Speakers call for the implementation of UN resolution 194. (Haggai Matar)

The march was organized by the Association for the Defense of the Rights of the Displaced People (ADRID), and was attended mostly by Palestinians with Israeli citizenship (dubbed “’48 Palestinians”) and a few Jewish Israeli activists. Aside from the speeches, the rally included a cultural festival with book and food stands, and Palestinian flags and accessories and “Free Samer Issawi” shirts were sold in mass numbers. The event ended with a performance by singer Walaa Sbeit, himself a descendant of the displaced from Iqrit, who gained a large round of applause when he mentioned the outpost he and his friends have been holding for nine months now on the old village lands.

Thousands march through the village lands. (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

A small counter demonstration of about 40 Israeli flag-wavers welcomed the marchers to Khubeizy’s lands. Within the Palestinian protest itself, two arguments caused rifts within the crowd: one small group near the stage pulled out Syrian flags in support of Assad’s regime and against the “American-Zionist plot” to topple it, despite the request by organizers not to bring any party sign nor signs of support for either side of the Syrian civil war (arguments within the group almost turned violent). Another small group resented the fact that a Jewish Israeli, Dr. Gerardo Leibner of the Tarabut movement, was invited to speak on stage. Leibner himself responded to critics and said that unity between Arabs and non-Zionist Jews was important for the struggle.

Some of the young were showing off horse riding tricks. (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

The village of Khubeizy, named after the edible plant (Malva, in English), is located in north Wadi Ara, about 40 kilometers southeast of Haifa. In 1948 it was home to 350 residents, who according to ADRID did not put up a fight when occupied. However, the village was demolished and villagers dispersed to nearby towns within Israeli territory, as well as to refugee camps in Jenin and Jordan.

Flags, books and “Free Samer Issawi” T-shirts were sold around the festival. (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

About a million Israelis celebrated Independence Day, in parallel to the annual March of Return, with the traditional barbecues and trips to nature reserves and beaches.

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‘Pragmatic’ is certainly the word interviewer Shlomi Eldar, one of Israel’s top television reporters covering Palestinian affairs, wants readers to remember. His subject is Dr. Ghazi Hamad, currently Deputy Foreign Minister of the Hamas leadership in Gaza, heads the “pragmatic wing” of Hamas and the interview is all about the changes of policy, external relations, and possibly even ideology.

Three specific points are worth noting, two internal and one related to Israel:

First, in the context of Palestinian politics, Hamad works to convey institutional legitimacy. He emphasizes that Mashal was re-elected to the head of the political bureau through a participatory political process:

First of all, we must remember that these were democratic elections, and as such, they are a credit to the movement. Elections for Hamas’ other institutions ended a year ago, and that was the last time that the Hamas movement expressed confidence in its leaders

He may have been overstating the “democratic” case – it’s not exactly a popular primary but the top layer of a multi-layered delegate structure – the shura council – that elected Mashal. Still, Hamad clearly wants to convey the legitimacy of the decision-making process and political maturity.

Second, he stresses the commitment to advancing the long-stagnant plan for Hamas-Fatah reconciliation. Hamad discusses some of the mechanics of how this could happen, which indicates a serious effort and also highlights a change from the past.

There is an extensive political and diplomatic program which we must advocate and work toward, and that includes joining the official institutions of the PLO. Those are our objectives, and that is our new approach.

Should this come to pass, it could help erode Israel’s widely-embraced notion that there is “no partner,” because the Palestinian leadership is too divided to agree or implement an accord.

Finally, with relation to Israel, Hamad states openly that Hamas accepts 1967 borders without recognizing Israel. It’s not the first time Hamas has indicated support for 1967 as the basic borders. Khaled Mashal stated so last November, in a CNN interview on the day of the ceasefire that ended the Pillar of Defense war in Gaza:

We have two options… the way of peace and a Palestinian state, according to the border of 1967 with the right to return. And this is something we have agreed upon as Palestinians, as a common program.

But it was an ambiguous time. Just a few weeks later, when the UN held a vote on accepting Palestine based on the 1967 borders as a non-member observer state, Hamas flip-flopped, eventually lending grudging support. A year earlier, when the possibility of a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) also arose, Hamas figures roundly rejected the idea, calling it “nonsense” and a “scam.” The fact that Hamad now explicitly and repeatedly states acceptance of ‘67 lines, to an Israeli interviewer, shows much greater clarity on this policy issue.

But in the same breath Hamas says: “We do not say ‘two states,’” and “Hamas does not recognize Israel.”

What does this mean? In fact, it is only confusing if one fails to appreciate the symbolic aspect of politics, diplomacy, conflict and political change. Hamas has opted to become a player rooted in the world of political facts, rather than fantasies that are de-linked from reality. In reality, its leaders know that there will be no Palestinian state west of the Green Line, and its policy statements reflect that.

But Hamas is also a symbol of political community. It is the community of resistance against Israel (“as long as the occupation continues,” he says. If Palestine is 1967, then this is a finite struggle). It also distinguishes them from Fatah, which is increasingly identified with failure to end the occupation, or even blamed for perpetuating it.

Violence was once the primary meaning of “resistance.” Yet Hamas has largely relinquished violence now: Hamad emphasizes that “armed struggle remains a right,” but that “popular uprising” (the term for the unarmed protests – ds) is the tactical preference.

Hamas put a stop to its resistance [terrorist attacks]. It respects the cease-fire. There has been a major change in policy.

Therefore the remaining symbol of Hamas’ political identity is resistance to recognizing Israel – a symbolic measure in itself, for it affects the life of no one. It clings to this even as its policies now acknowledge political facts.

Further, recognition in any formal form will be a major symbolic concession to the other side. Israel will probably eventually negotiate with Hamas, in some combination with other Palestinian leaders. Recognition of Israel is also a bargaining chip for that stage; one that would not logically be surrendered beforehand.

Deeply committed ideological players in a conflict cannot be expected to change rapidly or openly, and their symbolic identity will be the last to go. But consider this: Mustafa Akyol reads Israel’s apology to Turkey as a sign of incremental openness to dealing with moderate Islamic political forces. By analogy, we might hope that Hamas’ empirical analysis of the situation has shifted, and its policy has followed. Maybe its symbolic stance is next in line.

Welcome to Iqrit. The revivers of the village (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

In 1948, the Christian Orthodox village of Iqrit surrendered to the IDF without a fight. When soldiers ordered residents to leave for two weeks for security reasons, considering the village is extremely close to the Lebanese boarder, nobody thought twice about it. Three years later, in July 1951, when the High Court of Justice ordered the state to fulfill its promise and allow the displaced people, who were still living in temporary houses in other villages, to return to their homes and lands, the small community was thrilled. But on Christmas Eve of that year the IDF blew up the entire village, leaving only the church in place. The people of Iqrit realized that something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.

