katalog-overlapping voices - Ritesinstitute

not a foregone conclusion, as both Jews and arabs
argued that “it’s all mine”. But in actuality, at all
the historical junctures, the majority of Jews agreed
to territorial compromise. for example, on 29 november
1947, the general assembly of the United
nations resolved to partition Palestine into a Jewish
state and an arab state. this plan was a far
cry from the Jew’s aspirations: the Zionist Right
and even elements of the left opposed it. nevertheless,
most Jews accepted it, pouring into the
streets and dancing throughout the night in celebration.
the arabs rejected the plan, initiating violent
attacks the very next day. the israeli war of independence
thus began as a war between the two national
communities living in Palestine and turned
into a war between the new state of israel and the
neighbouring arab countries. israel emerged victorious
from the war, and managed to expand the
borders that had been defined by the Un partition
plan. During the war, most of the arabs that had
lived in the territory incorporated into the new state
either fled or were expelled. it was a cruel war, in
which the Jewish community lost 1% of its population.
the arabs destroyed every Jewish settlement
they conquered, and either killed their residents
or took them prisoner. But this is not the
place to take stock of the 1948 war. what is of interest
is the pattern of Palestinian behaviour: the
adamant refusal to recognize, even partially, the
rights of the opposing party, and a consistent attempt
to force the issue through the use of violence,
rejecting compromise.
in 1998, israel celebrated its 50th anniversary. it
appeared that the Zionist dream had been fulfilled
above and beyond the vision of those that had
dreamed of it. During israel’s fifty years of statehood,
it had absorbed 4.5 million Jewish immigrants,
including 500,000 holocaust survivors and
1 million refugees from arab countries, who were
forced to leave their homes due to the anti-Jewish
violence that broke out after the arab defeat in the
1948 war. more recently, close to 1 million immigrants
from the former soviet Union have joined
their ranks. israel’s dynamic nature is evident in
its cultural richness, its social and economic creativity
and its level of scientific development, which
is the envy of even developed countries. the combination
of western and eastern influences has created
a unique mediterranean cultural mutation, articulated
in language, literature, music, art, and
many other areas. israeli culture has never been
more fascinating in its diversity, pluralism, localness,
and cosmopolitan nature.
But the Zionist project’s crowning achievement at
israel’s 50th anniversary was the historic reconciliation
between israel and the Palestinians that appeared
to be taking place. israel’s founders believed
in peace and envisioned the day that peace
54 OVERLAPPING VOICES
with the arabs would be achieved. they held that
this day would come about when the arabs would
lose all hope of uprooting the Jews by force. the
oslo accords were based on a belief among israeli
leaders that the Palestinians had indeed reached
this conclusion and abandoned the strategy of war.
the intervening years have proven that this assessment
was premature: reconciliation will eventually
take place, but the time has not yet come. at camp
David in 2000, the traditional pattern of Palestinian
behaviour repeated itself. when an agreement
for (extremely generous, and, from an israeli perspective,
possibly dangerous) territorial compromise
was placed before them, they could not bring
themselves to accept it. they turned back to the
strategy of violence, as they perceived compromise
as the equivalent of surrender. in many ways, the
most recent intifada sent both sides back in time,
to ways of thinking that may have been adequate
for 1948, but are certainly inappropriate for the reality
of the 21st century.
amos oz, a leading israeli writer, published a novel
called “a story of love and Darkness”. this autobiography
weaves the personal story of the oz
family into the overall national narrative of the
1940s and 1950s. oz was one of the israeli intellectuals
most identified with the search for a path
to Jewish-arab reconciliation, and with the oslo
accords. Between the lines of his new novel, oz
vents his feelings of bitterness and disappointment
toward the Palestinians following the al-aqsa intifada.
towards the end of the book, oz uses the
character of a kibbutz member to express his own
opinion, and that of the majority of israel’s left and
mainstream, who wholeheartedly supported the reconciliation.
while understanding the tragedy of
the Palestinian refugees exiled from their villages
in 1948 and thus refusing to call them “murderers”,
the kibbutznik stresses that they were the
ones who started the war, with the goal of destroying
the entire Jewish community. the Jews should
make do with what they conquered in 1948, and
not strive for additional conquests, he asserts.
however, until peace is achieved, he adds, we have
no choice but to fight to the best of our ability, “for
the simple reason that we have the right to exist,
and for the simple reason that we too are entitled
to have a homeland”. “if not here”, asks the kibbutznik,
“then where is the land of the Jewish people?
... or, out of all peoples on earth, is it only the
Jewish people that does not deserve to have a
small land?” this question, which appeared to
have been resolved in 1948, still constitutes the
core of the Palestinian-israeli conflict today.
anita shapira, professor at tel aviv University, specializes in the history
of Zionism and israel, was awarded the israel Prize in 2008.