There is new hope for steps towards peace after the Obama and Netanyahu speeches in May 2011
For the Palestinians’ sake by Dr. Einat Wilf MP, Jerusalem In the flurry of the oratorical duel between U.S. President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, one important agreement between the two has been overlooked. The President and the Prime Minister agreed and emphasized that any real peace would entail Palestinian recognition of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people.
The Obama-Netanyahu dialog is a step forward Many supporters of peace in Europe and around the world have viewed this as a step back, thinking that the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s demand − now supported by the American President − is merely a hawkish ploy to avoid negotiations and a sad mark of Israel’s low self-confidence that it needs the Palestinians − of all people − to tell it what it is. But this demand is neither. It is the one core demand that, once met, will mean that peace is truly possible. Indeed, Israel does not need Palestinian recognition of its identity as the homeland of the Jewish people. Those who have dreamt, created and built it, have done so with one purpose in mind − to create a homeland for the Jewish people. It is Israel’s raison d’être − its very reason for existing. Rather, it is the Palestinians − for their own sake and dignity − who need to recognize this.
Historical aspects to consider Zionism remains a political movement of self-determination for the Jewish people. The Palestinian national movement was about resisting Zionism and its program of building a state for the Jewish people. In the process of resisting, and given the continued failure of resistance, the Palestinians have told themselves a story according to which Zionism is a colonial movement, which has brought strangers to their land, strangers that − faced with determined resistance − are destined, sooner or later, to leave their land. In doing so, the
Palestinians might have been telling themselves a comforting story of hope, but ought to discard, if they are ever to have a state of their own.
To turn from hope into a state of action Hope is generally considered a positive word − but if it prevents engagement with reality, while living in suspended waiting for some make-believe future that will never materialize, then it is neither positive nor helpful. Those who feed this hope do the cause of peace and Palestinian statehood no favor. Zionism, unlike colonial movements, was a movement of people who have come home. As such, it was not about exploiting the (sadly, non-existing) resources of a foreign land, but about exploiting the only resources the Jewish people ever had − their own brains and ingenuity − in order to build a country, literally from the ground up. Building a country requires the mobilization of a people. As long as the Palestinians continue to divert their own countrybuilding resources into resisting Israel and hoping for its disappearance (and yes, hoping that Israel would become just some generic country with a Jewish minority among Arabs is hoping for its disappearance), there will be no peace and they will have no state. And yet, should the Palestinians finally recognize that in creating the state of Israel, the Jewish people have come home, they will signal to the world, to Israel, but above all, to themselves, that they have chosen to leave behind the siren call of resistance to colonialism and are ready to get down to the remarkable, difficult and immensely rewarding task of building a state they can call their own.
Dr. Einat Wilf is a member of Knesset on behalf of the Independence Party and sits on Israels, Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
Arab and Jewish refugees − more than 60 years of suffering, absorption and integration Integration of Jewish and Arab Refugees after 1948 In 1948, about 600,000 Jewish refugees fled from Arab countries to Israel (photo on the left), and about 540,000 to 720,000 of the Arab population of Mandatory Palestine fled to Arab states from the portion of Palestine that is now Israel (photo on the right). While the Jewish refugees became full Israeli citizens, many Arab refugees remained “refugees“ unaided by the neighboring Arab countries.
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