Labeeb and Marth Ashkar holding a picture of the village they were deported from in 1948 (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

Since then, sixty-four years have passed. In the summer of 2012, like in all other summers since 1995, the entire displaced community organized a summer camp for their youth on village lands near the old church that they frequent on a monthly basis. They told the youngsters tales of village life and explained to them once again how they have been fighting for their right of return, a right which was guaranteed to them by courts and governments alike over the years. Iqrit is one of only two cases in Israeli history in which such promises have been made (the other being the nearby village of Bir’em).

The summer camp ended, and as everybody was returning home, some of the guides got to talking. They were sad to see how the generation of their grandparents was slowly fading away, and feared that whatever implementation of their recognized rights they had been unable to achieve in 64 years would not be achieved anytime soon. It was then and there that they decided to do something. They decided to return.

The young villagers of the New Iqrit enjoying lunch outside the church (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

Six months have passed since that day. While three Palestinian outposts in the West Bank were erected and swiftly destroyed by the army – the youth of Iqrit were able to stay. Indeed, whenever they try to build something outside the church and its single adjacent room, authorities quickly show up to demolish it. But other than that, they’ve been living rough and making it happen: planting and growing their own food, collecting timber for  fire, unearthing ruins of the old village, uploading pictures to their Facebook page from their mobile phones (there’s no electricity for computers), and making plans for the entire community’s future return.

Singer and theater man Walaa Sbeit in the outspost (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

Along with Activestills photographer Oren Ziv, I spent three days at this unique outpost/commune where young Palestinians are turning the dream of return into a reality. We interviewed them, as well as some of the older folk from the village who are fully supporting their young, and brought back with us their story. The piece I wrote was published in Haaretz a couple of weeks ago, but was not translated into English (the Hebrew origin can be found here). Last Friday, Channel 2′s “Ulpan Shishi,” the most watched news broadcast in Israel, ran a follow-up report to my Haaretz piece. It is quite unique that a mainstream platform seriously deals with the sensitive issue of the Palestinian Nakba, and the people of Iqrit hope that the massive (and mostly positive) attention they got will help them get back their lands – 64 years too late.

Dispite a unique rulling by the High Court in 1951 villagers are still not allowed to return (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

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Police brings down Palestinian outpost, activists resist peacefully
Palestinians erect third West Bank outpost, are attacked by IDF, settlers

By Idan Landau

Amir Peretz, Tzipi Livni and Amram Mitzna – the faces of Hatnua (photo: Yotam Ronen / Activestills.org)

On November 27, 2012, Tzipi Livni announced that she will be running for the upcoming elections as part of the newly-foundd Hatnua party, which presents itself as a diplomatic alternative to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The party seeks to promote the peace processs wth Palestinian Authority and supports two states for two people. Two former Labor Party chairmen, Amram Mitzna and Amir Peretz, have left their old party and joined forces with Livni.

The following post was written by Israeli blogger Idan Landau, and was first published on his blog [Hebrew]: 

I had no intention to write about the elections. I think no differently of them now than I did three years ago: I still look in astonishment at the finest analytical minds in Israel splitting hairs over the black hole which swallowed Israeli politics, popularly known as “the center.” I was certainly not going to write about Hatnua (“The Movement”), which is to say, the standstill between Tzipi Livni and Amir Peretz. Honest to God. I don’t care for politicians, and even less so during election season.

But then Hatnua’s billboard campaign came along: “Bibi and Lieberman – mess, Tzipi Livni – Peace. Food for thought from Hatnua.” The buck stops here. How much abuse can we take? Six words per poster? Appalling colors, junior high graphics, and last but not least: “Tzipi Livni – Peace.” They didn’t even bother to put a verb in there. Will bring peace? Doesn’t like peace? Peace out?

In short, after brushing my clothes off from some of the trash poured over me by Hatnua, I took some time to do what their posters tell me to do: Think. I sat and I thought and this is what I’ve come up with.

Here are some facts you may have forgotten about Livni (and Peretz):

1. The last time Livni and Peretz were in power wasn’t that long ago. Livni was foreign minister from May 2006 to March 2009, Peretz was defense minister between May 2006 and June 2007. In this short period of time Livni and Peretz, along with Olmert, managed to bring about the death of over 2,000 innocent civilians in two military operations which Israel initiated and which ended in crushing political defeats. During the Second Lebanon War, Israel killed some 1,200 civilians in Lebanon, and in Cast Lead Israel killed nearly 800 civilians. No “self defense” justified these crimes, and even when viewed through the narrowest of strategic prisms, both operations only emboldened Hezbollah and Hamas, respectively, and strengthened them militarily. The Olmert government was the most murderous government in Israeli history, much more so than the current Netanyahu government – Livni and Peretz were directly involved in authorizing its brutal military campaigns.

2. This has already resulted in arrest warrants in the United Kingdom against both Peretz and Livni on suspicion of war crimes (the one against Livni was withdrawn under diplomatic pressure.) Only in Israel can two politicians haunted by such grave suspicions set up a party and run for parliament under the slogan of advancing peace.

3. Peretz’s lamentable acceptance of the defense portfolio in Olmert’s government amounted to his squandering of the vast political credit handed to him by a broad section of the Israeli public. If you didn’t see the heartbroken social activists who brought Peretz to the helm of the Labor party (which got 19 seats in the 2006 elections), you haven’t seen political betrayal in your life. The freshly-made defense minister pursued his peaceful vision with enviable zeal: in his year in power,  Peretz authorized the expansion of four settlements and signed off the establishment of the new and highly notorious settlement of Maskiot – the first new standalone settlement in a decade.

4. Tzipi Livni’s vision for peace is just as tantalizing. It’s based on two manifestly peacenik principles: complete and utter refusal of any kind of contacts with Hamas, and the maintenance of endless negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, with the sole purpose of – maintaining negotiations.

5. Sober stateswoman Livni is yet to internalize the fact Hamas were elected in Gaza. Just before Operation Cast Lead the-then foreign minister announced that the Hamas regime in the Strip needs to be toppled. This came to define the character of the operation, with its massive bombardment of government offices and civilian infrastructure, and this also guaranteed its failure. Livni is so repulsed by the very idea of having to have a direct exchange of words with any member of Hamas that she opposed the prisoner exchange deal that got Gilad Shalit home. At the end of Operation Pillar of Cloud Livni swung to Netanyahu’s right and attacked him for reaching indirect understandings with Hamas; as far as she is concerned, talking to Hamas is sheer heresy.

Up until a few years ago mainstream Israeli politician used to swear by never talking with Hamas. It was a mantra, an entry ticket into the consensus, not unlike the one that held that “Jerusalem must not be divided!” But since that time, certain developments took place and mantras began breaking down -  and  I’m not talking about the Left. People like Shaul Mofaz, Yehiel Zohar (a Likud man and the mayor of rocket-stricken town of Netivot), Brig.Gen. (res.) Shlomo Gazit and even, dig this, dyed-in-the-wool right winger and Nobel Laureate Prof. Yisrael Oman – all of them have been talking, directly or indirectly, about the need to start direct negotiations with Hamas. No one is deluding himself that a comprehensive peace agreement can be signed with Hamas in the near future (or ever), but the pragmatic realization has already arrived: ceasefire agreements, border crossings and any other conflict should be resolved vis-a-vis the elected government that can execute and enforce its policies – the Hamas government.

