One of the major failings of those who advocate the two?state solution for all the land of Israel west of the Jordan is that they simply misconceive the nature of the conflict.
?Two states for two peoples? is the motto of those who see the conflict as exclusively one of, as they love to say, ? two peoples living on the same land.? Seeing it this way, it simply becomes a matter of logic and fairness. Two peoples, both of which claim the whole for themselves, have to learn to compromise and share. The comprising and sharing is the essence of the peace process. It involves, as they like to say, ?painful sacrifice? of one?s own dream, but it is this sacrifice which will enable the other side, which also has to sacrifice the wholeness of its dream, to live in peace and dignity. Once this division and sacrifice is made, once each people has its own nation and government, then it will be possible to have a viable peace for generations.
This argument is the one which makes most sense to most of the Western world . It is the argument with which the Israeli left holds on to own sanity and dreams with. It is the basis of past American peace plans. And it is the plan whose advocates believe is logical, right and inevitable. For without it, they believe, there will only be endless war and chaos.
On the surface, this plan seems to make much sense and be the only real way to bring peace. But it ignores what is increasingly apparent to most astute observers of the conflict: that it is not a national one only, but it is also a religious conflict, and in an even broader sense perhaps, a conflict between civilizations.
The people of Israel, in terms of religious observance, spread out on a continuum with the great majority being somewhere between the extremes of the absolutely secular and, on the other side, the world-denying narrowly religious. The great majority however hold a traditional Jewish esteem for the value and centrality of ?peace?. Peace means much in the Jewish tradition. In its most ideal sense, it is the name of God, but it also means a kind of completeness, a kind of harmony and order within all of existence. The Messianic Age, in Jewish conception, is that age of peace, of harmony, of blessedness, which it almost goes without saying is an age without violence.
For the Palestinian, the Arab, the Muslim world there are other primal values. Peace is not what the House of Islam demands for itself. Rather, its demand is territory and conquest, and a domination of all others, whether they are monotheistic, and thus given a special place in an Islamic entity, or absolute infidels. These values are not mere abstractions, but are also rooted, and this is perhaps the greatest difficulty, in the existential situations of the two conflicting parties.
The Jews have almost always been a small people, whether in their own land or scattered without. The valuing of peace is clearly related to their own existential situation, in the sense that if there is great conflagration, they are going to be, as they so often have been, the greatest sufferers from it.
The Palestinians are Arabs, and the Arabs are a large people and part of an even larger civilization, stretching over one?eighth of the globe. Not only did they make their mark historically first of all through conquest by the sword, but they sense that any military defeat is only local and temporary, and that their great size and extent makes them both invincible and inevitably triumphant. The Islamic world, in this sense, and to its own lights, simply does not need peace the way the Jewish world does.
Thus, while for the Jews, peace is the end goal, for the Islamic world, peace is, at best, a tactic.
Therefore, a a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan cannot, by its very nature and long- term aspirations, content itself with the ?situation? of ? peace?. The state will be the launching pad for continual efforts to realize its true goal, which is taking all of the territory for itself and submitting the alien power (the Jews) to exile.
All this is not very cheering, especially for us Jews and Israelis who so long for peace. But we must at least take a realistic look at the aspirations of those with whom we are in conflict, and not deceive ourselves. It certainly should reinforce a long-held principle of Israeli thought, which in a sense was abandoned by the fantasizers of Oslo, that unless Israel maintains a strong military edge over those who would destroy it, it has little hope of enduring in this region. This implies that the real compromise that might one day emerge will do so only when the other side comes to understand that any attempt to destroy Israel will result in its own certain devastation. And that it must, for its own good, come to terms with the 'Zionist entity' and live in uneasy peace with it.
?Two states for two peoples? is the motto of those who see the conflict as exclusively one of, as they love to say, ? two peoples living on the same land.? Seeing it this way, it simply becomes a matter of logic and fairness. Two peoples, both of which claim the whole for themselves, have to learn to compromise and share. The comprising and sharing is the essence of the peace process. It involves, as they like to say, ?painful sacrifice? of one?s own dream, but it is this sacrifice which will enable the other side, which also has to sacrifice the wholeness of its dream, to live in peace and dignity. Once this division and sacrifice is made, once each people has its own nation and government, then it will be possible to have a viable peace for generations.
This argument is the one which makes most sense to most of the Western world . It is the argument with which the Israeli left holds on to own sanity and dreams with. It is the basis of past American peace plans. And it is the plan whose advocates believe is logical, right and inevitable. For without it, they believe, there will only be endless war and chaos.
On the surface, this plan seems to make much sense and be the only real way to bring peace. But it ignores what is increasingly apparent to most astute observers of the conflict: that it is not a national one only, but it is also a religious conflict, and in an even broader sense perhaps, a conflict between civilizations.
The people of Israel, in terms of religious observance, spread out on a continuum with the great majority being somewhere between the extremes of the absolutely secular and, on the other side, the world-denying narrowly religious. The great majority however hold a traditional Jewish esteem for the value and centrality of ?peace?. Peace means much in the Jewish tradition. In its most ideal sense, it is the name of God, but it also means a kind of completeness, a kind of harmony and order within all of existence. The Messianic Age, in Jewish conception, is that age of peace, of harmony, of blessedness, which it almost goes without saying is an age without violence.
For the Palestinian, the Arab, the Muslim world there are other primal values. Peace is not what the House of Islam demands for itself. Rather, its demand is territory and conquest, and a domination of all others, whether they are monotheistic, and thus given a special place in an Islamic entity, or absolute infidels. These values are not mere abstractions, but are also rooted, and this is perhaps the greatest difficulty, in the existential situations of the two conflicting parties.
The Jews have almost always been a small people, whether in their own land or scattered without. The valuing of peace is clearly related to their own existential situation, in the sense that if there is great conflagration, they are going to be, as they so often have been, the greatest sufferers from it.
The Palestinians are Arabs, and the Arabs are a large people and part of an even larger civilization, stretching over one?eighth of the globe. Not only did they make their mark historically first of all through conquest by the sword, but they sense that any military defeat is only local and temporary, and that their great size and extent makes them both invincible and inevitably triumphant. The Islamic world, in this sense, and to its own lights, simply does not need peace the way the Jewish world does.
Thus, while for the Jews, peace is the end goal, for the Islamic world, peace is, at best, a tactic.
Therefore, a a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan cannot, by its very nature and long- term aspirations, content itself with the ?situation? of ? peace?. The state will be the launching pad for continual efforts to realize its true goal, which is taking all of the territory for itself and submitting the alien power (the Jews) to exile.
All this is not very cheering, especially for us Jews and Israelis who so long for peace. But we must at least take a realistic look at the aspirations of those with whom we are in conflict, and not deceive ourselves. It certainly should reinforce a long-held principle of Israeli thought, which in a sense was abandoned by the fantasizers of Oslo, that unless Israel maintains a strong military edge over those who would destroy it, it has little hope of enduring in this region. This implies that the real compromise that might one day emerge will do so only when the other side comes to understand that any attempt to destroy Israel will result in its own certain devastation. And that it must, for its own good, come to terms with the 'Zionist entity' and live in uneasy peace with it.