I heard this really creative story. Engineers and accountants are each in their own groups buying tickets to get on a train. The accountants see that the engineers have bought one ticket for the 3 members of their group. The accountants wonder how they intend to get away with this. Once aboard, the 3 engineers go into a bathroom and lock the door. The conductor comes around collecting tickets. When he gets to the bathroom, he says Ticket Please and a hand sticks out and gives him one ticket. On the way back, the accountants figure they will do the same thing and they notice at the ticket window that the engineers who are traveling with them aren’t buying any tickets at all. The accountants wonder how they intend to get away with this. Once aboard, the 3 engineers go into a bathroom and lock the door. The 3 accountants go into another bathroom and lock the door. An engineer comes out, passes by the accountant’s bathroom and says “Ticket Please.”
In today’s Middle East, you have clever people on both sides. The Israelis figure out how to knock off an Engineer and leave the Palestinians with fewer tickets. The Palestinians figure out in return how to knock off several more accountants. In the end, only the conductor wins – the Angel of Death takes all of the tickets.
The question posed in the program is How shall Israel co-exist with its neighbors? The question supposes more than a state of de facto co-existence which is what exists now. It means a situation where people get along and, at the least, agree to act civilly toward each other, even if they don’t like each other. Everybody knows that co-existence exists right now – the Israelis exist, whether or not anyone else likes it. Nobody is moronic enough in 2001 to refute Israel’s right to exist because to say so is a universal insult to the intelligence. The state of the co-existential relationship varies from country to country in the region – the Jordanian government is the most friendly but the government is ahead of its people on this one. What Israel wants is not recognition, but acceptance into the neighborhood. For Israelis to shop duty-free in Dubai. At the least, something that enables people to live normal lives and to stop worrying about existential issues.
When I wrote this a week ago, I didn’t know if Bin Laden was going to make it through another day or if Arafat would last another week. But we do know that events are happening that will bring changes and that the deck of cards is about to be reshuffled. The geopolitical situation is in flux and so, if what I am going to say in this 30 minute address is useful, it has to move beyond the current situation and look at future possibilities to the extent possible at such times in our history.
We need to try and figure out what Israel and its neighbors will be like in the coming years so that we can see what kind of co-existence is possible. For this, I have to define the present and analyze the past as I see it, for history does not take place in a vacuum and we each have our subjective views of history. I don’t know that there is an objective reality to history, particularly in a region where so many people are victim to events they did not witness or experience personally. Even today, what do you really know about the war in Afghanistan?
Co-existence has to be dealt with on several models – Israelis and Palestinians, and Israel and the rest of the neighborhood.
First, what do I see when I look at Israel and the territories? Right now what I see is 2 roommates sharing a 3 bedroom flat. They have separate entrances, private areas and bathrooms, but they each have to go to the same kitchen and pass each other in common hallways. They hate each other’s music and food, but have no choice but to see and talk to each other since they have to eat and get to where they want to go. They can theoretically survive with their separate spaces and entrances but the reality is that they can’t escape each other for long. Especially if one’s toilet overflows.
What this means in the Real World is that I don’t believe that “separation” models will work. I think it is a pipe dream to think that you can hermetically seal the Israelis and Palestinians from each other. Anyone who has spent time over there knows they are on top of each other and rely on the same resources. To me, it is not realistic to think you can “transfer” large communities physically on either side.
Even if you can seal off the territories, it doesn’t deal with the reality that over 20% of Israeli citizens are Arabs who feel kinship with their friends, family and ethnicity over the Green Line. Co-existence issues with Israeli Arabs are probably more imperative than those of other Arabs although they are the most taken for granted. Right now, it is a real problem because Israeli Arabs increasingly call themselves Israeli Palestinians and have come to believe that they will never be treated as equals in Israel. They are in a catch-22; if they complain civilly, they are told Not Now – There’s a War Going On and this is a Jewish Country. If they complain loudly, they are told You are Being Fifth Columnists. Nobody in Israel gets anything by complaining civilly – and the only thing that saves the Israelis in this case is that overall the Arabs have been rather docile within their borders. But a fundamental co-existence issue that must be dealt with is how to reconcile a people constituting 20% of the population that are told they are Equals but Suspects who, if they demand equality too loudly, are not equals and only Suspects.
