Thought of the Week: 19 May 2016 (Rabbi Maurice Michaels)
Written by Writings & Sermons by others — 19 May 2016
My enforced recuperation has given me more time for reading. I tend to have 3 books on the go at any one time: a detective story for light relaxation, a novel that enables me, if nothing else, to appreciate clever writing, and something heavier that requires concentration, so can only be taken in relatively short doses. The latter that I’m working on at the moment is called “One Palestine, Complete” and it is a historical survey of Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate, 1917 – 1948. It was first published in the UK in 2000 and has sat on my bookshelves ever since. The author, Tom Segev, is a leading Israeli journalist as well as being the author of several books and a historian and he took the title from the receipt signed by the British High Commissioner given to the departing Turkish Governor . I’m just over half way through the book –the mid-1930s and the tit for tat atrocities following the Arab uprising in Hebron – and I have to say that so far the writing has managed to maintain a very neutral stance, castigating in equal measure the British, the Zionists and the Arabs. But what comes through loud and clear, virtually from the beginning of the Mandate, is that there was no way that the Land could be shared; partition as envisaged by the United Nations in 1947 was the only solution. Palestine could never be ‘complete’.
So it becomes hard to imagine how nearly 70 years later the two parties to this sorry conflict have yet to turn that into a reality. Last week we celebrated the 68th anniversary of the establishment of the State, but is celebration really possible without recognising the enormous loss of life on both sides during that time; the huge amount of resources that are tied up in maintaining a war machine that could be used for the benefit of the poor and deprived – Jews and Arabs alike; the loss of Israel’s reputation around the world – once famed for being the only democratic country in the region, now pilloried as a pariah state; the inability to implement the prophet Isaiah’s exaltation to be Or la-Goyim, a Light to the Nations.
Of course, we know that it takes ‘two to tango’, that there needs to be a viable peace partner, but there is reasonable doubt as to whether the Israeli Government, and certainly its Prime Minister, actually wants to get to the negotiating table. And Mr Abbas doesn’t seem to be in any hurry either as he continues the Palestinian double-talk of one message for his own people and another for the outside world. But many in the outside world have already made their decision and it isn’t for a two state solution. As far as they are concerned, the whole of Israel and the West Bank and Gaza should become Palestine, for them the Jewish State has no right to exist. The BDS movement is growing and while it may not include today’s movers and shakers, the younger generation in university campuses all around the world, including the UK and the USA, are favouring the Palestinian cause. Unless something is done within the next few years to stabilise the situation, to establish Palestinian Statehood, to demonstrate that Israel can live in peace with its Palestinian neighbour, there will be no Israel.
That’s not the message we want to hear at a time of celebration, but the window of opportunity seems to be closing and not gradually. One of the first groups of pioneers at the end of the 19th century was called “Chov’vei Tziyon”, Lovers of Zion. It seems to me that those of us who wish to maintain that relationship to the Land need to make our voices heard. We have to bring whatever influence we have to bear on the Israeli people and its Government if the ideals and aspirations of that group and other chalutzim, pioneers, are to be carried forward into the long-term future.