Re: What forces have shaped Israel?

Description: A state that emerged from the horrors of the Holocaust, Israel is still dealing with questions of legitimacy, reconciliation, and terror.

Question:  What forces have shaped Israel?

Transcript: Well I think you can’t understand Israel without understanding the Holocaust.  The Holocaust is the seminal event in . . . in Jewish history; at least the seminal tragedy in Jewish history.  And you have the birth of a nation state that emerges out of that.  The Zionist movement was creating the basis for a state before that; but it’s the Holocaust that is a transforming reality.  So Israel emerges, but it has that as its . . . its most important element of history and historical identity.  And the significance of that is, for Israelis, the worst can happen.  It’s not . . .  It’s not their imagining or conjuring up what are false kinds of threats.  The worst can happen.  So in terms of affecting the Israeli outlook, number one you start with a premise of the worst can happen because of the Holocaust.  Number two, you’re dealing with a reality that all your neighbors for the first . . . you know at least until 1977 when Anwar Sadat came to Israel . . .  So for almost 30 years . . . 29 years of your existence as a state, all of your neighbors rejected you.  Rejected your existence.  Rejected your legitimacy.  And even today, it’s still hard . . .  You’re hard put to say . . .  Even when the Arab world is prepared to say, “We’re prepared to live with you,” there certainly aren’t signs of a kind of reconciliation – a kind of genuine warmth.  The peace Israel has . . .  The peace Israel has with Egypt is a very cold peace.  The peace it has with . . . with Jordan is also certainly not a particularly warm peace.  And there may be all sorts of reasons from the standpoint of the Arab world, and particularly the Palestinians why that’s the case.  But if you’re looking at it from the standpoint of the Israelis, they live in a world where their neighborhood has never really accepted them; and where the worst can happen; and where they’re constantly dealing with a kind of rejection which also plays out in terms of forms of terror, where terrorist outrages can be conducted.  And from . . .  Again, from the Israeli standpoint, the neighbors, even when they condemn certain acts of terror, it’s all kind of sloganistic.  It doesn’t seem particularly genuine.  So when the . . .  When the Arab League Initiative was adopted in 2002 by the Arab League, a resolution that said that in return for Israel withdrawing to the June 4th ‘67 lines, there would be the establishment of full diplomatic relations with Israel.  This came in a resolution adopted in Beirut, and the very next day there’s a Park Hotel bombing on the first night of Passover.  And nobody who’s at this Arab League meeting where this resolution is being adopted is prepared to condemn it.  So the message to the Israelis is, “Well the words are one thing; the reality is something else.”  So the whole Israeli mindset is governed by a perception of not really being accepted; where terrorists seen against you is seen as being legitimate; and where security becomes a preoccupation, and you have to do it because you can’t rely upon anybody else.  Nineteen sixty seven is a war where the Israelis have commitments from the Eisenhower administration which the Johnson administration doesn’t fulfill.  And it reminds the Israelis, “Okay, we’re on our own.”  Then of course when they win in a dramatic way, then there’s a feeling, “Not only are we on our own, but that’s okay because we can handle it.”  So there’s a profound sense of self-reliance, but it’s also a function of feeling ultimately you can’t count on anybody else, and we always have to be the one to rely on ourselves.  There’s a preoccupation with security because of that whole context I described.  And security becomes a kind of sina qua non for how to see the world.  Now as Israel develops and it becomes actually quite . . .  I think quite effective in terms of its development economically . . .  You look at it now, it’s a $140 billion dollar economy.  It dwarfs all of its neighbors.  So it’s very successful, and more and more of the Israelis see themselves connected to the world because of the global economy, and their success in competing in the global economy.  So there’s a . . . there’s an interesting duality that’s emerging – the sense of being on your own; the sense of being preoccupied with security.  Somehow you have this other reality where the world has shrunk, and economically speaking you’re an important part of it.  So there’s . . . there’s an evolution taking place, although pretty hard to dismiss the preoccupation with security. 

Question: Why do Israel’s neighbors question its legitimacy?

