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Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Federalism is original Zionism!
A book by Prof. Yosef Gorny shows that at its beginning, in the 20's and 30's, the Zionist movement was federalist. It is only in the late 30's - after the Arabs violently rejected any sharing of the country with the Jews - that the Movement opted for a separated Jewish state.
Not only the well known Brit Shalom of Buber, Ruppin and Magnes, not only the Shomer Hatzair and the Jewish Agency, but Ben Gurion and even Jabotinski were for a federal Palestine under the British Mandate.
Here is a review published by The Palestine-Israel Journal
The Federal Idea Lives On
The Palestine-Israel Journal
Vol.14 No.4 2007
From Binational Society to Jewish State: Federal Concepts in Zionist Political Thought, 1920-1990 by Yosef Gorny.
by Joel Pollak
Yosef Gorny introduces his concise yet complex description of the history of Zionist federalism by describing his “disillusionment” about the prospects of confederation between Israel and its neighbors. Indeed, one of the most puzzling features about this otherwise informative and enjoyable book — hinting, perhaps, at a kind of agnostic post-Zionism — is its conclusion, in which Gorny claims that Zionism “is beginning its second historical journey” — back to Europe, where “a third-largest Jewish center [after the U.S. and Israel] … may well come into being.”
Gorny, a historian who now heads the institute for the research of Jewish press and media at Tel Aviv University, is not, like former Knesset speaker Avraham Burg, giving up on Zionism and celebrating the diaspora. Rather, he is expressing a deep concern about the fate of the Jewish people if there is no resolution to the Middle East conflict.
At the outset, Gorny defines different versions of the “federal” idea. A “federation” is “a sovereign state composed of autonomous political units that derive their power from one political center”; a “confederation” is “a regional alliance of sovereign states that maintain joint institutions in various domains.” Power devolves down in the former, and up in the latter.
He goes on to demonstrate how different versions of the federal idea have been proposed by various Zionist leaders as a way of bridging the gap between utopian national visions and the practical obstacles to establishing and maintaining a state. Often, federation and confederation were proposed to provide an answer to the fact or potential of a Jewish minority in Palestine and to Israel’s isolation among Arab nations.
Gorny excludes versions of the federal idea, such as certain forms of bi-nationalism, that did not uphold the general Zionist principle of a Jewish majority in the part of Palestine where Jewish self-determination would be exercised. He explores the ideas of mainstream Zionist leaders on both the left and the right, and shows how the federal idea was inspired by various precedents, including federal arrangements in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the United States. Zionist leaders who proposed federal ideas often changed their models as circumstances changed. Thus David Ben-Gurion first proposed (separate) autonomy for Jews and Arabs in Palestine in 1922; a joint federation of Jewish and Arab nations in the mid-1920s; a complex federal arrangement between Jews and Arabs in 1931; and a confederation of a Jewish state within a larger Arab formation in the mid-1930s.
One of the most interesting subjects Gorny addresses is the federal idealism of Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky, who is considered a right-wing and militant thinker. Gorny points out that Jabotinsky was in some ways a political liberal, and that despite his view that Jews would have to resort to the use of force, he continued to believe in a federal solution that would recognize the rights of both Jews and Arabs.
Gorny demonstrates that in their deliberations, the Zionist leaders were capable of considering a wide range of different ideas. The idea of “transfer” — which was considered impractical but not “morally illegitimate” in the 1920s, having recently been implemented in Turkey and Greece — coexisted with utopian ideas of shared states and confederations.
Demography played a role in the formulation of the various models, just as it does today. After the Six Day War, Israeli Labor politicians Aryeh Eliav and Shimon Peres proposed different federal models as a way of resolving the moral and demographic challenges of occupation. Today, the “demographic threat” is in doubt, given the Gaza disengagement and questions about the accuracy of Palestinian population projections.
The geopolitical environment has also changed, with Arab states now prepared — at least in theory — to accept peace with (if not the legitimacy of) Israel, in accordance with the Arab Peace Initiative.
These two factors, perhaps unforeseen by Gorny at the time of writing, have pushed the federal idea even further to the margins of Israeli discourse. However, it has not disappeared, because the fundamental conflict between Jews and Arabs remains to be resolved.
If the next few years should indeed see some form of Palestinian state emerge, there will also be a need for institutional arrangements between the two states to govern affairs that must be dealt with in common, such as water. The economic success of the Palestinian state will also depend on its ties to the Israeli economy, which will require continued political cooperation. Therefore, Gorny’s pessimism may be premature: For practical reasons, if not for idealistic ones, the federal idea still lives.
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
To salvage its democracy, Israel must be divided into cantons - Strenger than Fiction
An proposal close to ours by Carlos Strenger
To salvage its democracy, Israel must be divided into cantons
Israel's new government prepares to pose for a portrait at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, May 19, 2015. Photo by Marc Israel Sellem
For a number of years I have argued that Israel’s internal differences — not only between Jews and Arabs, but among Jews — are so large that the country should be divided into cantons linked in a federative structure. Last year, with Haaretz’s Judd Yadid, I presented a detailed proposal on how such a cantonal structure could look.
The first weeks of Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government show that such a proposal is timelier than ever. Barely sworn in, its statements, policy proposals and steps show that it might use its tenure, brief as it may be, to irreparably damage Israel’s democracy.
I’d like to present an unorthodox explanation for why Netanyahu’s team is doing this, and why a federative structure might salvage Israel’s democracy.
Deputy Defense Minister Eli Ben-Dahan has taken the Knesset podium to defend his ministry’s decision to provide separate buses for Jews and Palestinians in the West Bank. But the government halted this plan because it realized the catastrophic international repercussions of a step reeking of apartheid — even when rationalized by security measures — not because it considers the move grievously wrong. (Incidentally, the army was strictly against the separate bus policy.)
Likud’s Tzipi Hotovely is deputy foreign minister, which, given that there is no foreign minister, means she is acting foreign minister. Hotovely has told the Foreign Ministry staff that Israeli ambassadors should tell foreign governments the truth — that God gave all of Israel to the Jewish people and therefore it is simply ours by right.
The new culture minister, Miri Regev, has said she does not intend to allow art that harms Israel’s image. “If I need to censor something, I will,” she said.
And the new justice, minister, Ayelet Shaked, has declared that governance must return to the people’s control by working toward the abolition of the Supreme Court’s ability to block legislation.
Add to this that Netanyahu, who has kept the Communications Ministry under his personal command, has already taken steps to interfere with the press. For example, he is putting pressure on Channel 10, which he has tried to close down for a while now.
Let me add the cherry from outside the coalition on the icing of this lovely cake: Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman, who single-handedly forced Netanyahu to form a coalition based on 61 MKs by not joining.
He now attacks his former boss for having scheduled a meeting with Ayman Odeh, the leader of the United Arab List — a meeting required by democratic etiquette. Lieberman called on Netanyahu to cancel the meeting because it “legitimizes the fifth column operating in the Knesset.”
Nothing in this potpourri of events should be surprising. The lamentations by Israeli liberals that the right has become racist and is trying to undermine democracy have been voiced for a long time — and for good reason.
But lamentations won’t help; we need to look at the facts without blinking. Hotovely genuinely believes that God gave all of Israel to the Jews. Regev deeply believes that Israeli liberals harm Israel. And Ben-Dahan has explained his hierarchy of human beings from Jewish men to Jewish women and Jewish gays — all superior to gentiles.
As for Lieberman, I’m less sure, as he’s more of a consummate manipulator than an ideologue. But his rabid attacks questioning Israeli Arabs as legitimate citizens certainly reflect a strong current in Israeli society, which is why he keeps voicing them.
The right vs. ‘the white tribe’
As a liberal I am entitled to despise the views of Ben-Dahan, Hotovely, Lieberman and Regev, but I am committed to safeguarding their right to hold them. Incidentally, I assume they despise my views, but they in turn are required to respect my freedom of thought and expression.
Still, differences in core values even among Israel’s Jews have become so vast as to make it nearly impossible to live in the same polity. To safeguard Israel’s democracy, we need to get a deeper understanding for the reasons the right attacks democratic institutions.
The right feels that these institutions have been used to impose the views of secular liberals, who judging from the composition of the Knesset, are a minority of about one-third of the country as reflected by Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni’s Zionist Union, Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid and Meretz.
The mainstream press, the judiciary and academia are overwhelmingly liberal, so they are perceived as representing what is called “the white tribe.” They therefore no longer see liberal democracy’s values and institutions as impartial tools, but as the tools of the liberal Ashkenazi elites to impose their views on the majority.
They do not realize that the liberal tradition since Thomas Hobbes has been devised as a structure that can enable groups with different beliefs to live in coexistence instead of perpetually threatening or fighting one another.
But it turns out that liberal democracy has its limits; it can’t bridge yawning gaps between totally different cultures — and Israel seems to have arrived at such a stage. All groups feel that their way of life is threatened; we liberals have felt since Netanyahu’s first government in the 1990s that we must fight for the survival of our core principles. And much has been made of the fact that many young Israeli liberals prefer to live in Berlin because they can’t take it here anymore.
But let’s not forget that the Hasidic Belz community last year threatened to leave Israel if its youngsters were forced to serve in the army, because this community genuinely feel that its way of life is threatened by military service.
Traditionalist Mizrahim represented by Shas feel that a secular Ashkenazi elite tramples on their culture, beliefs and values. And Israeli Arabs, for very understandable reasons, feel that the country does not accord them a life of dignity and equality.
What then can we do? We can continue Israel’s culture wars, wearing us all down and making us miserable. Or we can say it’s time to give some breathing space to one another.
A federative structure of provinces that roughly reflects Israel’s core groups might do exactly that. The cantons should reflect existing cultural groups as well as possible, while as much power and financial resources as possible should be devolved to the regional governments. As in Switzerland, the United States and Germany, the federal government should only be entrusted with what the regional ones can’t possibly do on their own.
Such a partition is less outlandish than it sounds. When it comes to education, Israel long ago acknowledged de facto that there is no sufficient common ground for coexistence. Four distinct education systems coexist in Israel: the secular, the religious-Zionist, the ultra-Orthodox (actually two ultra-Orthodox, one Ashkenazi and one Sephardi), and the Arab.
In such a federative structure, Regev could fund whatever she wants in her own canton. Liberal artists could move a few kilometers away into the Aviv or Carmel provinces, where they could express themselves freely. Vice versa the many members of Naftali Bennett’s Habayit Hayehudi who are offended by homosexuality; they could easily move a few kilometers into Yehuda Province, where there would probably be no gay parties or parades.
We could finally stop bickering about which rabbis can conduct weddings legally, whether you need a rabbi at all, whether pigs can be raised and pork sold, and whether you can sell leavened bread during Passover. The provinces would determine these issues based on their majorities; the federation would not be involved.
I know that this proposal has scant chance of being implemented, and I have no illusion that it will solve all of Israel’s vast problems. But I mean it very seriously.
Israelis are wary. Not only does Israel face genuine external threats in an environment that becomes more chaotic by the year, but Israelis feel that instead of finding a safe haven in their own country, they need to fight for their identities and way of life. While we can’t make the external threats go away, we might at least live and let each other live.
To salvage its democracy, Israel must be divided into cantons
Israel's new government prepares to pose for a portrait at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, May 19, 2015. Photo by Marc Israel Sellem
For a number of years I have argued that Israel’s internal differences — not only between Jews and Arabs, but among Jews — are so large that the country should be divided into cantons linked in a federative structure. Last year, with Haaretz’s Judd Yadid, I presented a detailed proposal on how such a cantonal structure could look.
The first weeks of Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government show that such a proposal is timelier than ever. Barely sworn in, its statements, policy proposals and steps show that it might use its tenure, brief as it may be, to irreparably damage Israel’s democracy.
I’d like to present an unorthodox explanation for why Netanyahu’s team is doing this, and why a federative structure might salvage Israel’s democracy.
Deputy Defense Minister Eli Ben-Dahan has taken the Knesset podium to defend his ministry’s decision to provide separate buses for Jews and Palestinians in the West Bank. But the government halted this plan because it realized the catastrophic international repercussions of a step reeking of apartheid — even when rationalized by security measures — not because it considers the move grievously wrong. (Incidentally, the army was strictly against the separate bus policy.)
Likud’s Tzipi Hotovely is deputy foreign minister, which, given that there is no foreign minister, means she is acting foreign minister. Hotovely has told the Foreign Ministry staff that Israeli ambassadors should tell foreign governments the truth — that God gave all of Israel to the Jewish people and therefore it is simply ours by right.
The new culture minister, Miri Regev, has said she does not intend to allow art that harms Israel’s image. “If I need to censor something, I will,” she said.
And the new justice, minister, Ayelet Shaked, has declared that governance must return to the people’s control by working toward the abolition of the Supreme Court’s ability to block legislation.
Add to this that Netanyahu, who has kept the Communications Ministry under his personal command, has already taken steps to interfere with the press. For example, he is putting pressure on Channel 10, which he has tried to close down for a while now.
Let me add the cherry from outside the coalition on the icing of this lovely cake: Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman, who single-handedly forced Netanyahu to form a coalition based on 61 MKs by not joining.
He now attacks his former boss for having scheduled a meeting with Ayman Odeh, the leader of the United Arab List — a meeting required by democratic etiquette. Lieberman called on Netanyahu to cancel the meeting because it “legitimizes the fifth column operating in the Knesset.”
Nothing in this potpourri of events should be surprising. The lamentations by Israeli liberals that the right has become racist and is trying to undermine democracy have been voiced for a long time — and for good reason.
But lamentations won’t help; we need to look at the facts without blinking. Hotovely genuinely believes that God gave all of Israel to the Jews. Regev deeply believes that Israeli liberals harm Israel. And Ben-Dahan has explained his hierarchy of human beings from Jewish men to Jewish women and Jewish gays — all superior to gentiles.
As for Lieberman, I’m less sure, as he’s more of a consummate manipulator than an ideologue. But his rabid attacks questioning Israeli Arabs as legitimate citizens certainly reflect a strong current in Israeli society, which is why he keeps voicing them.
The right vs. ‘the white tribe’
As a liberal I am entitled to despise the views of Ben-Dahan, Hotovely, Lieberman and Regev, but I am committed to safeguarding their right to hold them. Incidentally, I assume they despise my views, but they in turn are required to respect my freedom of thought and expression.
Still, differences in core values even among Israel’s Jews have become so vast as to make it nearly impossible to live in the same polity. To safeguard Israel’s democracy, we need to get a deeper understanding for the reasons the right attacks democratic institutions.
The right feels that these institutions have been used to impose the views of secular liberals, who judging from the composition of the Knesset, are a minority of about one-third of the country as reflected by Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni’s Zionist Union, Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid and Meretz.
The mainstream press, the judiciary and academia are overwhelmingly liberal, so they are perceived as representing what is called “the white tribe.” They therefore no longer see liberal democracy’s values and institutions as impartial tools, but as the tools of the liberal Ashkenazi elites to impose their views on the majority.
They do not realize that the liberal tradition since Thomas Hobbes has been devised as a structure that can enable groups with different beliefs to live in coexistence instead of perpetually threatening or fighting one another.
But it turns out that liberal democracy has its limits; it can’t bridge yawning gaps between totally different cultures — and Israel seems to have arrived at such a stage. All groups feel that their way of life is threatened; we liberals have felt since Netanyahu’s first government in the 1990s that we must fight for the survival of our core principles. And much has been made of the fact that many young Israeli liberals prefer to live in Berlin because they can’t take it here anymore.
But let’s not forget that the Hasidic Belz community last year threatened to leave Israel if its youngsters were forced to serve in the army, because this community genuinely feel that its way of life is threatened by military service.
Traditionalist Mizrahim represented by Shas feel that a secular Ashkenazi elite tramples on their culture, beliefs and values. And Israeli Arabs, for very understandable reasons, feel that the country does not accord them a life of dignity and equality.
What then can we do? We can continue Israel’s culture wars, wearing us all down and making us miserable. Or we can say it’s time to give some breathing space to one another.
A federative structure of provinces that roughly reflects Israel’s core groups might do exactly that. The cantons should reflect existing cultural groups as well as possible, while as much power and financial resources as possible should be devolved to the regional governments. As in Switzerland, the United States and Germany, the federal government should only be entrusted with what the regional ones can’t possibly do on their own.
Such a partition is less outlandish than it sounds. When it comes to education, Israel long ago acknowledged de facto that there is no sufficient common ground for coexistence. Four distinct education systems coexist in Israel: the secular, the religious-Zionist, the ultra-Orthodox (actually two ultra-Orthodox, one Ashkenazi and one Sephardi), and the Arab.
In such a federative structure, Regev could fund whatever she wants in her own canton. Liberal artists could move a few kilometers away into the Aviv or Carmel provinces, where they could express themselves freely. Vice versa the many members of Naftali Bennett’s Habayit Hayehudi who are offended by homosexuality; they could easily move a few kilometers into Yehuda Province, where there would probably be no gay parties or parades.
We could finally stop bickering about which rabbis can conduct weddings legally, whether you need a rabbi at all, whether pigs can be raised and pork sold, and whether you can sell leavened bread during Passover. The provinces would determine these issues based on their majorities; the federation would not be involved.
I know that this proposal has scant chance of being implemented, and I have no illusion that it will solve all of Israel’s vast problems. But I mean it very seriously.
Israelis are wary. Not only does Israel face genuine external threats in an environment that becomes more chaotic by the year, but Israelis feel that instead of finding a safe haven in their own country, they need to fight for their identities and way of life. While we can’t make the external threats go away, we might at least live and let each other live.
Friday, October 17, 2014
החזו חז"ל את הסכסוך הישראלי הפלסטיני?
