Being Israeli was never easy, but it seems never to have been more difficult. I am a dual national Israeli-British pianist living in London, which has been my home for over two decades.
I have always thought that one common and tragic misconception regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict is that if only proper pressure was applied on Israel to be less aggressive, less expansionist, less violent, then peace and justice would reign for ever in the Holy Land. It is true that the conflict is in one respect heavily imbalanced. When it comes to military power, Israel has the upper hand without a shadow of a doubt. But in most other ways the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is rather symmetrical. Both peoples see the whole land as their historic homeland. Both states have a moderate part of the population who recognise the urgent need for compromise and co-existence. Both states contain extremists who commit violent crimes against the other and who believe ideologically in an eternal fight any cost, a nightmarish zero-sum game. And the numbers of those extremists are on the rise – on both sides.
To ignore the fact that Arab Palestinians have from the start wished to eliminate any Jewish presence in Israel and to ignore the fact that Israel is faced, to this day, with valid security concerns is either naively to misunderstand the situation or, worse still, cynically to misrepresent it. And to ignore the fact that in order to achieve peace not just Israel but rather both sides need to be pressured to compromise is to threaten the very possibility of that peace.
I have long felt conflicting emotions about my country of birth. Pride and admiration on one hand for its many exceptional achievements in arts, culture and science, its genuinely warm and welcoming population, its vibrant spirit, even its unique blend of blunt and un-calculated directness in all human interactions, and above all the essential miracle of its existence and success. Shame and desperation on the other hand for its daily acceptance of a desperately unacceptable situation – the violent and immoral repression and dehumanisation of the entire population of Palestinians in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza, and the corrupting effects of that occupation on all levels of Israeli civil existence.
But nowadays I’m seething with grief and anger. Grief and anger, first of all, at the truly devastating brutalities of the Palestinian attack of 7th October, the unprecedented death toll on innocent Israeli men, women, children and babies, and the sickening barbarism of the executions, rapes, tortures and beheadings. Grief and anger at the horrifying destruction in Gaza and the unprecedented loss of lives of innocent men, women, children and babies there as a direct result of the Israeli retaliation. Grief and anger also at the current criminal government of Israel, as well as the different right-wing governments of the last 20 years which have led Israel far down the path of war and destruction, hijacking Israeli politics and Israeli society and turning them into an unrecognisable mess of division, hatred and racism. And finally, grief and anger at the general public response to the situation as shaped by the press in this country, and as expressed by the unprecedented marches of protest in London and in cities around the world.
Why do I find the protest marches so offensive? It is because such marches surely should be about a just solution to the conflict, a solution that ensures the freedom and security of Israelis and Palestinians alike. Instead they call for the de facto destruction of the only Jewish state in the world by chanting “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free” (there is also a country between the river and the sea called Israel) and waving Hamas flags or symbols. These are the emblems of a fundamentalist Islamic organisation whose declared aim is the murder of Jews and the establishment of an Islamic state over the whole of historic Israel-Palestine and, in due course, over any other country where Muslims live.
As an Israeli Jew who would like to see justice and freedom for Israelis and Palestinians alike, I have no place in such protests. While I would like to march in support of an immediate ceasefire and in support of a free and prosperous Palestinian state, I can in no way march under a banner which explicitly calls for the murder of my friends and family in Israel or the destruction of my country of birth.
If anyone has any doubt as to the fundamental message offered weekly by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, I suggest they consider another popular placard seen in the protests – “by any means necessary”, which in the aftermath of the 7th October massacres, rapes, tortures and other untold horrors provides a shocking endorsement of exactly those acts, inexcusable under any circumstances. When such an unprecedented number of people are pouring onto the streets with such hateful messages and with raw anger (or I would even say blind hate), people should not have too much trouble in understanding why many Jews, myself included, see them as antisemitic and deeply offensive.
