Last Wednesday, when I returned to Jerusalem after working in the Tel Aviv studio of IsraelSeen.com preparing a new audio program I was struck by a sign carried on the side of a local Jerusalem Egged bus.
In big letters Maseach b’Yerushaliyim, Messiah in Jerusalem. Wow, I sure am glad I arrived in time, I thought. Underneath it read; Messiah demands; not to give up one centimeter (less than half an inch) of Jerusalem!
jordan,west bank
Yesterday I traveled to the village of Ba’tir to make a congratulations call on a friend and his family. Batir village is a few hundred yards from my house in Moshav Aminadav.
Its lies across the narrow valley that separated Israel from Jordan for nineteen years, and through which the train to Jerusalem has traveled for more than one hundred years.
Driving into the village I notice; on just about every available building wall facing the road through Batir is a powerful political image/icon.
What on this side of the valley is called Eretz Yisrael HaShlemah The Whole of the Land of Israel, but in this case it’s the whole of Palestine, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River. It is painted in the colors of the Palestinian flag. The Galilee is in a kind of speckled red, the remainder of the country is divided in thirds, one rectangle black other white and the third green. A visually powerful political educational statement.
Several months ago the current Minister of Education the Labor Parties Yuli Tamir directed a change/addition to history text books used by Israeli students. Evidently previously there was no mention of the physical form the state took in its first nineteen years of existence. If one did not know better, our children were educated to believe as fact that the state called Israel, of which they were citizens, had always consisted of all the lands between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.
In other words, from the point of view of our educational system the state of Israel as it existed and functioned for its first nineteen years was Eretz Yisrael HaSheleama the whole of the land of Israel. The first nineteen years, in which more than a million emigrants were absorbed from the ashes of Europe and the Arab world, cities were built, villages were established and army developed, never existed. Everything that had been accomplished has been within a state in the physical form we have become accustomed to.
The announcement of this change, as could be expected, stimulated a cascade of loud angry and outraged voices. Voices complaining of the betrayal of the nation. Of abandoning Zionism. And so on. It seemed that the reality as it existed for nineteen years was some kind of illusion, rather than a verifiable historical fact. A whole segment of our society seemed to believe that our children would simply not believe anyone who told them anything different. How short sighted, how foolish to think that we could by force of will change the facts recorded in the history books and newspapers. Facts documented in libraries and institutions all over the world.
If one was to believe that the Israel/Palestinian/Arab conflict could be brought to a state of reconciliation in which the two peoples could live as neighbors. Neighbors, each one focusing their primary energies on the growth of their individual national welfare and abilities. Invent the creative energies on bettering the lives of their peoples. Contributing to the welfare of the living community of this planet. Then we must understand and accept that compromises will have to be made. We must acknowledge that over the years we have been guilty of fostering beliefs in our respective peoples that were intended and will succeed in preventing any such compromises from being possible.
On this side of the original border we will need to acknowledge the limitations of our national geographic goals. We will need to choose life over land so that we and our children can live.
On the other side the same choices will need to be made. It is not too soon to begin this necessary process.
We must also be aware that there are sections of the land that present particularly difficult challenges in redistributing.
A nice section of the main Tel Aviv Jerusalem highway runs through the former Jordanian territory.
The road east, from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea can not be allowed to become off limits to Israelis traveling to there. It is unacceptable that Israelis would need again to drive east to Latrun, then south to Arad, then east again to the southern end of the Dead Sea, then north to Ein Gedi and Massada.
From our side of the valley there needs to be some hard sharp concentrated objective conversations about our needs in relation to our wants regarding lands we are willing and able to give up and turn over to any future Palestinian entity. This needs to be done regardless of the realistic possibility of a real lasting arrangement. If for no other reason then for the sake of the exercise in rational discourse that it would entail.
We have become all too accustomed to undertaking a difficult and emotionally exhausting struggle between ourselves over the terms and conditions under which we can and will relinquish lands we now have control over. Ehud Barak underwent this same exercise before the 2000 Camp David encounter. He and we spent months in agonizing discourse over our willingness to exchange which lands for an agreement with the Palestinians. When he/we finally concluded the negotiations with ourselves and turned to the Palestinians we were already exhausted and could not understand how it was that they too did not understand that we had already undergone a difficult period of discussions and our conclusions, (with ourselves) were over and done!
Yes, there is need for us to arrive at our own bargaining positions based on our understandings of our needs. But they must include a realistic appraisal of the Palestinians needs as they understand them.
That means that they too must engage themselves in a difficult but realistic process of understanding what is possible as opposed to what is desired.
Are they capable, are we?
The challenge is: which of us will reach the age of maturity first?