This rather elementary understanding has escaped Tzipi Livni, as it did Khaled Meshal. It did not escape Ahmad Jabari, a potential partner for pragmatic arrangements, and this is precisely why Israel took him out. Livni is an old-school hawk donning the feathers of a diplomatic dove. Just like the Israeli leaders of the 1980′s, who utterly rejected negotiations with the PLO (while still chattering about “our outstretched hand”), Livni is fighting the diplomatic wars of yesteryear – at the expense of the victims of political violence on both sides of the fence. And she still has the nerve to talk about “a diplomatic accord.”

6. Livni’s naysaying is manifest not only in what she says, but also in what she does – not only vis-a-vis Hamas, but also vis-a-vis the Palestinian Authority, that same supposed partner she’ll never cease to praise. The manner of her engagement with the PA is left virtually undiscussed, despite everything it reveals about the true essence of the Israeli peace camp’s princess.

Livni’s vision for peace is based on two manifestly peacenik principles: complete and utter refusal of any kind of contacts with Hamas, and the maintenance of endless negotiations with the Palestinian Authority(photo: flickr / Tzipi Livni – ציפי לבני CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Last month, Livni got a rather awkward compliment: the head of the National Security Council and former national security adviser Uzi Arad described her involvement in the Annapolis process thus: “Tzipi Livni was steadfast in the most impressive way to insist upon key interests and national principles.” This compliment is intended for the ears of those in the know, and still, to each and every leftist, a compliment from a man like Arad should have sounded an alarm bell. So here’s a very condensed version of the story.

Do you remember the Palestine Papers? For a brief moment, in January 2011, the world reeled at the exposure of documents from the talks held between the PA and Ehud Olmert’s government in 2008. The Israeli team at the talks was led by Tzipi Livni, who negotiated with the head of the Palestinian team, Abu Alaa. The embarrassing documents were immediately denied by both parties; after all, they presented the Israeli side as obstinately rejectionist and the Palestinians as sycophantic collaborators.

Livni played a central part in this historical fiasco: it was she who rejected, with unconcealed contempt, Abu Alaa’s meek attempt to discuss the partition of Jerusalem (“Huston, we have a problem,” Livni sneered, apparently unaware she was presenting Israel, not the PA, as afloat in outer space.)

Here is how I summed up the revelations of the Palestine Papers at the time:

The leader of the “sane majority” in the Israeli parliament is revealed here as an utra-rightist hawk. Livni rejects out of hand any compromise in the vast expanse fictitiously known as “East Jerusalem.” She rejects a proposal that leaves Israel with all the neighborhoods of “East Jerusalem” except Har Homa; a proposal that forecloses the eviction of 413,000 settlers; a proposal that partitions the Old City according to the Clinton Parameters; a proposal for joint administration of Temple Mount; and, finally, a proposal that contains an unprecedented withdrawal from the physical exercise of the right of return, and makes do with the return of 100,000 refugees over ten years, which will even be off-set by the 300,000 Palestinians that will be excised from Israel’s own territory. All these were turned down by the same Tzipi Livni who still sees herself as having done more than any of her predecessors for peace with the Palestinians. She pushes the blame for the failure of the talks on just about everyone else – Netanyahu, Abu Alaa, the elections – everyone but herself. And to cement her position as a bona fide dove, she goes so far as to offer to transfer several Arab villages from Israel into Palestine.

By hardening the Israeli stance multiple degrees beyond the Taba Accords and rejecting the most far-reaching Palestinian proposal ever to be placed upon the negotiation table, Livni betrayed the mandate awarded by her constituents, especially the thousands of left-wing voters who defected to Kadima from Labor and from Meretz: the mandate to make peace. It is true that the proposition would not necessarily have passed the test of the Palestinian street; but this is not why Livni buried it (and if she was a real leader, she would have strived for an agreement that would have passed that test in both communities.)

And yet, if I were to put on the cynical (and most common) pundit hat, I would say this: Livni made a brilliant political move. If I were Erekat, I would check whether it was her people who leaked the documents. Their publication positions Livni as a “considerate, responsible leader” who doesn’t compromise one iota on security issues. The Israelis love her now, and will reward her in the next election. Israelis like rewarding those who put their very lives at risk.

The last few lines were a kind of a bitter prophecy, currently being made true before our very eyes. In two weeks, Livni is going to reap the crop of her intransigence (a persistent and strong insistence upon national principles, as Arad had put it), all under the the slogan of “striving for a peace accord.” There will not be another proposition as far-reaching as the one the Palestinians made in the 2008 talks. The Palestinian Authority was then at its weakest, still dazed by the Hamas victory in Gaza, and desperately needed a diplomatic breakthrough to justify its existence. Livni is yet to be held to account for this historical oversight – worthy to stand alongside Golda Meir’s rejection of Sadat and Sharon’s pointed disregard for the Arab Peace Initiative. Quite the contrary: the Left is lavishing her with every possible honour. Maybe that’s where the expression “loony left” comes from.

And one more note: Another leaked diplomatic document, dating back to January 2007, reveals Livni does not believe it’s possible to reach a peace agreement with Mahmoud Abbas. Livni denied it, of course, but everything she did since indicates the estimate had been accurate. She was not guided by a sincere attempt to achieve diplomatic breakthrough, but by an attempt to create the image of one who strives toward diplomatic breakthrough. This particular pursuit is well known ever since the dark days Mapai -  from Abba Even to Shimon Peres, the idea was always to prolong and protract the negotiations infinitely but always pull the breaks early enough in the process, before any actual compromise is signed over. This is yet another reason why Livni is adulated by the old Left: it sees her as the spiritual heiress of Labor diplomats.

7. If Livni’s not on the diplomatic Left, perhaps she’s on the social Left? Not really. Tzipi LIvni does not enjoy talking about social and economic issues (does anyone recall her saying anything at all during the 2011 protest?) but when she does speak out, she reveals an archetypical neoliberal character. Not as radical as Netanyahu’s and Lieberman’s, perhaps, but certainly a faithful reflection of the Israeli capitalist elite, or, in short: a part of the problem, not part of the solution. Livni supports the bare minimum of state intervention with the market, tax cuts and cuts to government spending. For the benefit of Amir Peretz, we’d also like to note that Livni was the chair of the Government Companies Authority in the first Netanyahu government, presiding over a swathe of mass privatization moves. She’s the one who actually coined the “privatize anything that moves” phrase. Among other assets, Livni carried out the privatization of Israel Chemicals, the company mining the Dead Sea. The company was bought by the Ofer family in what turned out to be a colossally shambolic deal that cost the Israeli public hundreds of millions of dollars.

