Someone just sent me this article by Barry Rubin, showing the depth of the ill-will the Palestinians bear toward us. It’s pretty depressing. What do we do about it? Here is the article and my perspective on it.
After fifteen years of following the Palestinian Authority (PA) media on a daily basis, I’ve never seen anything that sums up the problem of why there’s no peace better than this cartoon in al-Hayat al-Jadida, the official PA newspaper. If only the Western mass media ran this cartoon the situation would be crystal-clear and nobody would have any doubt who is blocking a peaceful, two-state resolution of the conflict.
In the cartoon, a young boy is being instructed in the Arabic alphabet by the teacher. But even before he starts with the letters, the very basis of his world view and knowledge is presented (in his thought balloon) as this: All of Israel must be replaced by Palestine. See the map on the right side of the balloon, remembering Arabic is read from right to left. This goal is presented as the foundation stone, the guiding light, the very basis of Palestinian thought and identity.
Nor is that all. On the desk, his pen has become a slingshot (symbolizing that violent struggle trumps education) with stones.
Not exactly: Hey kids! Stay in school, get a good education, help build a peaceful, prosperous Palestine living as a neighbor to Israel!
Remember, too, this is a PA newspaper. If “President” Mahmoud Abbas wanted to do so, which he doesn’t, he could pick up the phone and tell the editor to stop it. We aren’t talking about a broad spectrum of permissible belief or free competition of ideas here. Everything in the newspaper is what the PA wants to convey, indeed indoctrinate, its subjects and supporters to believe.
This context also explains why unilaterally declaring independent to create a state, rather than get one through a negotiated agreement, is so attractive for the PA, allowing it to have its state and eat Israel, too. No negotiations, concessions, obligations, commitment to end the conflict, or to accept Israel’s existence would be needed. Meanwhile, the next generation is being prepared what might be called–to borrow a Star Wars title–Episode 2: Return of the Jihadi.
How can a Palestinian government, media, and educational system that presents the struggle to wipe Israel off the map as the most fundamental principle of existence, the touchstone of national identity, possibly make peace with Israel? How could leaders, even if they wanted to do so, persuade their people to compromise when they have been brought up on ideas like this?
The situation is not one of Palestinians–at least in terms of public life, politics, and society–desperately yearning for a state of their own, a higher standard of living, the end of “occupation,” a better life for their children, and the dismantlement of Jewish settlements. In reality, the situation is of Palestinians being taught, told, and led to believe that the only worth goal is one of total victory.
In this context, peace is betrayal, compromise is cowardice, a treason to be punished by dishonor or death. Turning kids into cannon fodder is the top priority, not only for Hamas but even for the PA.
One picture is worth a thousand martyrs.
PS:
Here’s another example of the kind of people the PA admires as heroes–terrorists who attacked Israeli civilians. And here are more examples of claiming all of Israel as official policy.
And this is what happens when a woman in Ramallah writes questioning whether violence helps the Palestinians and opposing Islamization. The Palestinian reporter asks her: “You declared yourself a Palestinian. Many, however, view the things you write as offensive and hostile to Islam. What makes people question your Palestinian identity and accuse you of being hostile to Islam?”
In other words, if you don’t want Hamas, prefer a more secular society, and want a two-state solution, how can you call yourself a Palestinian or Muslim at all?
My Response: Shelly Schreter
Put it all together, and the conclusion for me is that Israel’s most important strategic need is to achieve separation from the Palestinians. Eventually, after some necessary period of co-existence and non-belligerency, I hope we can become real neighbors and co-operate economically and in many other ways. Certainly the exigencies of joint infrastructures (transportation, communication, energy, water, etc.) all point in this direction. But some cooling-off period will be required before such rational partnership can be nurtured. Getting our people and our settlements out of the West Bank, in the framework of a settlement, is critical for this purpose.
The coerced, hateful embrace we are in with the Palestinians today brings out the worst in both peoples. All of the tremendous anger and vindictiveness described in Rubin’s article about the Palestinians is real. It won’t disappear miraculously the day after an agreement. But let me take a moment about our side of that sick dynamic of occupation, which is something you may not see as clearly from a distance.
Up to now, I’ve argued for disengagement via agreement for political and security reasons. No less important a reason is what the occupation does to us internally, like a festering cancer poisoning our whole system. The level of violence, corruption, disregard for the rule of law, and sheer injustice in Israeli society is at an all-time high and increasing. You can insulate yourself against it by living in certain neighborhoods, working in certain fields, not reading or watching too much news. But if you open your eyes, it is overwhelming and deeply alarming about what this place means, why we are here, for God’s sake! True, it’s not just because of 43 years of occupation. The causes are numerous. Israel’s pioneering, youthful innocence is gone. Now we have the highest income differentials in the OECD, plus a toxic electoral system, infinite haredi blackmail, a flourishing underworld, serious corruption at all levels of government, jingoistic politicians who daily improve the quality of our enemies’ lives with their follies, catastrophic levels of traffic accidents and domestic violence, etc., etc. Maybe the Zionists who wanted “normalization” for the Jews should have been more careful what they wished for.
I can’t prove it, but feel strongly that much of this goes back to the settlements. The moment of our greatest victory in 1967 will be identified by historians of the future as the point at which we were gripped by some mass hysteria of relief and elation, and lost our way. The pragmatic, sober Zionism of the founding fathers was replaced by arrogance, megalomania, and moral decay. Power blinded and distorted us, and not even the disastrous Yom Kippur War could shake us out of this trance. Occupying another people is poisonous, violent and corrupt. It cannot help but taint and brutalize the occupiers in ways direct and indirect. This happens even when you are an unintentional occupier, thrust into the situation against your will, and looking for a way out – all the more when you are not so reluctant. Inevitably, eventually, all that ugliness seeps back into your home society, and contaminates it, step by step.
Clearly, the evacuation of every last settlement would not solve all our problems nor automatically earn us the approval of the world. But it would be the opening to sobering up, retrieving our bearings, reasserting the justness of the Zionist cause, re-establishing the basic internal consensus on our national security needs and concentrating our best human and material resources on the task of building a just society in this place. Liberated from the huge diversion that the settlements have become, we could at last focus our talents and energies on fulfilling the visions of our prophets and founders.
So that’s my take on Rubin’s article and many similar articles, as presented by MEMRI, Palestine Media Watch, and the others. Be well,
Sheldon (Shelly) Schreter, a resident of Ra’anana and originally from Montreal, has been living in Israel since 1976
