I have tried to describe, perhaps a little too starkly,
both the view that regards the dispute as a kind of western with the civilized
good guys righting the blood-thirsty natives, and also the romantic conceptions
that endow it with the attributes of an ancient epic. As I see it, the
confrontation between the Jews returning to Zion and the Arab inhabitants of
the country is not like a western or an epic, but more like a Greek tragedy. It
is a clash between right and right (although one must not seek a simplistic
symmetry in it). And, as in all tragedies, there is no hope of a happy
reconciliation based on a clever magical formula. The choice is between a
bloodbath and a disappointing compromise, more like enforced acceptance than a
sudden break-through of mutual understanding.
True, the dispute is not
'symmetrical'. There is no symmetry between the constant, eager attempts of
Zionism to establish a dialogue with the local Arabs and those of the neighboring states, and the bitter and consistent hostility the Arabs, with
all their different political regimes, have for decades shown us in return.
But
it is a gross mistake, a common over-simplification, to believe that the
dispute is based on a misunderstanding. It is based on full and complete
understanding: we have repeatedly offered the Arabs goodwill, good neighborliness and cooperation, but that was not what they wanted from us.
They wanted us, according to the most moderate Arab formulation, to abandon the
idea of establishing a free Jewish State in the Land of Israel, and that is a
concession we can never make.
It is the height of naivety to believe that but
for the intrigues of outsiders and the backwardness of fanatical
regimes, the Arabs would realize the positive side of the Zionist enterprise
and straightaway fall on our necks in brotherly love.
The Arabs did not oppose
Zionism because they failed to understand it but because they understood it
only too well. And that is the tragedy: the mutual understanding does exist. We
want to exist as a nation, as a State of Jews. They do not want that state. This
cannot be glossed over with high-sounding phrases, neither the noble
aspirations to brotherliness of well-meaning Jews, nor the clever Arab tactics
of 'We will be content, at this stage, with the return of all refugees to their
previous place of residence.' Any search for a way out must start from a
fundamental change of position preceded by the open-eyed realization of the
full extent of the struggle: a tragic conflict, tragic anguish.
We are here
because this is the only place where we can exist as a free nation. The Arabs
are here because Palestine is the homeland of the Palestinians, just as Iraq is
the homeland of the Iraqis and Holland the homeland of the Dutch. The question
of what cultural assets the Palestinians have created here or what care they
have taken of the landscape or the agriculture is of no relevance to the need
to discuss their right to their homeland. Needless to say, the Palestinian owes
no deference to God's promises to Abraham, to the longings of Yehuda Hallevi
and Bialik, or the achievements of the early Zionist pioneers.
Current talk
about pushing the Palestinian masses back to oil-rich Kuwait or fertile Iraq
makes no more sense than would talking about our own mass emigration to
'Jewish' Brooklyn. Knaves and fools in both camps might add: 'After all,
they'll be among their brothers there.' But just as I am
entitled to see myself as an Israeli Jew, not a Brooklyner or a Golders
Greener, so a Palestinian Arab is entitled to regard himself as a Palestinian,
not an Iraqi or Kuwaiti. The fact that only an enlightened minority of
Palestinians seem to see it that way at the moment cannot prejudice the
national right to self-determination when the time comes. Let us remember with
all the reservations the comparison requires - that it was only a
Zionist-minded minority of Jews that - justly! - claimed the right to establish
a Hebrew State here in the name of the entire Jewish people for the benefit of
the Jews who would one day come to a national consciousness.
This land is our
land. It is also their land. Right conflicts with right. To be a free people
in our own land' is a right that is valid either universally or not at all.
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