In sum, any resemblance between what Livni says and what she actually does should be seen as coincidental.

So why does such a large chunk of the left sees Livni as its leader?

The short answer is: The public is stupid, and the public will pay. People are impressed by words, not actions. Livni built an entire political career on relentless bickering with Netanyahu: jabs, reprimands and accusation resting entirely upon thin air. As soon as she was in power, she did exactly what Netanyahu would have done in her place.

The rest of it is psychology and sociology. Contrary to what it tells itself, the Left in Israel also votes from the gut, not from the brain, and again its own interest – just like the way it likes to imagine right-wing slum-dwellers. This camp perceives Livni as one of its kind: Jewish, Ashkenazi, secular, native-born, socialist, nationalist, and, in short, “Ahusel” – the Hebrew acronym of these traits, coined by the late sociologist Baruch Kimmerling to describe the old Israeli elites. Livni might be far from socialist, but as we said, gut, not brain. It’s not for nothing Livni’s been dubbed “the great white hope” – a monicker as distasteful as it is true.

The Ahusel public has been locked, for years, in a doomed and desperate rearguard battle for primacy in Israeli society; it’s rallying to Livni so that she restores its feeling of ownership over the state. This chimes in perfectly with Livni’s perception of herself and her conduct in politics; under her leadership, the idea of “opposition” was rendered void of any substance, because someone so convinced that they were born to rule cannot really mount a proper opposition to a government. And, finally, Livni benefits from gender support as a “strong woman” and her alliance with Amir Peretz may well allow her voters to portray themselves devoid of anti-Mizrachi racism. A bit of everything, in short. This tightly woven tapestry of images, cravings and wistfulness is fact-proof. The “Tzipi Livni brand” has long since overshadowed “the politician” – a rejectionist of peace, an enthusiastic advocate of bombing civilian populations, a serial privatizer. This is the only explanation for why Hatnua enjoys the support of some 300,000 Israelis, most of whom probably see themselves as left wing. This is the only explanation for a veteran leftist activist, a supporter of negotiating with Hamas, who, in fact, launched a public petition for other leftists to support Livni. Loony left.

“Netanyahu’s record is better than Livni’s: the quantity of innocent blood on his hands is about 20 times as small, and there is no missed historical opportunity in negotiations with the Palestinians written under his name.” (photo: Yotam Ronen / Activestills.org)

Kadima has been a tactical strike against Israeli democracy. This party, which has stolen half the votes of the Left and essentially demolished it, which has served as a Trojan horse that brought into the Knesset a horde of racist nationalists and legislative subcontractors for capitalists, which has broken all records of zig-zagging between coalition and opposition, which has torn open a black hole in the heart of Israeli politics otherwise known as “the center,” which continues to swallow anything that comes near – this party has its copyright and trademark signed for by the great, clean-handed white hope – Tzipi Livni. Livni didn’t leave Kadima with disgust, she retired reluctantly after being forced out of leadership. The same is true for Amir Peretz, who sold Labor to Olmert on the very cheap and now tells us he joined Livni for the sake of her diplomatic vision (and since he is no idiot, he must be a liar.) If the Israelis judged their representatives based on actions rather than their words, people like Livni and Peretz would be ashamed to show their face in public.

The most infuriating false argument often made at this point is: “Who shall we vote for then? Livni is the lesser evil.” No, Livni is an evil with one hell of a record. Netanyahu’s record is, in fact, better than Livni’s: the quantity of innocent blood on his hands is about 20 times as small, and there is no missed historical opportunity in negotiations with the Palestinians written under his name. Yair Lapid’s record is empty, and therefore, also better; and there are still a few more genuienly leftist parties around. I don’t think these elections are particularly important; the distance between the Knesset and the actual urgent political issues of the day is still enormous, and it won’t be bridged on January 22nd. But in politics, failures are expected to remove themselves, not to go on spilling old lies in strong pastel colors all over the public. And the public should finally stop gulping it all up.

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A survey conducted in Gaza this September showed that a majority of its residents would prefer Fatah to Hamas if elections were held. Early this month President Mahmoud Abbas spoke again of a two state solution and even hinted at compromising on the right of return.

What could Israel do in light of this but start a war? Israel can’t deal with peace. It has become a war machine, and I’m not referring only to its over-militant decision makers and those who take their orders. Decades of media bias and dogmatic education managed to turn its citizens into a blinded mob that always support violence: today’s Haaretz poll shows 84 percent back the current offensive. A foreign television crew with which I work interviewed passersby today on the situation in Gaza. “We know they die by the score there,” one Tel Aviv resident told the camera, “It’s not that we don’t know. We just don’t care.”

Of course Palestinians can be extremely militant and violent. You would be too, after decades of enslavement, and if you believe you could overcome such wrath, well then, you’d be like the majority of Palestinians. As for Hamas, I am not fond of them one bit — notice this piece begins with my faith in a survey that showed it weakening. The thing is, it is (or was, until recent events) weakening.

Meanwhile, the Israeli Right is only becoming more powerful. True, it lies, diverts attention, misinforms and uses fear-mongering to gain power and support. The media effectively dehumanizes Palestinians and fosters our sense of victimhood, and the media is run by powerful people with links to Jerusalem high brass, but the simple people have heads on their shoulders and hearts in their chests. They too share responsibility. We have all been failed by the Israelis in recent days, again, all of us – the world, the Israeli Left, and especially the Palestinians.

The Israeli Left does still exist, and bravely struggles in the face of mounting de-legitimization, but it may finally be declared too small to count. Now that Labor leader Shelly Yachimovitch expressed full support for Netanyahu and Barak’s actions, only the tiny Meretz party (with three seats in the 120 seat Knesset) and the mixed Hadash party (only a minority of whose voters are Jewish) remain to offer an alternative. Both have openly opposed the military offensive.

In Jewish tradition, a dairy dish into which a piece of meat fell remains kosher, so long as that piece of meat is less than sixty times the size of the full dish. It is “batel b’shishim” – “cancelled out by sixty.” The community of Israelis who seek justice, life and human rights isn’t yet the sixtieth part of this country’s population, but alas, we don’t count for much. I would advise those who are unsure of how to feel about the current events not to decide their opinion based on our existence and our actions. Israel does not deserve to have us as a fig leaf.

We Israelis deserve the eternal war we live in. We deserve our murderous government, which is now sailing to the safe port of reelection on a river of Gazan (and some Israeli) blood. We deserve all that for saying yes to death again and again, but the Palestinians, who suffer of the same Bibi’s whims, don’t. They actually reach out for peace, both on the popular level and in formal speeches. Well, maybe not anymore. Not at the moment, not even if the ceasefire does come tonight. Yet another opportunity massacred.