Let’s turn to Israelis and Arabs overall. The major hot-button issues are territories, Jerusalem and the right of return. We know that. I am not going to talk in the main text about specific suggestions for resolving these issues; if you want to raise them in the Q&A, that’s fine. I want to talk about more fundamental issues. What I will say is that in order to talk of co-existence, it is not realistic to think that Israel can have any kind of friendly relationship with its neighbors if these issues are not resolved to the satisfaction of its neighbors in a way that accommodates the aspirations of ordinary people.
There is obviously a fundamental debate within Jewish society as to (a) what the other side says it wants versus what it will actually accept; (b) what Israel can afford to give, (c) whether or not the value of having peace outweighs its costs, and (d) whether or not the costs of peace paid up front will actually result in a lasting peace. It may be that there Never Will Be, Cannot Be and Shouldn’t Be Peace. This debate is also taking place within Arab society more so than people realize. But these terms of debate are all one-sided; they involve Us resolving Our Own Differences of Opinion. Till now, they have been debated in our own little vacuum.
The point that I am raising is that if you believe that co-existence means anything in the sense that the people in the area get along and not just continue to live with each other, then you have to be willing to consider the other side’s point of view and be willing to take a chance that taking steps toward that direction will produce a better life situation for both sides. You might even have to concede points of principle even though you feel in your gut that the other guy is wrong, just so that you can move on and put the dispute aside. This may sound obvious but it isn’t, because there is a significant sector that says it wants peaceful co-existence but is oblivious to accommodating the other side. Roommates and spouses have to do it, so do states and populations.
So let’s stop for a minute and talk about what Arabs want. Arabs around the world basically want to see the Palestinians happy. Yes, there is the Golan issue as to the Syrians but we know by now that this is easy to deal with once the Palestinian issue is dealt with but impossible before it is dealt with. Arabs in general may or may not like Palestinians personally just like American Jews say they can’t stand Israelis, but by the same token you can’t expect them to watch 24 hour news channels showing death, destruction and despair in the territories and be oblivious to it just like we are not disinterested parties either. So the real question is what do the Palestinians want.
Ultimately, Palestinians know they are not going back to their homes in Jaffa and Haifa. They know the Israelis are not giving up certain parts of Jerusalem or even the areas around it that are important to them and where facts of geography have been unmistakably created. It is not a matter of whether it will be 93% or 96% of the territories and exactly which territories. Whether or not the implementation period will be 2 years or 3 years. What they want to see is light at the end of the tunnel. They don’t want another Oslo process which they feel played them for suckers for 7 years where they didn’t know what they were going to get and didn’t get anything they really wanted – they got what Israel wanted to get rid of and were saddled with a regime imposed by Israel that gave them a worse economy than they had before, less political rights, less freedom of movement and a situation where Israelis and Palestinians at the top created monopolies on goods and services with VIP passes and privileges, and ordinary Palestinians paid the bills and suffered at checkpoints that had not existed before. Also, there was a dramatic increase in settlement building which went against the spirit of the agreement. I would tend to think that interim solutions will not do the trick and that it would be better for both sets of leaders to face their publics and honestly grapple with and agree to final settlements, but I think that Arabs are willing to consider interim steps and to leave tough issues such as Jerusalem holy sites for later.
What I think Arabs really want from Israel is a change in attitude. More so than the replacement of their homes and money they want an apology, and this might be the hardest thing to get. Having spoken to many Israelis, I find it impossible to believe that Israelis feel they have anything to apologize for. But let’s consider the other side: Arabs believe that Israel was born in sin in 1948 and that they paid the price for it. They see that the Jews lost property in Europe and got token restitution and apologies. Jews say that you can’t compare Israel to the Holocaust, but the fact is that not every Arab who lost his home in 1948 voluntarily left it in order to make a strategic retreat expecting to come back the next week hoping the Jews would be gone. Many of them were forced out, were scared for their lives or found themselves in distress situations where they could not enjoy the value of their property – many Jews were not directly forced out of Europe but left in distress as well.