אני אסיר תודה לרב ליאון האשכנזי - מניטו - שממנו שמעתי פעם שיעור על הסוגיה המיוחדת הזו של התלמוד סנהדרין צח:
הטקסט דן בתקופה שתקדם את ביאת המשיח, תקופת "חבלי הלידה" שלו. הנה הטקסט:
סנהדרין צח ב
אמר עולא ייתי ולא איחמיניה וכן אמר [רבה] ייתי ולא איחמיניה רב יוסף אמר ייתי ואזכי דאיתיב בטולא דכופיתא דחמריה אמר ליה אביי (לרבא) [לרבה] מאי טעמא אילימא משום חבלו של משיח והתניא שאלו תלמידיו את רבי אלעזר מה יעשה אדם וינצל מחבלו של משיח יעסוק בתורה ובגמילות חסדים ומר הא תורה והא גמילות חסדים אמר [ליה] שמא יגרום החטא כדר' יעקב בר אידי דר' יעקב בר אידי רמי כתיב (בראשית כח, טו) הנה אנכי עמך ושמרתיך בכל אשר תלך וכתיב (בראשית לב, ח) ויירא יעקב מאד וייצר לו שהיה מתיירא שמא יגרום החטא כדתניא (שמות טו, טז) עד יעבור עמך ה' זו ביאה ראשונה עד יעבור עם זו קנית זו ביאה שניה אמור מעתה ראויים היו ישראל לעשות להם נס בביאה שניה כביאה ראשונה אלא שגרם החטא וכן אמר ר' יוחנן ייתי ולא איחמיניה א"ל ריש לקיש מ"ט אילימא משום דכתיב(עמוס ה, יט) כאשר ינוס איש מפני הארי ופגעו הדוב [ובא הבית] וסמך ידו אל הקיר ונשכו נחש בא ואראך דוגמתו בעולם הזה בזמן שאדם יוצא לשדה ופגע בו סנטר דומה כמי שפגע בו ארי נכנס לעיר פגע בו גבאי דומה כמי שפגעו דוב נכנס לביתו ומצא בניו ובנותיו מוטלין ברעב דומה כמי שנשכו נחש אלא משום דכתיב (ירמיהו ל, ו) שאלו נא וראו אם ילד זכר מדוע ראיתי כל גבר ידיו על חלציו כיולדה ונהפכו כל פנים לירקון מאי ראיתי כל גבר אמר רבא בר יצחק אמר רב מי שכל גבורה שלו ומאי ונהפכו כל פנים לירקון אמר רבי יוחנן פמליא של מעלה ופמליא של מטה בשעה שאמר הקב"ה הללו מעשה ידי והללו מעשה ידי היאך אאבד אלו מפני אלו אמר רב פפא היינו דאמרי אינשי רהיט ונפל תורא ואזיל ושדי ליה סוסיא באורייה.
רש"י[עריכה]
ייתי - משיח ולא אחמיניה:
בטולא דכופיתא דחמריה - בצל הרעי של חמורו כלומר אפילו בכך אני רוצה ובלבד שאראנו:
כופיתא - רעי כמו רמא כופת' וסכר ירדנא בבבא בתרא (ד' עג:):
מאי טעמא - אמר לא אחמיניה:
חבלו של משיח - גורלו ולקמן בעי מאי היא ל"א חבלו פחדים וחבלים שיהיו בימיו מחיל העובדי כוכבים:
לעשות להם נס - לעלות בזרוע על כרחם של מלכי פרס:
' - בביאה שניה. בימי עזרא כביאה ראשונה בימי יהושע מדהקישן הכתוב:
מאי טעמא - איזו צרה באה בארץ בימיו שאתה אומר לא אחמיניה:
סנטר - מפרש בב"ב (דף סח.) בר מחוזנייתא שיודע מיצרי השדות וגבוליהן עד כאן של פלוני מכאן ואילך של פלוני ובידו לרבות לאחד ולמעט לאחר וכשפוגעו אותו סנטר רוצה למדוד שדותיו לקצר מיצרי השדות ודומה כמי שפגע בו ארי:
גבאי - גובה מס המלך:
מי שכל הגבורה שלו - הקב"ה מצטער בעצמו כיולדה ואומר בשעה שמעביר העובדי כוכבים מפני ישראל היאך אאביד אלו מפני אלו:
פמליא של מעלה ושל מטה - מלאכים וישראל: אפילו הגרים לא גרסינן:
רהיט ונפיל תורא ואזיל ושדי סוסיא באורייה - כשרץ השור ונפל מעמידין סוס במקומו באבוסו מה שלא היה רוצה לעשות קודם מפלתו של שור שהיה חביב עליו שורו ביותר וכשמתרפא השור היום או למחר ממפלתו קשה לו להוציא סוסו מפני השור לאחר שהעמידו שם כך הקב"ה כיון שראה מפלתן של ישראל נותן גדולתו לעובדי כוכבים וכשחוזרים ישראל בתשובה ונגאלין קשה לו לאבד עובדי כוכבים מפני ישראל:
אורייה - כמו (מלכים א ה) ארוות סוסים:
די מפתיע לראות שחכמים לא רוצים אישית לראות את ביאת המשיח, גם אם הם מתחננים לה בתפילתם בכל יום. מה כל כך נורא בתקופת "ביאה" זו?
אנו לומדים, עם זאת, כי אם אנחנו צריכים לפחד מימות המשיח, זה לא בגלל צרות חברתיות או משבר כלכלי, היות וניתן להתגבר עליהם על ידי בטחון שמעניקים לימוד התורה ומעשים טובים עבור הזולת; החטאים שלנו יהיו אולי אשמים לסבל ולפחד שנחוש אז, אבל לא מפני האסונות שיפלו עלינו אחד אחרי השני ללא הפוגה וללא מקלט מהם, אפילו בחיק הבית, שתופעה כזו כבר הייתה קיימת בזמנם של רבי יוחנן וריש לקיש, תחת הכיבוש הרומי. המשבר הכלכלי והרעב היו כבר יכולים להצביע על בואו הקרוב של המשיח...
כל הסימנים המקובלים לחבלי המשיח נדחים זה אחר זה לאורך הסוגיה. הם תקופה של סבל עמוק וקיומי, בה ישתלטו על כל אדם מכאובים של אישה יולדת, כאשר דילמה מוסרית בלתי פתירה תאחז שמים ובני אדם.
הרב עדין שטיינזלץ מסביר: "הללו מעשה ידי והללו מעשה ידי היאך אאבד אלו מפני אלו", יגיעו זמן שבו כאילו אין יותר הבדל בעייני הקדוש ברוך הוא בין ישראל והאומות, וזו הסיבה למה צריכים לפחד מחבלי לידתו של המשיח.אבל למה צריך להיות מצב כזה של "או אנחנו או הם", שבו צריך בהכרח להעלים אחד משני הצדדים כדי שהאחר יחיה? בא להסביר הפתגם, בצורה מטאפורית: כאשר השור - ישראל - שאדונו - אלוהים - חיבב במיוחד, נופל, הוא מניח את הסוס במקומו - אומות העולם - וכאשר במוקדם או במאוחר מתרפא השור, קשה לו - מסביר רש"י - להוציא את הסוס מהאבוס בו היציב אותו מקודם, ולהכניס את השור במקומו. רש"י מסביר עוד שכאשר הקדוש ברוך הוא ראה את נפילתם של ישראל, הוא נותן גדולתם לאומות, וכאשר ישראל חוזרת ונגאלה, קשה לו לדחות אותן בפני ישראל.
אנחנו מצדינו מאפיינים את ה"אבוס": זה ארץ ישראל, שנכבש על ידי רומה ועל ידי הערבים והנוצרים. נפילתה של ישראל היא לא רק נפילה מוסרית, אלא ירידה לגלות וסבלותיה; והחזרה בתשובה, הגאולה היא גם שיבה גיאוגרפית מהגלות אל ארץ ישראל.
הרוחני והפיזי, האוניברסלי והפרטיקולרי, נמצאים מאוחדים תמיד בהיסטוריה של ישראל.
"מתן גדולת ישראל לאומות" היא דרכם של חז"ל להסביר לעצמם את טענת הנוצרים והמוסלמים שהם הישראל האמתי והעם הנבחר החדש. מה שנראה לכאורה כטענה אנושית ולעומתית, מתבררת כחלק של התכנית האלוהית.
בו בזמן, הטענה הדתית-אידיאולוגית של האומות לבחירה גם תורגמה בשפה הפוליטית והטריטוריאלית, בכיבוש של המקומות הקדושים, סימן של נבחרות. "ארץ הקודש" נכבשה לסירוגין על ידי המתחרות המונותיאיסטיות של היהדות, המוסלמים (ח'ליפות, אימפריה עות'מאנית) ונוצרים (ביזנטיים, צלבנים, בריטים), לפני שחזרה ליהודים.
כאן לב הבעיה, אין לאף אחד יותר זכויות על הארץ הזאת מאשר לאחרים. כולם לכאורה שווים: האומות, כעת הערבים הפלסטיניים, בהיותם גם מוסלמים וגם נוצרים, כבר לא יכולות יותר להיקרא "עובדי אלילים". הגוים אינם פחות מונותיאיסטים מאשר היהודים, ומשמשים אותו האל (או לייתר דיוק משתמשים בו באותה מידה); מאיפה אחד יוכל להצדיק זכות יתרה? ומצד שני, היהודים שאפו להיות "ככל הגויים," ושיחררו את עצמם על ידי הקמת מדינת לאום, כפי שעשו כל העמים שהסירו מעצמם את עול הקולוניאליזם והאימפריות, וכפי שמנסים הערבים הפלסטיניים להשיג לעצמם.
לא ניתן יותר להבדיל בין יהודים ושאינם יהודים מבחינת הבחירה והזכויות; אם מצד אחד האומות התקרבו לישראל על ידי המונותיאיזם, ישראל מצדה הלכה והצטרפה אחר כך אליהם באתאיזם הלאומני.
לאלוהים כואב הבטן, וגם לנו. המשבר והסכסוך העמוקים נמצאים גם "למעלה", וגם "למטה", הם גם "דתי" וגם "פוליטי". לכן, השפה והמושגים שלנו, המעוצבים ע"י הנאורות ההומניסטית, אינם יכולים לתפוש את מהותו.
וכפי שהתכווצויות היולדת מתחזקות ונהיות תכופות יותר, הסכסוך יהפוך לאלים ואינטנסיבי יותר ויותר, ומהרחם המזרח תיכוני יתפשט אל כל העולם. הילד ייולד - האם האימא תשרוד?
אם גם למעלה - מלאכי האומות - וגם למטה - המנהיגים הפוליטיים - כולם נאחזים באופן דומה בצירי לידה, והרופאים נמצאים אובדי עצות, עלינו להבין שהפתרון יהיה לא דתי ולא פוליטי. שום פתרון מהפתרונות הקיימים כיום בתחום הדתי והפוליטי יוכל לפתור את הבעיה הזו: לא חזרה ליהדות או לאסלאם, לא חלוקה טריטוריאלית במטרת ליצור מדינת לאום חדשה, ולא מדינה דו לאומית, קונפדרציה או פדרציה קלאסית... אלא רק יצירה חדשה שעלינו להמציא.
אך נשאלת השאלה: איך חכמי התלמוד, שלא התיימרו להיות נביאים, יכלו לחזות את הסכסוך הזה יותר מאלף חמש מאות שנים מראש, יחד עם האופי הדרמטי שלו? אם התגלות נבואית לא הייתה הסיבה לכך, כנראה שהם החזיקו במפתח של היגיון היסטורי שאבד לנו. את המפתח הזה אנחנו מנסים למצוא, וננסה בסופו של דבר לתאר את קווי המתאר של פתרון חדשני אפשרי.
אם זאת ברגע שהמימד הגאולי של הסכסוך מתברר לנו, ניתן לחפש ולפענח את משמעות המאורעות, במקום שהן תשלטו על הרגשות שלנו, על הפחד והשנאות הנלוות להן. במקום שתיראו כסכנות קיומיות, הצרות הנוכחיות - בדומה לצירי לידה של היולדת - תופיענה כסימנים מבשרים של יצירת חיים חדשים, ובמשמעות זו יהפכו לנסבלות הרבה יותר...
Sunday, March 30, 2014
בין פלסטין לאוקראינה
מאמר מצוין על מה שאנחנו יכולים ללמוד מסיפוח אוקראינה. הדגשתי כמעט את כולו!
המחבר הגיע לאותו רעיון שאליו הגעתי, של פדרציה על-לאומית, שהוא קורה "האיחוד העל־מדינתי של ישראל ופלסטין".
דבר נוסף ניתן ללמוד, והוא שיטת הסיפוח האלגנטית של פוטין: באופן דומה, ישראל תוכל להכיר באצמעות פלסטין, ואחר כך שתי המדינות יחתמו על הסכם איחוד... וזהו, יש לנו פדרציה!
בכל זאת איני מסכים עם הכל. במקום שפליטים הפלסטינים שיבחרו לחיות בתוך מדינת ישראל - יותר נכון, במחוזות היהודיים - יהפכו לאזרחיה, הם יוכלו לחיות בשטחה אך יהיו אזרחים פלסטינים וגם בעלי אזרחות דואלית פדרלית. אותו דבר לגבי עולים יהודים שרוצים לגור ביהודה ושומרון...
אין במודל שלי טריטוריה לאומית, אלא רק מחוזות לאומיים או מעורבים.
התערבותו הגסה של ולדימיר פוטין בענייניה הפנימיים של אוקראינה אין בה די כדי להסביר את המשבר החריף של הזהות הלאומית־תרבותית, שבו שרויה כיום המדינה. סיבות העומק של המשבר נעוצות בחוסר ההלימה המובהק בין האופי החד־ממדי של דגם מדינת הלאום האתנית האוקראינית ובין המורכבות של המציאות האתנית, התרבותית והלאומית של אוקראינה.
אוקראינה של היום היא ארץ שתי התרבויות, האוקראינית והרוסית. בעוד שאוקראינה המערבית מתאפיינת בהומוגניות אוקראינית יחסית מבחינה לשונית־תרבותית, הרי שאוכלוסייתה של אוקראינה המזרחית והדרום־מזרחית מצטיינת בדו־לשוניות ובדו־תרבותיות רוסית־אוקראינית, ולעתים תכופות – בנטייה בולטת לעבר התרבות והשפה הרוסית. ברור, לפיכך, שמודל המדינה האוקראינית החד־לאומית בנוסח מנהיגי המרד ב"מיידן", שעיקרה הניתוק ממרחב התרבות הרוסית לטובת טיפוח הזיקה לאיחוד האירופי, יתאים אך לחלק מאזרחי אוקראינה – בראש ובראשונה לתושבי אוקראינה המערבית הרחוקים מהתרבות הרוסית. לעומת זאת, ככל שמדובר בדוברי הרוסית, וכן גם בבני האוכלוסייה הדו־לשונית במזרח אוקראינה ובדרומה, שברוח מה שאמר על עצמו אבי הספרות הרוסית המודרנית, האוקראיני ניקולאי גוגול, אינם יודעים להכריע אם נפשם רוסית יותר או אוקראינית יותר - הרי שבעבורם אימוץ הדגם החד־לאומי והאנטי־רוסי פירושו דיכוי תרבותי.
אף כי הדמיון בין הנסיבות ההיסטוריות של יחסי האוקראינים והרוסים מכאן והישראלים והפלסטינים מכאן קלוש - אי אפשר להתעלם ממכנה משותף אחד. כמו במקרה האוקראיני־רוסי, כך גם במקרה הישראלי־פלסטיני פרדיגמת ההפרדה בין שני העמים חסרת תוחלת. על מהותו המשפילה של חזון נתניהו בדבר מדינת הגטו הפלסטינית בין ג'נין לרמאללה מיותר להרחיב. ואולם, גם הקמת מדינה פלסטינית בת קיימא בגבולות 67', תוך פינוי כל ההתנחלויות, רק תרחיק את הסיכוי לפיוס אמת.
בעידן שבו שמועות על מותה של הלאומיות האתנית־דתית מתבררות יותר ויותר כמופרכות, ניתוק הישראלים ממוקדי הזהות הלאומית היהודית בארץ ישראל ההיסטורית שביהודה ושומרון, ושימת קץ לחלום השיבה של הפליטים הפלסטינים למולדתם בפלסטין ההיסטורית הכוללת גם את תחומי מדינת ישראל, יסמנו את ראשית הסיבוב הבא של הסכסוך הלאומי ולא את סופו.
מן הפח הטמון במודל האוקראיני אסור ליפול אל הפחת של המודל היוגוסלבי. אימוץ המודל היוגוסלבי במקרה האוקראיני־רוסי – הצטרפותה של אוקראינה לפדרציה הרוסית – פירושו הכפפה מחודשת של אוקראינה להגמוניה רוסית אימפריאלית. במקרה הישראלי־פלסטיני, הקמתה של מדינה אחת על שטחה של ארץ־ישראל/פלסטין תיתפש בעיני מרבית הישראלים כפגיעה אנושה בריבונות היהודית, בעוד בעיני מרבית הפלסטינים, שמעולם לא חוו את רגע הריבונות – כשלב בדרך להשגת הריבונות המלאה. בשני המקרים, לפנינו מתכון ברור למלחמת אזרחים.
