It is time for Israel to wake up from its nightmare. Somewhere, sometime ago a line was crossed: a line of sanity. I am not claiming that Israel is insane, merely that it does not seem to be acting in
It is time for Israel to wake up from its nightmare. Somewhere, sometime ago a line was crossed: a line of sanity. I am not claiming that Israel is insane, merely that it does not seem to be acting in proportion with reality lately.
The State Of Israel arose out of the ashes of the Jewish holocaust. My parents were born into Kibbutzim when Israel was still called Palestine, under British mandate. Both sides of the family suffered great losses during the holocaust. My parents were part of the new generation of survival, of a newfound pride. My late grandfather used to drive trucks in the middle of the night that secretly picked up the new immigrants smuggled into Palestine. The ‘Ma’apilim’ ships would bring Jews from all over Europe into the safety of a promised home. My great-grandmother was intercepted by the British of the coast of Haifa in one of the ‘Ma’apilim’ ships and sent to Mauritius where she spent 5 years before being allowed to join her family. My grandparents were Zionists. They were also left-wing Kibbutzniks. They always believed in the right of both peoples to exist, side by side. I recently spoke with my 93 year old grandmother who still lives in a Kibbutz in northern Israel. She thought the whole situation was tragic: that there are no winners in this status quo.
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I will leave the constructive criticism of the Palestinians’ role in the peace process to those better qualified to giving it. Personally I am more interested in cleaning up my own side of the street.
We as Israelis need to wake up to the current reality. This does not mean abandoning our history or our need to work towards a safer future. What it means is operating from what is now, rather than what was or will be. It seems we are stuck in a vicious cycle of fear and hope: the fear that tomorrow will be like yesterday and the hope that we can create a sense of security through artificial means. As Jews, we carry with us centuries of suffering and persecution. It has become a filter through which we view the world. It influences our choices and decisions, as individuals as well as the collective whole. We have traded confidence and trust for a false sense of safety. We have allowed the initial pride of our young emerging nation to turn into arrogance. And we have allowed the innocence of our childhood to be lost in our recent actions. In short, we have gone from one extreme to another: from victimhood to bully. I am not saying that we are the ones to blame. In fact, I don’t believe there is anyone to blame at all. There is only suffering, on both sides, and we all play our part in it. I am saying this out of compassion for the Palestinian people. I am saying this out of compassion for us, Israelis, Jews. We have suffered enough. At some point, we took on a large degree of our own suffering by confusing confidence with aggression, defense with offense, and the right to exist with self-righteousness.
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We cannot exist as victims nor can we exist as victimizers any longer. It is time for us to evolve to the next level: the middle ground of taking responsibility. What used to be Israel’s strongest asset in its fight for survival, a strong capable military, has shifted. And we must take this shift very seriously and learn from it: what used to work is not working any longer. We are hurting ourselves and others with our lack of open mindedness towards inevitable change.
Although we have had our share of persecution and suffering over the centuries, Jews can no longer claim the monopoly on suff
