core optimists regarding the future of Jewish-Arab relations, especially within the State of Israel. Indeed, a number of those identified with the Israeli left that attended the forum, among them two of those who initiated the Oslo process, briefly lost their cool and their self-confidence, but quickly recovered. They quoted the two moderators of the group who repeatedly argued that futuristic scenarios never actually materialize, since the authors formulate them on the basis of the information at hand, hunches, beliefs and the timetable in which they frame their projections. History, said one of those identified with the Oslo Accords - an historian - is much more optimistic.
Indeed he is correct. The scenario?s timetable, for example, was without doubt mistaken. It is an indisputable fact: Hostilities by Israeli Arabs against Israel did not break out in 2025, but rather in the year 2000 and on a totally different background and the outcome was not as terrible as that of the scenario. Yet the scenario tells of a trend, of a general direction of events, of something that will almost certainly transpire one way or another, unless drastic steps are taken to prevent it. In any event, those who look to the future and prepare for it have a chance of avoiding a catastrophe or maybe even of molding a better future. On the other hand, those who deny what can clearly be expected to happen are liable to pay with our national existence. Currently, even those who are losing sleep over the tick of the demographic clock are burying their heads in the sand instead of confronting the issue.
The members of the group, over twenty individuals, wrote fourteen different scenarios. Most of them, perhaps because of the effect of the first scenario ? which was written before all of the others ? also predicted a fair amount of difficulty in the country?s future and for nearly the same reasons. In the end, through a difficult process of merging and combining the scenarios, the group united around four possible scenarios. The first, the one that was described above, was the most pessimistic. The second scenario forecast that in the year 2025, the deepening divisions during the first two decades of the 21rst century would cause the country to split into a federation of ethnic and religious groups. A frail and shaky central government would be maintained, but only in order to provide certain governmental services. The scenario also predicts autonomy for Israeli Arabs, with all the internal and external trappings of sovereignty.
The third scenario foretold of the rise to power of an extremist right wing political party in the wake of the demographic and security threat. This party, in the name of the Jewish majority, would not permit a situation in which the country lost its Jewish symbols. The Israeli Arabs, according to this scenario, are oppressed even more than they are oppressed now and would live under conditions of severe discrimination. This perpetuates the conflict with the Arab world and Israel becomes an isolated leper among the nations of the world. This was called the ?slave-ship scenario?.
The fourth scenario, the ?optimistic? one, written by a well known economist, argued that the whole world is on its way to an age characterized by the gradual disappearance of nation-state frameworks. Globalization, according to the scenario, is the nationalism of tomorrow. The race for the Lexus is the tomorrow for all of humanity (as was written a year later by Tom Friedman of the New York Times, the ?Prophet of Globalization?, in his book The Lexus and the Olive Tree).
In the aftermath of the disillusionment experienced by many as an outgrowth of the October 2000 hostilities by Israel?s Arab citizens, the (predicted or unpredicted) protracted war of attrition with the Palestinian Authority and the debacle of the Oslo process, it now appears to many that this reality, as foreseen in the scenarios, has been going on since time immemorial. However, that is not what happened. Only a little over a year ago, two and a half years after the Safed group completed the scenarios, none of the decision makers, news media, research and academic personages, or public figures to whom the scenarios were disclosed were primed and ready for the turn of events, despite the fact that they all expressed agreement with the essence of the prediction. This would occur in the ?distant future,? was the common belief, but ?not on my watch.?
[Part 1 of 2]
-------------------------------
The article has been translated and adapted from the Hebrew original, which appeared in the April, 2001 edition of Nekuda. Posted with permission of the author and Nekuda magazine.
Yisrael Harel, founding editor of Nekuda and a fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, is a regular columnist for the left- leaning Israeli daily Ha?aretz and an author of several books. Mr. Harel, a resident of Ofrah in the Shomron, founded the Yesha Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza and stood at its helm for 16 years.
Translated by Hershel Ginsburg. Comments can be sent to ginzy@netvision.net.il.