By Thomas Neuburger
I want to point to the intersection of two ideas and see what thoughts it leads to.
Moshe Dayan and the creation of Israel
The first is this now-forgotten set of observations by Israeli Defense Minister (and Zionist “freedom fighter”) Moshe Dayan.
He has a strongly pro-Zionist past, a fighting past:
At the age of 14, Dayan joined the Jewish defence force Haganah. In 1938, he joined the British-organised irregular Supernumerary Police and led a small motorized patrol.
Haganah was “the main Zionist paramilitary organization that operated for the Yishuv in the British Mandate for Palestine. It was founded in 1920 to defend the Yishuv's presence in the region, and was formally disbanded in 1948, when it became the core force integrated into the Israel Defense Forces shortly after the Israeli Declaration of Independence.”
In other words, a fighting Zionist true-believer.
Dayan had very strong opinions about the defense of Israel and what it would take to achieve it. One thing it would take is an unblinking acknowledgement of what Israel had done to acquire the land for its own.
Dayan recognized what had been done to create the state of Israel. He therefore understood what it would take to defend it.
An Undoable Act
This theft of land is, in Arab eyes, an act that cannot be undone. It should be seen that way in Israeli eyes as well, because of its consequences.
In many ways, this is like Henry VII’s theft of the wealth of the Catholic Church in England. Once taken and distributed, the act could not be undone, even if he wanted to, in much the same way a murder cannot be undone.
Consider: In the time of Shakespeare, England was as Catholic as France; only the government and its dependents were Protestant. There had to be a war to settle it one way or the other.
So with this. It seems to me there must a war, or barring that, a return to the status quo ante, in which people in an occupied land are continuously tortured until they die or leave.
There are only three ways this can go:
One side will win, with Israelis or Arabs driven out.
The torture regime will restart, with both sides as torturers.
A secular state will be made where Israel/Palestine now sit.
A secular state — not the vaunted two-state solution — is the only humane solution. That solution, if you’re not a religionist, seems certainly fair. The others inevitably lead to abuses and war.
But a secular state is also unacceptable to Zionists. For them, it’s “Greater Israel or bust.”
How to get past this problem? Consider the following.
Like the Abortion Battle
The battle for Palestine/Israel is like the US abortion fight in a single, crucial way. Until it’s completely won by one side or the other, the torture can last forever.
Women, it seems, were content to see abortion limited, in way after cruel way, in one state and the next, so long as it was legal somewhere. They seemed content, in the aggregate, with continuing the status quo.
My wife and I marveled at this, but it’s been true since the battle against Roe was first enjoined. The movement against the so-called ‘pro-lifers’ was small and ineffective; where we expected mass insurgency, we saw mostly complaints and protests. There were a few vigorously pursued victories, but the mass of women and men were not incited to join. Women especially, it seemed, were resigned to accept their losses, if each was delivered in a small enough dose as to make each loss unremarkable.
What the “pro-life” movement never should have done, was won completely.
People, but especially women, are now aflame with desire to reinstate Roe. We’ve seen this in the past few elections at the regional level. It may, if the stars are aligned for the Democrats, re-elect the embattled Biden against a resurgent Trump.
To make the comparison clear, if the Right had not achieved total victory over abortion, had not repealed all of Roe, the pro-choice movement would never have grown this strong. Sad that is, but true.
The road to lasting peace
Is this true about Israel/Palestine as well? If the only alternative to war is a secular state, perhaps the only way for world opinion to get there is to force it on combatants committed to total war.
What will a painful “peace,” a return to a status quo ante in which hundreds are murdered slowly and by both sides, actually achieve, compared to the cost of achieving it? The hatred on both sides is fully metastatic: it has reached the youngest, the pre-teens, on either side. It will take 50 years at least to clear all of that out. The world may easily tolerate the next half-century of hate; it’s certainly tolerated the last.
In contrast, what will a “blowout battle” accomplish compared to its cost? Deaths will be high, perhaps in the millions. But after, will the world finally force an end? Force a secular state, in which none have the upper hand?
I have no answers to any of this. But I do pray for peace, however it can be achieved.