הדעת נותנת אפוא, כי על האוקראינים והרוסים מכאן ועל הישראלים והפלסטינים מכאן לחפש דגם ביניים בין ביתור המרחב המשותף למדינות חד־לאומיות, המשול לפירוק בניין דיירים משותף עד כדי התמוטטותו, ובין ההכרזה על המרחב כולו כעל מדינה אחת, המשולה להסרת המחיצות בין דירות הבניין, שתגרום להתמוטטותו גם היא. בשני המקרים, את הדרך השלישית עשויה לספק התארגנות קונפדרטיבית דמויית האיחוד האירופי, שתצרף יחד את שתי המדינות – אוקראינה ורוסיה מזה וישראל ופלסטין מזה – לתוך מסגרת על־מדינתית.
במקרה של ארץ־ישראל/פלסטין, האיחוד הארצי הישראלי־פלסטיני ייתן מענה לשתי הבעיות המרכזיות של הסכסוך – הפליטים וירושלים. הפליטים הפלסטינים יוכלו לבחור אם לחזור למדינת פלסטין ולהפוך לאזרחיה, או לממש את זכות שיבתם במדינת ישראל ולהפוך לאזרחי ישראל. זאת, כשם שהעולים היהודים, השבים גם הם למולדתם ההיסטורית, יוכלו לבחור אם לעלות למדינת ישראל ולהתאזרח בה, או לעלות לאותם חלקי ארץ ישראל היקרים ללבם שיימצאו תחת הריבונות הפלסטינית, וכך להפוך לאזרחי מדינת פלסטין. אשר לירושלים – היא תהפוך, על פי מודל זה, מסמל הקיטוב בין שני העמים לסמל השותפות הדו־מדינתית והדו־לאומית, תוך שהיא תשמש בירה של שתי המדינות וכן מקום מושבם של המוסדות המשותפים של האיחוד.
אשר גינצברג (אחד העם), יליד סקווירא שבמחוז קייב, אשר גדל בסביבה האוקראינית־רוסית והבין דבר או שניים ביחסים בין עמים שכנים החולקים ארץ אחת, אמר פעם כי ליהודים וללא יהודים בארץ ישראל מוטב למצוא אותה שיטה של חיים משותפים, שתאפשר לשני הצדדים "להתחבר יחד, במקום שחיבורם יפה לשניהם, ולהתפרד איש לדרכו ולרוחו, במקום שהפירוד יותר יפה להם". נראה שהאיחוד של שתי מדינות המולדת המשותפת לעם היהודי ולעם הפלסטיני – האיחוד העל־מדינתי של ישראל ופלסטין – היה משקף את רוח דבריו בצורה הטובה ביותר.
המחבר הגיע לאותו רעיון שאליו הגעתי, של פדרציה על-לאומית, שהוא קורה "האיחוד העל־מדינתי של ישראל ופלסטין".
דבר נוסף ניתן ללמוד, והוא שיטת הסיפוח האלגנטית של פוטין: באופן דומה, ישראל תוכל להכיר באצמעות פלסטין, ואחר כך שתי המדינות יחתמו על הסכם איחוד... וזהו, יש לנו פדרציה!
בכל זאת איני מסכים עם הכל. במקום שפליטים הפלסטינים שיבחרו לחיות בתוך מדינת ישראל - יותר נכון, במחוזות היהודיים - יהפכו לאזרחיה, הם יוכלו לחיות בשטחה אך יהיו אזרחים פלסטינים וגם בעלי אזרחות דואלית פדרלית. אותו דבר לגבי עולים יהודים שרוצים לגור ביהודה ושומרון...
אין במודל שלי טריטוריה לאומית, אלא רק מחוזות לאומיים או מעורבים.
בין פלסטין לאוקראינה
- דעות - הארץ - דימיטרי שומסקי 29.03.2014
והרי החדשות האחרונות ממזרח אירופה: למודל היוגוסלבי קם מתחרה על התואר המפוקפק "הדגם הכושל לארגון היחסים בין קבוצות לאומיות היושבות בארץ אחת". שמו – המודל האוקראיני.התערבותו הגסה של ולדימיר פוטין בענייניה הפנימיים של אוקראינה אין בה די כדי להסביר את המשבר החריף של הזהות הלאומית־תרבותית, שבו שרויה כיום המדינה. סיבות העומק של המשבר נעוצות בחוסר ההלימה המובהק בין האופי החד־ממדי של דגם מדינת הלאום האתנית האוקראינית ובין המורכבות של המציאות האתנית, התרבותית והלאומית של אוקראינה.
אוקראינה של היום היא ארץ שתי התרבויות, האוקראינית והרוסית. בעוד שאוקראינה המערבית מתאפיינת בהומוגניות אוקראינית יחסית מבחינה לשונית־תרבותית, הרי שאוכלוסייתה של אוקראינה המזרחית והדרום־מזרחית מצטיינת בדו־לשוניות ובדו־תרבותיות רוסית־אוקראינית, ולעתים תכופות – בנטייה בולטת לעבר התרבות והשפה הרוסית. ברור, לפיכך, שמודל המדינה האוקראינית החד־לאומית בנוסח מנהיגי המרד ב"מיידן", שעיקרה הניתוק ממרחב התרבות הרוסית לטובת טיפוח הזיקה לאיחוד האירופי, יתאים אך לחלק מאזרחי אוקראינה – בראש ובראשונה לתושבי אוקראינה המערבית הרחוקים מהתרבות הרוסית. לעומת זאת, ככל שמדובר בדוברי הרוסית, וכן גם בבני האוכלוסייה הדו־לשונית במזרח אוקראינה ובדרומה, שברוח מה שאמר על עצמו אבי הספרות הרוסית המודרנית, האוקראיני ניקולאי גוגול, אינם יודעים להכריע אם נפשם רוסית יותר או אוקראינית יותר - הרי שבעבורם אימוץ הדגם החד־לאומי והאנטי־רוסי פירושו דיכוי תרבותי.
אף כי הדמיון בין הנסיבות ההיסטוריות של יחסי האוקראינים והרוסים מכאן והישראלים והפלסטינים מכאן קלוש - אי אפשר להתעלם ממכנה משותף אחד. כמו במקרה האוקראיני־רוסי, כך גם במקרה הישראלי־פלסטיני פרדיגמת ההפרדה בין שני העמים חסרת תוחלת. על מהותו המשפילה של חזון נתניהו בדבר מדינת הגטו הפלסטינית בין ג'נין לרמאללה מיותר להרחיב. ואולם, גם הקמת מדינה פלסטינית בת קיימא בגבולות 67', תוך פינוי כל ההתנחלויות, רק תרחיק את הסיכוי לפיוס אמת.
בעידן שבו שמועות על מותה של הלאומיות האתנית־דתית מתבררות יותר ויותר כמופרכות, ניתוק הישראלים ממוקדי הזהות הלאומית היהודית בארץ ישראל ההיסטורית שביהודה ושומרון, ושימת קץ לחלום השיבה של הפליטים הפלסטינים למולדתם בפלסטין ההיסטורית הכוללת גם את תחומי מדינת ישראל, יסמנו את ראשית הסיבוב הבא של הסכסוך הלאומי ולא את סופו.
מן הפח הטמון במודל האוקראיני אסור ליפול אל הפחת של המודל היוגוסלבי. אימוץ המודל היוגוסלבי במקרה האוקראיני־רוסי – הצטרפותה של אוקראינה לפדרציה הרוסית – פירושו הכפפה מחודשת של אוקראינה להגמוניה רוסית אימפריאלית. במקרה הישראלי־פלסטיני, הקמתה של מדינה אחת על שטחה של ארץ־ישראל/פלסטין תיתפש בעיני מרבית הישראלים כפגיעה אנושה בריבונות היהודית, בעוד בעיני מרבית הפלסטינים, שמעולם לא חוו את רגע הריבונות – כשלב בדרך להשגת הריבונות המלאה. בשני המקרים, לפנינו מתכון ברור למלחמת אזרחים.
הדעת נותנת אפוא, כי על האוקראינים והרוסים מכאן ועל הישראלים והפלסטינים מכאן לחפש דגם ביניים בין ביתור המרחב המשותף למדינות חד־לאומיות, המשול לפירוק בניין דיירים משותף עד כדי התמוטטותו, ובין ההכרזה על המרחב כולו כעל מדינה אחת, המשולה להסרת המחיצות בין דירות הבניין, שתגרום להתמוטטותו גם היא. בשני המקרים, את הדרך השלישית עשויה לספק התארגנות קונפדרטיבית דמויית האיחוד האירופי, שתצרף יחד את שתי המדינות – אוקראינה ורוסיה מזה וישראל ופלסטין מזה – לתוך מסגרת על־מדינתית.
במקרה של ארץ־ישראל/פלסטין, האיחוד הארצי הישראלי־פלסטיני ייתן מענה לשתי הבעיות המרכזיות של הסכסוך – הפליטים וירושלים. הפליטים הפלסטינים יוכלו לבחור אם לחזור למדינת פלסטין ולהפוך לאזרחיה, או לממש את זכות שיבתם במדינת ישראל ולהפוך לאזרחי ישראל. זאת, כשם שהעולים היהודים, השבים גם הם למולדתם ההיסטורית, יוכלו לבחור אם לעלות למדינת ישראל ולהתאזרח בה, או לעלות לאותם חלקי ארץ ישראל היקרים ללבם שיימצאו תחת הריבונות הפלסטינית, וכך להפוך לאזרחי מדינת פלסטין. אשר לירושלים – היא תהפוך, על פי מודל זה, מסמל הקיטוב בין שני העמים לסמל השותפות הדו־מדינתית והדו־לאומית, תוך שהיא תשמש בירה של שתי המדינות וכן מקום מושבם של המוסדות המשותפים של האיחוד.
אשר גינצברג (אחד העם), יליד סקווירא שבמחוז קייב, אשר גדל בסביבה האוקראינית־רוסית והבין דבר או שניים ביחסים בין עמים שכנים החולקים ארץ אחת, אמר פעם כי ליהודים וללא יהודים בארץ ישראל מוטב למצוא אותה שיטה של חיים משותפים, שתאפשר לשני הצדדים "להתחבר יחד, במקום שחיבורם יפה לשניהם, ולהתפרד איש לדרכו ולרוחו, במקום שהפירוד יותר יפה להם". נראה שהאיחוד של שתי מדינות המולדת המשותפת לעם היהודי ולעם הפלסטיני – האיחוד העל־מדינתי של ישראל ופלסטין – היה משקף את רוח דבריו בצורה הטובה ביותר.
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Jerusalem has already chosen the binational solution
Contrary to widespread belief, the wall did not produce a situation of apartheid in Jerusalem, or an ethnic cleansing, but the exactly the opposite: it increased the 'Israelifization' of Palestinians and their massive arrival in Jerusalem from the WB.
The municipality, under the more pragmatic mayor Nir Barkat, has its share in the erasure of the bordure between East and West
Emphasizes are mine:
Along with the nationalist radicalization, widespread support for Hamas and widespread clashes, less predictable dynamics are afoot.
Palestinian women choose Hanukkah doughnuts in a West Jerusalem bakery. Photo by Emil Salman
By Nir Hasson
Published 14:07 27.12.12
A year ago, for the first time, the Jerusalem Municipality and the Israel postal service established a post office in the village of Isawiyah, which lies below Mount Scopus, within the municipal boundaries. Along with the opening of the new branch − part of a plan to improve postal services in East Jerusalem − the village streets were given names and the houses received numbers. These developments followed a petition to the High Court of Justice, submitted by residents with the aid of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. But the municipality could not find a site for the post office, since most of the buildings in the village were illegal structures, so their future was thus in question.
“I visited the village dozens of times looking for a location,” says Itay Tsachar, an adviser to Mayor Nir Barkat and his project director for East Jerusalem. “We wanted to put the post office in the community administration building, until we discovered that it too is the subject of a demolition order.” Finally, a site for the post office was improvised between the support pillars of the neighborhood sports center.
However, on the night before the scheduled festive dedication of the new branch, which the mayor was to attend, the site was torched and slogans against normalization and collaboration with the municipality were scrawled on the walls.
“In the morning I get an urgent call from the residents,” Tsachar says. “They say: ‘Don’t ask − people tried to burn down the place.’ When I got there I found 20-30 people milling around and cursing: ‘Look what the sons-of-bitches did.’ I told them it was not a problem, because the structure was made of iron. ‘It’s just scorched a little. We can clean it up and go ahead with the ceremony,’ I told them. They organized and cleaned it up, and to this day the post office is operating just fine.”
Barkat showed up that day as scheduled to dedicate the site. His convoy was subjected to some stone-throwing on the way, but the local mukhtar, Darwish Darwish, joined a group of villagers who positioned themselves near the car to protect the mayor and the other officials.
The story of Isawiyah’s post office is a microcosm of the contrasting trends unfolding in East Jerusalem. Along with the nationalist radicalization, widespread support for Hamas and violent clashes reported in the media, far-reaching changes are taking place among the local Palestinians. These processes can be described as “Israelization,” “normalization” or just plain adaptation. The Israeli authorities, with the Jerusalem Municipality at the forefront, are encouraging and in some cases fomenting this process, and displaying surprising bureaucratic flexibility along the way.
Examples of this trend are legion. They include: increasing numbers of applications for an Israeli ID card; more high-school students taking the Israeli matriculation exams; greater numbers enrolling in Israeli academic institutions; a decline in the birthrate; more requests for building permits; a rising number of East Jerusalem youth volunteering for national service; a higher level of satisfaction according to polls of residents; a revolution in the approach to health services; a survey showing that in a final settlement more East Jerusalem Palestinians would prefer to remain under Israeli rule, and so on.
But dry statistics tell only a small part of the story; other elements are not quantifiable. For example, there is the pronounced presence of Palestinians in the center of West Jerusalem, in malls, on the light-rail train and in the open shopping area in Mamilla, adjacent to the Old City’s Jaffa Gate. These people are not street cleaners or dishwashers, but consumers and salespeople. Another phenomenon is the growing cooperation between merchants in the Old City and the municipality.
Everyone involved in developments in East Jerusalem agrees that a tectonic shift is occurring, the likes of which has not been known since the city came under Israeli rule in 1967. Opinion is divided about the source of the change. Some believe it sprang from below, propelled by the Palestinians’ feelings of despair and their belief that an independent state is not likely to come into being. Others think it is due to a revised approach to the eastern part of the city by Israeli authorities, spearheaded by the municipality. Everyone mentions the separation barrier, which abruptly cut off Jerusalem from its natural hinterland − the cities and villages of the West Bank − as a factor that compelled the Palestinians in Al Quds (“the holy sanctuary”) to look westward, toward the Jews.
The huge light-rail project, which cuts across the city and greatly facilitates access from the eastern neighborhoods to the city center, is also contributing to the transformation. Most of these changes are occurring below the radar of the Israeli public, but their consequences could be dramatic, particularly with regard to the possibility of dividing Jerusalem − and the country. It is very possible that Jerusalem has already chosen the binational solution.
Three months after Israel captured East Jerusalem in the Six-Day War, the new school year began. The government, which by then had already annexed the eastern part of the city, sought to implement the Israeli curriculum in its public schools. However, the teachers, parents and principals adamantly refused. They launched a strike that became the symbol of the struggle by the Arabs of East Jerusalem against Israeli attempts to normalize the occupation. The strike persisted for two full years, until Israel finally capitulated and agreed to allow the Arab schools in Jerusalem to continue teaching according to the Jordanian curriculum. In time, that was superseded by the curriculum of the Palestinian Authority.
The Palestinians view that victory as a milestone in their resistance to Israel’s annexationist thrust. However, the triumph has begun to erode of late. Increasing numbers of parents now want their children to obtain an Israeli matriculation certificate, and more and more high-school graduates are attending special colleges that prepare them to enter the Israeli academic world. At present, there are three schools in East Jerusalem geared toward Israeli matriculation, while in others special programs are being launched with the same aim.
A school in Sur Baher, for example, initiated a track for Israeli matriculation last year. The school expected about 15 students to register, but 100 signed up − and the number is likely to grow in the years ahead.
According to Education Ministry data, the number of East Jerusalem high school students who took Israeli matriculation exams rose from 5,240 in 2008 to 6,022 in 2011. Another 400 people sat for external matriculation exams (that is, outside the formal school framework). The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and colleges in the city and elsewhere in the country report an increase in the number of Arab students from Jerusalem. For example, there are 63 Arab students enrolled in the Hebrew University’s preparatory course this year, up from 39 last year. Other academic institutions that are popular among East Jerusalem residents are David Yellin Teachers’ College and Hadassah College, both in Jerusalem, and Al-Qasemi Academic College of Education in Baka al-Garbiyeh, in Galilee.
Jaffa-born Amal Ayub is the founder and principal of Promise, a school in the Palestinian neighborhood of Beit Hanina in Jerusalem, which adopted the Israeli curriculum three years ago.
“I came to Jerusalem 15 years ago, but what is happening in the city now is something completely new,” she says. “First of all, there is openness. We are a coed school, which at one time was taboo. When parents visit the school I see in their eyes why they don’t want their children to do the tawjihi [Palestinian matriculation]. They think it is not relevant for them, because since the separation barrier was built, it is harder to register in Bethlehem or Bir Zeit, so they aim for the Hebrew University, David Yellin College or Hadassah College, and the tawjihi is of no use there. And the recent events in Egypt and the rest of the Arab world do not encourage them to attend universities there.”
In addition to internal changes in secondary schools, there are now about 10 colleges in East Jerusalem that specialize in preparing students for Israeli universities and colleges. One of the biggest is the Anta Ma’ana (“You are with us”) Institute on Al-Zahara Street. Students of various ages crowd into a small classroom to receive help in preparing for the Israeli matriculation exams and mandatory pre-university psychometric test.
