April 23, 2009
I lived in Israel from 1996 to 1998, in that weirdly hopeful and tragically short-lived period between the Oslo Accords and the Second Intifada. Israelis and Palestinians were talking, even cooperating, on security issues and commerce. There were two major suicide bombings in Jerusalem in those years, but both sides agreed to keep the process alive despite the bloodshed. Jews and Arabs argued over settlement activity, like Israel’s construction of the Har Homa neighborhood, but that dispute felt more like a zoning battle, not a fight to the finish.
I bring up what seems like ancient history because the prime minister during this time was Benjamin Netanyahu. Bibi was no peacenik but somehow managed to appease his supporters on the Right while sticking to Oslo’s basic tenets. His tone was often grudging, and many argued that by failing to embrace the spirit of the accords he kept Israel from fully enjoying their fruits. But a grudging peace is still peace, and Israelis seemed relieved that the front-page news was the clash between religious and secular Jews, not Arabs and Israelis.
Fast forward a decade, and Bibi’s back in power, as is a Democratic U.S. administration that would like to pick up where the Oslo Accords left off — or were struck down. Obama’s team is blunt in calling for a revival of the two-state solution, just as Netanyahu is frank in refusing to even utter the words.
For many observers, this looks like a collision course: Obama would love to open a new chapter in the Middle East; Netanyahu and his supporters, and even many of his detractors, insist that the timing is all wrong to push for an agreement with a weak Palestinian Authority and a murderous, rejectionist Hamas.
And it may well be in the timing. Even self-described members of the “peace camp,” like Brigadier General (Ret.) Yossi Ben Ari, insist that pushing for a two-state solution in the current climate is a fool’s game. Better to pursue the possibilities of peace with Syria, these doves advise, or advance the Arab peace initiative, and postpone talk of a Palestinian state to a later stage.
And while some hawks are in a self-satisfied lather over hints of “pressure” from the Obama administration, some of their favorite commentators refuse to take the bait. “Endorsing a two-state solution isn’t an attack on Israel’s government,” wrote Barry Rubin in The Jerusalem Post. Netanyahu “doesn’t oppose a two-state solution — and hasn’t for 12 years — but emphasizes this would only happen if and when a Palestinian leadership proves its credibility and makes a decent offer. If the Obama administration says it’s going to succeed, so did its last three predecessors.”
There seems to be plenty of room for consensus here, at least among American Jews. Most of us wholeheartedly support a two-state solution, according to a new ADL survey, but at the same time suspect the timing couldn’t be worse. We’d like to see Obama use his considerable smarts and powers of persuasion to change hearts and minds in the Middle East, but can’t quite see how he solves the puzzle of Hamas and the PA. And in the meantime, we’d like both sides to make the concrete and symbolic gestures that keep the possibility of peace alive, if only on life support.
It would be a shame, however, if we misread this moment and give the two-state solution a premature burial. Netanyahu has a track record of surprising his critics and confounding his allies, and there’s no reason to believe he is any less a pragmatist than he was the last time he ran the show.
And if pragmatism doesn’t win the day, how about Jewish values? It would also be a tragic setback if the current climate leads us to forget what makes the two-state solution a moral imperative.
Rabbi Donniel Hartman, a voice of dovishness in Israel’s Modern Orthodox camp, wrote a piece this week restating why a two-state solution is a matter of Jewish values. In brief:
- “The principle of land for peace is that peace is more important than land, and the quality of life a more significant Jewish virtue than the sum total of space in which that life is lived.”
- “The two-state solution is a declaration that we as Jews do not want to politically dominate another people.”
- “Without a two-state solution, the demographic balance between Jews and Arabs will be such that maintaining a Jewish state will only be possible if we become a totalitarian regime.”
Hartman, codirector of Jerusalem’s Shalom Hartman Institute, is no naif. He is aware of the security risks Israel faces if it gives up military control over the West Bank, and is as despairing as anyone over the state of the Palestinian Authority and the power of Hamas.
Netanyahu “must be given the time to construct his vision for Israel’s future,” concludes Hartman. “This future, however, while not compromising on our security, must also not compromise on our values. Let’s learn how to separate as a people our discussion of our vision and aspirations from the more mundane, but nevertheless equally important discourse on implementation.
“To allow the difficulties of the process to alter our vision of who we know we ought to be is to lose our Jewish soul.”
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