Is such an argument–that a people must be permanently oppressed, dehumanized, frequently mowed down, and forced out of their land to guarantee the security and safety of their tormentors and oppressors–not comically Orwellian? A straightjacket? A trap?
Alone, in the early evening, in the quiet of the room, with a drink in hand, do those making this argument ever hear themselves? Do they ever wonder what they would call such reasoning if it were made by the Palestinians about Israelis or by any other state about a people it subjugates?
Do Israel’s die-hards seriously believe that the blanket defense–They Made Me Do It–concocted by Nationalist Zionism a long time ago to help the Jewish state live with its sins and help its friends justify them still persuade anyone but themselves?
Do they see the world applauding and cheering Israel on as a beacon of light unto the nations? Do they see the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court ruling in its favor? Do they still see that old warm American embrace? Are the millions of protestors against its crimes just a mob of anti-Semites? Are dissenting younger American Jews nothing more than self-haters? Is AIPAC’s flagrant muscle-flexing, arm-twisting, and money spending to demonize and silence its critics a sign that the trends are moving in its favor?
Why is murdering hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the name of self-defense sensible, but respecting their right to self-determination and a decent, dignified life isn’t? Why is the former a better guarantee of a secure and peaceful future for Israel than the latter?
In full sight of this ever deepening tragedy, when does the human imagination at its most creative and magnanimous get its moment? We’ve seen, after all, the havoc it is capable of at its most sinister.
Why is it ludicrous to think the impossible is doable when the actual has proved inconceivable? Genocide, mass displacements, brutalization, conquest, ethnic cleansing…: are these heinous policies really more acceptable and understandable to defenders of Israel’s exclusive Jewishness than the realization of Palestinian statehood?
Why is it a given to them that an Israel-Palestine would be the stuff of civil wars, much like what we have in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq? Was it ever a given for us? Was our fratricide preordained, fate, a product of our DNA? Does the history of this land tell a different story, many different stories? More promising ones? Does the history of the US, Europe, Korea, Japan, Vietnam…have the same mix as ours? Worse? World War I and II, for example? Was a thriving, peaceful Europe a silly intellectual exercise at the end of WWII?
Why are we forbidden to imagine and work hard for the same path out of this pain and suffering? What is it about Israel-Palestine that is not amenable to a just and merciful end to the war over it?
Never a binational state?
Then a two-state solution? Not according to the Israeli Knesset which in July overwhelmingly passed a resolution against the establishment of a Palestinian state:
The Knesset of Israel firmly opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state west of Jordan. The establishment of a Palestinian state in the heart of the Land of Israel will pose an existential danger to the State of Israel and its citizens, perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and destabilize the region.
If Palestinian freedom between the river and the sea is at best ridiculous and at worst antisemitic, where do we file this latest Knesset resolution? Are permanent subjugation, apartheid, genocide, and ethnic cleansing the strategy of a sound state? The makings of prosperity for its children? The pillars of a liberal democracy, with “the most moral army” in the world and peace-loving settlers?
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