“It used to be unacceptable. People would make comments − ‘Why are you going to school with the Jews?’ − but now we are closed in and we have to stay in Jerusalem,” says Abdel Gani, the institute’s director. To which Eid Abu Ramila, who teaches civics, adds, “And then you see that the Hebrew University is just five minutes away. If you go to school in Bethlehem or to Al-Quds University, the only place you’ll be able to find work after you graduate is at the PA, for NIS 2,000 a month. So everyone is now flocking to Israel.”
Another reason for the rush to complete an Israeli matriculation − in fact, the main reason, according to most of the college’s students − is fear of the tawjihi, which is considered very tough. We met some students when we visited the college recently. Rawan, from Beit Hanina, wants to study psychology at Hebrew University; Aboud, from Beit Hanina, is interested in communications; and Azhar, from Ras al Amud, is considering nursing or law.
None has encountered a hostile reaction from family and friends for deciding to take the Israeli matriculation exams.
“It’s easier to integrate into society and to find work with a matriculation certificate [from Israel],” says Aboud.
“Civics is the hardest subject,” Abu Ramila, the teacher, adds. “I teach them about the principles of democracy, about equality, and they ask me: ‘Where’s the equality?’”
Some local Palestinians have been trying to fight this phenomenon by persuading the PA to revise the tawjihi exams. Hatam Hawis, the spokesman for the united parents’ committee of East Jerusalem, terms the Israelization phenomenon “appalling,” because it undermines the residents’ Palestinian identity. “Israel deliberately weakened the schools in the city in order to push people to Israeli matriculation,” he says.
There are hardly any water meters in East Jerusalem, because most of the homes were built without a permit, and it is prohibited to supply water or install a meter in an illegal structure. About two years ago, again after an appeal by ACRI, the municipal water corporation, Hagihon, came up with a creative legal solution. Instead of calling it a “water meter,” it’s now called a “control device.”
The change of name made it possible to circumvent the law and install water meters and a water supply system in thousands of homes − and to start charging for the service. About 10,000 of the devices have been installed in the past two years. Hagihon has also received hundreds of requests from families that want to disconnect from the Palestinian water network, which still supplies water to some of the northern sections of East Jerusalem, and tap into the Israeli grid. The reason: The water supply by the Palestinian company is sometimes erratic.
“We received so many requests from residents to be connected to the Israeli system,” Tsachar, the mayor’s adviser, says. “Let’s say I am an incorrigible Palestinian nationalist, but I also want to shower. What can I do? In that case, [asking to be supplied with] Israeli water is legitimate and pragmatic, and it will also be available all the time. I can fly a Palestinian flag next to the water container on the roof, but I would rather get the water on a regular basis. Now think about the ‘tower and stockade’ settlements [of the 1930s and 1940s]. Do you think they would have said, ‘We will not build a tower but will hook up to the Jordanian network, because it’s more practical’? Obviously not. So there is a process underway here. It’s something that cannot be ignored.”
The matter of issuing building permits provides another example of the authorities’ administrative flexibility in East Jerusalem. The main problem is that most residents cannot get a building permit because they do not have documents attesting to their ownership of property. To solve this problem, the municipality devised the so-called “Barkat procedure.”
“The problem is that if you don’t have confirmation of land ownership, the whole judicial system is stuck,” says Barkat. “We therefore created a mechanism in which the mukhtars, community directorate and municipality meet, and if they reach the conclusion that there is no reason not to believe someone who says the land is his, he gets a temporary permit.
After 20 years, if no one else claims ownership, it becomes permanent. This is a city in which legal creativity is a must. I would rather be right and smart than right and dumb.”
Barkat, who locates himself to the right of the political center, has played a crucial role in the story of East Jerusalem in recent years. The data may not show dramatic changes in budgetary allocations for East Jerusalem, but even his political foes admit he is making efforts to change the situation. From his perspective, the struggle to improve the lot of the city’s Arab population is part and parcel of his effort to eliminate plans to partition the city.
“I am determined to improve the quality of life of all the city’s inhabitants,” Barkat says. “That is precisely how I am unifying the city: by making things better for everyone. Jerusalem will not be divided. Period. It will not be able to function if it is divided, because of something very deeply ingrained in the city’s essence.” He adds, “But in Jerusalem each tribe has its own place, so I have no problem with the Arabs coming out to vote. My job will be easier if they have representatives on the city council.”
The key question is whether these developments will in fact induce Palestinians in Jerusalem to vote in municipal elections, which they have not done in any meaningful numbers since 1967. Constituting 36 percent of Jerusalem’s population, the Palestinians have the potential electoral power to change the political composition of the city council dramatically. There are voices in East Jerusalem calling for the Palestinians to vote, as part of a strategy to seek a one-state solution instead of the vaunted two-state concept. However, most experts believe that even if this eventually comes about, it will not affect the next municipal elections, which are about a year away.
“There is no doubt that Barkat has changed his strategy,” says city councilman Meir Margalit (Meretz), who holds the East Jerusalem portfolio. “He is not a political person and not a great ideologue. He is pursuing a businessman’s strategy: buying people rather than forcing his rule on them. Why bring in bulldozers and demolish things if you can get people to leave of their own free will? He is creating a situation in which people feel they have something to lose.”
A few weeks ago, Barkat convened a meeting to discuss children at risk in East Jerusalem. About 20 Palestinians from neighborhoods and villages came to the meeting in the luxurious council room at City Hall, most of them with complaints aimed at the municipality and the social affairs and education ministries. According to Barkat, they came because they feel that someone is listening to them.
“In the past, they would come and talk and see that nothing came of it, and no one knew whether it was ideology, lack of desire or impotence,” Barkat says. “Suddenly, when they see things happening, they realize it is ideology and that there is no lack of desire and no impotence.”
Among the achievements Barkat lists: investments in infrastructure and transportation, planning of neighborhoods, building of schools and more. To illustrate the altered perception on the Palestinian side, he recalls the events surrounding the city-sponsored Festival of Light in the Old City and the behavior of the merchants there. The festival, which focuses on sculptures and performances relating to the theme of light, was held for the third time this year.
“The first year we had a pilot program, only in the Jewish Quarter, and 100,000 people showed up,” Barkat says. “In the second year we held it in the Jewish Quarter and the Christian Quarter, and 200,000 people came. This year it was in all the quarters and there were 300,000 visitors. At first the merchants were afraid to open up for the event, because they got threats. But then they saw that one store opened and then another, and before you knew it they were all open. Everyone made a killing and people got used to the idea.”
Make no mistake: Despite what Barkat says, the boundary between the two parts of the city is still very sharp. The roads in the eastern city are still strewn with potholes and twist and turn at impossible angles. Uncollected garbage continues to pile up. By every yardstick − number of garbage bins, public parks, number and quality of school facilities, number of lampposts, well-child clinics, budgetary investment per resident or per schoolchild, and so on − the east is disadvantaged compared to the western city. Likewise the Palestinians, compared to their Jewish neighbors.
A detailed study conducted by councilman Margalit found that, at best, only 13.68 percent of the city’s budget is invested in the 36 percent of its Arab residents who live in East Jerusalem. Moreover, the Arab population there suffers from rampant unemployment and poverty, and is more likely than the Jewish population of the city to be subjected to police violence. Jewish settlers hire private guards to operate in Arab neighborhoods, and the Shin Bet security service still has a say in the appointment of school principals.
Still, in one area, the gap between the Jews in the west and their neighbors in the east has almost closed: public health. The past decade witnessed something of a mini-revolution in this sphere in Jerusalem. Until about 15 years ago, the Arabs of East Jerusalem were severely disadvantaged in terms of health care, mainly when it came to the health maintenance organizations. There were few clinics, physicians were unqualified, services were lacking. In the wake of the enactment of the National Health Law, which rewards the HMOs according to the number of members they have and their upgrading of various medical indices − none other than Leumit HMO, which is identified with the Revisionist Zionist movement − decided to enter the market in the eastern city. A major draw was the fact that the East Jerusalem population is young.
Around the same time, whether by chance or not, the Leumit logo also underwent a transformation: The long-time Star of David morphed into a flower. Within a few years, unbridled competition broke out between HMOs in the eastern city, which are run by local concessionaires − for the most part physicians, but in some cases businessmen.
The competition and privatization generated protests by organizations such as Physicians for Human Rights and ACRI. Their concern was that there was substandard supervision by the HMOs and a preference for making a profit instead of improving medical care. In the end, the process brought about a situation in which almost every neighborhood now has a number of clinics that boast advanced equipment. Following a number of cases in which ambulance drivers refused to enter Arab neighborhoods, some of the clinics now have their own forward ER units. In some cases the residents get free transportation to the clinics, free subscriptions to health clubs or free dental care, to ensure that they don’t switch to a rival HMO. The directors of the HMOs in the city still shudder when they recall how, three years ago, one concessionaire got tens of thousands of people to switch to a different HMO by reaching a better agreement with the competition.
Fuad Abu Hamed, a businessman and community leader from Sur Baher, runs the Clalit branches in his village and in Beit Safafa. He proudly shows off his clinic, which has an advanced ER unit, an X-ray center and a dental clinic. He speaks of extraordinary achievements in the realm of preventive medicine.
“When the need arose to perform mammograms, we got 95 percent of the women, which is unprecedented. That’s because I know the community, and if a woman refuses we talk to her husband or sister, and I send a car to bring her. We don’t give in.”
Prof. Yosef Frost, director of the Jerusalem district of Clalit, describes the health developments in East Jerusalem over the past few years as an international record.
“Take the quality indices, which are objective and universal, and examine the quality of medical service,” he says. “Four years ago, the indices were extremely low, whereas now they are almost equal to the Israeli national average. Some of the clinics in East Jerusalem are the leaders in the whole district; I could easily put them in the center of Tel Aviv.”
According to Frost, the health quality indices in East Jerusalem rose from a grade of 74 in 2009 to 87 today. That is the same grade the clinics in West Jerusalem receive, and just one point below the national average of Clalit clinics.
The most advanced phase of the Israelization process appears in the requests for an Israeli ID card. In contrast to the territory in which they live, which was fully annexed to Israel, the residents themselves were annexed only partially; nearly all of them hold only a residency card. Residency status denies them many rights, including the right to vote in Knesset elections. But more important, it deprives them of the right to live wherever they wish.
Unlike citizens who can live in the territories or anywhere else, a Palestinian Jerusalemite who moves to the territories (or if the municipal boundary places his home across the line), or who goes abroad to study for too many years, is liable to lose his residency status − and thereby also the right to return to his native city.
The road to obtaining full citizenship is seemingly open, but in practice Israel heaped obstacles in the way of those who sought citizenship. In any event, applicants for citizenship were few, as they were considered “traitors” who accepted the occupation. However, that barrier too has apparently been breached. Interior Ministry data show that several hundred Palestinians from East Jerusalem received Israeli citizenship in each of the past few years. Lawyers who are involved in this process say the queue of applicants is getting longer all the time.
“The shame barrier has fallen,” says attorney Amnon Mazar, who specializes in applications for citizenship. “People have reached the conclusion that the PA will not be their salvation and that Israel is a cornucopia. So they do it for their personal benefit. People who obtain Israeli citizenship are no longer necessarily considered traitors to their nation. It’s the trend. They don’t feel they have anything to be ashamed of.”
The fall of the shame barrier was also discernible in a survey conducted among East Jerusalem residents by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy − an independent think tank − last January. The results were dramatic. One question was, “In the event of a permanent two-state solution, which state would you prefer to live in?” No fewer than 35 percent of the respondents chose Israel, 30 percent opted for Palestine and 35 percent refused to answer.
“It was a surprise,” admits Dr. David Pollock, who conducted the survey. “We thought people would not want to say or admit it, but they did. You can see from the large number of people who declined to answer that it is a highly sensitive issue. So I would say that these figures are the minimum.” In reply to the question, “What would your neighbors prefer in that case?”, 39 percent replied that their neighbors would prefer to live in Israel.
What’s the explanation? The number of explanations for the processes
being undergone by Jerusalem and by its Palestinian residents is equal to the number of experts one asks.
Some cite the separation fence, which cut off East Jerusalem from the West Bank, its natural market and hinterland, and drove the residents into the arms of the Israelis. Others point to the deadlocked peace process and the attendant despair of change that has gripped the East Jerusalem Palestinians. There are experts who think the Arab Spring and general instability in the Arab world are pushing the Palestinians in Jerusalem to search for a future in the unified city. Another cause sometimes mentioned is the ongoing crisis and division within the PA. Or it may be simply due to the fact that, after so many years of occupation, a generation that was born into the situation prefers to look for its material future rather than raise the national flag. But everyone agrees that the driving force behind these developments is not love of Israel, but a desire to survive.
“The Israeli ID card is part of my summud,” says a Palestinian who obtained an ID card, referring to the concept of steadfastness. The Israeli attorney Adi Lustigman, who represents residents in the naturalization process, believes that requesting Israeli citizenship actually empowers Palestinian identity. “It’s what makes it possible for them to preserve their land and their rights in the place where they live,” she says. “They are still Palestinians; the fact that they are granted citizenship does not make them settlers. On the contrary: it gives them more freedom of movement and the possibility to stay in touch with the Palestinians in the West Bank, to work in Ramallah and live wherever they want without having to account to anyone.”
Tsachar: “A habit becomes natural, and this habit too will ultimately become natural. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Israelization or pragmatism. The farther you move along the axis of time, the more the disparity between 1948 and 1967 is reduced. There are many new milestones on the axis. It’s human nature.”
According to Israel Kimchi, a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, it’s vital to remember that more than half the population of East Jerusalem “was born into this situation [of Israeli rule]. Things are moving toward greater moderation, more of an acknowledgment of the existing situation, of living the day-to-day as long as that’s possible. What interests them is having a playground for the children, like in the western city.”
“Survival” is also the word used by Dr. Asmahan Masry-Herzalla, a researcher in the Jerusalem Institute, to describe the behavior of East Jerusalem Palestinians. She too agrees that, contrary to expectations, the current process will actually bolster the Jerusalem Arabs’ Palestinian identity.
“It’s sheer survival. It doesn’t mean they want to become Israelis. They want to walk between the raindrops,” she says. “But when a young Palestinian man engages in study, it will heighten his awareness and reinforce his identity. Look what happened to the Arabs in Israel: the more they integrated, the more aware they became of their Palestinian identity.”
Jawad Siyam, from the village of Silwan, which abuts the Old City, is a prominent political leader in East Jerusalem. He is at the forefront of the struggle against the Jewish settlers in his village, and has been arrested many times. “Our life in East Jerusalem is complex,” he says. “We are Palestinians and need to belong to a place where we feel we have respect, and that is not Israel. In the meantime, we have an Israeli [residence] card and have to deal with the Israeli authorities, and I understand that some people are taking out an ID card in order to make life easier. But in the meantime, everything Israel and the settlers are doing only makes the Palestinians feel more Palestinian.”
Kimchi, who for years produced proposals for political solutions to divide the city, doesn’t think this process will affect the partition option. “In the end, the decision will be a political one. Nothing will help them,” he says, referring to the Arab residents. “No one will ask them.”
According to Margalit − who made these remarks before the United Nations General Assembly granted Palestine nonmember observer-state status − “More and more Palestinians have despaired of the Palestinian Authority. They do not believe partition will happen. They see what is happening between Hamas and Fatah, and within Fatah, and they say ‘No thanks. We have enough problems of our own, so why should we step into that mess? We would rather be under Israeli rule.’ For someone like me, that is a truth that is hard to accept.”
Indeed, for Margalit, a veteran activist on behalf of the Palestinians’ rights in Jerusalem, the new situation creates vexing dilemmas. “There is daily soul-searching here between the humanistic consideration and the political consideration. It’s true that things are a little better for the Arabs of East Jerusalem,” he says, “but in the long term, we as Jews, and all of us together, will pay a higher price. That’s because what’s underway is destroying the foundation of the two-state solution.”
“I went through the period of whining, when we said ‘only the Jews are to blame.’ I do not say they are not responsible, but I also want to look after myself,” adds Abu Hamed, who, in addition to being the director of HMO branches, chairs a volunteer committee to promote education in Sur Baher. Both roles bring him into constant contact with the Israeli authorities. What drives him, he says, is the feeling of discrimination.
“It’s a harsh feeling. It burns me up when I drive through Armon Hanatziv [a post-1967 Jewish neighborhood next to Sur Baher] and see that they are scraping the old asphalt in order to repave the road, and you say to yourself, ‘Dear God, I wish we had even the old asphalt.’ The expectations of the people in East Jerusalem extend to banal services like roads and sewage disposal. It’s not their fault that the Six-Day War happened. Let them at least let us live with honor, whether it’s 40 years or 400 years. When the political solution comes, then we will see.”
After this article went to press, there was another clash between Palestinians and police in Isawiyah. Eighteen youths were arrested. The post office was not attacked.
The undeniable processes by which the eastern part of Jerusalem is being unified with the western side do not incorporate all the residents of East Jerusalem. They include mainly the more established neighborhoods, and, more specifically, the people of means in those neighborhoods. These processes are completely absent in the Palestinian neighborhoods that are outside the separation fence. In fact, the situation in those areas is almost the reverse.
Some 70,000 Palestinians, almost one-third of all the Arab residents of Jerusalem, now live on the other side of the separation fence. Their neighborhoods have become islands of complete anarchy between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The police, the municipality, the infrastructure companies and the other Israeli authorities barely operate in these neighborhoods, and the PA is barred from entering them under the terms of the Oslo Accords. The result is that their inhabitants are doomed to a life of hardship, lacking even the most basic services, and with a constantly diminishing connection to their city, which has left them on the wrong side of the checkpoints.
