Thursday, November 22, 2007
Annapolis--Blueprint for Disaster
I dread the scheduled conference in Annapolis, with its stated purpose the creation of a Palestinian state. Enormous pressure will be exerted on Israel to relinquish Judea and Samaria and several Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem to hundreds of thousands of people who have either been exposed to hatred or have been spewing it together with calls to jihad in their schools and kindergartens, in mosques, and in the streets for a very long time. Israel will accede to the demands for the destruction of more homes, communities, and over 200,000 lives, and will pat herself on the back for her humanitarianism, vision, and devotion to the ideal of peace-just see the ends we’re prepared to go to, the risks we’re willing to take! It’s beyond my comprehension that so few see this seductive “peace” as the temptress that she is.
Who am I? I was born and spent most of my life in Chicago until I moved to Israel 35 years ago. I see the world through American and Jewish eyes. My daughter and her family were among the 9000 who were torn from their homes and communities in Gush Katif in August, 2005, and who have since been trying to rebuild their lives, some with more success and most with less. It won’t be hard to guess where my sympathies lie.
I’m repeatedly told why another signing and handshake ceremony on the White House lawn is pursued so zealously: “What alternative is there?” Blessedly, there haven’t been any lurid headlines for awhile, thanks to the vigilant Israeli army, which recently caught a bomb-carrying terrorist in routine checks in Samaria and uncovered seven tunnels dug by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza strip. Even so, we’ve all been so horrified by scenes of terror that we feel that’s the way it is everywhere in Israel, all the time. But as my brother tells me whenever he visits Israel, he's always struck by the feeling of complete security that engulfs him here. Yet the “peace”-seekers keep preaching: “Such bloodshed and destruction are unacceptable; there must be a way for implacable enemies to live in amity”. They insist, “There is nothing man cannot do if he puts his mind to it. Examples are everywhere.” They actually believe that getting the lion to sit down with the lamb will be a piece of cake.
No, it is not. It is a pie in the sky. We humans, in our hubris, are sure nothing is beyond human determination and genius. Our very own father of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, galvanized his own generation and future ones with his immortal words, “If you will it, it is not a dream!” Why can’t this be true of the pursuit of peace?
We are so very limited in the things we have control over. But the only thing we can control is how we behave and what kind of people we are. And even that’s a handful. How can we control the behavior of our bitter enemies? Even Condoleezza Rice and George Bush or a magnanimous Israeli nation only think they have control. Remember Sleeping Beauty? The King and Queen, told by the bad fairy that Aurora would prick her finger on a spindle and die, had every spinning wheel in the kingdom destroyed—all but one. So where did all the royal parents’ cleverness and power get them?
Hatred aside, I think there’s one very basic reason peace will remain elusive. For any Palestinian state to be a viable one, there must be a link between the West Bank and Gaza (the sea). I’m no engineer, but simple geometry teaches me that if the two parts of the Palestinian state are linked, the two parts of the Jewish state must be severed. Only on paper is it possible that at the meeting point of a + sign, the two lines can occupy the same point in space. It is not possible on land. And if America and the nations of the world create a Palestinian state, creating one that is not viable makes no sense.
Israel is the home of the Jewish people. It is the only home we have. I believe it is futile to try to trade parts of this land for peace--futile and morally indefensible. The best test of the Palestinians' sincerity would be their acceptance of living at peace with us as an ideal in and of itself. I believe that if peace comes, it will come as a gift, not as a contrivance. When it comes, Israel will embrace it. I wish I could feel as confident about our adversaries.
Rachel Bar Yosef
No comments:
Post a Comment