Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh with Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi.
On another morning after, I remind myself that the
conflict between the Palestinian Arabs and the Zionist enterprise has been
drawing blood for more than 120 years.
In so long a war of attrition, it helps to
remember First Principles.
1. The Jewish people have an
inalienable right to a national homeland in this country.
The Arab leadership has historically rejected
this idea. Thus, our clash is not about borders, settlements, or the West
Bank and Gaza. It is about whether the Jews get to have a national homeland in a world where there are 57 Muslim countries. A national homeland on our ancestral land.
All these many years into the conflict, what
pains me most is that there is a fundamental cleavage within the Jewish body
politic about what kind of Jewish homeland we want.
2. I can say what I don't want: to
live in Sparta. To adapt the shahid mores of our enemy. To run riot as
if we had no Zionist state. To burn and pillage as if we were not the sovereign.
I do not want to mirror Islamist extremism
with ultra-Orthodox chauvinism, fanaticism, and ultra-nationalism. To replace Sharia law with Halacha interpreted by benighted narrow-minded decisors. To live in a country guided by pure majority rule.
I do not want to dehumanize the enemy. I do
not want to let them rob us of our humanity.
I am not a pacifist…
3. But Jewish violence needs to be the outcome of deliberation and tied to a strategy. It needs to be authorized by legitimate political
institutions.
4. As a polity, we need to belatedly articulate what we want to do in and with Judea and Samaria. Should we settle every inch in the name of our mystical and historical connection to the soil, or would it be more prudent to fortify strategic settlement blocs and vital roads? We can't afford to withdraw from the West Bank and let it fall to Hamas or Iran, but that does not mean our present settlement policies are making us more secure.
We should not solidify this conflict into one between our God and theirs. This leaves them no way out.
We can't pick our enemies or their
leadership. Yet isn't it plain that they are as committed to their struggle as
we are to ours? So poking or humiliating them just because we can does not
serve our interests.
Within the confines of this zero-sum conflict,
we must recognize that our actions (changing the status quo on the Temple Mount, for instance, and in
the Christian, Muslim, and Armenian Quarters of the Old City) – and our words – have deadly consequences. Yes, they exploit our every mistake. But the overreach is ours.
If we become them – if we embrace unmitigated
violence and religious fanaticism as a way of life – then holding this Land
will prove a pyrrhic victory indeed.
Sadly, about half of Israel
doesn’t see it my way.
###
And here are today's links:
Controversial land
sale puts Jerusalem Armenians on edge
Booknotes + Podcast: Robert Kaplan, "The Tragic Mind"
Israel
agreed to give up sovereignty in part of Jerusalem Old City in 2000 —
A newly declassified response to Clinton's proposal under PM Ehud Barak shows Jerusalem was willing to accept Palestinian sovereignty in much of Temple Mount as the basis for peace talks
Wokeism
and The Anthropological Origins of Gender Bending
Nurture, Not Nature