Can we change? Should we never say die? Should I ask all of you, my readers around the world, to put pressure on us, to deny us business and culture so that we are forced to evolve? I don’t know anymore. Do so but without great expectations. It’s up to world leaders to make the difference here, and they need to treat us with enormous toughness, which they hardly seem inclined to show. So it remains: there is no way out, there was, but there isn’t now. A good night to everybody from Tel Aviv, and may the memory of the victims be blessed.

Click here for more +972 coverage on the Israel-Gaza conflict.

To Israelis who genuinely support the two-state solution, Mahmoud Abbas’ interview on Channel 2 last Friday was remarkably far-reaching and courageous, especially what he said about the right of return. Referring to Safed, the Galilee town his family and other Palestinian residents fled during the 1948 war, he said in English:

It is my right to see it, but not to live there.

This enraged Palestinians; thousands of Gazans protested and burned photos of him. To clarify, Abbas told the Egyptian newspaper Al-Hayat:

What I said about Safed is my personal stance. It means nothing about giving up the right of return. No one would give up their right of return. But all those international formulas, especially that of [UN Resolution] 194, speak of a just and agreed-upon solution to the refugee issue, and ‘agreed-upon’ means on the part of Israel.

So has Abbas given up the right of return, or hasn’t he? In the view of the Netanyahu government and its supporters, he hasn’t – the Channel 2 interview was a bluff intended to sucker Israelis, and the interview with Al-Hayat was a retraction that revealed his true beliefs, because what Arab leaders say “in Arabic” is what counts.

For Netanyahu and the Israeli mainstream, giving up the right of return is one of the endless number of hoops the Palestinians must jump through. What they mean by giving it up is that the Palestinians must announce that they are wrong and Israel is right: Safed, Haifa, Jaffa and the rest of the lands the Palestinians fled or were expelled from rightfully belong to Israel, not to them. They have to renounce their claim to their old homeland not only in practice, but in principle; not only as a matter of politics, but of faith; not only in their heads, but in their hearts. That’s “giving up the right of return.” (And when they do that, we’ll find them some more hoops.)

No, Abbas didn’t go nearly that far, and those who insist that he do so are political sadists. Their goal is the Palestinians’ humiliation, nothing else.

What Abbas did do – in the Channel 2 interview, in the Al-Hayat interview, and, according to Palileaks and Ehud Olmert, in the 2008 Annapolis peace talks – is give up his goal of fully implementing the right of return. He gave up the right of return not in principle, but in practice, most remarkably by saying to Al-Hayat – in Arabic – that “all those international formulas” for solving the refugee problem are contingent on Israel’s agreement.

If not for the presidential election, this might make some waves in the  U.S., especially since Shimon Peres, Olmert, Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak went head-on against Netanyahu over Abbas’ remarks, calling them a “brave” overture that Israel ought to respond to in kind. Hopefully, Olmert and Livni will run in the Israeli elections on this issue and remind the public that we still actually do have a problem with the Palestinians. Hopefully, Obama will get re-elected and lead enough Israelis to conclude that Netanyahu has become more of a burden to the country than an asset. Since Olmert and Livni reportedly won’t run unless Obama wins, we’ll be wiser all around after Tuesday night.

By Munir Atalla

Children from the Gaza Refugee Camp, Jerash Jordan. (photo: Munir Atalla)

Last month I worked at the Gaza Refugee Camp in Jerash, Jordan.  The camp is home to about 24,000 Palestinian refugees who left the Gaza Strip in 1968.  Most of the families living there were also displaced in 1948, meaning that they have lost their homes twice in one lifetime.  The majority live on less than $2 a day.  About a quarter live on less than one.

The camp starts unexpectedly.  After the stone ruins of Jerash, one turns left into a valley.  The streets become narrower and the pedestrians more numerous.  Like a punch in the gut, the air begins to smell of hot sewage and rotting fruit. Sweaty and dusty from walking through the camp in the scorching summer, the one word that wouldn’t leave my mind was “hellish.”  The market on the main road is very crowded.  Amongst the frying falafel and bread baking, an old man was selling homemade perfumes.  “Come here young man, I’ll make a personalized scent that will make you irresistible to young women,” he grinned and advertised.

If anything can be said about the inhabitants of the many refugee camps in Jordan, it is that they have shown remarkable resilience in the face of unspeakable injustice.  The people at Gaza Camp are warm and welcoming, albeit suspicious.  Numbers haunt the life of every refugee.  There are passport numbers, national identification numbers, and social security numbers that are denied to them.  There are the statistics that their lives have been reduced to: 24,000 refugees, 2,000 makeshift shelters, 50% unemployment, 0.75 square kilometers.

I introduced myself as a Palestinian student studying in America.  People were irritated with my vagueness, “yes, but where are you from” they asked.  They were asking me from which Palestinian town my family was.  “Jerusalem, although I’ve never really lived there and my parents were born here [in Jordan],” I thought it was necessary to qualify.  “I’m from Jaffa,” chimed one boy.  “Nablusi and proud,” boasted another.  They had probably never seen the places to which they claimed loyalty except though their grandparents’ stories, yet the promise of a homeland was kept close in their hearts, a dream deferred.

I spoke to someone from the camp about the Arab Spring.  Why had it seemingly passed over them?

“You know what Munir, I’m someone who is ‘with’ the Arab Spring not hitting the refugee camps,” she began.

“Historically, every protest in the camps has been met with slaughter.  We are not considered people by the world, so maybe it is best that we just keep our heads down and work in different ways to earn our humanity.”

To have an uprising, there needs to be hope.  Although people here struggle to find water and clothing, hope is the resource that they need most.

I saw how the weight of displacement had manifested itself on each individual generation.  For the old, the homeland is a bittersweet memory.  “Not a day goes by where I don’t think of the house I grew up in,” told me one elderly man in a kuffiyeh.

“Now, as I reach the end of my life, all I want is to be buried by my father’s olive grove.”

The young are just as sentimental, but frustrated with lives spent entirely in refugee camps and used as political pawns.  “People keep telling us ‘right of return, right of return’, but it doesn’t look to me like we’re returning anytime soon.  I want to return, but until then, can’t I live a humane life?”

The argument is a difficult one.  If the refugees settle down, they will be playing right into Israel’s hands.  Zionists have long advocated a “Jordan is Palestine” policy, hoping that time will erase all ties to the land.

I was sitting in the headquarters of the Community Development Office (CDO), an offshoot of UNRWA, when a veiled woman walked in.  She was holding an infant to her chest and dragging a toddler behind her.

“I would like to register for an allowance,” she said, without enthusiasm.  The woman in charge of the office apologized, “We don’t do that here,” she said.

“Please,” the woman protested, “my children are hungry.”

“We don’t have money for that,” the woman in charge frowned, “you’re going to have to go ask the mosque, they’re the ones who do things like this.”

