We used to think that post-Zionists were out there on the fringe of Israeli society. They were Israelis who had concluded that so many injustices had been committed in the name of Herzl’s dream, that the time had come to turn their backs on the State of Israel. Or, more extreme yet, they believed that Zionism had been one big mistake that now needed to be rectified, and the Palestinian population compensated for the wrongs that had been committed in the name of Zionism – by replacing the Jewish state with a Palestinian one. They insisted that they had seized the moral high ground, but in their sensitivity to the suffering of the Palestinians, they showed zero tolerance for any measures taken in Israel’s defense.
To the strident voices of the post-Zionists have in the past years been added the voices of our prime minister, Ehud Olmert, and one of his newest sidekicks, Tzipi Livni, Israel’s foreign minister. At Annapolis, Olmert expressed his sympathy for the suffering of the Palestinian people, without bothering to mention that this suffering had been the direct result of decades-long Arab attempts to destroy the Jewish state, and was their own fault. His minister of education, Yuli Tamir, has given instructions to include the “Palestinian narrative” of the War of Independence, which is nothing but a fabric of lies, in the curriculum of Israeli schools. In the Israeli-Palestinian declaration that was read out at the conference two weeks ago by President Bush, Olmert agreed on wording that equated “Israeli terror” with Palestinian terror. And then he went the limit, when he stated that unless a Palestinian state is set up, “Israel is finished.” This is a fitting crescendo to an Olmert statement of some years ago to the effect that “we are tired of fighting, and tired of defeating our enemies.”
“Dividing the land” and establishing a Palestinian state has become the prime minister’s ultimate aim, just as in the past the establishment of a Jewish state had been the aim of the Zionist movement. If this is not post-Zionism, just what is it?
To help stamp the idea of “dividing the Land” into the unsciousness of the Israeli public, gala celebrations were held last week to commemorate the UN decision of November 29, 1947, which aimed to divide Palestine into a Jewish state and an “Arab” one. Perish the thought that if that decision had been implemented, the State of Israel would have been stillborn, and that only by “occupying” territories beyond the UN partition lines was Israel able to assure its survival. Thrown into the dustbin of history is the League of Nations mandate for Palestine of 1920, which gave international recognition to the rights of the Jewish people to Palestine and Jewish settlement on the land. These rights were not limited to the UN partition lines, nor to the 1949 armistice lines. As a matter of fact, they included what is today the Kingdom of Jordan.
Now, according to these new post-Zionists, the armistice lines of 1949 have been sanctified, and anything beyond these lines is “occupied territory” that must be turned over to the Palestinians as quickly as possible, before the State of Israel finds itself “finished.”
Settlement in the Land of Israel has been the Zionist credo since the days of the Biluim, in the 1880s. The moral basis for the settlement activity was the belief that Jews had a right to settle in the Land of Israel, and that this right was not restricted to certain areas. Now along come Olmert and Livni and maintain that it is wrong for Jews to be living beyond the 1949 armistice lines, and that this wrong has to be corrected by the uprooting of settlements.
The trauma that followed the uprooting of the Gush Katif settlements, and the conclusion by most of the Israeli public that this was a tragic mistake, has, for at least the time being, stayed the Olmert government’s hand from pursuing further uprooting of settlements by force. The new tactic that Ehud Barak, the defense minister, wants to try is to have the government offer the settlers money to leave their homes. This is another departure from the Zionism of Herzl, Jabotinsky and Ben-Gurion. Olmert has already announced his in-principle agreement with this move, though he feels that the time is not ripe for passing the necessary legislation.
Devoid of any moral basis is the Olmert government’s aim of ethnic cleansing of all the areas they intend to cede to the Palestinians. If it can’t be done by force it will be done by providing monetary incentives. The Palestinian state that Olmert and Livni dream of handing to Mahmoud Abbas must not have a single Jew in it. This is the immoral low ground to which the new post-Zionists have sunk.