For the past few years, mayor Nir Barkat has been trying to get these neighborhoods placed under the responsibility of the army’s Civil Administration, which controls the West Bank. Barkat wants “to adjust the municipal boundary to conform with the fence,” adding, “I cannot operate when a fence crosses the municipal boundary. The fence is a real barrier in terms of supplying services.”
Redrawing the municipal boundary on this scale would of course be a dramatic move. Some would say it signals the start of Israel’s relinquishment of East Jerusalem. In the meantime, the political decision makers at the state level are refusing to consider Barkat’s idea.
Two years ago, a political storm was unleashed over a plan to develop the area of East Jerusalem known as the “King’s Garden.” Under the plan, which mayor Barkat supports, a new tourist area would be created on the lower slopes of the village of Silwan, below the City of David. The plan calls for the demolition of 22 of the 88 illegally built homes in the neighborhood of Al-Bustan, with the residents being moved to new housing in another part of the neighborhood.
The plan drew widespread condemnation. Local residents erected a protest tent that became a rallying point for months of violent demonstrations. Governments across the world spoke out against the plan, and Meretz left the municipal coalition in protest. (The party reentered the coalition about a year later.)
In the meantime, the mayor and his staff continued to visit the area and discuss with the residents the possibility of their voluntary departure. Barkat says many of them have already agreed to the plan, even if they are unwilling to say so publicly. “I come to them with a win-win approach. What goes on in Abu Ghosh on Saturdays is nothing compared to what can be done here,” the mayor says, referring to the droves of Israeli Jews who flock to the Arab village west of Jerusalem (and inside Israel) to eat and shop on the weekend.
“The plan will upgrade their assets to a level they can only dream of,” Barkat continues, “and they now take a completely different view of it. In the end, they will understand that it’s a serious proposition and they themselves will request it.”
Attorney Ziad Kawar, who represents most of the tenants involved, and Morad al-Sana, a neighborhood resident, vehemently deny that negotiations are underway with the municipality. “Maybe one person out of a hundred signed off on the plan, but that means nothing,” says Sana.
However, councilman Meir Margalit of Meretz, who holds the East Jerusalem portfolio and is closely acquainted with the developments, believes that, below the surface, negotiations have reached an advanced stage.
“There are increasing indications that some residents have arrived at understandings, even if things have not yet been signed,” Margalit says.
“I say this with great sorrow, because politically, this plan must not go ahead,” he continues. “I am convinced that the Elad organization will have a foothold,” he says, referring to the controversial, ultranationalist group that runs the nearby, City of David site. “But if I had a house of 40 square meters without ownership papers and I could get a house twice that size and with papers − well, I can’t really blame them.”
The municipality, under the more pragmatic mayor Nir Barkat, has its share in the erasure of the bordure between East and West
Emphasizes are mine:
A surprising process of 'Israelization' is taking place among Palestinians in East Jerusalem
Palestinian women choose Hanukkah doughnuts in a West Jerusalem bakery. Photo by Emil Salman
By Nir Hasson
Published 14:07 27.12.12
A year ago, for the first time, the Jerusalem Municipality and the Israel postal service established a post office in the village of Isawiyah, which lies below Mount Scopus, within the municipal boundaries. Along with the opening of the new branch − part of a plan to improve postal services in East Jerusalem − the village streets were given names and the houses received numbers. These developments followed a petition to the High Court of Justice, submitted by residents with the aid of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. But the municipality could not find a site for the post office, since most of the buildings in the village were illegal structures, so their future was thus in question.
“I visited the village dozens of times looking for a location,” says Itay Tsachar, an adviser to Mayor Nir Barkat and his project director for East Jerusalem. “We wanted to put the post office in the community administration building, until we discovered that it too is the subject of a demolition order.” Finally, a site for the post office was improvised between the support pillars of the neighborhood sports center.
However, on the night before the scheduled festive dedication of the new branch, which the mayor was to attend, the site was torched and slogans against normalization and collaboration with the municipality were scrawled on the walls.
“In the morning I get an urgent call from the residents,” Tsachar says. “They say: ‘Don’t ask − people tried to burn down the place.’ When I got there I found 20-30 people milling around and cursing: ‘Look what the sons-of-bitches did.’ I told them it was not a problem, because the structure was made of iron. ‘It’s just scorched a little. We can clean it up and go ahead with the ceremony,’ I told them. They organized and cleaned it up, and to this day the post office is operating just fine.”
Barkat showed up that day as scheduled to dedicate the site. His convoy was subjected to some stone-throwing on the way, but the local mukhtar, Darwish Darwish, joined a group of villagers who positioned themselves near the car to protect the mayor and the other officials.
The story of Isawiyah’s post office is a microcosm of the contrasting trends unfolding in East Jerusalem. Along with the nationalist radicalization, widespread support for Hamas and violent clashes reported in the media, far-reaching changes are taking place among the local Palestinians. These processes can be described as “Israelization,” “normalization” or just plain adaptation. The Israeli authorities, with the Jerusalem Municipality at the forefront, are encouraging and in some cases fomenting this process, and displaying surprising bureaucratic flexibility along the way.
Examples of this trend are legion. They include: increasing numbers of applications for an Israeli ID card; more high-school students taking the Israeli matriculation exams; greater numbers enrolling in Israeli academic institutions; a decline in the birthrate; more requests for building permits; a rising number of East Jerusalem youth volunteering for national service; a higher level of satisfaction according to polls of residents; a revolution in the approach to health services; a survey showing that in a final settlement more East Jerusalem Palestinians would prefer to remain under Israeli rule, and so on.
But dry statistics tell only a small part of the story; other elements are not quantifiable. For example, there is the pronounced presence of Palestinians in the center of West Jerusalem, in malls, on the light-rail train and in the open shopping area in Mamilla, adjacent to the Old City’s Jaffa Gate. These people are not street cleaners or dishwashers, but consumers and salespeople. Another phenomenon is the growing cooperation between merchants in the Old City and the municipality.
Everyone involved in developments in East Jerusalem agrees that a tectonic shift is occurring, the likes of which has not been known since the city came under Israeli rule in 1967. Opinion is divided about the source of the change. Some believe it sprang from below, propelled by the Palestinians’ feelings of despair and their belief that an independent state is not likely to come into being. Others think it is due to a revised approach to the eastern part of the city by Israeli authorities, spearheaded by the municipality. Everyone mentions the separation barrier, which abruptly cut off Jerusalem from its natural hinterland − the cities and villages of the West Bank − as a factor that compelled the Palestinians in Al Quds (“the holy sanctuary”) to look westward, toward the Jews.
The huge light-rail project, which cuts across the city and greatly facilitates access from the eastern neighborhoods to the city center, is also contributing to the transformation. Most of these changes are occurring below the radar of the Israeli public, but their consequences could be dramatic, particularly with regard to the possibility of dividing Jerusalem − and the country. It is very possible that Jerusalem has already chosen the binational solution.
1. Education
Three months after Israel captured East Jerusalem in the Six-Day War, the new school year began. The government, which by then had already annexed the eastern part of the city, sought to implement the Israeli curriculum in its public schools. However, the teachers, parents and principals adamantly refused. They launched a strike that became the symbol of the struggle by the Arabs of East Jerusalem against Israeli attempts to normalize the occupation. The strike persisted for two full years, until Israel finally capitulated and agreed to allow the Arab schools in Jerusalem to continue teaching according to the Jordanian curriculum. In time, that was superseded by the curriculum of the Palestinian Authority.
The Palestinians view that victory as a milestone in their resistance to Israel’s annexationist thrust. However, the triumph has begun to erode of late. Increasing numbers of parents now want their children to obtain an Israeli matriculation certificate, and more and more high-school graduates are attending special colleges that prepare them to enter the Israeli academic world. At present, there are three schools in East Jerusalem geared toward Israeli matriculation, while in others special programs are being launched with the same aim.
A school in Sur Baher, for example, initiated a track for Israeli matriculation last year. The school expected about 15 students to register, but 100 signed up − and the number is likely to grow in the years ahead.
According to Education Ministry data, the number of East Jerusalem high school students who took Israeli matriculation exams rose from 5,240 in 2008 to 6,022 in 2011. Another 400 people sat for external matriculation exams (that is, outside the formal school framework). The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and colleges in the city and elsewhere in the country report an increase in the number of Arab students from Jerusalem. For example, there are 63 Arab students enrolled in the Hebrew University’s preparatory course this year, up from 39 last year. Other academic institutions that are popular among East Jerusalem residents are David Yellin Teachers’ College and Hadassah College, both in Jerusalem, and Al-Qasemi Academic College of Education in Baka al-Garbiyeh, in Galilee.
Jaffa-born Amal Ayub is the founder and principal of Promise, a school in the Palestinian neighborhood of Beit Hanina in Jerusalem, which adopted the Israeli curriculum three years ago.
“I came to Jerusalem 15 years ago, but what is happening in the city now is something completely new,” she says. “First of all, there is openness. We are a coed school, which at one time was taboo. When parents visit the school I see in their eyes why they don’t want their children to do the tawjihi [Palestinian matriculation]. They think it is not relevant for them, because since the separation barrier was built, it is harder to register in Bethlehem or Bir Zeit, so they aim for the Hebrew University, David Yellin College or Hadassah College, and the tawjihi is of no use there. And the recent events in Egypt and the rest of the Arab world do not encourage them to attend universities there.”
In addition to internal changes in secondary schools, there are now about 10 colleges in East Jerusalem that specialize in preparing students for Israeli universities and colleges. One of the biggest is the Anta Ma’ana (“You are with us”) Institute on Al-Zahara Street. Students of various ages crowd into a small classroom to receive help in preparing for the Israeli matriculation exams and mandatory pre-university psychometric test.
“It used to be unacceptable. People would make comments − ‘Why are you going to school with the Jews?’ − but now we are closed in and we have to stay in Jerusalem,” says Abdel Gani, the institute’s director. To which Eid Abu Ramila, who teaches civics, adds, “And then you see that the Hebrew University is just five minutes away. If you go to school in Bethlehem or to Al-Quds University, the only place you’ll be able to find work after you graduate is at the PA, for NIS 2,000 a month. So everyone is now flocking to Israel.”
Another reason for the rush to complete an Israeli matriculation − in fact, the main reason, according to most of the college’s students − is fear of the tawjihi, which is considered very tough. We met some students when we visited the college recently. Rawan, from Beit Hanina, wants to study psychology at Hebrew University; Aboud, from Beit Hanina, is interested in communications; and Azhar, from Ras al Amud, is considering nursing or law.
None has encountered a hostile reaction from family and friends for deciding to take the Israeli matriculation exams.
“It’s easier to integrate into society and to find work with a matriculation certificate [from Israel],” says Aboud.
“Civics is the hardest subject,” Abu Ramila, the teacher, adds. “I teach them about the principles of democracy, about equality, and they ask me: ‘Where’s the equality?’”
Some local Palestinians have been trying to fight this phenomenon by persuading the PA to revise the tawjihi exams. Hatam Hawis, the spokesman for the united parents’ committee of East Jerusalem, terms the Israelization phenomenon “appalling,” because it undermines the residents’ Palestinian identity. “Israel deliberately weakened the schools in the city in order to push people to Israeli matriculation,” he says.
2. Housing and water
There are hardly any water meters in East Jerusalem, because most of the homes were built without a permit, and it is prohibited to supply water or install a meter in an illegal structure. About two years ago, again after an appeal by ACRI, the municipal water corporation, Hagihon, came up with a creative legal solution. Instead of calling it a “water meter,” it’s now called a “control device.”
The change of name made it possible to circumvent the law and install water meters and a water supply system in thousands of homes − and to start charging for the service. About 10,000 of the devices have been installed in the past two years. Hagihon has also received hundreds of requests from families that want to disconnect from the Palestinian water network, which still supplies water to some of the northern sections of East Jerusalem, and tap into the Israeli grid. The reason: The water supply by the Palestinian company is sometimes erratic.
“We received so many requests from residents to be connected to the Israeli system,” Tsachar, the mayor’s adviser, says. “Let’s say I am an incorrigible Palestinian nationalist, but I also want to shower. What can I do? In that case, [asking to be supplied with] Israeli water is legitimate and pragmatic, and it will also be available all the time. I can fly a Palestinian flag next to the water container on the roof, but I would rather get the water on a regular basis. Now think about the ‘tower and stockade’ settlements [of the 1930s and 1940s]. Do you think they would have said, ‘We will not build a tower but will hook up to the Jordanian network, because it’s more practical’? Obviously not. So there is a process underway here. It’s something that cannot be ignored.”
The matter of issuing building permits provides another example of the authorities’ administrative flexibility in East Jerusalem. The main problem is that most residents cannot get a building permit because they do not have documents attesting to their ownership of property. To solve this problem, the municipality devised the so-called “Barkat procedure.”
“The problem is that if you don’t have confirmation of land ownership, the whole judicial system is stuck,” says Barkat. “We therefore created a mechanism in which the mukhtars, community directorate and municipality meet, and if they reach the conclusion that there is no reason not to believe someone who says the land is his, he gets a temporary permit.
After 20 years, if no one else claims ownership, it becomes permanent. This is a city in which legal creativity is a must. I would rather be right and smart than right and dumb.”
Barkat, who locates himself to the right of the political center, has played a crucial role in the story of East Jerusalem in recent years. The data may not show dramatic changes in budgetary allocations for East Jerusalem, but even his political foes admit he is making efforts to change the situation. From his perspective, the struggle to improve the lot of the city’s Arab population is part and parcel of his effort to eliminate plans to partition the city.
“I am determined to improve the quality of life of all the city’s inhabitants,” Barkat says. “That is precisely how I am unifying the city: by making things better for everyone. Jerusalem will not be divided. Period. It will not be able to function if it is divided, because of something very deeply ingrained in the city’s essence.” He adds, “But in Jerusalem each tribe has its own place, so I have no problem with the Arabs coming out to vote. My job will be easier if they have representatives on the city council.”
The key question is whether these developments will in fact induce Palestinians in Jerusalem to vote in municipal elections, which they have not done in any meaningful numbers since 1967. Constituting 36 percent of Jerusalem’s population, the Palestinians have the potential electoral power to change the political composition of the city council dramatically. There are voices in East Jerusalem calling for the Palestinians to vote, as part of a strategy to seek a one-state solution instead of the vaunted two-state concept. However, most experts believe that even if this eventually comes about, it will not affect the next municipal elections, which are about a year away.
“There is no doubt that Barkat has changed his strategy,” says city councilman Meir Margalit (Meretz), who holds the East Jerusalem portfolio. “He is not a political person and not a great ideologue. He is pursuing a businessman’s strategy: buying people rather than forcing his rule on them. Why bring in bulldozers and demolish things if you can get people to leave of their own free will? He is creating a situation in which people feel they have something to lose.”
A few weeks ago, Barkat convened a meeting to discuss children at risk in East Jerusalem. About 20 Palestinians from neighborhoods and villages came to the meeting in the luxurious council room at City Hall, most of them with complaints aimed at the municipality and the social affairs and education ministries. According to Barkat, they came because they feel that someone is listening to them.
“In the past, they would come and talk and see that nothing came of it, and no one knew whether it was ideology, lack of desire or impotence,” Barkat says. “Suddenly, when they see things happening, they realize it is ideology and that there is no lack of desire and no impotence.”
Among the achievements Barkat lists: investments in infrastructure and transportation, planning of neighborhoods, building of schools and more. To illustrate the altered perception on the Palestinian side, he recalls the events surrounding the city-sponsored Festival of Light in the Old City and the behavior of the merchants there. The festival, which focuses on sculptures and performances relating to the theme of light, was held for the third time this year.
“The first year we had a pilot program, only in the Jewish Quarter, and 100,000 people showed up,” Barkat says. “In the second year we held it in the Jewish Quarter and the Christian Quarter, and 200,000 people came. This year it was in all the quarters and there were 300,000 visitors. At first the merchants were afraid to open up for the event, because they got threats. But then they saw that one store opened and then another, and before you knew it they were all open. Everyone made a killing and people got used to the idea.”
3. Health
Make no mistake: Despite what Barkat says, the boundary between the two parts of the city is still very sharp. The roads in the eastern city are still strewn with potholes and twist and turn at impossible angles. Uncollected garbage continues to pile up. By every yardstick − number of garbage bins, public parks, number and quality of school facilities, number of lampposts, well-child clinics, budgetary investment per resident or per schoolchild, and so on − the east is disadvantaged compared to the western city. Likewise the Palestinians, compared to their Jewish neighbors.
A detailed study conducted by councilman Margalit found that, at best, only 13.68 percent of the city’s budget is invested in the 36 percent of its Arab residents who live in East Jerusalem. Moreover, the Arab population there suffers from rampant unemployment and poverty, and is more likely than the Jewish population of the city to be subjected to police violence. Jewish settlers hire private guards to operate in Arab neighborhoods, and the Shin Bet security service still has a say in the appointment of school principals.
Still, in one area, the gap between the Jews in the west and their neighbors in the east has almost closed: public health. The past decade witnessed something of a mini-revolution in this sphere in Jerusalem. Until about 15 years ago, the Arabs of East Jerusalem were severely disadvantaged in terms of health care, mainly when it came to the health maintenance organizations. There were few clinics, physicians were unqualified, services were lacking. In the wake of the enactment of the National Health Law, which rewards the HMOs according to the number of members they have and their upgrading of various medical indices − none other than Leumit HMO, which is identified with the Revisionist Zionist movement − decided to enter the market in the eastern city. A major draw was the fact that the East Jerusalem population is young.
Around the same time, whether by chance or not, the Leumit logo also underwent a transformation: The long-time Star of David morphed into a flower. Within a few years, unbridled competition broke out between HMOs in the eastern city, which are run by local concessionaires − for the most part physicians, but in some cases businessmen.