Let’s emphatically restate that criticism of Israel does not equal antisemitism. But denying the Jews a right to political and national self-rule and self-determination in their historic homeland, or in any way endorsing or excusing their brutal and horrific murder, does. And yet hardly anyone in my adopted country, which prides itself on fairness and moderation, seems to dare to publicly oppose this vile hatred for fear of seeming pro-Israeli or appearing to justify Israeli violence towards Palestinians. That silence is deafening. Instead, articles and interviews are published and aired on main media outlets which are so one-sided as to help fan the flames of racial hatred towards the Jewish state and are complicit in the unprecedented rise in antisemitic crime in this country – up 1350% in the last several weeks alone.
If we want to quell the flames of hatred, we should start with debunking some widespread lies about Israel. First and foremost, the fashionable claim that Israel is an apartheid state. Apartheid was a term used to describe the politics of South Africa in which a white minority exercised full control over political and economic power while practising overwhelming state discrimination against a vast black majority which was denied the most basic civil and human rights. Israel, by contrast, is a democratic state in which a Jewish majority grants all citizens (including Arabs) equal rights regardless of ethnicity and religion. We would do well to recall that in 2015 an Arab (Christian) Supreme Court judge Salim Joubran sentenced the Jewish ex-prime minister, Ehud Olmert, to prison, and that another (Muslim) Arab, Khaled Kabub, was appointed a Supreme Court judge only the year before last. Muslim and Christian Arabs in Israel are represented across all areas of life, including academia, the medical profession, the legal profession, in politics, media and so on.
There is only one special case in which the state of Israel legally favours Jews and that is the law of return, allowing any Jew the automatic right to live in Israel. But one must remember that the modern state of Israel was founded as a homeland for the Jews and as a singular safe haven from persecution in the aftermath of the Holocaust, in which 6 million European Jews were murdered, while not one country in the world allowed them proper refuge or safety. One can argue (preferably if one is Israeli) whether this law should nowadays be changed or amended, but to call Israel an apartheid state on that basis is indefensible.
The situation in the West Bank is an entirely different matter, and this is a crucial distinction that must be made clear. Let’s call for an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, yes, but not for an end to the state of Israel.
Another growing trend is to call the state of Israel a colonialist enterprise. Not the least of the difficulties with this problematical theory is that no single clear definition of colonialism exists. Commonly, however, the word is taken to mean the subjugation of one group of people for the economic benefit of another – usually a white and distant superpower. Jews are not a superpower and have not come from Europe to take advantage of the natural resources of the region, as the Belgians, for example, did in the Congo, nor to take advantage of its population as taxpayers or labourers. Quite the opposite: the early Zionists took great pride in manual labour, farming, and the rebuilding of the land themselves. And they weren’t only white Europeans either: roughly half the population is made of Middle-Eastern (non-white) Jews.
Furthermore, Israel was not some random destination selected for its commercial and economic possibilities, but rather the historic homeland of the Jewish people in which, and this is important to emphasise, a Jewish population has continuously existed throughout history, despite the repeated and forced historical mass expulsion of Jews from the land by foreign powers (the real colonialists). These include, as some people may be surprised to learn, the Arabs, who invaded the territory in the 7th century. To call Israel a colonial state is therefore at best a farfetched and twisted misrepresentation of reality.
These (and other) false and misleading ideas are spread extensively in order to fuel hatred of Israel, and as a sad result also the hatred of Jews, all under the flag of Palestinian solidarity. Meanwhile, extremism is growing everywhere. Israeli politics and society have taken terrifyingly giant strides towards a violent and religious brand of nationalism that is alarming to any sane Israeli while leaving the once large peace movement within the country severely diminished. I am no expert on Palestinian society, but from what I can see, the peace movement there is even smaller than that in Israel.
Meanwhile, the large global protest movement is harnessing public anger to a jihadist agenda, unashamedly calling for the destruction of a whole country and the likely murder of its entire population, without anyone batting an eyelid. There are two sides to this conflict, despite many claims to the contrary. The pictures from Gaza are soul-destroying and the humanitarian crisis there is heartbreaking. Count me among the strong voices calling for a ceasefire; they exist even in Israel. But to borrow the words of the UN Secretary General António Guterres, there is also context. Israel has responded with all its military might to the most brutal and violent attack it has suffered in its history. It is fighting an enemy (Hamas) which not only has promised publicly to repeat this attack again and again, but also which does nothing to hide its declared wish to destroy Israel and murder its citizens.
