states’ hostility toward Israel. This hostility existed before the 1967 war, when the territories that are the subject of the conflict today were occupied, and even if the Occupation ends, I do not believe the conflict will be over quickly. But ending the Occupation may begin to unravel this knot of hostility and gradually diminish the flames of historical, national, and religious enmity toward Israel, consequently disentangling some of the imbroglios within Israeli society.
I think the severe rift in Israeli society today results partly from the fact that in the minds of most Jews in Israel, the Occupied Territories do not correspond, intellectually or emotionally, to the borders of Israeli identity. Certainly these territories are part of a religious Jew’s identity because they were included in God’s promise to Abraham. The Cave of Machpelah, where the biblical forefathers are buried, is in Hebron; Rachel’s tomb is in Bethlehem; the Ark of the Covenant was in Shiloh; and on the fields of Bethlehem, Joseph tended his father Jacob’s flock. Still it seems that the “flare” of Israeli identity, and of the authentic sense of home , for most Israelis, reaches as far as the Green Line and not beyond it. There is straightforward evidence of this: The governments of Israel have showered hundreds of millions of dollars on settlements and settlers in the past decades. What is known as the “settlement enterprise” is the largest and most wasteful national project Israel has undertaken since its inception. A massive mechanism of propaganda, enticement, and persuasion—ideological,
religious, and national—was launched by all the governments of Israel, left and right, to impel Israelis to move to the Occupied Territories en masse. Scandalously excessive financial incentives were offered. But still, after almost forty years, fewer than 250,000 Israelis live in the settlements, and the vast majority of them are children who were born there. In other words, the settler population is approximately the size of one midsize city in Israel.
Surveys and polls taken regularly over the last eleven years, since the Oslo accords, show that some 70 percent of Israelis accept the need to partition the country into two states. They may not be enthusiastic about it, but they understand that there is no other choice. Moreover, every reasonable Israeli understands that the approval of Ariel Sharon’s “disengagement” plan in the Knesset last October was tantamount to the right wing’s admitting the failure of their ideology, which held that it was possible to control all areas of the biblical “Land of Israel.” And so I say once again that the “flare” of Israeli identity today, among the majority of Israelis, reaches as far as the Green Line and no farther. Beyond this line, the nature of the blaze changes: it either cools and melts away indifferently, alienated from what is occurring there, or becomes an exaggerated frenzy, among the settlers and the various messianic Jews.
In other words, an absurd and destructive state has emerged whereby a vast share of Israel’s national energies, financial and emotional and human assets, and political
and national enthusiasm have been invested by the state’s official bodies, for almost four decades, in a territory that most Israelis do not feel belongs to them in any full, natural, or harmonious sense.
I would like to hope that relinquishing the Territories and ending the Occupation, with all these entail, will restore most Israelis to the authentic emotions of their identity. Then, for the first time in years, perhaps since the beginning of political Zionism, since the various borders were drawn for the soon-to-be state and then for the State of Israel, there will be an overlap between the geographical borders and the borders of identity.
This feeling is extremely elusive, and perhaps I find it difficult to put into words because it is one I have never experienced and can only
I think the severe rift in Israeli society today results partly from the fact that in the minds of most Jews in Israel, the Occupied Territories do not correspond, intellectually or emotionally, to the borders of Israeli identity. Certainly these territories are part of a religious Jew’s identity because they were included in God’s promise to Abraham. The Cave of Machpelah, where the biblical forefathers are buried, is in Hebron; Rachel’s tomb is in Bethlehem; the Ark of the Covenant was in Shiloh; and on the fields of Bethlehem, Joseph tended his father Jacob’s flock. Still it seems that the “flare” of Israeli identity, and of the authentic sense of home , for most Israelis, reaches as far as the Green Line and not beyond it. There is straightforward evidence of this: The governments of Israel have showered hundreds of millions of dollars on settlements and settlers in the past decades. What is known as the “settlement enterprise” is the largest and most wasteful national project Israel has undertaken since its inception. A massive mechanism of propaganda, enticement, and persuasion—ideological,
religious, and national—was launched by all the governments of Israel, left and right, to impel Israelis to move to the Occupied Territories en masse. Scandalously excessive financial incentives were offered. But still, after almost forty years, fewer than 250,000 Israelis live in the settlements, and the vast majority of them are children who were born there. In other words, the settler population is approximately the size of one midsize city in Israel.
Surveys and polls taken regularly over the last eleven years, since the Oslo accords, show that some 70 percent of Israelis accept the need to partition the country into two states. They may not be enthusiastic about it, but they understand that there is no other choice. Moreover, every reasonable Israeli understands that the approval of Ariel Sharon’s “disengagement” plan in the Knesset last October was tantamount to the right wing’s admitting the failure of their ideology, which held that it was possible to control all areas of the biblical “Land of Israel.” And so I say once again that the “flare” of Israeli identity today, among the majority of Israelis, reaches as far as the Green Line and no farther. Beyond this line, the nature of the blaze changes: it either cools and melts away indifferently, alienated from what is occurring there, or becomes an exaggerated frenzy, among the settlers and the various messianic Jews.
In other words, an absurd and destructive state has emerged whereby a vast share of Israel’s national energies, financial and emotional and human assets, and political
and national enthusiasm have been invested by the state’s official bodies, for almost four decades, in a territory that most Israelis do not feel belongs to them in any full, natural, or harmonious sense.
I would like to hope that relinquishing the Territories and ending the Occupation, with all these entail, will restore most Israelis to the authentic emotions of their identity. Then, for the first time in years, perhaps since the beginning of political Zionism, since the various borders were drawn for the soon-to-be state and then for the State of Israel, there will be an overlap between the geographical borders and the borders of identity.
This feeling is extremely elusive, and perhaps I find it difficult to put into words because it is one I have never experienced and can only
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