The competition and privatization generated protests by organizations such as Physicians for Human Rights and ACRI. Their concern was that there was substandard supervision by the HMOs and a preference for making a profit instead of improving medical care. In the end, the process brought about a situation in which almost every neighborhood now has a number of clinics that boast advanced equipment. Following a number of cases in which ambulance drivers refused to enter Arab neighborhoods, some of the clinics now have their own forward ER units. In some cases the residents get free transportation to the clinics, free subscriptions to health clubs or free dental care, to ensure that they don’t switch to a rival HMO. The directors of the HMOs in the city still shudder when they recall how, three years ago, one concessionaire got tens of thousands of people to switch to a different HMO by reaching a better agreement with the competition.
Fuad Abu Hamed, a businessman and community leader from Sur Baher, runs the Clalit branches in his village and in Beit Safafa. He proudly shows off his clinic, which has an advanced ER unit, an X-ray center and a dental clinic. He speaks of extraordinary achievements in the realm of preventive medicine.
“When the need arose to perform mammograms, we got 95 percent of the women, which is unprecedented. That’s because I know the community, and if a woman refuses we talk to her husband or sister, and I send a car to bring her. We don’t give in.”
Prof. Yosef Frost, director of the Jerusalem district of Clalit, describes the health developments in East Jerusalem over the past few years as an international record.
“Take the quality indices, which are objective and universal, and examine the quality of medical service,” he says. “Four years ago, the indices were extremely low, whereas now they are almost equal to the Israeli national average. Some of the clinics in East Jerusalem are the leaders in the whole district; I could easily put them in the center of Tel Aviv.”
According to Frost, the health quality indices in East Jerusalem rose from a grade of 74 in 2009 to 87 today. That is the same grade the clinics in West Jerusalem receive, and just one point below the national average of Clalit clinics.
4. ID cards
The most advanced phase of the Israelization process appears in the requests for an Israeli ID card. In contrast to the territory in which they live, which was fully annexed to Israel, the residents themselves were annexed only partially; nearly all of them hold only a residency card. Residency status denies them many rights, including the right to vote in Knesset elections. But more important, it deprives them of the right to live wherever they wish.
Unlike citizens who can live in the territories or anywhere else, a Palestinian Jerusalemite who moves to the territories (or if the municipal boundary places his home across the line), or who goes abroad to study for too many years, is liable to lose his residency status − and thereby also the right to return to his native city.
The road to obtaining full citizenship is seemingly open, but in practice Israel heaped obstacles in the way of those who sought citizenship. In any event, applicants for citizenship were few, as they were considered “traitors” who accepted the occupation. However, that barrier too has apparently been breached. Interior Ministry data show that several hundred Palestinians from East Jerusalem received Israeli citizenship in each of the past few years. Lawyers who are involved in this process say the queue of applicants is getting longer all the time.
“The shame barrier has fallen,” says attorney Amnon Mazar, who specializes in applications for citizenship. “People have reached the conclusion that the PA will not be their salvation and that Israel is a cornucopia. So they do it for their personal benefit. People who obtain Israeli citizenship are no longer necessarily considered traitors to their nation. It’s the trend. They don’t feel they have anything to be ashamed of.”
The fall of the shame barrier was also discernible in a survey conducted among East Jerusalem residents by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy − an independent think tank − last January. The results were dramatic. One question was, “In the event of a permanent two-state solution, which state would you prefer to live in?” No fewer than 35 percent of the respondents chose Israel, 30 percent opted for Palestine and 35 percent refused to answer.
“It was a surprise,” admits Dr. David Pollock, who conducted the survey. “We thought people would not want to say or admit it, but they did. You can see from the large number of people who declined to answer that it is a highly sensitive issue. So I would say that these figures are the minimum.” In reply to the question, “What would your neighbors prefer in that case?”, 39 percent replied that their neighbors would prefer to live in Israel.
What’s the explanation? The number of explanations for the processes
being undergone by Jerusalem and by its Palestinian residents is equal to the number of experts one asks.
Some cite the separation fence, which cut off East Jerusalem from the West Bank, its natural market and hinterland, and drove the residents into the arms of the Israelis. Others point to the deadlocked peace process and the attendant despair of change that has gripped the East Jerusalem Palestinians. There are experts who think the Arab Spring and general instability in the Arab world are pushing the Palestinians in Jerusalem to search for a future in the unified city. Another cause sometimes mentioned is the ongoing crisis and division within the PA. Or it may be simply due to the fact that, after so many years of occupation, a generation that was born into the situation prefers to look for its material future rather than raise the national flag. But everyone agrees that the driving force behind these developments is not love of Israel, but a desire to survive.
“The Israeli ID card is part of my summud,” says a Palestinian who obtained an ID card, referring to the concept of steadfastness. The Israeli attorney Adi Lustigman, who represents residents in the naturalization process, believes that requesting Israeli citizenship actually empowers Palestinian identity. “It’s what makes it possible for them to preserve their land and their rights in the place where they live,” she says. “They are still Palestinians; the fact that they are granted citizenship does not make them settlers. On the contrary: it gives them more freedom of movement and the possibility to stay in touch with the Palestinians in the West Bank, to work in Ramallah and live wherever they want without having to account to anyone.”
Tsachar: “A habit becomes natural, and this habit too will ultimately become natural. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Israelization or pragmatism. The farther you move along the axis of time, the more the disparity between 1948 and 1967 is reduced. There are many new milestones on the axis. It’s human nature.”
According to Israel Kimchi, a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, it’s vital to remember that more than half the population of East Jerusalem “was born into this situation [of Israeli rule]. Things are moving toward greater moderation, more of an acknowledgment of the existing situation, of living the day-to-day as long as that’s possible. What interests them is having a playground for the children, like in the western city.”
“Survival” is also the word used by Dr. Asmahan Masry-Herzalla, a researcher in the Jerusalem Institute, to describe the behavior of East Jerusalem Palestinians. She too agrees that, contrary to expectations, the current process will actually bolster the Jerusalem Arabs’ Palestinian identity.
“It’s sheer survival. It doesn’t mean they want to become Israelis. They want to walk between the raindrops,” she says. “But when a young Palestinian man engages in study, it will heighten his awareness and reinforce his identity. Look what happened to the Arabs in Israel: the more they integrated, the more aware they became of their Palestinian identity.”
Jawad Siyam, from the village of Silwan, which abuts the Old City, is a prominent political leader in East Jerusalem. He is at the forefront of the struggle against the Jewish settlers in his village, and has been arrested many times. “Our life in East Jerusalem is complex,” he says. “We are Palestinians and need to belong to a place where we feel we have respect, and that is not Israel. In the meantime, we have an Israeli [residence] card and have to deal with the Israeli authorities, and I understand that some people are taking out an ID card in order to make life easier. But in the meantime, everything Israel and the settlers are doing only makes the Palestinians feel more Palestinian.”
Kimchi, who for years produced proposals for political solutions to divide the city, doesn’t think this process will affect the partition option. “In the end, the decision will be a political one. Nothing will help them,” he says, referring to the Arab residents. “No one will ask them.”
According to Margalit − who made these remarks before the United Nations General Assembly granted Palestine nonmember observer-state status − “More and more Palestinians have despaired of the Palestinian Authority. They do not believe partition will happen. They see what is happening between Hamas and Fatah, and within Fatah, and they say ‘No thanks. We have enough problems of our own, so why should we step into that mess? We would rather be under Israeli rule.’ For someone like me, that is a truth that is hard to accept.”
Indeed, for Margalit, a veteran activist on behalf of the Palestinians’ rights in Jerusalem, the new situation creates vexing dilemmas. “There is daily soul-searching here between the humanistic consideration and the political consideration. It’s true that things are a little better for the Arabs of East Jerusalem,” he says, “but in the long term, we as Jews, and all of us together, will pay a higher price. That’s because what’s underway is destroying the foundation of the two-state solution.”
“I went through the period of whining, when we said ‘only the Jews are to blame.’ I do not say they are not responsible, but I also want to look after myself,” adds Abu Hamed, who, in addition to being the director of HMO branches, chairs a volunteer committee to promote education in Sur Baher. Both roles bring him into constant contact with the Israeli authorities. What drives him, he says, is the feeling of discrimination.
“It’s a harsh feeling. It burns me up when I drive through Armon Hanatziv [a post-1967 Jewish neighborhood next to Sur Baher] and see that they are scraping the old asphalt in order to repave the road, and you say to yourself, ‘Dear God, I wish we had even the old asphalt.’ The expectations of the people in East Jerusalem extend to banal services like roads and sewage disposal. It’s not their fault that the Six-Day War happened. Let them at least let us live with honor, whether it’s 40 years or 400 years. When the political solution comes, then we will see.”
After this article went to press, there was another clash between Palestinians and police in Isawiyah. Eighteen youths were arrested. The post office was not attacked.
Islands of anarchy
The undeniable processes by which the eastern part of Jerusalem is being unified with the western side do not incorporate all the residents of East Jerusalem. They include mainly the more established neighborhoods, and, more specifically, the people of means in those neighborhoods. These processes are completely absent in the Palestinian neighborhoods that are outside the separation fence. In fact, the situation in those areas is almost the reverse.
Some 70,000 Palestinians, almost one-third of all the Arab residents of Jerusalem, now live on the other side of the separation fence. Their neighborhoods have become islands of complete anarchy between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The police, the municipality, the infrastructure companies and the other Israeli authorities barely operate in these neighborhoods, and the PA is barred from entering them under the terms of the Oslo Accords. The result is that their inhabitants are doomed to a life of hardship, lacking even the most basic services, and with a constantly diminishing connection to their city, which has left them on the wrong side of the checkpoints.
For the past few years, mayor Nir Barkat has been trying to get these neighborhoods placed under the responsibility of the army’s Civil Administration, which controls the West Bank. Barkat wants “to adjust the municipal boundary to conform with the fence,” adding, “I cannot operate when a fence crosses the municipal boundary. The fence is a real barrier in terms of supplying services.”
Redrawing the municipal boundary on this scale would of course be a dramatic move. Some would say it signals the start of Israel’s relinquishment of East Jerusalem. In the meantime, the political decision makers at the state level are refusing to consider Barkat’s idea.
The King’s Garden
Two years ago, a political storm was unleashed over a plan to develop the area of East Jerusalem known as the “King’s Garden.” Under the plan, which mayor Barkat supports, a new tourist area would be created on the lower slopes of the village of Silwan, below the City of David. The plan calls for the demolition of 22 of the 88 illegally built homes in the neighborhood of Al-Bustan, with the residents being moved to new housing in another part of the neighborhood.
The plan drew widespread condemnation. Local residents erected a protest tent that became a rallying point for months of violent demonstrations. Governments across the world spoke out against the plan, and Meretz left the municipal coalition in protest. (The party reentered the coalition about a year later.)
In the meantime, the mayor and his staff continued to visit the area and discuss with the residents the possibility of their voluntary departure. Barkat says many of them have already agreed to the plan, even if they are unwilling to say so publicly. “I come to them with a win-win approach. What goes on in Abu Ghosh on Saturdays is nothing compared to what can be done here,” the mayor says, referring to the droves of Israeli Jews who flock to the Arab village west of Jerusalem (and inside Israel) to eat and shop on the weekend.
“The plan will upgrade their assets to a level they can only dream of,” Barkat continues, “and they now take a completely different view of it. In the end, they will understand that it’s a serious proposition and they themselves will request it.”
Attorney Ziad Kawar, who represents most of the tenants involved, and Morad al-Sana, a neighborhood resident, vehemently deny that negotiations are underway with the municipality. “Maybe one person out of a hundred signed off on the plan, but that means nothing,” says Sana.
However, councilman Meir Margalit of Meretz, who holds the East Jerusalem portfolio and is closely acquainted with the developments, believes that, below the surface, negotiations have reached an advanced stage.
“There are increasing indications that some residents have arrived at understandings, even if things have not yet been signed,” Margalit says.
“I say this with great sorrow, because politically, this plan must not go ahead,” he continues. “I am convinced that the Elad organization will have a foothold,” he says, referring to the controversial, ultranationalist group that runs the nearby, City of David site. “But if I had a house of 40 square meters without ownership papers and I could get a house twice that size and with papers − well, I can’t really blame them.”
Thursday, March 27, 2014
The Jewish state - the essence of peace
Follows an article by former Knesset member Einat Wilf I found very interesting, and an occasion to tell you about my own conceptions.
I liked this article, yet, I don't agree with her when she says that "Israel does not need Palestinian recognition in order to know what it is".
If Israel was really a Jewish state, recognizing Israel would be automatically a recognition of the Jewish state. Israel don't know what it is in fact: the state of all its population living in its territory, like all nation-states. Israel is meant to be the state of its nation, the Israeli nation, 'the Israeli people' or 'the people in Israel' as some say. The problem is that the Israeli nation is a pure fiction... We are two nations here, at least, a Jewish one and an Arab one.
I do not quite agree either when she write that "Being the Jewish state simply means being the one place in the world where the Jewish people, as a people, are free and sovereign to interpret Jewish civilization and determine their own fate".
I would have written 'free and independent to interpret...' because the Jewish political conception says that the Creator, through His Law, is the sovereign, a supranational sovereign, Him and not its people, which He took out of the Egyptian slavery and turned immediately into His servitors.
The Children of Israel have not been 'sovereign' one second. Free, and independent of other peoples, yes, but still under the rule of the transcendent Law.
I have another reservation: "Being the Jewish state simply means being the one place in the world...", a Jewish state is not a place, it is not defined by a territory. The Hebrew word for 'state' is 'medina', from 'din', which means 'law' or judgment'. A Jewish state is defined by its laws, it needs to have the Jewish law as the basis, at least, of his legislation in order to be called Jewish. It do needs a place in order to be independent of other peoples - this place is Eretz Israel - but the state is not a place. It doesn't need a place to exist, the Jewish state with its Talmudic laws and institutions existed in exile for centuries, without a territory...
Does this question of the nature of a Jewish state - a nation-state like others for Jews, or a state having a political Jewish structure - may have an impact on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
Yes, I think so: a state based on Jewish law wouldn't impose itself on another people: Jewish law applies only onto Jews personally - like Islamic law applies only on Muslims - and not on the territory and anyone found being there. Muslim and Christian Arabs might finally recognize that, like them, Jews submit themselves to the Sovereign of the World, and have the same conception that 'to Him belongs the Earth'. Jews couldn't be seen then as a western colonialist offshoot. The door would be open for Jews and Arabs to see each other as another tribe of the People of God, and sharing by covenant the Holy Land would be most natural....
Emphasizes mine.
To build a peaceful future, the Palestinians need to leave behind the idea that the Jewish people are strangers who have come to a strange land.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her entire government are in Israel as great friends of the State of Israel and its people. The talks between the two governments are taking place in anticipation of US Secretary of State John Kerry’s Framework Agreement for Peace. Early leaks indicate that the document will include a statement, requested by Israel and its prime minister that, as part of any final peace agreement, the Palestinians recognize Israel as the “Jewish state” or as the “Homeland of the Jewish People.”
While this request is supported by the vast majority of Israelis, as well as the chairman of the Opposition and the Labor party Isaac Herzog, some have not understood what it means and why it is necessary. Others have argued that it is merely a hawkish ploy to avoid reaching any agreement with the Palestinians, or that it is a sad mark of Israel’s low self-confidence that it needs the Palestinians to tell it what it is.
The prime minister’s request is none of the above. It is the one core demand that, once met, will mean that peace is possible. Palestinian recognition of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people is not a condition for peace – it is the very essence of peace.
Israel does not need Palestinian recognition in order to know what it is. Those who have dreamed, founded and built it have done so with one purpose in mind: create a sovereign state for the Jewish people in their ancient homeland. It doesn’t matter if those who established the Jewish state were secular atheists who set out to build an egalitarian socialist utopia in the spirit of the Hebrew prophets, religious Jews who hoped to restore biblical traditions to the modern state, or national liberals who imagined Jew and Arab, Christian and Muslim, living side by side in peace in a Vienna-inspired Judenstaadt. They all wanted a Jewish state, but their visions of it were very different.
Being the Jewish state was never to be a simple concept.
Jewish civilization, like all ancient civilizations, is so rich as to support any system of governance and any set of values that its bearers choose. Unlike what Palestinian leaders say when they reject the Israeli request for recognition, there is nothing in the concept of Jewish state that is necessarily religious rather than secular, nor anything that implies that such a state is only for Jews.
Like all ancient value systems that have been constantly evolving, Judaism serves as a repository of liberal, as well as ultra-conservative values; it is in the eye of the beholder and the interpreter. It is partial to neither.
Being the Jewish state simply means being the one place in the world where the Jewish people, as a people, are free and sovereign to interpret Jewish civilization and determine their own fate. Being the Jewish state means nothing more, but also nothing less.
The Palestinians need to recognize Israel as the Jewish state, not for the sake of the Jews, but for their own sake and dignity and for the cause of peace. Time and time again, the Palestinians have rejected opportunities to live freely in their own sovereign state because doing so means coming to terms with the Jewish state.
Already in 1947, the Arab world, including the Arabs of Palestine (later to be termed Palestinians), rejected the partition of the land into a Jewish state and an Arab state as proposed by the United Nations. They did so because they told themselves that Zionism is not the self-determination movement of the Jewish people, but rather a colonial movement that has brought strangers to their land, strangers who – faced with determined resistance – are destined, sooner or later, to leave it.
In comparing the Jews in the Land of Israel to foreign colonials who will succumb to sustained resistance, the Palestinians might have told themselves a comforting story about a future without Jews and without Israel, but one that has repeatedly robbed them of their present.
