Zonder-- The Rogers' posts were excellent. Since I am banned by that thread, I'll comment here.
Zionism is, of course, aimed at creating a Jewish State. Overwhelmingly, most Jews (including me), given the history of persecution, are supportive of that. The historical traditions for any state to be created are settlement, purchase, or conquest. Israel's creation used all of the above traditions. However, and I regard this as tragic, the early founders of Israel were so motivated by the justice and need for their mission, that they were blind to the symmetrical nationalistic yearnings of the Arab populations. The early Zionists truly believed, naively, that they could live peacefully with an assimilated Arab population. They thought they could bring peace with Arabs by raising the general economic level, by bringing water to the desert. In fact, many Palestinians living in Jerusalem fear being turned over to Palestine for the loss of economic and political freedoms. Read Amos Alon's book, "The Israelis" about this--written abt 1970's. The intensity of Palestinian nationalism is no different from that of the Jews.
Given a conflict of such intensity, no negotiated settlement seems likely,. However, after several wars, usually an equilibrium range is met (e.g., Mexico-USA) and things settle down. But, at every point, the Arabs demanded surrender rather than compromise. They still do--e.g., the Barak proposal. From a secular, socialist, and somewhat pacifist state, the series of wars and threats have led Israel to become more and more a military state. Look at the last series of Prime Ministers --Begin, Rabin, Barak, and Sharon. All have been either generals or high in the resistance movement. The only exception has been the most militant -- Netanyahu. He, however, has a brother who was a war hero and a hero in Entebbe. Also, given the relative ease of Israeli victories, Israeli territiorial ambitions soared. Increased settlements, more restrictions on Palestinians, and more faith on military answers. To make a terrible situation terribler, we have the growth of the ultra-orthodox in Israel along with the growth of Muslim fundamentalism. Both have god's mission to accomplish. It is dreadful.
The hate in the area is palpable. I agree with those who wrote that a third party imposition seems the only viable approach, and we are still far from that.
fred |
