The Hebrew Republic
Happy Monday Cafe-ers!
This week at Book Club, we'll be talking about Bernard Avishai's latest, The Hebrew Republic: How Secular Democracy and Global Enterprise Will Bring Israel Peace At Last.
Bernie's post will be up shortly, and I'll let him introduce the argument. But just to give you a hint of what's to come, and why this conversation seems important now, in the rush of election madness, to remember how much is at stake in the world at large, he concludes his piece like this:
You see, this whole way of looking at peacemaking must change. Israelis must begin to understand that there is a world to win: that peace means further integration to a larger system of collective security--that they are not alone in the world, and that the absence of peace means economic disaster. Israel, they must see (and perhaps only an Obama administration can help them see it), is not being asked to embrace anything more that all European countries have embraced. We have to get past the idea that the peace process means Israelis saying: well, let's give the Palestinians some land, and maybe they (and the world) will leave us alone.
Joining him in the discussion are Yoram Peri, Head of the Rothschild Caesarea School of Communication and Professor of political Sociology and communication at Tel Aviv University, Hendrik Hertzberg, Senior Editor and staff writer at The New Yorker. Sherman Teichman, Director of the Institute for Global Leadership at Tufts University will also be participating along with Dov Frohman, founding CEO of Intel-Israel, and Charles Glass, freelance journalist, broadcaster and author most recently of The Northern Front (2006). Last, but certainly not least, Ambassador Alvaro de Soto, Peruvian diplomat and former UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process will be adding his seasoned voice to the mix.
Join us!
No offense, but how is this not utterly irrelevant and meaningless.
Why is it America's job to be a peacemaker in the middle east, and yet also America's job to be Israel's champion. Isn't there a rather blatant conflict?
Why is Israel so bent on being a part of Europe when geographically, it is stuck in the middle of the middle east?
Why does Israel whinge about peace when no Arab or Muslim country poses a threat, or even attempts to pose a threat.
Here are some unpleasant realities.
1) No one ever cared about the Palestinians, except the Palestinians. The west was happy to ignore them, Israel was happy to rob them, and the other Arabs were happy to use them as a bloody shirt to wave. If they weren't strapping on suicide vests or throwing rocks, no one would care today. As it is, we care, but not very much.
2) There's no threat. The Arab countries just don't care about Israel any more. In some sense, they never really did, it was just anti-colonial thrashing, nationalistic impulses, and runaway ambition building up into a big head of steam. But for the most part, they just don't care. They've all got their own problems, their own economies, their own leaderships. They're all off doing their own things. People in these countries don't wake up and think 'what are we going to do about Israel', not Presidents or Goat Herders. They think 'hmm, what are we going to do today' or they think 'hmm, falafel is really nice.' But Israel? Sorry. It's just there, like a big wart that you can't do anything about. If it's not actively bothering you, you just forget about it.
3) Israel's problems are self inflicted these days. Who else is going to inflict problems on Israel? Seriously. Ohlmert's financial peccadillos? No one twisted his arm. West Bank settlements? Palestinian Demographics? Diplomatic relations with Arabs? The endless problems in trying to maintain an economic union with entities thousands of miles away while ignoring the economies around you? These arise from Israel's choices, and they continue because Israel finds these choices satisfying... though occasionally problematic.
September 8, 2008 11:45 AM | Reply | Permalink