After the woman left, the manager saw me looking annoyed.  She explained to me, “if we granted every request that came through our door, we wouldn’t be able to run a quarter of our programs.”  Religion acts as a safety net for many people in the camps.  When the entire world has left them in the dark, they believe that the light of God still shines on.  I saw how hard the employees at UNRWA work, but how the United Nations has crippled the agency with a miserable budget, and kept entire populations right above starvation and right below revolt.  Like a perfume seller in a refugee camp with no working plumbing, UNRWA’s efforts only serve as a temporary distraction from the inherent problems faced by the refugees.

Munir Atalla is a Palestinian-Jordanian currently entering his second year at Tufts University.  He hopes to major in Cognitive Science, and is involved with advocacy work surrounding the Middle East. A shorter version of this post was originally published on yourmiddleeast.com

Mike Wallace, the legendary host of 60 minutes who passed away on Saturday, interviewed in 1958 Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Abba Eban. It’s an interesting viewing: Eban was the original Mr. Hasbara, unmatched in his mastery of languages and ability to relate to audiences around the world. Many of his talking points, readers may notice, are repeated by Israeli spokespeople to this day, though one cannot really compare Mr. Eban’s cool style with any of his rather vulgar successors. (the cigarette commercials are also a lot of fun.)

Between the lines, you also get a sense of the difference between 1958 Israel – considered the weaker party in the Middle East, without nuclear weapons – and present-day Israel, one of the worlds leading military powers, with a much larger territory, booming economy and (according to foreign sources) second-strike capabilities.

Like all Israeli officials before and after him, Mr. Eban refuses to accept any responsibility for the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem. He does, however, promise that when the Arab countries make an effort to settle the refugees, Israel will do its part in solving the problem (min 5:50 in the video above. Full interview and transcription of the interview can be found on the University of Texas’ website):

There is, I think, a basic immorality in this attitude of Arab governments to their own kinsmen whose plight they could relieve immediately, once the will to relieve it existed. All world opinion admits that the problem can only be solved on a regional basis by opening the vast resources of the Arab world to this Arab refugee population, and if there were such an effort on their part to approach a regional settlement, Israel would make its due and just contribution.

Eban is asked about Israel’s territorial ambitions, and assures Mr. Wallace that his country has none – or at least, that the ruling parties aren’t looking to expand Israel beyond the ceasefire borders that followed the 1948 war. As one of Israel’s leading diplomats, Mr. Eban places great importance on these agreements. He declares that:

Israel does not possess a single inch of territory beyond the valid agreements which she has signed and which United Nations has ratified

Israel, says Ambassador Eban, would also accept a peace agreement on those terms (now referred to as the 1967 borders, which a much stronger Israel rejects).

WALLACE: Mr. Ambassador, do you…. do you foresee further territorial expansion by Israel?

EBAN: Well I don’t like the word “further” Mr. Wallace, because, as I have said, our present boundaries rest upon agreements beyond which we have not encroached, but we certainly do not desire to expand our frontiers. I doubt the reality of this issue. We are prepared to accept a guaranteed settlement with the Arab States on the present frontiers.

Are they so prepared? I wonder whether the issue isn’t one of Arab expansion. Here sit I, the accredited representative of Israel, and I declare that Israel will sign a peace treaty with the Arab States on the present frontier. Now you get an Arab Ambassador sitting here to say that he will have a settlement with Israel on the present frontier, and you will really have a story.

Some of the most interesting questions Ambassador Eban was asked was about Israel’s expectations of the American Jewish Community. The entire exchange (in the video above) is fascinating: it’s hard to imagine it taking place today, when Israel is one of the hottest political currencies in the United States, and even raising some of the following issues is clearly taboo.

WALLACE: Now then, Mr. Eban, regarding the American Jew and the State of Israel, as I said, the anti-Zionist Rabbi, Dr. Elmer Berger, has written, “That the Zionist-Israeli axis imposes upon Jews outside of Israel, Americans of Jewish faith included, a status of double-nationality” a status which he deplores. What’s your answer?

EBAN: Well, Mr. Wallace, I have so many pressing duties that I don’t follow the wisdom of this gentleman perhaps as closely as I should. I will only say this, that we ask no allegiance, we seek no loyalty from anyone who is not a citizen of Israel. There is a kinship of spirit, of emotion, of historic memory between us and those who share our faith throughout the world. If American Jews wish to express that kinship, it is for them so to do; if not, then that also is their decision.

We, as a free nation speaking to a free nation, set forth the reasons why we believe they will find it infinitely rewarding to draw upon our common heritage and to sustain us in our great historic enterprise, but it is their decision and we impose nothing on them at all.

WALLACE: Your own Prime Minister David Ben Gurion wrote back in 1953 this, he said, “When a Jew in America speaks of our government to his fellow Jews, he usually means the government of Israel, while the Jewish public in various countries view the Israeli ambassadors as their own representatives.” Wouldn’t that appear anyway to support Rabbi Berger’s statement?

EBAN: I think not, Mr. Wallace. I’m sure that the Prime Minister was speaking in these terms of historic sympathy, we do evoke a certain affection, certain impulses of responsibility but the clear division of political allegiance is I think fully understood on both sides. We impose nothing upon them; we seek, as I’ve said, no allegiance from them. There is a kinship of history which both, they and we, seek voluntarily to express and for which there are so many examples, both in our own tradition and in yours.

WALLACE: Would a Jew, in your estimation, would a Jew be any the less a Jew if he were opposed to Zionism and to Israel?

EBAN: Well, we are dealing here with subjective terms, “more of a Jew”, or “less of a Jew”. I think it is for Jews outside of Israel to determine the exact degree and measure of their intimacy with us. We believe that Israel’s emergence is the greatest collective event in the history of the Jewish people, and that there is no pride and no dignity for a Jew such as those to be found in giving aid and sustenance to Israel in the great hour of her resurgence.

WALLACE: I still, if I may say so, sir, do not feel that you have been responsive to that question. Can a Jew be a good Jew and still be opposed to Zionism and to Israel?

EBAN: I think that’s for him to decide… I wouldn’t say

WALLACE: But, of course, it is. But in your estimation?

EBAN: In my own personal interpretation, I would say that a man who opposed the State of Israel and the great movement which brought it about, would be in revolt against the most constructive and creative events in the life of the Jewish people, and it’s a fact that the great majority of our kinsmen everywhere, are exalted and uplifted by these events.

WALLACE: But Judaism is a religion, sir

EBAN: It is a religion, and it is a peoplehood, and it is a civilization, and it is a faith, and it is a memory; it is a world of thought and of spirit and of action and it cannot be restrictively defined.

WALLACE: Therefore, in your estimation again, to be a good Jew one has to be more than just a religious practicing Jew, one has to enter the religion and the peoplehood at one and the same time to be a fulfilled Jew.

EBAN: I believe that religion has been the field in which the genius of our people has been most profoundly stirred. But… but being Jewish goes beyond this vital domain, and covers a whole complex of spiritual and other emotions, and that to live within the fullness of Jewish history is a deeply satisfying experience.

h/t Guy West

By Muhammad Jabali

Anybody claiming that state actions are legitimate from a perspective of power should be careful about the logic he legitimizes. For, according to this logic, the power and destruction of others is an essential and necessary part of a nation’s self-definition. This logic not only portrays past violence as essential to the creation of the nation-state, but it also legitimizes continued violence as an existential part of the self.

