Woe my country you were abandoned to the misdeeds of extreme people, hooligans who in their fanaticism bring us to devastation in order to bring us to die as heroes. We, if we want to live, should not stand by and let these extreme people bring inevitable destruction to our beloved country.
Jewish history has known fanatic heroes as Elazar Ben Yair, a fanatic political assassin and the leader of the Masada suicide heroes, and Bar Kochba, the leader of the rebellion. Their arrogant fanaticism brought destruction upon us.
We do not have the privilege to be arrogant people; to assume that we can continue to be the Palestinian people’s oppressors and, for a long period of time stand against the fundamentalist Muslim world and at the same time to raise against us the western progressive world.
In order for us to win the progressive’s world, including a large population of Muslims who are also threatened by the extreme, support, we have to behave wisely and with humility, and above all to be just not only in our eyes, but also in the eyes of others, our allies.
To behave wisely means to be freed of paralyzed patterns of thinking and stop using overused slogans. To behave wisely means to admit that the fanatic Muslim world will never accept a Zionist entity. This is the reason why our demand for the Muslim world to recognize our right to exist (as a condition for negotiations on a bilateral agreement) is to lie to ourselves. It is not wise and not moral, to ask our enemy to deny his dream. As we dreamed for 2000 years to return to our land, the Palestinian people has also the basic right and the existential need to continue dreaming to return to their places as a sovereign people All we have to ensure is that this dream of the Palestinians will not come true at the price of the State of Israel, for the next 2000 years.
How can we ensure our long term existence? By fighting against the whole Muslim world? Or by challenging the human conscience and confining 1.5 million Gaza Strip residents and oppressing the Palestinian people in the West Bank? Could we ensure our existence in our beloved country by establishing an apartheid regime, or a fanatic theocratic regime? May be by establishing a capitalistic society that is alienated and indifferent to the weak? Absolutely no!!!
The condition to continue to exist in this country is our moral ability to sustain here a Jewish society that has pity for the orphan and the widow and that does not abuse stranger who are not Jewish - “The stranger that sojourneth with you shall be unto you as the home-born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God”. This is our command as Jews.
The conflict between us and the Palestinian people can be solved by creating a conceptual distinction which is relatively simple, on a spiritual and practical level. The spiritual level is ruled by emotions and faith and not by wisdom, and there is no compromise here but long term psychological process. For this reason, at the spiritual level we have to agree that everyone is entitled to keep his dream: the Palestinian people will continue to dream to return to their lands in Jaffa, Acre, Tiberius or Zefat, and the people of Israel will have the right to believe that all Eretz Israel belongs to them.
It is obvious that an attempt by either of the people to make their dream come true will lead to bloodshed and the danger of total destruction to both sides. How can we reduce the motivation of both people to try to make their dream come true? The answer is that if the people will have what to loose if they will try to implement their dream, they will not do it.
A rational observation will lead, on the practical level to a painful, but an obligating compromise. The division of the country between the two people could be done in different ways, but it must lead to a reality which will bring the fading of the will to implement the dream, and bring the parties to an arrangement that will bring the sides to recoil from the other’s strength. According to this, each side will have an interest to better the other side’s life, because there is an unwritten rule that says that satiated people tend to start wars less then hungry people. At the same time, each side will have to strengthen himself from inside and outside in order to discourage the other side to try and implement his dream.
Despite our army and our strong economy (that is good for the rich people), Israel today is weaker then ever: the disagreements and the alienation among us – right and left, religious and not religious’ rich and poor – disintegrate the people from the inside; Because of how we conduct ourselves other nations do not stand by our side (and it is not only because of anti-Semitism); above all, the belief in our way, the faith that the Jewish state will be a good example for other peoples, a state that “will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel”; (as it is written in the Scroll of Independence), this faith is now been weakened and cracked.
A materialistic compromise can return our inner strength: the ruling on others that dulled our moral senses will be removed and we will be able to be again merciful and we will be able to take the time and stitch together the rags and the disagreement inside us and build a better and stronger society.
To our brothers and sisters who dream about Israel we have to say: it is not easy to give up a dream that seems to be within reach, but if we have on a scale one side the territorial dream and on the other side the existence of the State of Israel (Israel that was established on moral and just), we have to prefer reality over the dream. We have to remember that the Bar Kochba rebellion brought destruction and exile for the Jews, (after it Adrian’s, the Roman Caesar changed the name of the Land of Israel from Judah to Palestine, so ironically, we can say that Bar Kochba, the Jewish rebel is responsible for establishing Palestine). This failed rebellion, as the previous one, must be used as a warning to what can happen if both sides continue to act violently in order to fulfill their opposing dreams. It is better for all of us to keep the dreams on the spiritual level and act wisely in the materialistic world; act practical, in the same way that enabled the existence of the Jewish people for thousands of years despite the actions of the fanatics.
It is possible that in time, that the practical arrangement that started with compromise, will lead to a better life and the “justified” dreams will be put aside to come true only in the far distant future. In the mean time we, and our children will live here in peace. So be it.