The Hebrew Republic: People That Dwells Alone?
Three big issues seem worthy of clarification outside the strings of comments.
1. Alvaro de Soto shrewdly suggests that Israel has need of (at the very least) a two-state solution, but lacks a leader with the brass or brains to take the country there. He is, of course, right. And I would take this observation one more step. Given the peculiar features of Israeli politics, it is structurally almost impossible for any such leader to emerge. I am not exactly speaking about the power of the religious parties, and so forth. I am thinking about something rather worse, which is that although polls show a decisive majority support the two-state solution (the elements of the Clinton parameters, etc.), this support drops precipitously when pollsters suggest a violent fight with the right to get there.
The people who oppose a two-state solution do not oppose it in the way people in New Hampshire oppose an income tax. Most of them--that is, about a third of the population--want, say, to see Prime Minister Rabin's assassin freed and consider him a hero. Before readers dismiss the country's embattled majority as lacking in courage, remember the Gaza evacuation, which nearly pulled the country apart, and led to missiles on Sderot. True, there are reasons (not great ones) for this, too; the vendetta culture has seized both sides. My point is that the Israeli public is wary for reasons that are not simply the fault of people who wish to see the occupation continue.
All of which means that Israelis who lean toward peace need outside intervention. They urgently need the leadership that would come from a concerted diplomatic initiative: American and European diplomats acting together, giving each side in the conflict a process to trust so that they don't have to trust each other exactly. Alvaro knows more than anyone how futile bilateral diplomacy has been without American leadership. who ever will become Israel's prime minister needs to be able to go to his or her public and say: "We need this deal, America needs this deal; it isn't just me, the whole world wants it; what do you choose: the status quo or a rift between Israel and America?" I don't expect this kind of leadership from a McCain-Lieberman, oh excuse me, McCain-Palin administration. But Barack Obama has at least been to Ramallah and clearly knows the score.
2. Rick Hertzberg, with characteristic grace and tact, asks if a Hebrew Republic would be a Jewish state or a Jewish state. Rick is recalling the famous wisecrack attributed to Jonathan Miller, where Miller said something like: "I am not a Jew, I'm Jew-ish; I don't go the whole hog." (Miller added that he was Jewish for the sake of spiting anti-Semites).
I suppose my answer is that it would be Jewish in the sense of promoting a cultural competition in which Jewish religious ideas, literary works, historical nuances, and so forth, would go up against others; a state which saw Jewish identity as something that could be learned and chosen from, not a blood type or a profession of faith. In such a country, an Orthodox Jew could (happily) be an Orthodox Jew, but could not force others to be an Orthodox Jew. I put the case in The Jerusalem Report some months ago. A state, in short, does not have the identity, rights, or moral personality of a person.
And yet, again, in answer to Rick, I think it is fair to say that a Hebrew Republic, which Israel already is to a large extent, would be Jewish in a Jewish way that is far more interesting and novel and poignant than Jonathan Miller is. The poet Yehuda Amichai is not just a Jew for the sake of spiting anyone. Israeli popular culture has a beauty and authenticity all its own, patently Jewish, but not without hybrid elements, as you would expect from any vibrant national culture. Listen to this 1970s song by Yonatan Gefen and Mati Caspi and deny it. The lyrics say:
At the fringe of the sky, at the edge of the desert,
There's a faraway place, full of wildflowers.
A small place--forlorn and deranged--
A small place for worry.
All-that-will-be is spoken of,
And all-that-has-happened is thought,
God sits there and observes, guarding all He has created.
"You are forbidden to pick the flowers of the garden--
You are forbidden to pick the flowers of the garden!"
And he's worried, awfully worried.
3. Which brings me to my alleged antipathy to religion, in this case Jewish religion. Various commentators have charged this. I wrote something about this in the book. It may be work excerpting some passages at length:
Their disdain for the tug of religious language takes Israeli democrats out of a fight they cannot really afford to avoid--over the transcendent foundation of democracy itself. The problem is not simply that Israeli democrats surrender the word religion to Israel's orthodox. It is that they don't see how, by doing so, they get caught up in a contradiction Bertrand Russell once noticed and their children eventually pick up, which makes the argument for democracy seem merely a matter of taste.