In the debate on Israeli statehood, the argument for homogeneity always arises, blocking our ability to see the richness and the opportunities excluded from the bilateral glasses that are forced on the political discourse, which make us see the land as two separate units – one for Jews and the other for Arab-Palestinians.

I recently wrote here about the problematic stance of claiming liberalism while holding on to the Jewish statehood claim. Most of the comments objecting to the statements in my previous post were hysterical. They ranged from explicit accusations of warmongering, to suggestions that I just can’t admit that the “Israeli nation” was created just like many other nations were. Other comments claimed that my emphasis on the Judaizing process of the space, which wasn’t empty to begin with, as the essence of the Israeli existence is merely an inflexible insistence on the full realization of the Palestinian refugee right of return. As if I called to bring back every refugee, and his or her descendants, to the same spot in which they had lived before 1948.

I deeply acknowledge the historical fact that to be sincere, one cannot ignore the fact that the Palestinian refugee problem was no exception in the Western existence in the mid-20^th century. The world was full of refugees, having barely recovered from the Second World War. But let’s go further. Can we accept blood-religion-race as the base for citizenship in a modern state? Can we accept a political regime that is not color-blind? What is the difference between imposing a Zionist agenda on the state regime, and imposing the Ba’ath party ideology over the Syrian regime? These agendas grant people access to political power resources only if they themselves privilege the non-democratic state ideology.

I don’t imagine the Palestinian refugee right of return as the destruction of Israeli life. Moreover, I think the insistence of the “return” of all of the refugees and their descendants is also destructive for the Arab population. I hope for the right of return to be part of a larger vision for the region. I hope for all of the region’s regimes to be regimes for all their citizens. I do think that most of the Palestinian refugees should be granted the right to enjoy a link to the land; the right to visit, move freely and reestablish family bonds with those who remained inside the state of Israel; to reestablish some kind of Palestinian existence where the landscape allows for it; and to be granted compensation where the return to the land is impossible without exiling others. Resolving the Nakba doesn’t have to be imagined only in ways that destroy what is here now. That would mean more than the destruction of Israel – asking the refugees to abandon three generations of existence in the rest of the Arab world, in order to “return,” would actually create another Nakba for those many Palestinians who know and cherish another life. The true extremists are those who try to mask a segregationist discourse contaminated with Islamophobic and colonialist presumptions of the “self” and the “other,” portraying the right of return as the destruction of the Jewish existence.

Viewing the “Jewish existence” or “Israeli existence” as monolithic and completely connected to “statehood” is misleading, related to the imaginary of an urban, secular, Western society with immigrant dreams of the “new man” – like the American self-image.  The most disturbing thing about this self-image that it is necessarily not Arab. To my mind comes a story by the brilliant Sami Michael (translated here from the Hebrew by me), recounted on the back cover of Yehouda Shenhav’s book “The Arab Jews,” in which he describes seeming to be an “Arab” in New York, while reading a book in Hebrew. He is approached by a Brooklyn Jewish woman who asks, “Where are you from?” Michael, cleverly guessing where the question is leading, answers “Jerusalem.” The lady asks, “But which side of Jerusalem?” Michael replies, “The northern part.” The lady persists, “What northern part, east or west?” He answers, “That depends where are you standing.” The lady then asks the inevitable question, “Are you a Jew or an Arab? “Michael responds with a smile: “Both!” The lady, puzzled by the answer, says, “There can’t be both an Arab and a Jew. There are only European Jews. Isn’t the Arab trying to kill the Jew?” Michael replies with the answer, “But isn’t the European the one who already killed the Jew?”

Denying the right of return means much more than the words generally used to justify it through hollow statements like, “It will mean the end of the Jewish state.” It has deep significance for the dynamics of the relationships between the peoples in this shared space. It has significance for the self-image of the Israeli. It justifies cleansing Arabs and Arabic culture from “Jewishness.” It also in turn justifies an Arab world clean of Jews. It means that Jews live here, and Arabs live there. In addition, it means that not only does it make it impossible to be a democratic Palestinian Arab living under the regime, but it also makes a democratic identity nearly impossible for Arab Jews. For, if they choose to be attached to their Arabic identity, they are also doomed to be more “Jewish,” more conservative and even more religious and right wing, in order to justify their existence in the Israeli project: their relation to Israeliness is reaped from glorifying the religious idea of the land of the Jews, an Israeliness that denies full citizenship to secular, pro-democracy Arabs.

By Bernard Avishai

At bottom, the question my Harper’s piece tries to answer is deceptively simple and by no means relevant to the Palestinian right of return alone. It is this: how can a democratic state, a commonwealth of free citizens, be reconciled with the right of citizens, collectively, to sustain national distinction? How is an individual’s right to conscience and property reconciled to a nation’s right to draw boundaries, legal and geographical? The tension between these rights may seem tangential to Middle East violence, but if two democratic states are going to emerge here, both Israelis and Palestinians will have to come to a common standard for resolving it, for each other, but also for themselves.

Assume, as the piece does, that the Palestinians’ most poignant claims are reasonable (and ignore for the moment whether some Israelis have similar claims): assume, that is, that the suffering and material losses of refugees need to be recognized and compensated, indeed, that the right of refugees to choose among various modalities for redress (including return to their lands and homes, “at the earliest practicable date” as stipulated in U.N. 194) must be realized as part of any final peace. Assume, further, that this right, which is inherently one of individuals and families, is of a piece with the right of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel to live in a country in which they are equal to all other citizens.

How, then, do such claims stack up against, and work with, the most poignant claims of Israeli Jews–inherently a collective claim–that Jewish civilization should find new and modern forms, or at least not be extinguished; that Israel is and will continue to be the Jewish national home? How to honor the democratic individual, liberalism, in (to use the vernacular) a “Jewish state”? For that matter, how do the individual rights of people ordinarily considered Jewish, but who (like me) reject Halachic obligations, shape the laws of a Jewish state?

The answer I tried to offer is the one virtually all democratic states have come up with, which I discussed at length in The Hebrew Republic. Israel should of course be a state of its citizens, that is, guarantee equality and freedom of conscience, and search for many confederative relations with a Palestinian state where feasible and sensible. But all citizens of Israel should be educated in Hebrew, or to a working knowledge of it. Hebrew should be the default, though not the only official, language of the state bureaucracy (i.e., you must be able to speak write in Hebrew to work for it, though the state should offer help in Arabic and English to people who cannot) and the default language of work.

Practically, Hebrew should be the main language of state-supported high schools and institutions of higher education. It should be required on every sign. And so forth. In addition, the commercial calendar should reflect the practices of the most widely practiced religious observances: this means the right not to work on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, and Friday for that matter, though people who do so voluntarily should not be forced not to. This is how virtually every EU country handles national claims and how Quebec handles its special status within Canada.