No matter what you think is the justice of 1948 on either side, the reality is that the Arabs that people of our generation will have to co-exist with are the grandchildren of the people who lived in 1948. They have seen the old housekeys and property deeds; it is nostalgia and unfinished business to them but they are not going back in time just like we are not going back to Europe. But unlike us, many of them still don’t have freely accepted passports, free access to universities and professions, and are seriously discriminated against in their own countries. They are not as comfortable and don’t have as easy a time as we Jews do to just put the past aside, and indeed we Jews are not willing to forgive or forget past injustices to us. They are actually more magnanimous than I would expect and willing to move on given their current situation, but they will not be friendly to people who refuse to admit that their families were screwed, that the Israelis got land and property they didn’t lawfully possess and that in principle they ought to compensate them for it.
A change in attitude also has future implications. What attitude means to the Palestinian is a relationship with Israel based on mutual respect among equals without patronage or humiliation. The feeling that Israelis will deal with them, rather than simply try to dispense with them. On the ground, that the Israelis are going to give them contiguous territory, meaning that they can go from place to place within their state without having to go through Israeli checkpoints, which they see as humiliating more than anything else. They expect that Israelis will not be checking every item that goes in and out as long as it doesn’t go into Israel. It’s one thing to have security concerns; it is another thing to let tomatoes sit for 6 weeks in order to crush a competitor and hold people up for a month waiting for their travel permits to be approved if all they want to do is see a family member. I don’t care how much Israel gives up to the Palestinians – if Israelis insist on being control freaks and profiteers beyond what is really necessary, all they will have at the end is an enemy for a neighbor. If you walk out of here with only that one thought in mind, it is the most important point, because people ask: Why do the Israelis make concessions and get nothing in return? The Answer is: if you give someone a hundred dollars and spit at him while you give him the money or do it when you are forced to do it, you expect him to say Thank You and kiss your feet?
Remember that just because we feel we are being generous because we are doing what suits our convenience or are forced to do does not mean that the other person feels that what we are doing is acceptable, let alone generous. Barak’s concessions at Camp David and Geneva would have been viewed quite differently if they weren’t done in a way that indicated that he was dictating surrender terms to Arafat or Assad and ganging up with the Americans to impose them upon the other side while continuing to insist publicly that he was not giving up anything and was getting the better deal. We can talk about whether or not Arafat or Assad missed opportunities, but the reality is that they were being given offers they could refuse because the offers did not really consider what they wanted or needed and did not at all consider accommodating the aspirations of ordinary people. This is important because if you agree with it, then you know that we still don’t know if the other side will accept reasonable offers. Maybe Arafat and Assad wouldn’t — and I believe they wouldn’t — but that doesn’t mean that other future leaders won’t.
There are for sure certain segments on both sides that can never be accommodated. There are some Arabs who only want Israel to disappear; we have people who wish the same for them. Some people are convinced that it is impossible to make a deal with an Arab that will be kept and that all Arabs only want to throw Israel into the sea or at best agree to an Islamic truce. Some people say they know Arabs very well because they grew up in Arab countries though they haven’t had a 5 minute conversation with one in 50 years or ever had one inside their home. There are some people that are so sure that they’re right that it is useless to argue with them. I am not sure of anything, and I am always learning new things. But I have been around the neighborhood enough to have a few ideas and sometimes an outsider sees things that insiders don’t even though insiders think they know things best. Many Israelis say they know Arabs because they see them all the time but they have never actually met one. Like I know Blacks because I see them everyday on the subway. I have no black friends or present acquaintances; I know next to nothing about them and I don’t pretend to know otherwise.
So let’s spend a few minutes talking about what I think I know about Arabs in the region, because projecting models for co-existence depends on whom you think you are co-existing with. I admit that my contacts are in the elite; they are not the “Arab Street.” However, my friends are aware of the world around them, and we are also finding out more and more that the so-called Arab Street is highly overrated.
Arabs know a lot more about Israel than Israelis know about them. We read hardly anything about their countries and assume that’s because nothing happens. Arabs do receive a lot of slanted news coverage (and so do we – their Al-Jazeera is our Fox News Network) but amidst the coverage they learn a lot about the subleties of Israeli politics. Many of them get part of their news from Israeli sources which are widely available. They know who the various players are in domestic Israeli affairs and the realities of coalition politics that is the essence of the Israeli system. They respect Israeli democracy and understand that public opinion counts. Because it does count and what Arabs do can affect it, they want to know about it. Arab actions have helped to a great degree to determine the last few Israeli elections. As long as the new TV and radio stations being set up by Israel and the US beamed toward the Arab world stick to news and not propaganda, they will be useful additions.