Orthodox people--like Haredi groups in Israel--will make grand, traditional claims, which they insist are absolute: the story of creation, the divinity of the revealed word, the promise of the messiah, and so forth. For their part, Israeli democrats respond, dutifully, that all traditional claims should be thought provisional but never absolute. But if traditional claims are provisional, why is not the claim of tolerance merely provisional? Is not the latter merely a Western claim, like claims for the beauty of Bruckner's music? Why not choose Halakha, presumably our tradition, over democracy, the West's? Why not Hasidic music over Bruckner?
The answer, of course, is that tolerance is not a mere tradition, however dogmatically it may now be taught. It is itself an absolute, a tribute to the proposition that humans are ends-in-themselves, not means to other ends. And that proposition is nothing if not mysterious, grounded in what can only be called faith. Kant was no Tevye, but he was no Perchik, either. Israeli democrats may insist that no book, not even the Torah, is sacred. But what they really mean--or should--is that the right to interpret books is sacred. Democrats, if they are thoughtful, are nothing if not "awe-struck" by the source of this equality. ("Thou shalt see it," Melville wrote in Moby Dick, "shining in the arm that wields a pick or drives a spike; that democratic dignity which, on all hands, radiates without end from God; Himself! The great God absolute! The center and circumference of all democracy! His omnipresence, our divine equality!")
Another excellent contribution from Bernard Avishai. It is nice for once to read an article that is not merely counting bodies on one side or the other. I am reminded stylistically (and hopefully) of the excellent South Jerusalem blog from Gershom Gorenberg and Haim Watzman.
Avishai writes:
The real lesson we should get from the Gaza withdrawal is that unilateral withdrawal does not work. We saw that a few years ago when the United States essentially withdrew from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina allowing 2,000 people to die. Unilateral withdrawal is a useful tactic, however, if you wish to claim that an Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian Territories is impossible for security reasons. There was an interesting blogging heads vblog between Daniel Levy and Shmuel Rosner a few months ago in which Levy also criticized the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza.
The problem with waiting for European and American leaders to come to the rescue is that it will be a long wiat. European leaders are allowed to play only a secondary role to an American leadership which has hopelessly compromised itself over the last few decades. We saw an example of that failure last week when Sarah Palin, who hides from the press representing the American public, had private meetings with Joe Lieberman and AIPAC who represent a particular viewpoint on Israel.
September 10, 2008 6:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Zionism is a separatist and exclusivist ideology. Ideology mind you. It is not Israel, per se, or Judaism the religion. In fact, if Zionism were the motivation for any other nationality, it would be just more of the same, as we've seen over the centuries, for Jews. And yet Jews and Israelis just don't see this. But plainly, this separatist and exclusivist ideology is not one with which we would choose to live if it were the motivation of others against us. Nor should we choose to live with it when it is ours and directed against others. I don't think you can have it any other way, and it calls for one-state where Palestinians (the Jews' Jews) have equality and are included in society as full citizens.
September 10, 2008 7:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
This piece is eloquent testimony of the political and moral bankruptcy of the so-called "elite" Dr Avishai claims to speak for. It has many inaccuracies such as the claim that the majority of Israelis supposedly support the "Clinton parameters". This may be true, but this is in return for REAL PEACE, something the Arabs say clearly is not in the cards. Israelis are NOT willing to give up Judea/Samaria and set up a Palestinian state if it will merely serve as a springboard for further aggression against Israel, which even Dr Avishai admitted occurred when Israel expelled the Jews from Gush Katif and turned Gaza over to HAMAS. HAMAS, which most people admit would also take over Judea/Samaria if given the opportunity, say clearly they will never make peace with Israel. How is Dr Avishai going to get around that?
