The two state solution as the only unhappy alternative

Some readers objected to the end of my last column on the lessons of Oslo. Most of the column argued that Arab and particularly Palestinian rejectionism destroyed Oslo yet most Westerners could not fathom Palestinian political culture's destructive and self-destructive addiction to violence. Nevertheless, I concluded, the only solution remains a two-state solution. Critics deemed this claim contradictory.

The two-state solution remains the most logical solution for Israelis and Palestinians because, like the infirmities of old age, it beats the alternative, or in this case, the alternatives. Extremist Palestinians advocate the one-state solution, trusting that masses of Palestinian voters in a secular democratic state would overwhelm Israelis. Across the spectrum, since 1967, many right-wing Israelis have endorsed the status quo, ignoring the psychic, moral, diplomatic, military, political, and economic costs to Israel of controlling millions of hostile non-citizens. A two-state solution can take many forms, including federations with Egypt and Jordan that would mean a three-state or a one and two half-state solution. Somehow, Israel must stop governing millions of Palestinians.

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The lessons of Oslo

Wouldn't it be great if we could greet Tzipi Livni's ascension by applauding her honesty and being satisfied that integrity was enough? Wouldn't it be reassuring if all we had to speculate about was her economic sophistication and her social vision for the country? Unfortunately, the major question Livni will face, should she become prime minister, is "How effectively will she protect Israel?" This question takes on particular prominence as her razor-thin Kadima victory coincided with the 15th anniversary of the signing of the Oslo Accords and growing concerns about Iran's nuclear threat.

Normally, a question like "why did the Oslo Accords fail" could be left to historians. But while historians can help clarify, providing evidence, context, insight, perspective, every Israeli leader - and voter - must come to grips with what occurred. The conclusions Israelis draw about what happened to Oslo yesterday is essential to figuring out what to do today and how to build toward a stable tomorrow with the Palestinians.

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A pornographic approach to violence

'How do you welcome a child murderer as a hero?" I asked in a recent Montreal Gazette op-ed, responding to Israel's prisoner exchange with Hizbullah. I noted that "depending on the tone, this question becomes an attempt to clarify, or an expression of outrage. Stated calmly, 'How do you welcome a child murderer as a hero?' can be a factual question - such as the one that faced Lebanese leaders this week as they proceeded to celebrate the freeing of Samir Kuntar from an Israeli prison, where he had been held since 1979 for murdering four-year-old Einat Haran, her father Danny Haran and a policeman. Stated angrily, 'How do you welcome a child murderer as a hero?' is the question Israelis are asking - and the rest of the civilized world should be asking, too."

The article was titled "A moment of moral clarity." I lamented decades of relativistic and self-flagellating propagandizing blinding Westerners from distinguishing between civilized and barbaric behavior whenever Westerners were in the right. Nevertheless, I insisted, the prisoner exchange illuminated the differences between the Lebanese and Palestinians who celebrated a child killer and the many Israelis who mourned the deaths of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser.

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Diaspora-Israel relations as bad date

The results of the third annual Survey of Contemporary Israeli Attitudes toward World Jewry commissioned by the B'nai B'rith World Center in Jerusalem are in, and once again we can proclaim: Israel-Diaspora relations remain less fraternal than we like to believe - and more like a bad date than we really acknowledge. Just as North American Jews are convinced that Israelis need us more than we need them, Israelis believe we need them more than they need us. In this survey, focusing on the Israeli side of the equation, most Israeli Jews - 76 percent - believed it is safer to live as a Jew in Israel than in the Diaspora, while 43 percent believed the State of Israel rather than the local Jewish community was more responsible for fighting anti-Semitic outbreaks in the Diaspora.

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Where Left and Right can meet

George W. Bush came to Israel bearing great gifts. With the Zionist narrative of Israel's founding being assailed worldwide, with magazines like The Atlantic Monthly asking "Is Israel Finished?," the President of the United States gave Israel an emphatic bear hug. The embrace was sincere; Bush has no more elections to run. He spoke for posterity not for Jewish votes.

Bush visited Masada, and viewed the Israel Museum's 2,000-year-old scroll of the Book of Isaiah. Both stressed the Jews' historic connection with the land of Israel, along with the biblical values Israelis and Americans share. Bush’s speeches celebrated Israel's past, present and future, recounting how an oppressed people found redemption and achieved greatness by rebuilding their old-new land.