Arabs are good dressers and into personal health and hygiene. They have a good sense of style and enjoy culture and travel. Cleanliness is a religious imperative; the devout Moslem keeps his feet clean and uses a bidet instead of toilet paper because the act of wiping is self-mutilation. Though there are many that are poor, they try to maintain dignity and they will go to great lengths to be hospitable to a guest even if they can’t afford such indulgences for themselves. People thought that Jews were dirty because they lived 8 to a tenement in the Lower East Side; the reality was that Jewish families had to clean house 3x a day in order to keep order with so many people sharing the same space. It is a stereotype or just plain ignorance to think that Arabs walk around in bed sheets, ignore basic hygiene and engage in rampant sexual deviant acts.
There is something very egalitarian about a society in which everybody wears the same clothing such as a white or black robe that costs $5 so that there is no competition for fashion. But look closely and you’ll see accessories such as gold pens, Palm pilots, watches, cufflinks, eyeglass head-bands, sunglasses and hanging watches sticking out of those robes. Meaning that it is easy to get dressed in the morning for work or school but there is also room for individuality. Some of those robes are probably custom-made, and I’ve seen some at ceremonial occasions that are simply beautiful. They are also very comfortable to wear; how practical are neckties anyway?
Their societies are more conservative religiously but that doesn’t mean they are fanatics. They may be a bit less psychotic than we are. Many secular Israelis feel intimidated and alienated at the prospect of visiting the Western Wall and being around religious people; few Arabs would avoid a church or mosque. Many Arabs do not want to see pornography on TV; in Israel, it is standard stuff during family viewing hours on channel 2, and Arabs often block this channel from their children.
Both Israelis and Arabs know how to hate, mistrust and to fight, but both sides are also more willing to forgive or to at least live and let live, more so than we might believe. Both sides have a very high interest in creating economies and of giving their children a better life. Look beyond the propaganda and heat of the moment and consider whether or not Arab parents with microphones being thrust in their faces on the day their kid died really wanted their kid to be a suicide bomber or martyr. In the Arab world, there are tons of family recreational places where people take their kids to have a good time. Education is considered a high value item and anyone who can afford it sends their kid to university. The biggest problem facing the West is that Saudi Arabia and Iran have monopolized education in many of these countries because they are the only ones providing it. What we can do in the West is to make it easy for them to come here and get educated and to fund more educational opportunities throughout the Arab world. People with education are more apt to take Western ideas into their countries. The new generation of leaders in the Arab world are Western educated and this is the most important reason why there is the greatest promise that things are beginning to change in those countries where the next generation is taking over.
In order to look at issues of co-existence, it is useful to see what we have in common and look at the bigger picture. There is a war of civilizations going on but it is not the West against Islam or the Arabs or the Muslims. It is a war of religious fanaticism against moderates, both religious and secular. Look at the Al-Quaida websites and you’ll see links to Christian fundamentalist sites. They should hate each other but they are aligned. The moderate Muslim is most directly threatened by these fundamentalists and the Jew is his ally against this; Israel doesn’t threaten his way of life, the fundamentalists do. That’s why Israel does better than just co-exist today with several of its neighbors, at least on the intelligence level. Get this – out of 38 armed conflicts in the world today, 36 are tied to Islamic fundamentalists.
Over the next decade, some of Israel’s neighbors will lose the war to fundamentalists. Egypt and Saudi Arabia might become fundamentalist states; Iran is already a very dynamic country and likely to become more “normal” and rejoin the larger community of nations. It’s very interesting — the government of Iran is not friendly to the West but the people of Iran want change. In a survey of public attitudes in the region outside Israel, the US is most popular in Iran because it is not viewed as having any influence on its government. In Egypt and Saudi Arabia, countries whose governments receive the most aid and are the most supportive in return, the populations are the most hostile and the dangers of instability are greatest. In these countries, 25% will never like the US or Israel, no matter what any of us do. For this population, the only thing that we can do is to win our wars and have them believe that opposition is futile and that fundamentalist leaders are losers. The so-called Arab Street fell away the moment it became clear that we were winning the war (and you’ll recall the same thing happened in 1991) – they will never be convinced that Bin Laden was wrong, no matter how many video tapes we show them because they know he is evil, but they are happy he did it to the US.