Transcript: Well for one thing in the . . . in the Arab mindset, there was a sense of fundamental grievance.  The land was Palestinian and it was taken from them.  And they weren’t prepared to accept that Israel had a right to be there, especially if they were seen as being usurpers and taking the place of the Palestinians.  And this was seen as an outside force that came in and took the land.  And the land had a kind of sacred quality.  So from the Arab standpoint, there was a sense of this kind of outside interloper-usurper.  And there was a fundamental injustice, a fundamental wrong, and the land was taken from the Palestinians so you wouldn’t accept the Israelis.  Now that was a . . . a . . .  what I would describe as a kind of ethos that existed in the Arab world.  It was also exploited because there were those who were leaders who sought to use that to mobilize support for themselves both internally and in competition with their neighbors.  And it wasn’t really that they cared so much about the Palestinians, as much as they cared to use this as an issue for political purposes, and for legitimating purposes.  Since most of them had seized power, they hadn’t . . . they hadn’t won power on the basis of the consent of the government . . . of the governed.  They didn’t really have a legitimate basis for power, so they had to seek some other legitimizing element. And using the Palestinian issue became a legitimizing element.  So there is both a genuine reality of . . . of injustice and a grievance; but there’s also the exploitation of this for internally legitimizing purposes.

Question: What should Israel do?

Transcript:  Well I think there’s . . .  I guess there’s two points that I would make.  The first point is that Israel needs to show that Israel is prepared to take very far-reaching steps.  Now it has a pretty strong basis on which to say this, because first it did withdraw from all the Sinai for peace with Egypt.  It unilaterally withdrew from Lebanon.  And it unilaterally withdrew from Gaza, which is a way to say, “Look, we . . . we are not interested in taking others’ land.”  And they should make it clear, “We’re prepared to work out a deal.”  The kind of deal we put on the table in the year 2000 would have provided for Israel holding about five percent of the West Bank for settlement blocks, but swapping territory as a kind of compensation.  There was gonna be territorial and non-territorial compensation.  I think it would be good for Israel to sort of lay out, “We’re prepared to do that.  We’re prepared to take these steps.  But one thing we’ve learned is we can’t take only unilateral steps.”  Unilateral steps are seen as a sign of weakness.  Unilateral steps don’t require responsibility on anybody else’s part.  And peace is a function of mutual responsibility, not the responsibility of one side.  So Israel, I think, needs to frame issues.   I talked about statecraft.  Well statecraft for the Israelis is frame issues very differently.  Make it clear how far you’re prepared to go, but make it clear there has to be responsibility on the other side too.  It can’t only be Israel.  And there’s gonna be no more unilateral withdrawals, because you actually don’t strengthen the hand of those who are . . . who are prepared to co-exist.  Unilateral withdrawals end up strengthening the hand of those who reject you.  So I think Israel has to frame issues differently, make it clear how far it’s prepared to go, talk about a readiness for not only peace agreements, but peace agreements based on . . . on mutual responsibility, not only the responsibility of one side. Secondly, I think the Israelis need, again, to focus on what’s important to Israel.  One of the reasons you had a Kadima party emerge and create . . . be created by Prime Minister Sharon, was because in the end, they understood that Israel couldn’t stay in the territories.  The reason they withdrew from Gaza and was prepared for further disengagement from the West Bank was because of the demographic issue.  Israel has to remain true to itself.  It is a Jewish democratic state.  If it stays in the territories given the demographic trends, it loses . . .  It has to make a choice.  Either it can be Jewish or democratic, but it can’t be both if it stays in the territories given the demographic trends.  That’s ultimately what the Sharon understanding was.  It was understood much more clearly and articulated expressly by Prime Minister Rabin, who in effect believed in partition.  He wanted to reach it either through agreement or through separation.  The point about separation has to be that if Israel is gonna get out of the territories from a settlement standpoint, unless there’s responsibility of someone from the other side, it doesn’t get out from the military standpoint.  The military presence is there so long as no one is prepared to assume responsibility on the other side.  You know not for one day since Israel got out of Gaza have rockets stopped.  Not for one day.  If they got out of the West Bank tomorrow, the same thing would happen.  Only the difference is the West Bank is contiguous to all of Israel in a way that means that every Israeli community would be subject to, vulnerable to rocket attack.  So Israel needs to frame issues differently.  It needs to position itself differently so it can sustain itself as a Jewish democratic state.  It means it will have to disengage from the West Bank.  But how it disengages will be a function of whether or not, in fact, there’s a readiness for Palestinians to be able, in fact, to fulfill their responsibilities.  And if not, the disengagement will be of settlements, not of the military.

Recorded on: 9/12/07