Israel is bad for the Jews
By Eliahu Salpeter
While Israeli ministers and Jewish activists
continue to describe every criticism of Israel -
such as a problematic public opinion poll showing
that Europeans see the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict as the greatest threat to world peace -
liberal Jewish circles in the West are facing a
different political threat.
Recently, several articles
appearing in the West (most
of them written by Jewish
commentators) questioned
whether it was a mistake to
establish the State of Israel
along ethnic lines - as a
Jewish state. The
settlements, it has been
written, have ended any
possibility of geographic separation between
Jews and Palestinians, and therefore the
remaining solution, in practice, is to
establish a binational state.
A specific reference to this idea appears in the
October issue of the influential New York
Review of Books in an article by (Jewish)
commentator Tony Judt. At the end of a detailed
analysis of the status of the conflict, he
writes: "The behavior of a self-described
Jewish state affects the way everyone else
looks at Jews... but the depressing truth is
that Israel today is bad for the Jews ...to
convert Israel from a Jewish state to a
binational one would cause far less disruption
to most Jews and Arabs than its religious and
nationalist foes will claim ... a binational
state in the Middle East would require a brave
and relentlessly engaged American leadership.
The security of Jews and Arabs alike would need
to be guaranteed by international force ... but
the alternatives are far, far worse."
Similar ideas are appearing in other journals,
also reflecting the disappointment over
Israel's policy in the territories. The veteran
Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen
recently wrote: "In the perpetual war against
Israel - its enemies are winning, but history
admonishes Israel..." And in the leftist
liberal journal, The Nation, there was an
article this month by Daniel Lazar titled "The
One-State Solution" and that refers to one
state for two peoples - Jewish and Palestinian.
The article concludes: "Hounded by rabbis,
terrorized by suicide bombers, hemmed in by
nationalism, Israelis see no alternative but to
throw in their lot with a strongman like
Sharon. The logic is irresistible, but suicidal
- unless somebody can figure a way out of the
ideological cage." |