They have refused any solution that would create a Palestinian state because the price of doing so meant finally accepting that the Jews should have their own state, too. They preferred to have nothing rather than the dignity of their own state, if it meant sharing the land with the state of the Jewish people.
To build a peaceful future, the Palestinians need to leave behind the idea that the Jewish people are strangers who have come to a strange land and, therefore, will one day go away. Once the Palestinians recognize Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people, they will finally be accepting that in creating the State of Israel, the Jewish people have come home. In doing so the Palestinians will signal to the world, to Israel and, above all, to themselves, that they are finally ready to part with a false future in order to build a real present: one in which both the Jewish people and the Palestinians people can live in peace as a free people in their own sovereign states – one Jewish, one Palestinian.
The author is a Senior Fellow with the Jewish People Policy Institute and a former member of the Israeli Knesset. A version of this article was published in German in Der Zeit.
I liked this article, yet, I don't agree with her when she says that "Israel does not need Palestinian recognition in order to know what it is".
If Israel was really a Jewish state, recognizing Israel would be automatically a recognition of the Jewish state. Israel don't know what it is in fact: the state of all its population living in its territory, like all nation-states. Israel is meant to be the state of its nation, the Israeli nation, 'the Israeli people' or 'the people in Israel' as some say. The problem is that the Israeli nation is a pure fiction... We are two nations here, at least, a Jewish one and an Arab one.
I do not quite agree either when she write that "Being the Jewish state simply means being the one place in the world where the Jewish people, as a people, are free and sovereign to interpret Jewish civilization and determine their own fate".
I would have written 'free and independent to interpret...' because the Jewish political conception says that the Creator, through His Law, is the sovereign, a supranational sovereign, Him and not its people, which He took out of the Egyptian slavery and turned immediately into His servitors.
The Children of Israel have not been 'sovereign' one second. Free, and independent of other peoples, yes, but still under the rule of the transcendent Law.
I have another reservation: "Being the Jewish state simply means being the one place in the world...", a Jewish state is not a place, it is not defined by a territory. The Hebrew word for 'state' is 'medina', from 'din', which means 'law' or judgment'. A Jewish state is defined by its laws, it needs to have the Jewish law as the basis, at least, of his legislation in order to be called Jewish. It do needs a place in order to be independent of other peoples - this place is Eretz Israel - but the state is not a place. It doesn't need a place to exist, the Jewish state with its Talmudic laws and institutions existed in exile for centuries, without a territory...
Does this question of the nature of a Jewish state - a nation-state like others for Jews, or a state having a political Jewish structure - may have an impact on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
Yes, I think so: a state based on Jewish law wouldn't impose itself on another people: Jewish law applies only onto Jews personally - like Islamic law applies only on Muslims - and not on the territory and anyone found being there. Muslim and Christian Arabs might finally recognize that, like them, Jews submit themselves to the Sovereign of the World, and have the same conception that 'to Him belongs the Earth'. Jews couldn't be seen then as a western colonialist offshoot. The door would be open for Jews and Arabs to see each other as another tribe of the People of God, and sharing by covenant the Holy Land would be most natural....
Emphasizes mine.
The essence of peace
02/24/2014To build a peaceful future, the Palestinians need to leave behind the idea that the Jewish people are strangers who have come to a strange land.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her entire government are in Israel as great friends of the State of Israel and its people. The talks between the two governments are taking place in anticipation of US Secretary of State John Kerry’s Framework Agreement for Peace. Early leaks indicate that the document will include a statement, requested by Israel and its prime minister that, as part of any final peace agreement, the Palestinians recognize Israel as the “Jewish state” or as the “Homeland of the Jewish People.”
While this request is supported by the vast majority of Israelis, as well as the chairman of the Opposition and the Labor party Isaac Herzog, some have not understood what it means and why it is necessary. Others have argued that it is merely a hawkish ploy to avoid reaching any agreement with the Palestinians, or that it is a sad mark of Israel’s low self-confidence that it needs the Palestinians to tell it what it is.
The prime minister’s request is none of the above. It is the one core demand that, once met, will mean that peace is possible. Palestinian recognition of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people is not a condition for peace – it is the very essence of peace.
Israel does not need Palestinian recognition in order to know what it is. Those who have dreamed, founded and built it have done so with one purpose in mind: create a sovereign state for the Jewish people in their ancient homeland. It doesn’t matter if those who established the Jewish state were secular atheists who set out to build an egalitarian socialist utopia in the spirit of the Hebrew prophets, religious Jews who hoped to restore biblical traditions to the modern state, or national liberals who imagined Jew and Arab, Christian and Muslim, living side by side in peace in a Vienna-inspired Judenstaadt. They all wanted a Jewish state, but their visions of it were very different.
Being the Jewish state was never to be a simple concept.
Jewish civilization, like all ancient civilizations, is so rich as to support any system of governance and any set of values that its bearers choose. Unlike what Palestinian leaders say when they reject the Israeli request for recognition, there is nothing in the concept of Jewish state that is necessarily religious rather than secular, nor anything that implies that such a state is only for Jews.
Like all ancient value systems that have been constantly evolving, Judaism serves as a repository of liberal, as well as ultra-conservative values; it is in the eye of the beholder and the interpreter. It is partial to neither.
Being the Jewish state simply means being the one place in the world where the Jewish people, as a people, are free and sovereign to interpret Jewish civilization and determine their own fate. Being the Jewish state means nothing more, but also nothing less.
The Palestinians need to recognize Israel as the Jewish state, not for the sake of the Jews, but for their own sake and dignity and for the cause of peace. Time and time again, the Palestinians have rejected opportunities to live freely in their own sovereign state because doing so means coming to terms with the Jewish state.
Already in 1947, the Arab world, including the Arabs of Palestine (later to be termed Palestinians), rejected the partition of the land into a Jewish state and an Arab state as proposed by the United Nations. They did so because they told themselves that Zionism is not the self-determination movement of the Jewish people, but rather a colonial movement that has brought strangers to their land, strangers who – faced with determined resistance – are destined, sooner or later, to leave it.
In comparing the Jews in the Land of Israel to foreign colonials who will succumb to sustained resistance, the Palestinians might have told themselves a comforting story about a future without Jews and without Israel, but one that has repeatedly robbed them of their present.
They have refused any solution that would create a Palestinian state because the price of doing so meant finally accepting that the Jews should have their own state, too. They preferred to have nothing rather than the dignity of their own state, if it meant sharing the land with the state of the Jewish people.
To build a peaceful future, the Palestinians need to leave behind the idea that the Jewish people are strangers who have come to a strange land and, therefore, will one day go away. Once the Palestinians recognize Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people, they will finally be accepting that in creating the State of Israel, the Jewish people have come home. In doing so the Palestinians will signal to the world, to Israel and, above all, to themselves, that they are finally ready to part with a false future in order to build a real present: one in which both the Jewish people and the Palestinians people can live in peace as a free people in their own sovereign states – one Jewish, one Palestinian.
The author is a Senior Fellow with the Jewish People Policy Institute and a former member of the Israeli Knesset. A version of this article was published in German in Der Zeit.
Sunday, March 23, 2014
The ‘Day After’ the Palestinian Authority collapses
It could happen soon if the present negotiations end in a clear failure.
Chaos, anarchy, even terror or take over by Hamas and their repression could help Israel by pushing more Palestinians to emigrate. Annexation of the West Bank in a Greater Israel would turn then to be easier. No doubt this is a good scenario for some rightists..
Photo: Photo Essay
It is time - more than ever - to prepare a peaceful alternative: recognition of the independent State of Palestine by Israel, followed by an union agreement between the two states.
The PA would turn into a transitional Palestinian government, part of the Israel-Palestine Federation...
Emphasizes mine:
The Palestinian Authority is on the brink of collapse, study says
Only achieving statehood could save the West Bank from an impending wave of violence, crime, chaos, disease, says major Palestinian report.
By Amira Hass | Mar. 21, 2014
The breakdown of the Palestinian Authority would turn the West Bank into a violent, criminal, chaotic, disease-ridden place. But even though most Palestinians want the PA to survive, either for the sake of basic social order or personal interest, and although Israel dreads having to resume responsibility for 3 million West Bankers, President Mahmoud Abbas’ regime will collapse before too long if Israel continues to thwart Palestinian aspirations for independence.
This is the conclusion of a massive six-month study by the highly-regarded Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah, directed by Dr. Khalil Shikaki.
A great many Palestinians have a deeply vested interest in the PA’s continued existence, Shikaki notes. Connections with the PA bring “financial well being, social and political status in society, and there are circles that depend on their relation to PA. Anything that happens to the PA will take all of that away from them. These could be organizations, business interests or individuals who have positions of power that allow them to reward sympathizers.
“If they could call the shots, they would do their best to prevent [the PA’s collapse],” Shikaki said, “But even those who have a vested interest in satisfying Israel, for the sake of preserving the PA, cannot do it for too long.”
If ordinary Palestinians still support the existence of the PA, it’s because they have a need for some kind of order, he adds. “People do not want to see themselves without a central authority that prevents chaos and anarchy in the streets, even if they have a lot of criticism of the PA and its functioning. But the Palestinians are willing to risk it collapsing completely, if it happens in the midst of a struggle for a change in the status quo. If there is a good reason for it to collapse, then [the attitude is] let it be.”
The PA is 20 years old, but voices questioning its efficacy were already being heard at the start of the second intifada in 2000. They’ve returned and intensified over the past two or three years, as it has become clear that the PA is not delivering on either of the two goals it was established to achieve: statehood and the provision of public services. Add to this the increasing economic difficulties and the rupture with the Gaza Strip, and the picture of failure is complete.
Unprecedented report
“The ‘Day After’ Final Report: The Likelihood, Consequences and Policy Implications of a PA Collapse or Dissolution” is unprecedented in its scope and willingness to grapple with this issue. More than 200 Palestinian professionals participated in the discussions that led to the 250-page report.
The PA could break up in one of three ways, the study concluded. One, the least likely scenario, is a voluntary decision by the Palestinian leadership to dissolve it. The second is collapse as the result of Israel’s punishing economic, military and political power, and political and economic pressure, mostly American, in response to Palestinian steps that violate the status quo, such as petitioning the International Criminal Court or leading a non-militarized uprising. The third possibility is a breakup that results from internal Palestinian unrest and rebellion.
Among participants, there are those who view the disintegration of the PA as a near certainty, given Israel’s refusal to reach a two-state solution in line with international principles and decisions. According to Shikaki, those who see the collapse of the PA as a positive thing are in the minority for now, and tend to be those who support a single, binational state. But it’s clear that the three main players – the PA itself, Israel, and the international community – are not interested in the PA’s disappearance.
Shikaki said he asked the Israelis “under what circumstances Israel might lose interest in preservation of the PA, and their assumption was that Palestinians are not stupid and don’t want to go too far so that we [Israel] would change our priorities.” This Israeli perspective seems to reinforce the position of Palestinian critics who claim that the PA serves Israel’s interests. Indeed, Shikaki says, “All Palestinians who participated in the discussion shared the view that Israel and the PA have a common interest in keeping the PA functioning. Palestinian society in general understands that the PA is able to exist as long as Israel is happy with it, and as long as Palestinians find it useful to them.”
Did the Israeli interviewees understand that Israeli policies were liable to topple the PA? Yes, Shikaki said. “They think that [Israeli policy] could worsen conditions significantly, but that Israel will step in at the last minute and prevent a collapse.”
Shikaki noted that all the participants assumed that “at all levels there will be an attempt to prevent a collapse.” Paradoxically, he said, “This gives each of the actors the comfort to believe that they can do a lot of harm to the other party without risking that other party’s collapse.” Thus, the Israeli-PA relationship becomes like a game of chicken, an analogy used in the discussions which focused on ways the Palestinians could force the Israelis to blink first.
If there is a voluntary decision to dismantle the PA, “Palestinians might seek to force Israel to either deepen its occupation, reverting to the situation that prevailed before 1994, or change its policies by seriously negotiating the end of its occupation, or unilaterally withdraw from most of the West Bank,” according to the center’s final document. Alternatively, in the event of a collapse resulting from external or internal pressures, “This expected [security] instability might force Israel to re-examine its options.”
The report concludes that the results of a PA shutdown would depend largely on whether the various components of the Palestinian leadership break long-time habits of poor planning, lack of transparency, excessive centralization, lack of consulting bodies and the immediate gratification of personal and sectarian interests. Preferably, the Palestinian leadership would decide to restore the status of the PLO and include Islamic movements in its ranks; decentralize planning and management and transfer those responsibilities to civil organizations and institutions; build an alternative management mechanism; or establish a government in exile.
Hamas would be big winner
These are some of the preliminary steps that participants in the study recommended to mitigate the severe repercussions of the PA’s collapse. These include economic damage to the public and private sector; widespread poverty; social and political disintegration; the spread of disease, with particular harm to children’s health; looting of infrastructure facilities; strengthening of tribes and clans; deepening of the rift between the Gaza Strip and West Bank; rise of armed gangs and security chaos; and a return to violence as the primary avenue of the struggle. One certain result is that Hamas, and in particular the Hamas government in Gaza, would be strengthened.
Participants in the study included university professors, current and former government ministers, legislators from all the factions, business people and executives of nongovernmental organizations. The looked at the effect of a PA shutdown on security, economy, Fatah-Hamas relations and political life, health, education, infrastructure, telephony and communications, local government, the judiciary, and the future of the struggle for independence.
The center also conducted interviews with 180 Palestinians to gain a deeper understanding of prevalent attitudes. In addition, Shikaki interviewed 12 Israelis from the military, Civil Administration, various political factions (though not from the extreme right) and research institutes, though Shikaki declined to name them.
Chaos, anarchy, even terror or take over by Hamas and their repression could help Israel by pushing more Palestinians to emigrate. Annexation of the West Bank in a Greater Israel would turn then to be easier. No doubt this is a good scenario for some rightists..Photo: Photo Essay
It is time - more than ever - to prepare a peaceful alternative: recognition of the independent State of Palestine by Israel, followed by an union agreement between the two states.
The PA would turn into a transitional Palestinian government, part of the Israel-Palestine Federation...
Emphasizes mine:
The Palestinian Authority is on the brink of collapse, study says
The Palestinian Authority is on the brink of collapse, study says
Only achieving statehood could save the West Bank from an impending wave of violence, crime, chaos, disease, says major Palestinian report.
By Amira Hass | Mar. 21, 2014
The breakdown of the Palestinian Authority would turn the West Bank into a violent, criminal, chaotic, disease-ridden place. But even though most Palestinians want the PA to survive, either for the sake of basic social order or personal interest, and although Israel dreads having to resume responsibility for 3 million West Bankers, President Mahmoud Abbas’ regime will collapse before too long if Israel continues to thwart Palestinian aspirations for independence.
This is the conclusion of a massive six-month study by the highly-regarded Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah, directed by Dr. Khalil Shikaki.
A great many Palestinians have a deeply vested interest in the PA’s continued existence, Shikaki notes. Connections with the PA bring “financial well being, social and political status in society, and there are circles that depend on their relation to PA. Anything that happens to the PA will take all of that away from them. These could be organizations, business interests or individuals who have positions of power that allow them to reward sympathizers.
“If they could call the shots, they would do their best to prevent [the PA’s collapse],” Shikaki said, “But even those who have a vested interest in satisfying Israel, for the sake of preserving the PA, cannot do it for too long.”
If ordinary Palestinians still support the existence of the PA, it’s because they have a need for some kind of order, he adds. “People do not want to see themselves without a central authority that prevents chaos and anarchy in the streets, even if they have a lot of criticism of the PA and its functioning. But the Palestinians are willing to risk it collapsing completely, if it happens in the midst of a struggle for a change in the status quo. If there is a good reason for it to collapse, then [the attitude is] let it be.”
The PA is 20 years old, but voices questioning its efficacy were already being heard at the start of the second intifada in 2000. They’ve returned and intensified over the past two or three years, as it has become clear that the PA is not delivering on either of the two goals it was established to achieve: statehood and the provision of public services. Add to this the increasing economic difficulties and the rupture with the Gaza Strip, and the picture of failure is complete.
Unprecedented report
“The ‘Day After’ Final Report: The Likelihood, Consequences and Policy Implications of a PA Collapse or Dissolution” is unprecedented in its scope and willingness to grapple with this issue. More than 200 Palestinian professionals participated in the discussions that led to the 250-page report.
The PA could break up in one of three ways, the study concluded. One, the least likely scenario, is a voluntary decision by the Palestinian leadership to dissolve it. The second is collapse as the result of Israel’s punishing economic, military and political power, and political and economic pressure, mostly American, in response to Palestinian steps that violate the status quo, such as petitioning the International Criminal Court or leading a non-militarized uprising. The third possibility is a breakup that results from internal Palestinian unrest and rebellion.
Among participants, there are those who view the disintegration of the PA as a near certainty, given Israel’s refusal to reach a two-state solution in line with international principles and decisions. According to Shikaki, those who see the collapse of the PA as a positive thing are in the minority for now, and tend to be those who support a single, binational state. But it’s clear that the three main players – the PA itself, Israel, and the international community – are not interested in the PA’s disappearance.
Shikaki said he asked the Israelis “under what circumstances Israel might lose interest in preservation of the PA, and their assumption was that Palestinians are not stupid and don’t want to go too far so that we [Israel] would change our priorities.” This Israeli perspective seems to reinforce the position of Palestinian critics who claim that the PA serves Israel’s interests. Indeed, Shikaki says, “All Palestinians who participated in the discussion shared the view that Israel and the PA have a common interest in keeping the PA functioning. Palestinian society in general understands that the PA is able to exist as long as Israel is happy with it, and as long as Palestinians find it useful to them.”