There is too much hypocrisy and ignorance around the present debate. There is nothing racist about a Jewish state or a homeland for the Jewish people. Judaism is not only a religion; to be Jewish is also an ethnicity, a shared history and cultural heritage. Israel is the only country in the world where the official language is Hebrew, the predominant culture is Jewish, and the national holidays are the Jewish festivals. This should not be contentious. A Jewish citizen of the UK is free to celebrate Passover and Hanukkah, but does not expect these to replace Christmas and Easter as the mainstream cultural and religious reference points of the nation.
When a Palestinian says that he supports the two-state solution, but at the same time refuses to say that he recognises the right of Israel to exist as the homeland of the Jewish people, what in fact he is supporting is a two-state solution of a very peculiar nature – a Palestinian state for the Palestinian people and an Israeli state also for the Palestinian people. And what about a state for the Jewish people? Well, a Jewish state is a Zionist idea, and Zionism is considered a dirty word now.
So what can be done? If only there were better Israeli and Palestinian leaders – courageous men and women to stand and say without any hint of dishonesty that their hand is offered for peace and coexistence, that their hearts yearn for an end to unacceptable violence. Yet it seems that this brave leadership does not exist on either side. So instead let’s call for a different kind of popular uprising, shared by ordinary Israelis and Palestinians who sincerely want an end to violence and who are able to recognise each other’s national aspirations. We desperately need to revive the voices for peace, and to ensure that those voices are equally represented by Israelis and Palestinians alike. We need new symbols and new movements, and if governments won’t lead the way, let’s raise enough voices for peace to leave governments no choice but to follow. But the voices need to be for peace. There is no free Palestine without a free Israel. There is no free Israel without a free Palestine.
There are some glimmers of hope for those who want to find them. The Parents Forum (https:// pfba.org.uk/) unites bereaved Israeli and Palestinian families, running workshops and education projects in Israel and Palestine to oppose violence and promote peaceful dialogue. Standing Together (https://www.standing-together.org/en) is a grassroots movement mobilising Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel in pursuit of peace, equality and social justice. Land for All (https://www.alandforall.org/english/?d=ltr) advances an original solution to the conflict that seems to unite both left- and right-leaning Israelis as well as Palestinians Arabs and Israeli settlers in a plan that calls for a “two-state one homeland” solution. It proposes two sovereign states, answering respectively the national aspirations of both Israelis and Palestinians along the internationally recognised 1967 borders, which are to be completely open to allow freedom of movement and residency, EU-style, to all citizens of both states. Israeli settlers can remain as Israeli residents of the Palestinian state and Palestinian nationals will be able to be residents of Israel. It’s a radical idea, but of the right kind, and is the sort of idea that we should hear much more about, and the kind we should all be marching in the streets for.
We must never lose the hope that diplomatic solutions exist for this seemingly insoluble problem. Let us unite around a movement that has both Palestinian and Israeli representation and which recognises the right of both people to peace, freedom and full human rights. A movement that recognises and supports the Palestinian national aspiration and fight for equality and justice while not denying the same to the Jews of Israel. You cannot fight evil with evil. You cannot oppose the Israeli abuse of Palestinian rights by ignoring Israel’s right to a secure and peaceful existence. A peace march that has no place in it for a peace-seeking Israeli is no peace march. We need less extremism and more space for moderate voices to come to the fore. And more than anything else we need dialogue, a true open dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians that is honest and sensitive. Without it there is no hope for peace in that beautiful land, no matter how loud all those shout who have little understanding of the conflict or real stake in its outcome.
They say that the easiest way to bring people together is to unite them against a common enemy. What if we Israelis and Palestinians, together with anyone else who cares to join us, make that common enemy injustice, racism, ignorance, violence, cruelty and avoidable death?
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