Vision of the Future Israeli-Palestinian Peace
This blogpost is again a continuation of previous blogposts – here, here, here, here and here – which discuss Israeli-Palestinian peace. It is written deliberately at a time when such peace is becoming increasingly unlikely. This is rooted in the deeply Jewish conviction that it is always darkest just before the dawn.
Sukkot is a time deeply associated with the future universal peace. According to the prophet, the nations will ascend to Jerusalem and celebrate the festival with the Jewish people in its Holy Temple (Zechariah 14:16), which is described as a ‘house of prayer for all peoples’ (Isaiah 56:7).
The vision of future Israeli-Palestinian peace based on the approach in my writings involves achieving for every party the maximalist goals to which they aspire.
Having maximalist goals means that the peace framework is fully aligned with the authentic national and religious sentiment of two sets of deeply religious and historically-aware peoples.
It stands in contrast to the unsatisfying secular-rationalist compromise that the Oslo-style approach offers. The Oslo approach repeats the ‘arbitrary-line-on-the-map’ basic errors of colonialist interventions from centuries past and cements many unresolved grievances which, rather than resolve the conflict, will in all likelihood intensity it to a new level of inter-state violence.
What is the vision of this maximalist peace?
For religious Jews, one sovereign Jewish realm covering the entire biblical Land with Jerusalem as its undivided capital, and Jews free to live, work and pray across the entire Land.
For secular Jews, a fully civil Jewish State of Israel inside the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital, fully integrated into a regional free trade area, common market and defense alliance backstopped by a United States security guarantee.
For secular Arabs, a Palestinian state inside the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital, and an established right of return for Palestinian refugees across the whole land.
For religious Arabs, an Arab-Islamic realm covering the historic Ottoman territories in the Levant and Arabia, incorporating the three Islamic holy places, and the entirety of Palestine.
This may seem like it involves contradictions, but it is really quite simple, and all explained in my previous blogs, based on a regionally-integrated framework for Middle East peace.
To paraphrase the key success factor identified by business guru, Jim Collins: visionaries do not believe that things must be either A OR B, but not both… rather, visionaries figure out a way to have both A AND B.
Oslo tells us we cannot have even A or B. It says “the Land is sacred to you? Who cares! For the sake of ‘peace’, you must split it in two!”
The approach to reach an agreeable and durable peace, says, you can have peace and you can also have your religious and national imperatives – A and B. In fact, it says, G-d willing, peace is the best way to realise those religious and national imperatives – so choose A in order to have B.
Chag sameach!