This is why the US has decided to back Israel strongly now even though we supposedly want the support of the Arab Street – the truth is we don’t care about the Arab Street because it really doesn’t matter. It didn’t help us get rid of Bin Laden and would have backed him anyway even if Israel never existed. The injustices of the Arab World and obstacles to progress are theirs to solve and some have existed for several hundred years – we and Israel cannot be held responsible for every wrong that exists in the Arab world and we are not going to apologize for backing a state which fights against terror nor are we going to go the slippery slope of saying there are good and bad terrorists. Bin Laden didn’t hit the World Trade Center to rescue the Palestinians, and the greatest segments within the Arab community that are opposed to Israel are those segments that make up Arab Civil Society – meaning the professional and political intelligentsia – the ones that ought to be the most open-minded and certainly not the ones who make up The Street.
This seeming digression raises a highly relevant and contradictory question – how will we co-exist if the establishment in even the more moderate countries cannot be reconciled? The answer is that these establishment entities are oftentimes figurehead movements mostly run by older more inflexible people and do not necessarily represent the views of the next generation. I personally have seen much of this inside the US. Meaning they are as overrated as the so-called Arab Street which is why the US has learned to ignore them as well. The key here is not get caught up with the dogs that bark the loudest but to hear the Silent Majority. This Silent Majority runs across class lines – rich and poor, insider and outsider. They don’t have the press to make their voices heard but they are plain reasonable people. In America, the chattering classes on the TV talk shows are stuck inside the DC Beltway physically and psychically – we know of our own Jewish “leadership” that supposedly speaks for us; watch Israel TV and you’ll think everyone lives in North Tel Aviv — we know this when we see it at home, but do we realize it when we see it happening abroad?
Another question – if the opposition everywhere is fundamentalist, how can we ever deal with them? How can you deal with Arafat or Saudi Arabia knowing the ruler must always maintain the support of the population which seems to be fundamentalist? Answer: Is the population really fundamentalist or does it appear to be since the only permitted form of opposition is to wrap yourself in the Islamic flag because the rulers have allowed that form of opposition to exist in a sort of deal with the devil they’ve made with the clerics thinking it would preserve their rule.
Let’s talk sociology for a minute. In every society there is a certain segment of deviant behavior. Usually it is criminal. But if there is a religious outlet, the criminal will justify his behavior under the rubric of the religious cause. So for instance, many people in ultra-orthodox neighborhoods yelling shabbos and throwing stones at cars tend to be the same people who would otherwise be doing some sort of criminal act except that they found one of the few socially acceptable and legal means to vent their rage in Israeli society. This is not my idea: This is a finding backed up by clinical research in Israel a decade ago and brings us full circle.
I think that in the future if Palestinians and others in the region begin to see a more just society around them instead of what they see and experience now, many of the people that are today’s fundamentalist supporters will take proper roles in society and some of them will simply remain as criminals on the edge of their societies, but the societies themselves will shift to the center just as Israel’s center has today shifted temporarily to the right. Right now, given conditions of over 50% unemployment, no real opportunity to receive education or to express any opinion, travel and to make a living, it is no surprise that people have been radicalized. The question is not what they are, but what they would be in a more normal world. At the same time, it doesn’t hurt for them to see that terrorism and violence is a losing proposition. It will be good for the US to knock off Saddam Hussein and for Israel to knock off radical elements within the Palestinian camp so that Palestinian politics might not be manipulated by a mafia financed by religious fanatics. I do believe that once there is an opportunity for moderate Palestinians to come to the forefront, they understand that Israeli public opinion must be appealed to and they will do it. Likewise, the political dynamic in Israel will shift very quickly – right now Sharon exists unopposed because there is no point to a political debate when no alternative appears to exist.
