"Ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex: It will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education, and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations" (Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, 1948).
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A Jewish state based on universal suffrage and the protection of rights and liberties for all has flourished for over 72 years. For those of us that campaign for Israel, the line "Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East" has been our trump card. Israel is certainly the oasis of democracy in a neighborhood of autocratic and police states. Although for many, the future of a democratic and Jewish state is in peril. This is certainly the view of one of the world's largest liberal Zionist organizations, J Street, who say in their mission statement:
"Israel must choose among three things: being a Jewish homeland, remaining democratic and maintaining control over all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. It can only have two — it can only remain both Jewish and democratic by giving up the land on which a Palestinian state can be built in exchange for peace."[1]
I would agree that the democratic future of the Jewish state is in real danger. And although I am in favor of maintaining the status quo for as long as possible, I do not believe it will be eternally sustainable, and one day, therefore, there will need to be a permanent solution to this conflict.
However, I do not believe the proposed two-state solution is the answer. This is not because I am an extremist or someone that cleaves to divine notions on the sanctity of land. On the contrary, I am a staunch liberal, and advocate of democratic rights and freedoms for all. If I thought it were possible, I would be among the Peace Now and J Street activists supporting land concessions for the sake of peace and preservation of democratic rights. Peace, freedom and human rights is more important to me than territory.
However, I am of the view, that in the context of this conflict, tangible compromises by Israel will not be enough for the Palestinians, and will therefore not be conducive to peace. This isn't because the Palestinians don't want to live in peace. Of course, the vast majority just want to live normal lives, not fight in war, and be as free as I am in London. But such proposals by Western governments and Liberal Zionists simply ignores the essence of the Palestinian cause – which is memory and feeling.
The Palestinian narrative transcends the realm of politics. It is not based on trying to achieve a pragmatic and lasting solution, but rather, to achieve justice. To establish what this justice is, we must first establish what the Palestinians regard as the injustice.
This of course is the "nakba," or catastrophe. It is the view that the Israeli Defence Forces deliberately ejected 600,000 Palestinians from their homes from 1948 onwards. Although I would wholeheartedly reject this claim, this narrative has now formed a chain of memories that has been passed down the generations, hence why there are now over 5 million in the world that define themselves as Palestinian refugees.
Descendants of victims are told stories about their family history in Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem. These stories evoke in past and present generations of Palestinians a national feeling of nostalgia and national pride. But these stories do not just provoke a feeling, but also a resolve to fight against the Zionist so-called occupation of "their" land, which they see as the principal reason for their displacement.
How therefore can such a memory, fraught with feelings of despair and anger, be expunged from the Palestinian memory with land compromises? Such a view is simply delusional.
Indeed, the most common argument I hear from Palestinian activists comes in the form of the "house analogy". A Palestinian activist will say, "Imagine someone going to your house, kicking you out and saying let's divide the house up and live together in peace." While I would refute the premise of this analogy that the land is "theirs," I understand that they do regard it as their land, and therefore, why should they give one inch to an entity that they regard as illegitimate and criminal?
We Jews are stupendous schmoozers, but listeners, we are not. But if we were to listen to Palestinian activists around the world, they chant "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free," a call to dismantle the Jewish state in its entirety. If they were after a solution, they would chant "From the River to the Green Line…" [West Bank].
Fellow Jews, I implore you to see reason – the Palestinian narrative regards Judea and Samaria (West Bank) as occupied as Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem. Only the proponents of a two-state solution have distinguished between cities and towns in Judea and Samaria and cities and towns in Israel, most Palestinians have not.
If the Palestinian cause was genuinely after a solution, why, when Israel has offered and/or accepted significant peace initiatives over five times, has it rejected peace? Why is it when the Arabs had those pre-1967 lands that they claim they want now, did they not establish a Palestinian state nor were they at peace with Israel? Israel has given up over 70% of the land it once held for the sake of peace, and yet Israel is still at war. Why is this so?
In order to fulfill "Palestinian national aspirations" – it must be more than establishing a state, it must also be about fulfilling Palestinian national feeling – and therefore only the total dismantlement of the Jewish state and the introduction of the "right of return" to the places that their ancestors were living in, will suffice.
And I would, therefore, contend that anyone that suggests the Palestinians will erase these memories or feelings for this land through a change in leadership or for political expediency, simply does not understand the Palestinian narrative.
The alternative to the two state would be the one-state solution. This would see Israel extend its civilian law to both Judea and Samaria and Gaza. However, since such a move would pave the way for Israel to lose its Jewish majority, it would surely have to either become a non-Jewish state or an undemocratic Jewish state.
I would certainly agree with this assessment – Israel cannot remain a Jewish state with a non-Jewish majority in a democratic context. But if Israel doesn't achieve a two-state solution to resolve this conflict, and is unable to maintain the status quo, it will need to choose between democracy and survival. And it will, I believe, choose the moral imperative here, which is to survive.
Israel has a unique purpose that no other nation has – its core function is to ensure the continuity of the Jewish people and our freedom from persecution. No other nation on earth exists to provide a sanctuary for a people defined by an ethnoreligious character. This creates an obvious tension between the need to survive and the demands of liberal democracy. Perhaps this is best exemplified in the Law of Return, a law that allows Jews from around the world to gain Israeli citizenship. This law only applies to Jews. This therefore clearly does discriminate against non-Jews, but if the law were to be extended to the current 5 million that identify as Palestinian refugees, that would see Israel lose its Jewish majority.
What would happen if there were no Jewish state because, through this liberal-democratic universal suffrage, the Arab majority voted out of existence the Jewish state? Well, just look at life for Jews without Israel. It would be morally indefensible to permit the Jews to return to the life of immeasurable suffering and persecution. The security of the Jewish people is inextricably linked to the existence of the Jewish state with a Jewish majority.
To quote Golda Meir, "If we have to choose between being dead and pitied, and being alive with a bad image, we'd rather be alive and have the bad image."
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