Another myth he repeats here is that if only an American President would really put the screws to Israel, he could get an agreement. Yes, Clinton made a full-court press for an agreement but he failed. Dr Avishai's "progressives" have now made up an urban legend saying this happened because Clinton and Dennis Ross were "too pro-Israel". PERISH THE THOUGHT THAT MAYBE ARAFAT DIDN'T WANT PEACE! The Palestinians have made it clear : There is no room for discussion regarding their main demands-full withdrawal to pre-67 lines, recognition AND IMPLEMENTATION of the so-called Palestinian "Right of Return", and Israel giving up its holy places in Jerusalem. This is what "moderate" Abbas says.
No Israeli gov't could accept these terms and even Messiah Obama, whom Dr Avishai believes wants to impose an agreement on us, will not be able to do this.
Dr Avishai and his elites are in a state of despair. They promised Israel peace in the 1990's, assured us that Arafat wants peace and instead gave us a bloody war in which THOUSANDS of Israelis were killed or wounded, by the "moderate" Arafat and his "moderate" FATAH's "Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade". Most Israeli understand the folly of this, so Dr Avishai is now reduced to crawling on his belly and begging foreigners to come in and impose a civil war on us, thinking that his "elites" will be willing use force against the Jewish majority that opposes these policies if some outsider orders them to do it.
I can assure you within a few years, Dr Avishai's elites will be telling us that the only solution is for Israel to give up its independence and to revert to a modern version of the pre-state British Mandate. Now all he has to do is find a foreign armed force to invade the country and put and end to it (maybe NATO countries like Germany will volunteer?).
September 11, 2008 12:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Let us say you are right: Arabs simply hate and want to destroy Israel, and people like me are self-hating Jewish liberals who don't understand that the world is cruel, and especially for Jews. How exactly did the settlement project do anything to reduce this hatred or make Israelis safer? Or is it that nothing could ever reduce this hatred, given Islam, etc. In that case, what do you propose for the future? A fight to the finish? And if so, who will finish whom?
September 11, 2008 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ Avishai
Machiavelli and the Roman emperors had something to say about this.
It's been a fight to the finish from the beginning of the Zionist enterprise. With the advent of nuclear weapons I would say that either Israel triumphs or the entire Middle East is destroyed.
September 11, 2008 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is your vision? Apocalypse? Presumably, you will not be "left behind."
September 11, 2008 4:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ avishai
Israel is rumored to have 200-400 nuclear weapons. I have no idea of their size or power. If Israel is facing existential defeat and extirmination, I presume they'll be used (that's what they're for).
What happens then is impossible to predict. It depends on the circumstances of the defeat and on the mentality of the triggermen.
Given the bitter nature of the conflict and the terrible anti-semitism rampant in the Arab world I would judge it quite likely that the weapons would be made as dirty as possible and launched at every population center, every dam, every oil field, every religious center...resulting in the deaths of hundreds of millions, and the total destruction of all existing societies in the region.
Obviously, peace is preferable but the peace you propose is impossible. It is equivalent to the destruction of Israel and its people, without any retaliation, and a return to stetl culture.
September 11, 2008 4:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ avishai
The settlers cannot be evicted without the destruction of Israel. They did what they did, at great cost to themselves and with great courage, because they state encouraged them to do so either openly or covertly.
The only peaceful settlement I can see would be along the following lines; Egypt absorbs Gaza, Jordan absorbs the Arab West bank (with border adjustments to make them more rational), Syria gives up its claim to the Golan, Lebanon to Shebaa.
Fat chance. The Arabs will never agree. Iran will never agree. The Left will never tire of screeching about the unfairness of it all (which will not suffice to cover their real frustration at not being able to humiliate and/or destroy Israel).
So there you have it.
September 11, 2008 6:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dr Avishai,
My answer to you is that a contractual peace is not possible between Israel and the Arabs BUT this does not mean I view the situation as hopeless. The answer is Jabotinsky's Iron Wall...the Arabs, after a time in which Israel shows it is hanging tough, not making concessions (including refusing to remove settlements) will realize that violence and Islamic extremism are NOT the answer, and a modus vivendi will emerge. Israel of course must make clear we are not interested in conquering the Middle East nor are we intersted in economically dominating them (the "globalization threat" they fear), but on the other hand the Jewish people will NOT give up their rights to a sovereign state in its historic homeland. Israel has developed and thrived for 60 years without a complete contractual peace and will continue to do so. Most of Judea/Samaria is now out of limits for Jewish settlement as a result of the Oslo Agreements, but continuing Jewish settlement in the permitted areas shows the Arabs we are serious and we will not give in. Every time Israel destroys settlements or even talks about it encourages the extremist elements making them say "you see, just like we said, they are on their last legs, they are giving up things holy to them so they are through...let's just keep up the pressure and they will go under.". It is this thinking that strengthening Israel and the settlements will break.