In my view of the world, the primary threat is not from states but from rogues. States have something to lose and don’t want to put themselves at risk. So far there is no evidence linking any states to any unconventional acts of terror. It is the bin Ladens that have proven to be the biggest threats. No doubt that we would prefer not to have a billion people in the world think that what he did was partially justified, but if we cannot solve the world’s problems we can at least convince them that they backed a loser and it is quite amazing to see the shifts going on in the Arab World now that it is clear that he has lost. The biggest sin in this region is to be a loser (and that’s why I keep using that word); remember, that the US has a history of half-assed actions that are weak and leave the local Arab regimes alone and hanging. They didn’t want to back a potential loser if all we were going to do was talk big and send a few cruise missiles to Afghanistan.
The various states now have a golden opportunity to discredit the fundamentalists but they have to take away the appeal of the fundamentalists which is grounded in the fact that these unelected governments are seen as immoral forces that do not benefit their citizens and do not provide them with political rights. America and the West are viewed as oppressing Arabs via Israel which occupies Palestinians with American weaponry, keeps moving ahead economically amidst an Arab world which keeps falling further behind, and increased anti-Arab feeling in the West which threatens to cut off Arabs from educational and immigration opportunities in the West.
We cannot solve all their problems and we shouldn’t try to either. But we can at least try to not be perceived as being the obstacle to their progress and we should conduct foreign policy with a view toward being consistent with the values that we say we promote for others. It’s not just about oil and might making right. We have to consider ordinary people and their desire to have a life. It is to me an insult to the intelligence to believe that every person is forever condemned to be a radical and cannot change. The deck is being reshuffled now in Israel and it may be another year or two before Palestinian society shakes out its leadership and the Israelis do the same. In that order.
And let me just stop here and emphasize that despite the previous discussion of America and Israel’s place in the world, it is not America and Israel who can rescue the Palestinians or impose settlements but the Palestinians who must rescue themselves first by providing a reasonable alternative for the Israelis to deal with. It is not a matter of justice or injustice – it is a matter of realities on the ground. The intifadah of the past year and a half brought about Sharon and devastated Israeli public opinion and political debate. An impasse exists; Sharon by acting decisively is at least giving the Palestinians a chance to change the status quo. If he left things in place, both he and Arafat could conceivably continue to sit in their chairs for several more years and nothing would happen.
But I am hopelessly optimistic for the long term. When you talk to people in the region, they believe that sooner or later, peace will come and that it is a good thing. They believe that the equation for peace is already known to all parties and it just remains for each side to eliminate the other side’s crazy people and for the remainder to sign on the dotted line and move on. Will Israel and its neighbors be friends? Not for at least 25 years. But can we be partners or at least good neighbors? Why not? You have to look beyond the world of today and have some faith in the future. My relations with those of the Next Generation in the region give me reason to believe in the future. A few years from now, the Palestinians will be led by people whose names we don’t know, from a younger generation. So much change has occurred in the Arab world that we have not anticipated and that we are not noticing. Right now, the best Israel can come up with to lead it are 2 people in their 70’s, each of whom half the nation normally can’t stand. There isn’t one person from the new generation that is politically viable today. The two prime ministers in waiting are Barak and Bibi – both proven failures and flawed personalities. So I actually have work harder to find more optimism for change in Israel than abroad.
I am a religious person and do not believe that if doing the right thing involves compromise, that it will lead to national suicide. If I believe otherwise, then either I don’t really believe that God exists or I believe that God will never allow compromise and if I do compromise I am sinning and am thus worthy of death and destruction for having done so. I don’t believe that – instead, as a religious person, I believe that the Torah means something when it says over 40 times that you have to be kind to the stranger in your land and uphold certain standards worthy of a nation of priests. I prefer to be a welcome guest than a scared or corrupt occupier. I believe that we have to take risks and do so with a full and open heart in the belief that either God will take care of us or that our neighbors will reciprocate if they believe that our intentions are genuine and then take care of business from their end. I know that our intentions in Oslo were not genuine and that they did not take care of business from their end. That doesn’t tell me that the future follows the past. I am by no means a pacifist who believes in relinquishing ultimate defense options or disarming, but I do believe that if you believe in God, you should be able to take risks to do the Right Thing, if indeed you and your co-religionists and/or the elected leaders of Israel believe they are doing the Right Thing.
