Since the mass immigration of Oriental Jewish communities to Israel (and other countries) in the early 1950s, very few Jewish communities have remained in the East, and those are tiny and pitiful. World Jewry is concentrated (or, rather, dispersed) in the West, especially in the US.
The Jewish-Israeli connection is immensely important for Israel. The dominant position of the Jewish community in US politics guarantees the diplomatic immunity of the Israeli government, whatever the government does and whoever is the US president, and massive financial and military support, of course.
(If tomorrow all US Jews were seized by messianic fervor and immigrated en masse to Israel, this would be a terrible catastrophe for the "Jewish State.")
On the other hand, the Jewish-Israeli connection turns Israel indeed into a "Western outpost," as Herzl envisioned, and guarantees that the Jewish State will forever be at war with its geographical neighbors.
"PEACE WITH the Arabs" is a subject endlessly discussed in Israel. It is the dividing line between "Right" and "Left."
The prevailing conviction is: "Peace would be nice. We all want peace. Unfortunately peace is impossible." Why impossible? "Because the Arabs don't want it. They will not accept a Jewish state in their midst. Not now, not ever."
Based on this conviction, Binyamin Netanyahu has formulated his condition for peace: "The Arabs must recognize Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People."
This is ludicrous. Sure, the "Arabs" must recognize the State of Israel. Indeed, Yasser Arafat did so officially on behalf of the Palestinian people on the eve of the Oslo agreement. But defining the character of the State of Israel or its regime is the sole responsibility of the citizens of Israel.
We do not recognize China as a Communist country. We do not recognize the US as a capitalist country -- not did we, in the past, recognize the US as a White Protestant country. We do not recognize Sweden as a Swedish country. The whole thing is ridiculous. But nobody, inside Israel or outside, dares to tell Netanyahu to sleep it off.
But on one point Netanyahu touches something fundamental. Peace between Israel and Palestine -- and, by extension, with the entire Arab and Muslim world -- requires a basic mental change both in Israel and in Palestine. A piece of paper is not enough.
ON THE eve of the 1948 war, in which the State of Israel was born, I published a brochure called "War or Peace in the Semitic Region." It started with the words:
"When our fathers decided to set up a 'safe haven' in Palestine, they had to choose between two alternatives:
"They could appear in West Asia as a European conqueror, who sees himself as a bridgehead of the 'white' race and a master of the 'natives,' like the Spanish conquistadors and the Anglo-Saxon colonialists in America. So, in their time, did the Crusaders in Palestine.
"The other way was to see themselves as an Asian people returning to its homeland..."
A year later, near the end of the war, I was seriously wounded. Lying in hospital, without sleeping or eating for many days, I had ample time to think and draw conclusions from my recent experiences as a soldier in combat. I came to the conclusion that there exists an Arab Palestinian people, that this people needs a state of its own, and that there would never be peace between us and them unless a State of Palestine came into being next to our own new state.
That was the start of the "Two-state" idea as it is now discussed. In the following years, it was rejected by everybody -- by the Arabs, the US and the Soviet Union. And of course by all the successive Israeli governments. Golda Meir famously said: "There is no such thing as a Palestinian people!"
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