I hear whispers of a secret Roadmap to Peace.
Yet, we already have a Roadmap to Peace! The Anshei Knesset Hagedolah, the Great Assembly of Rabbis in the time of Ezra, architects of future history, formed a think tank and deductively reasoned the elements of a happily stable society. They encrypted the sufficient and necessary conditions for permanent peace in the Shemoneh Esrei, the silent benediction. For thousands of years, Jews throughout the world have whispered the Shmoneh Esreh, our Roadmap to Peace, three times a day.
So what are the prerequisites for peace?
We have to work rationally, with understanding and foresight, and not allow ourselves to be driven by raw emotionality. We have to then feel compelled to cleave unto a Jewish identity and feel quiet self-respect for the great people we belong to. We need physical health. We then need economic prosperity to fund the ingathering of the exiles and economic ethics that evolve into a cohesive body encapsulated in law. With shared values, there will be respect for fair laws, so that the social contract between individuals in a society will be upheld and values interjected and ingrained to a cohesive culture. We then need to flush the mentality of golus, of exile, out of our system and realize that as long as we act justly, we are entitled to a quiet, secure, rewarding life. Decay within invites attack from without. Only after we secure a cohesive culture and common framework of ethical values, would our enemies once more hesitate to attack a people who have regained an understanding regarding how to respond to attackers.
After this, we can hope for tranquility and mutual respect. Because we respect ourselves, others will respect us. Because we are confident in our values, we will not be threatened to discuss with other cultures and value systems the congruence of our national interests and theirs. Once we cement the foundations of the social order, we then take on building the physical manifestation of our shared goals and dreams - we rebuild Jerusalem with the magnificence that projects the beauty of our ethical and social being. After society's needs are met, then atypical individual's needs will be addressed. As a people, we then have to feel good about our accomplishments and thankful for our achievements. Ethical values must so pervade our daily actions, so that a spiritual aura illuminates throughout Israel and particularly in Jerusalem. Only after fulfilling all of these prerequisites can we graduate to a Peace that is more than a mere hiatus until the next attack.
We are about half-way there. Looking back at the last half-century, this sequence of events has been initiated. The Jews can be proud of their disproportionate contribution in the sciences, in mathematics, in medicine, and in technology. Even the most anti-religious secularists display a highly refined set of moral standards. Healthcare delivery and general health consciousness, renders us healthier than the surrounding countries and healthier than any period in this country's past. We have, over the past decade, built a solid economic base. We have absorbed aliya from different countries at a pace such that, in this generation, more than one out of every four voters made aliya.
Nevertheless, we are only half-way there. Without fulfilling the prerequisites, a negotiated Peace is only a brief cease-fire.
In the interim, what do we do?
In lieu of Peace, there are short-term solutions that will make the current "situation" palatable. Currently, the Palestinian Authority governs 99% of the Palestinian population. This 99% of the population lives on 42% of the six and a half million dunam that comprise Yesha. It is that one percent of the Arab population that is peppered in Area C that is critical to the successful resolution to the disputed 58% land mass. A large part was Jordanian government land and is now either officially a nature reserve or Keren Kayemet (JNF) land. The small portion that is privately held by Palestinians is what prevents Israeli annexation of this 58% (3,770,000 dunam) of Yehuda and Shomron.
Purchasing Palestinian's land and homes in Area C, thereby creating buffer zones that are easy to patrol by passive electronic equipment, would substantially reduce Israel's defense budget. The overwhelming majority of these scattered peoples are squatters that have no lawful right to this land and houses. These squatters would, for a small sum, abandon ownership or sell to Jewish Agencies, such as Keren Kayemet, or to investors, or to organizations that have been redeeming the land. The government should also encourage residents of scattered villages in Area B to move, if not out of the country, then into the more settled areas in Area A. Only when Palestinians are confined to Area A, can security forces effectively protect the Israeli citizen from harm.
While we may be able contain the fallout of the "not yet" Peace, let's stop deluding ourselves. Just as you cannot "achieve" happiness, you can't make Peace just by wishing it. Just like happiness, Peace has to be a byproduct of something else. When we will be worthy of Peace, we will have it. If we are not worthy of Peace, we will never have it. This is the bottom line and an axiomatic foundation of our religion. Making one "painful compromise" after another, rather than bringing Peace, only reinforces our disgraceful persona as the cursed wandering Jew and invites attack.
"Our friends" in America and Europe propose a new Roadmap to Peace in which Israel is expected to make many more "painful" compromises for Peace. The Creation of a Palestinian State is a humiliating disgrace to Judaism, parades our defeat and directly violates the Torah. Their Roadmap challenges the basic tenets of our religion.
Their Roadmap is sacrilegious.
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Shmuel Neumann, Ph.D., is actively involved in creating communities for English-speaking olim, and in an emigration program for Palestinians. He currently resides in the Shomron.