Palestinians should therefore endorse this basic Israeli national right as a quid pro quo for Israelis endorsing the Palestinians’ individual rights, among them the right of return. Actually, both sides, if they aim to be democracies, have an immanent stake in both kinds of rights–and the ways these rights are made to complement one another. Palestinians should insist that, in endorsing Israel’s right to sustain a Jewish national home, they are not thereby endorsing material discrimination against people who lack J-positive blood (as is currently the case). Israel must change: secular freedoms must be the standard all around (a point Fatah is trying to hold off Hamas with, and Israeli liberals should reinforce). Israelis, for their part, should insist that the right of return must be realized in ways that reflect the desire of Israelis to incubate Jewish linguistic and cultural difference. Where the two rights clash, confederative institutions may soften hard lines.

SOME WILL ARGUE that Hebrew language protection is not enough to make Israel “Jewish.” I reject this. Language is not some inert instrument of communication merely signifying realities external to us. It is what we really mean by “nation,” more formative than the shared territory that, historically was the key to enabling language itself to be shared. We ought to take for granted what everyone from Wittgenstein to Orwell (and, more recently, fellow Montrealer Steven Pinker) have taken for granted, that a language is a nuanced way of grasping one’s most intimate relations and the stuff of the material world.

Language, moreover, is as human and formative as touching members of your family. It contains within its precincts the accumulated experiences, signs and detritus of a collective story. Spend a day with the OED, or the Even Shohan, dictionary. The word “civilization” must spring to mind. Language gives one direct access to a people’s classical literature, myths, religious ideas, criticism, legal precepts. It gives identity, shapes the mouth and tongue and imagination. It is the background music of one’s life, the dreamscape of sleep.

And Zionism at its most radical understood this. The idea of an independent state (so-called “political Zionism”) was a minor chord from the start. It was not officially adopted as a goal until the Biltmore Conference of 1942. (It was formally rejected in 1931.) But the idea that building Hebrew-speaking colonies and cities would provide Jews the means to live as moderns, with individual liberties, and yet remain custodians of a Jewish civilization that would otherwise disappear–well, that was there in Zionism from the start.

I know I am repeating myself (I tell this story at length in The Tragedy of Zionism), but some things cannot be said often enough. This “cultural Zionism” inspired the people who called themselves Zionists from Achad Haam and Weizmann to Ben-Gurion to Yehuda Amichai. It is still the crucial fact of Israel. It is not gone because reactionary leaders or Halachic mullahs distort Zionist history, or just take Hebrew for granted. Any American Jewish visitor to Israel senses how out-of-it he or she is as soon as the novelty of Hebrew letters on the supermarket wears off.

AND YET, CRUCIALLY, the Hebrew language, like contemporary Israeli music, is inherently inclusive. A kid from Nazareth can groove on Matti Caspi. The Palestinian Arab Israeli activist, now in exile, Azmi Bishara, told me he owed his political education to the psychological subtly of Achad Haam. Similarly, the kid of a kid from Bialystok like myself goes to McGill and finds himself an heir of Thomas Hobbes. But he also lives, if he wishes, in Hebrew and Yiddish and French. Indeed, collective identity is only enriched by this kind of hybridization.

Nor is the Jewish religion, in all of its forms, diminished in a Hebrew-speaking state that does not privilege any religion. Acolytes of the Anglican religion in Canada are not impoverished because the Canadian state, in offering cultural protection of English, does not privilege members of the Anglican church. The Hebrew language provides a background, a framework, in which voluntary and self-funded Jewish congregations might thrive. But the state is not a person or a congregation. Where, if not in a Hebrew Republic, would an orthodox Jew rather live?

In short, the Hebrew language is the collective material upon which an individual citizen works his or her magic. It is the basis for freedom to, not just freedom from. It is the means through which Israelis construct fictions about one another, riff on the poetics of the Jewish past, innovate the art and technology that seeds the future. Sayed Kashua can use Hebrew to, among other things, mock the foibles of Israeli Jews and advance the equality of Arab citizens. But in the very way he uses Hebrew, with its inescapable allusions to Torah culture, and modern Israeli shtick, he is paying Jewish civilization an unprecedented tribute.

WHAT MY ARTICLE really aims to make vivid, then, is not just a psychologically necessary process (Israelis recognize Palestinians’ rights to freedom and “return,” Palestinians recognize Israelis’ right to a national home) but an end-point in justice: two states, each committed to the equality of all of its citizens, each tied to the other in a host of confederative relations, but each recognizing the national life, the language and collateral culture, the other is trying to preserve.

These states would have to use confederative institutions to square circles where necessary: say, by allowing Jerusalem to remain united while serving as a capital for two states; or by offering a legal innovation allowing permanent residency but not citizenship, so that Arabs living in Israel who wish to educate in Arabic rather than Hebrew can do so, and vice versa. The territory in question is so small that such solutions are inevitable and feasible–unless, of course, fanatics on both sides simply bring us to a fight to the finish.

And I am reviewing these ideas because various bloggers have written to criticize the article yet seemed unwilling to engage the ideas themselves. Perhaps I might have made things clearer. But at least some of this criticism seemed less bothered with the article’s ideas than with the chance to depict its author as an instance of a type. Does this kind of thing really advance our thinking?

One writer, apart from questioning my reporting skills, laments “liberal Zionism” (whatever that is) and its media power. Another comes to the defense of liberal Zionists “like Avishai” but with arguments and formulations that are not mine and I would never endorse (e.g., that Israel, as a Jewish state, “inherently privileges Jewish citizens over Arab citizens”). Yet another congratulates me for abandoning the two-state process, which any balanced reader could see I have not; and for offering confederative ideas, ostensibly “moving” closer to his own position, though I began advocating for these same ideas in various op-eds over twenty years ago, and even in this short New Yorker article in 1995.

I understand how radioactive this subject is. And writers are lying when they pretend not to like the attention. But things are pretty bad here now, and even if broad conceptions of justice cannot pull us out, ad hominem attacks certainly won’t. If my argument is wrong–not just hopeless, or coming from the wrong mouth, or typical of a political type, but unjust–then I’d be grateful for refutations or refinements. Then again, if the argument is more or less sound, can we not talk about how to build on it?

Bernard Avishai, adjunct professor of business at Hebrew University, is the author, most recently, of The Hebrew Republic. He’s written for The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, The New Yorker, and many other publications. His new book, Promiscuous: “Portnoy’s Complaint” and Our Doomed Pursuit of Happiness, will be published in April 2012.

Related:
Avishai’s follow-up post, suggesting clauses for a final status agreement
American Jews shocked as essence of Zionism is exposed
To solve the Zionism debate, create one state
Can one be a liberal and a Zionist without being a liberal Zionist?
The Zionism debate: When colonialism is embedded in liberalism
Response to Joseph Dana: A case for liberal Zionism
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