September 11, 2008 11:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
THe GAZA Evacuation
DID NOT "PULLED THE COUNTRY APART"\
WHat did happen, is that this move that was the initiative of the corrupt sadist-(aka)"buldozer" Ariel Sharon,was taking out in a reluctant manner and withought the sufficient arrangements needed to re-accommodate the GAZA settlers. Sharon Did not create any mutual understandings with the palestinian authorities -HAmas that where democratically elected (israel as you know refuse to "acknowledge" Hamas to this day) and made a one sided move.
he gave the Israelis the message that the settlers are heroes and that the whole move is just a "painful Step"-not specifying towards what. He, and neither any other governmental representative did not say a word about the Plalestinian reality and situation, or about the implications to the future for both sides. there was no long term plan or nagotiations, nor was it planned to begin.
At the same time, he sought to disrupt the palestinian authorities with the usual inside works of collaborators and Keeping a COMPLETE control over the GAZA cage, not letting merchandize, foods and medical necessities in.
On the 28 June 2006 the israeli air force bombed the Israeli-company electricity turbines in gaza that supplied more of half the electricity for the Gaza strip. The turbines-fewl kept on burning for a month.
the two other electricity companies (one american, one palestinian) where and still are dependent in gas and gasoline that where being transporters through the "Kerem Shalom" checkpoint. The traffic of those necessities as well as food and medical supplies was disrupted to stopped to this day.
Also the WATER supply is dependent on the pumps that work on electricity.the average of rotational electricity supply gives about two days out of a week of water to households and all facilities.
the sewage systems are electricity dependent (Oxygen sterilization) and are about to be flooded by now.
Everything works by generators that operate on soler, which is very expensive as well, and thousands of generators and repair-parts are always stuck at the checkpoints.
This is to animate the absolute no-good intentions and unaccidental no-explanatory work to the israeli public. most people to this day think of the settlers as spoiled extreme messianic parasites that are used to getting everything for free from the government, which is quite true, and using the cheapest workers-the gaza palestinians. But, their ace-card, as well as all the right wing "prophecy" is that the evacuation will "strengthen the terrorists."
Well, what a self fulfilling prophecy that was.the public in Israel is "torn apart" only in having a hard time to decide if the messianic right is correct with his prophecies or not.
September 11, 2008 5:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Zohar-
Actually it is the kibbutzim affialiated with the "progressive" Labor and MERETZ parties that have been sucking up public money through subsidies, cheap foreign workers, subsidized water and a massive bailout when their gambling on the stock market blew up in their faces. Does the government bail out families or small businesses that go bankrupt? Of course not, but if you are affliated withe Dr Avishai's elite, and affiliated with the above-mentioned political parties, you get a free ride.
September 11, 2008 5:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
absolutely.
I'v tried to explain just that in my comment to Avishai's post on israel presented as a "democratic" state.
September 11, 2008 6:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
It was not my intention to say that Israeli society and government as a whole are corrupt. However, the centralized, politicized system the Labor Party set up in the early years of the state brought about the problems I listed. Actually, Israeli civil society has improved immensely during the 22 years I have lived in Israel and is now up to Western standards. This is why the Israeli Arabs vehemently oppose the idea that their towns and villages be transferred to Palestinian rule, and why Arabs in Jerusalem in general oppose transferring that area to Palestnian rule as well.
September 11, 2008 9:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Stop it! Stop it! You are making me so ashamed of Jews. I should not have to bear that in my old age, goddammit!
So, finally Jews came to the goldenah medina where they never faced any persecution, and only some social prejudice. And there where the government makes no law to regulate or establish religion, and can even give equality to the dark skinned, the Jews made out all right.