You may find this article from a JTA bulletin earlier this week interesting in the context of Moshe Arens’ article.
http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/news/article/2007121120071211splinter.html
I happen to think that the problem with Olmert and Livni (and the current government in general) is that they are chronically indecisive. They know what the world expects of them. They know they have no real choice about whether they do it or not — unless they want to make Israel a Pariah country. But they haven’t the balls to do it, and so they drag out the pain for everyone.
Of course, they hope someone else will do it — and take the bullet (literally, like Rabin) for selling out the dream of Eretz Ysroel.
I wouldn’t want the job of Israeli Prime Minister for anything. Would you?
It’s interesting that the first Israeli Prime Minister to order Israeli soldiers to fire on Jewish pioneers and freedom fights was Ben Gurion. He ordered the IDF to shoot Begin’s Irgun if they did not lay down their guns and submit to Israeli government authority. Not all of them did lay down their arms, and some were in fact killed.
So there is precedent for what Olmert may have to do. The government, democratically elected and acting within the law, has not just the right but the duty to take the actions it thinks are in the best long-term interests of the country. If rabble-rousers object and obstruct the legitimate workings of the government and the law, then they should be dealt with by those entrusted to manage the state for the benefit of all its citizens as the outlaws they have declared themselves to be. No country can operate at the whim of an unelected anarchic fringe.
Isn’t that right?
I know some did not accept the UN partition plan, but the official Jewish community did, which is what I meant.
Neither were any of the other Arab leaders to my knowledge.
The flag ID is the Sultanate of Oman, where I teach English.
Shalom Joe K.,
Arab brillant leadership was European.
General Glubb and his Legion were not happy nor on record on accepting a partition.
“the Jews” comingles those who did and those who did not accept the UN partition plan with an internationalized Jerusalem.
Kol tuv, all the best.
(Joe, what is flag ID ?)
In 1947 the United Nations proposed a compromise solution – divide the land and leave Jerusalem as an international city. The Palestinians and surrounding Arab countries were happy to accept this reasonable compromise, but the Jews stated publicly “We will never accept this” – and the very day it was to go into effect they instantly attacked the new Arab state, bragging and boasting of how they would massacre the Arabs. The Arabs fought heroically, like lions and tigers, with brilliant leadership, holding out to the last man and the last bullet, but they were unable to withstand the world Jewish conspiracy.
If only the Jews had been willing to accept that compromise, there would be peace today.
Since I have had some experience on the internet, I understand the need to repeat twice: this is satire, this is satire.
If Olmert could detach Israel from the surrounding territory, float it through the Mediterranean, and anchor it off the coast of Holland, he would cheerfully do so. Then Israel could become a secular state with a flourishing red-light district (oh, it has that already); an active gay rights movement (that’s coming anyway); more feminism, more divorce, abortion, drugs,mental illness and crime, and all of the other manifold spiritual blessings of prosperity and an easy life shared by the Europeans. The Israelis could forget about Jerusalem, the Torah, God, and the Holy Land and be just like the other peoples of the world – and Hamas could set up a beacon of democracy in Palestine.
This article is quite humorous. Arens contends that “The moral basis for the settlement activity was the belief that Jews had a right to settle in the Land of Israel, and that this right was not restricted to certain areas.” That, itself, may be true, but does the moral basis also assume that Jews also have the right to disenfranchise the indigenous population, force some off their land, and partition others into the outhouse? Had Zionists stuck with just the right to settle in the Land of Israel and build a modern nation along with country’s other inhabitants there would be no question of morality. But Zionist efforts to deceive, deprive, dispossess, dominate, and defeat, shows an extreme of material covetousness that is lacking of any morality. This mindset is just what was aimed against the Jewish people for centuries, and now that it has been embraced by its previous victims, it appears to be warmly regarded. I have no illusions about what a disaster two states will mean, yet I am certain those who advocate for them have a greater interest in morality than those whose only notion of morality is gimee, gimee, gimee, mine, mine, mine.
Olmert and Livni are pressing for more killing of Jews, taking their land, their assets and their dignity.
They’re worse than kapos.
They’re the scum of the earth that only scum wipe off their shoes.