It may be that Israel will never have an opportunity to make peace with its neighbors either because it never chooses to do so, is afraid to do so, isn’t meant to do so, or because its neighbors keep missing opportunities. I don’t know God’s plan for the world if indeed there is one. I do believe that although the Arabs can never destroy Israel, it can make life miserable for it. I prefer a consolidated Israel that has normalcy to a greater Israel that may be Biblically pure but always on edge. I want it to be a place where I want to visit and to live and not to have to feel safer from terrorism in an Arab country where things are quieter. I go to Israel every year no matter what it is and every time I go there it’s been one intifadah or war after another for the past 18 years that I’ve been going there, and we all know that very few of us who visit or live there are happy with the way it is now. The Enterprise is surviving but it is not the success we want. Right now the dominant feeling in the region is that there is no money – no money for war, no jobs, no tourism, no markets, no nothing. People are tired. They want a life. Show them a future and let them save face. Stop fearing the future because you don’t know what will come afterward. Saddam Hussein exists today because we feared the afterward – we now know that it was a mistake. The fact that Sharon is moving against Arafat means that maybe he is prepared to deal with the afterward. Right now the region’s leaders are afraid to show their people a future because they are afraid they won’t survive it. Right they are, but someone has to leave the legacy and make way for the next generation to use their education and skills that their elders sent them to receive so as to move this part of the world into the 21st century. Build a Future and the Future Will Come.
You know, in the orientation materials, there is a letter from Clive Lawton (founder of Limmud conference). Its closing paragraph states, “Limmud is designed to get you to realize that your Jewish future lies in your hands.” That’s why I’m here this week in the UK making this unusual speech — because I’m in a unique position to do it and I feel that it’s a job that needs to be done. We ourselves may not have the opportunity to decide how the show over there is going to be run over the next few years, but there are those among us who may have a role to play later on or in a tangental way, and I for one can tell you that I’d be running it differently.
The message here is, whether or not you agree with anything I’ve said, is that if you’re going to take charge of history, don’t be afraid to challenge bedrock assumptions about why things are and how they’ll be, seek out possible contacts where it’s most uncomfortable, look at areas of dispute also from the other side of the table, and consider there is hope and possible partners on the other side whom you might be able to deal with. We who have traveled to this world conference are the leaders of the next generation and we will not only inherit but have opportunities to shape our future. We should take care to realize and seize those opportunities if and when they come.
Q & A Highlights: There were over 60 minutes of this between the two sessions (this speech was delivered twice due to popular demand). Top questions were: Do I really think the Arabs will give up 1948 borders (recent surveys show many want to return to their homes)? Especially since the Arabs (especially Lebanon) have kept Palestinians in refugee camps for 50 years just so they can send them back to Israel instead of absorbing them? What about incitement among Palestinians in schools and media — doesn’t this show they don’t want peace? There are so many problems getting Arabs to respond to requests for Dialogues so they really don’t want to talk, right? Why don’t the Arabs get rid of Arafat if they are disgusted with him? What specific solutions can I suggest that Arabs will accept? Highlights of Answers: The most difficult issue without creative answers is the refugees. Arabs want Choice with regard to Right of Return; it can be a lousy choice (meaning with incentives stacked toward going to Palestine and not to Israel) but they want to at least feel they had a choice. Palestinians at Taba suggested a lottery that provided choice albeit rigged to favor immigration to Palestine; it is a good idea and would have probably been accepted except that nothing at Taba was taken seriously at the time. The refugee camps in Lebanon are indicative of how much the Lebanese hate the Palestinians; to say they are bargaining chips is too simplistic. School incitement cuts both ways — look at Israeli schools too. You’d be surprised, and anyway things are changing and I am watching this issue carefully. Dialogue in public forum has become heavy luggage with all sorts of symbolism and it is no surprise that there are problems, especially since the Israeli Left and Palestinians found themselves talking past each other. I don’t engage in Dialogue — I have day to day relations with people with lots of plain talk. The majority of Palestinians would love to get rid of Arafat; the Intifadah was as much against him as against Israel; but he rules by force and there is a strong feeling among them that Arafat survives because the Israelis support him. Get rid of Arafat, people tell me to tell the Israelis — Stop putting money into his bank accounts and giving VIP passes to his guys.