And how did they use their wealth and status? They use it to establish an exclusive Jewish kingdom based on British public-school Biblical geography and religious hoax. Oy! The desert is blooming!
What a shameful, shameful enterprise for Jews! And we will pay, from now into forever.
God will not forgive us for this, and I shudder to think of His revenge. Zionists are on some kind of psychotic quest to justify the Holacaust.
And to use the word "republic"? More shame.
Israel, where everybody rides a shondah!
September 11, 2008 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
September 11, 2008 11:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
By the way, Avishai, your suggestion is that of a traitor. It's one thing ff the elected government of Israel asks for America's intervention. But it's quite another for a frustrated peace movement to ask America to force Israel to do something...
September 11, 2008 12:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
. Which brings me to my alleged antipathy to religion, in this case Jewish religion.
Oh, that reminds me. Could you tell me when God decreed that the Jews should have a home in which they reigned, and should cease their wanderings and un-welcomeness everywhere? I must have missed it. It's no wonder you have an antipathy to the Jewish religion. Everything in it speaks or screams that Israel is purely the work of men, and a very bad work it is, and not the work of God.
It's land-theft, and oppression of the native population by superior minipulation and force of arms.
The assumption that Jews have successfully expiated all their offenses against God and now deserve their promised land is anti-Jewish.
September 11, 2008 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Israeli popular culture has a beauty and authenticity all its own, patently Jewish, but not without hybrid elements, as you would expect from any vibrant national culture."
Ethnic culture has never been dependent upon self-governance, & perhaps no culture better demonstrates that than Jewish ethnic culture. In a rational world, there is no excuse for theocracy.
September 11, 2008 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
As Rabbeinu Avraham once said, in a different context but only too familiar, about a just divinity
On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, urgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.
One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
David
September 11, 2008 1:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
In the absence of external threat, this is the true danger of apartheit-like occupation. It skewes the public life by promoting grandiosity and greed into "mainstream", and marginalizing ethical thinking as "treason". Vigilance becomes the prime civic virtue, witchhunt -- common sense and prudence. Ultimately, the "others" are but a prop in the internal struggle for the soul of the nation.
Sometimes the "others" do the same thing, and more effective. Georgian nationalists had jolly good time denigrating weak-willed members of the opposition, until Russians broke the rules and drove their tanks into the country through unguarded border crossings (and Russian nationalists could show their nations how foolish their own liberals are). However, Israel is blessed with "others" that are so much weaker that strategic and tactical considerations are of tertiary importance, compared with the kaleidoscopic internal politics.
So, go ahead! Build a better nation, cleansed from the rootless, the cosmopolitan, the traitorous, the leftists that OBJECTIVELY support that scum, etc. And mantain the martial spirit by sending the youth on periodic campaigns against the helotes...
September 11, 2008 7:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ piotr
Nice to know the apparachiks are alive and well...and can still babble as they used to.
September 11, 2008 8:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
"apparachiks are alive". But not just apparachiks and the female variety, apparachicks. To cite some web resources:
Trollheim is one of the tallest mountains in RuneScape. It is located right to the east of entrance to the Troll Stronghold.
Trollheim Teleport teleports the caster to the top of the Trollheim, just outside of Eadgar's cave. Players must have completed the Eadgar's Ruse quest to use this spell.
[edit] Agility shortcuts
Trollheim has at least five Agility shortcuts which vary in required Agility levels from 41-64 to be climbed.
[edit] Other
* There are some level 68 Troll Rock throwers near the bottom of the mountain. Use of Protect from Ranged to get by them without damage is advised.
* Mad Eadgar resides in his cave at the top of the mountain.
* A Small Obelisk can be found at the summit of Trollheim
[edit] Quests
Many quests involving trolls are also involved with Trollheim:
* Death Plateau
* Troll Stronghold
* Troll Romance
* Desert Treasure
* Edgars Ruse
May I suggest "Troll Romance" quest? Get some life, in other words?
September 11, 2008 8:50 PM | Reply | Permalink