Sometimes, Israel's dreams and realities converge

In Israel, Yerushalayim shel malah and Yerushalayim shel matah clash continuously, the ethereal, heavenly Jerusalem confronts the corporeal, earthly Jerusalem. Considering Zionism's magnificent dreams, and many of Israel's ugly problems, the collision between Israeli dreams and reality is often jarring. But what keeps Israel going are those other moments, when the modern miracle of Israel fulfills the Jewish people's highest aspirations and most compelling ideals. Those are the moments that make it all worthwhile, that sustain Israel's citizens and supporters through the many daunting challenges.

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'April Fools' report minimizes Palestinian anti-semitism

I usually don't like playing bash-the-journalist. I try avoiding the ritualistic Tirade against the Times, which keeps pro-Israel New York Times readers' blood flowing. But an April 1, 2008 front-page article was so ridiculous it could have been an April Fools joke. "IN GAZA, HAMAS'S FIERY INSULTS TO JEWS COMPLICATE PEACE EFFORT," the headline ever so delicately proclaimed - as if there was much of a peace effort with Hamas to complicate, and as if the bombs raining down on Sderot or hundreds of cold-blooded murders over the years did not first "complicate" matters. Even the usually hostile International Herald Tribune reprinted the article under a more accurate headline "HAMAS RATCHETS UP ANTI-JEWISH RHETORIC." Equally absurd, the one line the Times website highlighted pronounced:  "While the Palestinian Authority under Fatah has made significant, if imperfect, efforts to end incitement against Jews, Hamas feels no such restraint." Moral obtuseness is one of the great crimes of our times and of the Times.  The editors too easily forgive Fatah's "imperfections" in fighting anti-Semitism.

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Obama at his worst - and his best

On Tuesday, Senator Barack Obama's speech on race in America tried to quell the controversy over his America-bashing, race-baiting, Israel-hating pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. For days, video clips of Wright spewing his poison threatened to neutralize Obama's populist magic. Until Tuesday, the controversy showed Obama at his worst. His response to his pastor's demagoguery was mealy-mouthed and disingenuous. It was impossible to believe Obama's Clintonesque claim of ignorance, that he never "sat in the pews" during one of Wright's wrongheaded riffs. And Obama's failure over a twenty-year relationship to criticize his mentor's venom stirred doubts about Obama's judgment, patriotism, and commitment to the unity he celebrates. Yet once again, Illinois' rookie Senator hit a grand slam with two strikes against him. Obama's speech was thoughtful, thought-provoking, rich, complex, effective, poetic, and inspiring.

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If 'the world' betrays Israel yet again, why care?

Once again, "the world" has betrayed Israel. After more than 7,000 rockets rained down on Sderot, after rockets probably provided by Iran pummeled Ashkelon, after tolerating daily aggression from its neighbor no other country currently endures, Israel hit Hamas hard in Gaza to try to stop the shelling - and was roundly condemned for using "disproportionate" force. As with the 1990s' failed Oslo Peace Process, Israel's disengagement from Gaza did not bank enough goodwill to temper the criticism nor did Israel's years of restraint despite constant assaults help. The headlines condemned the tragic death toll from Israel's belated attempt to defend its citizens, ignoring the Palestinians' persistent provocations and the broader outrage of Hamas's decision to turn Gaza into a Kassam launching-base rather than into a model of how to build a constructive civil society.

Even worse, when a Palestinian terrorist slaughtered eight students studying at a Jerusalem Yeshiva Thursday night, as thousands of Gazans celebrated this barbaric act, the United Nations Security Council refused to condemn it.

But rather than again bemoaning the world's myopia, deeper questions arise: who constitutes "the world" and why does Israel care so much about its opinion of a necessary, justified attempt at self-defense?

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Diagnosing Zionophobia and curing it

In 1882, a Russian Jewish physician named Leon Pinsker diagnosed "Judeophobia," the irrational Jew-hatred, blighting enlightened Europeans. On February 24th and 25th, 126 years later, delegates from 45 countries will convene in Jerusalem to attend the International Conference for the Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism, organized by the Israeli Foreign Ministry's Department of Combating Antisemitism headed by Aviva Raz-Shechter. The Forum's venue proves that Jews' statelessness, which Dr. Pinsker blamed for causing anti-Semitism, has ended. Tragically, an irrational hatred of that Jewish state has morphed this ancient disease into a new affliction: Zionophobia.

Zionophobia is the irrational hatred of Israel and Jewish nationalism, meaning Zionism. Rooted in traditional Judeophobia - and in genuine sympathy for the Palestinian predicament -- it masks this antisemitism by demonizing Israel in the guise of defending the downtrodden. By treating Israel as the world's only pariah state it assails the essence of Zionism, which demanded equal treatment for the Jewish nation.

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