By Yoram Getzler.
In a recent Jerusalem Post op-ed Gershon Baskin currently co-director of the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information who for the past 30 years has been a dedicated advocate and observer of Israel / Arab relations shares his experience and perceptions of the current status of concern and activity within both the Israeli Jewish and the Arab communities regarding our future.
His report is titled What you see is what you get (http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?ID=224866&R=R1) describes the apathy and apparent disinterest in both communities for any efforts at positive change. He sees both populations busy enjoying the current reasonable improved economic status which allows both groups to enjoy the amenities most people in the western world take for granted. Satisfaction and safty in their everyday lives, excellent restaurants, in Tel-Aviv & Jerusalem as well as in Ramallah and Jenin, films and culture. Arab and Israeli versions of “American Idle” and other celebrity / escapist TV offerings are easily available. At the same time time there seems to be no potential political horizon to bring about positive change. Both communities seem quite satisfied with the comfortable quiet status-quot of this moment in history.
For the Arabs that is quite understandable, rational, pleasurable and advantageous.
However for the Israelis I would title this situation as Slow (but pleasant) Death. Every day this illusion of well being continues the process of natural population development progresses. Its results; the proportion of non-Jews, including Arabs, between the river and the sea increases. Even if another hundred thousand Jews would move to Judea & Samaria from 1949 Israel the asymmetry between Jews and non-Jews would continue and grow. Without any moral or national consideration. And it threatens the existence of a Jewish state that is also democratic, and that functions properly in the modern framework of One Man One Vote. This is a formula for the decline and fall of our third temple.
If as it indeed appears the community of nations accepts the Palestinian claim to nationhood within the boundaries off former Jordanian control, post 1949, what has been since 1949 in fact contested territories up to now, now the contested areas of Judea and Samaria will no longer be legally contested, but revert to the status of a nation state. This will also signal the end of this wonderful period of stasis and contentment we currently are appreciating and propel all of us into a realignment of forces that will emphasize the conflict and demand forceful actions and reaction.
Our contentment is at our peril.