Did the Israeli interviewees understand that Israeli policies were liable to topple the PA? Yes, Shikaki said. “They think that [Israeli policy] could worsen conditions significantly, but that Israel will step in at the last minute and prevent a collapse.”
Shikaki noted that all the participants assumed that “at all levels there will be an attempt to prevent a collapse.” Paradoxically, he said, “This gives each of the actors the comfort to believe that they can do a lot of harm to the other party without risking that other party’s collapse.” Thus, the Israeli-PA relationship becomes like a game of chicken, an analogy used in the discussions which focused on ways the Palestinians could force the Israelis to blink first.
If there is a voluntary decision to dismantle the PA, “Palestinians might seek to force Israel to either deepen its occupation, reverting to the situation that prevailed before 1994, or change its policies by seriously negotiating the end of its occupation, or unilaterally withdraw from most of the West Bank,” according to the center’s final document. Alternatively, in the event of a collapse resulting from external or internal pressures, “This expected [security] instability might force Israel to re-examine its options.”
The report concludes that the results of a PA shutdown would depend largely on whether the various components of the Palestinian leadership break long-time habits of poor planning, lack of transparency, excessive centralization, lack of consulting bodies and the immediate gratification of personal and sectarian interests. Preferably, the Palestinian leadership would decide to restore the status of the PLO and include Islamic movements in its ranks; decentralize planning and management and transfer those responsibilities to civil organizations and institutions; build an alternative management mechanism; or establish a government in exile.
Hamas would be big winner
These are some of the preliminary steps that participants in the study recommended to mitigate the severe repercussions of the PA’s collapse. These include economic damage to the public and private sector; widespread poverty; social and political disintegration; the spread of disease, with particular harm to children’s health; looting of infrastructure facilities; strengthening of tribes and clans; deepening of the rift between the Gaza Strip and West Bank; rise of armed gangs and security chaos; and a return to violence as the primary avenue of the struggle. One certain result is that Hamas, and in particular the Hamas government in Gaza, would be strengthened.
Participants in the study included university professors, current and former government ministers, legislators from all the factions, business people and executives of nongovernmental organizations. The looked at the effect of a PA shutdown on security, economy, Fatah-Hamas relations and political life, health, education, infrastructure, telephony and communications, local government, the judiciary, and the future of the struggle for independence.
The center also conducted interviews with 180 Palestinians to gain a deeper understanding of prevalent attitudes. In addition, Shikaki interviewed 12 Israelis from the military, Civil Administration, various political factions (though not from the extreme right) and research institutes, though Shikaki declined to name them.
Saturday, March 22, 2014
A simple truth that needs to be said
There is a simple truth that needs to be said, Ari Shavit has written it in Haaretz:
Mahmoud Abbas refuses to recognize the Jewish people’s right to self-definition. By this refusal, he is "in danger of burying not the Jewish state, but the two-state solution."
I wrote already one year ago that Palestinians are not interested by the two-state solution, and have no reason to advance it:
- because it will not give them anything they do not have already;
- because by simply waiting passively, they bring a de facto one-state solution that endanger the very existence of Israel and prepare the Greater Palestine through democratic (demographic) taking over...
Here is the article, emphasizes are mine:
By Ari Shavit | Mar. 20, 2014
In Washington, New York and even Tel Aviv, an overall offensive is being waged on the Jewish people’s national state. American and Israeli peace seekers are furiously attacking the demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Suddenly not only the settlements are a war crime, but also the Jewish people’s demand to recognize its right to self-definition. Suddenly Zionism’s fundamental idea, which was recognized in the Balfour Declaration, the UN’s partition resolution and the Israeli Declaration of Independence, is not legitimate.
The thought that alongside the Palestinian (non-democratic) nation-state there will be a (democratic) Jewish nation-state makes many good people fly off the handle. People who are usually committed to equality are not ready to grant the Jews what they firmly demand for the Palestinians. People who want peace are rejecting out of hand the threshold demand of peace – real mutual recognition.
More than enough has been said about the essence of the matter. It’s a conflict of mutual blindness. We didn’t recognize the existence of a Palestinian people entitled to its own sovereign state and the Palestinians didn’t recognize the existence of a Jewish people entitled to its own sovereign state. It’s clear, therefore, that the end of the conflict must entail an end to the blindness. It must involve each side’s recognition of the other, whose existence and rights it has ignored for the past 100 years or so.
Israel has already opened its eyes. In 1993 it admitted that there is a Palestinian people; in 2000 Israel agreed to the establishment of a Palestinian state and in 2009 the right’s leader embraced this double recognition. So now it’s the Palestinians’ turn to open their eyes. When Israel accepts the principle of dividing the land on the basis of the 1967 borders, they will have to declare that there is a Jewish people with legitimate rights to the land, which is entitled to define itself as a Jewish democratic state (as long as it respects all its citizens’ rights and preserves full religious freedom). Simple, so simple. Elementary.
Yet, at the moment of truth, the simple suddenly becomes complicated. The elementary is seen as surreal, wacky. Even though Yasser Arafat already recognized the Jewish state and even though John Kerry’s peace plan was based from the start on recognizing the Jewish state, the term has suddenly become a four-letter word.
The most basic demand directed at the Palestinians is suddenly seen as a whim. Why? Because when Mahmoud Abbas says no, many in the international community and the Israeli left cave in. They lack the courage required to stand up to the Palestinians and tell them “this far.” Even when the Palestinian stance is clearly immoral, they feel an obligation to toe the line.
Prof. Alexander Yakobson is an historian who was formerly active in a peace party. When he left his party he told me its platform was excellent. The problem, he said, was that beneath the platform there was a clause written in invisible ink, saying that all the previous principles are subject to the Palestinians not opposing them. So the moment the Palestinians veto anything, the Zionist left’s platform collapses and loses its validity.
The invisible ink is the in-depth problem of the international and Israeli peace camp. Paradoxically, the invisible ink is currently one of the greatest obstacles to peace. There will be no peace if the Palestinians don’t contribute their share to it. But the Palestinians won’t contribute their share if people who want peace in Israel and the world don’t insist they contribute it.
So it’s time that those who really want to end the occupation and divide the land stand up, face Abbas and demand that he too crosses the Rubicon. If he fails to do so, the landslide will be immensely dangerous. Abbas is in danger of burying not the Jewish state, but the two-state solution.
Mahmoud Abbas refuses to recognize the Jewish people’s right to self-definition. By this refusal, he is "in danger of burying not the Jewish state, but the two-state solution."
I wrote already one year ago that Palestinians are not interested by the two-state solution, and have no reason to advance it:
- because it will not give them anything they do not have already;
- because by simply waiting passively, they bring a de facto one-state solution that endanger the very existence of Israel and prepare the Greater Palestine through democratic (demographic) taking over...
Here is the article, emphasizes are mine:
Turning on the 'Jewish state'
There'll be no peace if the Palestinians don’t contribute their share; but they won't contribute their share unless people who want peace insist they contribute it.By Ari Shavit | Mar. 20, 2014
In Washington, New York and even Tel Aviv, an overall offensive is being waged on the Jewish people’s national state. American and Israeli peace seekers are furiously attacking the demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Suddenly not only the settlements are a war crime, but also the Jewish people’s demand to recognize its right to self-definition. Suddenly Zionism’s fundamental idea, which was recognized in the Balfour Declaration, the UN’s partition resolution and the Israeli Declaration of Independence, is not legitimate.
The thought that alongside the Palestinian (non-democratic) nation-state there will be a (democratic) Jewish nation-state makes many good people fly off the handle. People who are usually committed to equality are not ready to grant the Jews what they firmly demand for the Palestinians. People who want peace are rejecting out of hand the threshold demand of peace – real mutual recognition.
More than enough has been said about the essence of the matter. It’s a conflict of mutual blindness. We didn’t recognize the existence of a Palestinian people entitled to its own sovereign state and the Palestinians didn’t recognize the existence of a Jewish people entitled to its own sovereign state. It’s clear, therefore, that the end of the conflict must entail an end to the blindness. It must involve each side’s recognition of the other, whose existence and rights it has ignored for the past 100 years or so.
Israel has already opened its eyes. In 1993 it admitted that there is a Palestinian people; in 2000 Israel agreed to the establishment of a Palestinian state and in 2009 the right’s leader embraced this double recognition. So now it’s the Palestinians’ turn to open their eyes. When Israel accepts the principle of dividing the land on the basis of the 1967 borders, they will have to declare that there is a Jewish people with legitimate rights to the land, which is entitled to define itself as a Jewish democratic state (as long as it respects all its citizens’ rights and preserves full religious freedom). Simple, so simple. Elementary.
Yet, at the moment of truth, the simple suddenly becomes complicated. The elementary is seen as surreal, wacky. Even though Yasser Arafat already recognized the Jewish state and even though John Kerry’s peace plan was based from the start on recognizing the Jewish state, the term has suddenly become a four-letter word.
The most basic demand directed at the Palestinians is suddenly seen as a whim. Why? Because when Mahmoud Abbas says no, many in the international community and the Israeli left cave in. They lack the courage required to stand up to the Palestinians and tell them “this far.” Even when the Palestinian stance is clearly immoral, they feel an obligation to toe the line.
Prof. Alexander Yakobson is an historian who was formerly active in a peace party. When he left his party he told me its platform was excellent. The problem, he said, was that beneath the platform there was a clause written in invisible ink, saying that all the previous principles are subject to the Palestinians not opposing them. So the moment the Palestinians veto anything, the Zionist left’s platform collapses and loses its validity.
The invisible ink is the in-depth problem of the international and Israeli peace camp. Paradoxically, the invisible ink is currently one of the greatest obstacles to peace. There will be no peace if the Palestinians don’t contribute their share to it. But the Palestinians won’t contribute their share if people who want peace in Israel and the world don’t insist they contribute it.
So it’s time that those who really want to end the occupation and divide the land stand up, face Abbas and demand that he too crosses the Rubicon. If he fails to do so, the landslide will be immensely dangerous. Abbas is in danger of burying not the Jewish state, but the two-state solution.
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Discard the false visions of a binational state
Discard the false visions of a binational state
This article illustrate well to which contradictions leads the inability to think anew the usual concepts of nation state, nation, religion, ethnicity: the author can't imagine an independence of two nations without territorial division; the nationality he wanted to protect by opposing a single binational state, he reduces to a mere "diplomatic-civic" linguistic difference after separating religion, ethnicity and nationality from the state; in the end, both "nation states" have to be in fact binational, because both peoples "are tenants of a shared homeland"...
You understood something?
This is really a "false vision" disconnected from our reality....
Here is the article, emphasizes are mine:
"The time has come to speak to the point. Both the Jews and the Arabs aren’t going anywhere. And in the absence of partition, the conflict will not be solved.
By Salman Masalha - Haaretz | Mar. 19, 2014 | 5:07 AM |
The time has come to speak to the point. The Jews and the Arabs aren’t going anywhere. You don’t have to be a genius to realize that the present situation is intolerable both morally and politically. Anyone who claims that the conflict in Israel is a national one must have enough honesty and intellectual courage to present his own vision of a national solution.
There are some people, both on the hallucinatory right and the equally hallucinatory left, who are thinking about not dividing the country. But in the absence of partition the conflict will not be solved. We won’t reach a situation of “one person, one vote,” but rather a continuation of the occupation and splashing around in the mud puddles of the Jewish and Muslim religions. So we have to put aside the false visions of life in a binational state. Since the absolute majority in each of the Jewish and Palestinian communities wants to live a national life in its country, there is no avoiding a division of the land into two nation-states, with all that entails.
An end to the conflict requires good will among both nations. Such good will demands that both sides internalize, fully recognize and agree on the basic principle: Both nations have a strong connection to this land. Clearly anyone who rejects this fundamental principle is not seeking a genuine solution to the conflict.
It must be emphasized that dividing the land is a diplomatic division into two nation-states: A Hebrew-Israeli one and an Arabic-Palestinian one. The division will be based on the Green Line, not because of any sanctity attached to it, but because it’s the line that enjoys broad international backing. In addition, in order to ensure that the agreement between the two nations will in fact end the conflict, the principle of separation of religion and state must be anchored in a Basic Law in the parliaments of both countries. Such a law is designed to bypass the complications related to the religious, ethnic and national definitions of the citizens of the two countries.
When the State of Israel itself is unable to define who and what is a Jew, it cannot make demands to be recognized as a Jewish state. Even more so when one fifth of its citizens are Arabs living in their country and their homeland. Therefore, if there is insistence on recognition of Israel as a “Jewish state,” it is equally important to insist on it being a “Jewish state and the country and homeland of the Arabs who are citizens of the state.”
It’s clear that the “linguistic majority” in every country is what determines its cultural identity. At the same time, it wouldn’t hurt the majority to learn and know the language of the minority, the language of the next-door neighbor. That’s why in both states the language of the neighboring state should receive official status. Determining the status of the neighbors’ language is required for the education of the coming generations. Because the citizens of both countries are like tenants in a shared house. They are tenants of a shared homeland.
Like any properly administered country, and in accordance with the rules of international law, it should be emphasized that the nationality in both states is no more than a diplomatic-civic nationality. A Jew who chooses to remain under Palestinian sovereignty will be considered a Palestinian for all intents and purposes, like any other Palestinian citizen. The same is true of all citizens under Israel sovereignty. The suggested separation between civic nationality and religious-ethnic nationality is designed to bypass a prohibitively tall obstacle – the demand to define the states based on the ethnic-religious majority of its citizens.
A state, as such, has no religion. The citizens of the state can believe in one religion or another, or not believe in any religion at all. In the final analysis, it is the dominant language that determines the identity of the place. Therefore, what will bring an end to the conflict once and for all is the recognition of Palestine as an Arabic – not a Muslim – state, and of Israel as a Hebrew – not a Jewish – state, and a redeemer shall come to Israel and Ishmael.
This article illustrate well to which contradictions leads the inability to think anew the usual concepts of nation state, nation, religion, ethnicity: the author can't imagine an independence of two nations without territorial division; the nationality he wanted to protect by opposing a single binational state, he reduces to a mere "diplomatic-civic" linguistic difference after separating religion, ethnicity and nationality from the state; in the end, both "nation states" have to be in fact binational, because both peoples "are tenants of a shared homeland"...
You understood something?
This is really a "false vision" disconnected from our reality....
Here is the article, emphasizes are mine:
"The time has come to speak to the point. Both the Jews and the Arabs aren’t going anywhere. And in the absence of partition, the conflict will not be solved.
By Salman Masalha - Haaretz | Mar. 19, 2014 | 5:07 AM |
The time has come to speak to the point. The Jews and the Arabs aren’t going anywhere. You don’t have to be a genius to realize that the present situation is intolerable both morally and politically. Anyone who claims that the conflict in Israel is a national one must have enough honesty and intellectual courage to present his own vision of a national solution.
There are some people, both on the hallucinatory right and the equally hallucinatory left, who are thinking about not dividing the country. But in the absence of partition the conflict will not be solved. We won’t reach a situation of “one person, one vote,” but rather a continuation of the occupation and splashing around in the mud puddles of the Jewish and Muslim religions. So we have to put aside the false visions of life in a binational state. Since the absolute majority in each of the Jewish and Palestinian communities wants to live a national life in its country, there is no avoiding a division of the land into two nation-states, with all that entails.
An end to the conflict requires good will among both nations. Such good will demands that both sides internalize, fully recognize and agree on the basic principle: Both nations have a strong connection to this land. Clearly anyone who rejects this fundamental principle is not seeking a genuine solution to the conflict.
It must be emphasized that dividing the land is a diplomatic division into two nation-states: A Hebrew-Israeli one and an Arabic-Palestinian one. The division will be based on the Green Line, not because of any sanctity attached to it, but because it’s the line that enjoys broad international backing. In addition, in order to ensure that the agreement between the two nations will in fact end the conflict, the principle of separation of religion and state must be anchored in a Basic Law in the parliaments of both countries. Such a law is designed to bypass the complications related to the religious, ethnic and national definitions of the citizens of the two countries.
When the State of Israel itself is unable to define who and what is a Jew, it cannot make demands to be recognized as a Jewish state. Even more so when one fifth of its citizens are Arabs living in their country and their homeland. Therefore, if there is insistence on recognition of Israel as a “Jewish state,” it is equally important to insist on it being a “Jewish state and the country and homeland of the Arabs who are citizens of the state.”
It’s clear that the “linguistic majority” in every country is what determines its cultural identity. At the same time, it wouldn’t hurt the majority to learn and know the language of the minority, the language of the next-door neighbor. That’s why in both states the language of the neighboring state should receive official status. Determining the status of the neighbors’ language is required for the education of the coming generations. Because the citizens of both countries are like tenants in a shared house. They are tenants of a shared homeland.
Like any properly administered country, and in accordance with the rules of international law, it should be emphasized that the nationality in both states is no more than a diplomatic-civic nationality. A Jew who chooses to remain under Palestinian sovereignty will be considered a Palestinian for all intents and purposes, like any other Palestinian citizen. The same is true of all citizens under Israel sovereignty. The suggested separation between civic nationality and religious-ethnic nationality is designed to bypass a prohibitively tall obstacle – the demand to define the states based on the ethnic-religious majority of its citizens.
A state, as such, has no religion. The citizens of the state can believe in one religion or another, or not believe in any religion at all. In the final analysis, it is the dominant language that determines the identity of the place. Therefore, what will bring an end to the conflict once and for all is the recognition of Palestine as an Arabic – not a Muslim – state, and of Israel as a Hebrew – not a Jewish – state, and a redeemer shall come to Israel and Ishmael.
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