Medialternatives

It strikes me there is something pitiful about the two-state tango in which both Palestine and Israel are caught in an existential embrace from which neither country can extricate itself.

Sure, recognition of a Jewish State contingent on there being a democratic Palestine in which human rights are preserved. But this leaves out an important third grouping. Those citizens who identify with a broader social project in which both Jews and Muslims (as well as Christians) may find a home within the context of a secular/democratic society.

Such dreams of an Israelistine or Palesrael refuse to die out. They abound in the cherished ideals of those who seek a unitary state or one-state solution modelled upon the South African federal experience. South Africa is a unitary state with provinces that have a remarkable semblance of autonomy despite constant attack by those who wish to centralise power.

Could a tripartite or federal solution work in Israel? What exactly would a three-state solution entail?

First off one would want to grant the Jewish people a state in which the halacha was practised and where Judaism was the dominant religion and legal code.

Next, you would want to ensure a state for Palestinians, in which democracy and human rights was guaranteed.

Finally, and crucially, you would want to accommodate those who fit into neither camp, either because they were not Jews per se, (not observant enough), secular Israelis or Palestinians who wished to live in areas not granted to the autonomous number 2 state. This would be the state on paper which together with the two states above, created a new state of Israelistine, a state which for now only exists in the imagination.

Now all three entities (and the citizens they contain) might argue as to the exact meaning and terms of independence. Undoubtedly the Jewish State and the Palestinian State would be independent and autonomous, however they would find themselves agreeing that the neutral third state also had rights and responsibilities necessitating some form of nation-building – a national anthem, even a new flag which might be an amalgam of both the current Israeli and Palestinian flags, or as some have found, a piece of white cloth with two blue stripes and instead of a lone Star of David, the Cross and Crescent Moon on either side.

Has time run out for the lone star state? Do we need a huge rethink about Israel and Palestine? Can there ever be security behind borders?

Such an Israelistinian affair would necessitate a constitution, a federal parliament in which all three states could meet an enact laws.

Since all three states would have enormous levels of autonomy, they might evolve like the European Union, as an economic entity first and foremost, with political issues secondary.

However which way it was organised, the new state of Israelistine would allow for the full expression of Jews, Israelis and Palestinians in a co-operative and non-violent manner. It would allow all three states to coexist with the Arab scene as well as the International community and Jewish Diaspora.MONEY-185_299104a.jpg

SECULAR Judaism has failed. Essentially, converting Jews into just another ethnic group that can be displaced by wars and conflicts over land, power and resources. As an ethnic Jew I am forced to recognise the logic of my own displacement, to argue for a place within the greater diaspora of Jewish thought, which of necessity recognises the right of Israel to exist, and Jerusalem to maintain its centre of focus for a religion which is one of the three Abrahamaic offshoots of monotheism.

Although I disagree with many of the fundemental tenats of Jewish teaching and hold out for a more encompassing and expansive wisdom, I see the error of holding to a doctrine that reduces the significance of the state of Israel and merely perpetuates the source of conflict in the Middle East of today.

Secular Judaism has failed to arrive at peaceful coexistance with its neighbours, and however radical this may sound, the only peace that is likely to arise out of an untenable situation in which a perpertual state of war, a war of attrition and siege is being waged on either side, is to examine the illogic of violence and mayhem wrought by friend and foe alike, which must be assuredly gurantee at some point, mutually assured destruction, of the type often talked about during the Cold War era.

For fundementalists, the price of surrendering East Jerusalem is too high, as most religious Jews can tell you, the wailing wall is one of the last vestiges of King Solemon’s temple, and is part of this territory now claimed by Palestinians. To allow a Palestinian authority to guard access over this sacred place is a bit like allowing Jews to control access to St Peters’ square in Rome. Would the descent into complete madness entail and even greater madness? A first-strike against the Kaaba in Mecca? A pre-emptive battle or secondary strike over the ruins of the Vatican? To think like this is to question ones own sanity — why would one want to wage such a war, to utter such thoughts, if only to prove that religious dogma is insatiable and that organised religion is the opiate of the masses?

Instead of accomodating Muslems and Christians and their plans for the partition and seperation of Jerusalem into various parts, what Israelis need to do now, after the withdrawel from Gaza, is to persuade the world of their plans to defend themselves and other holy sites on either side. If this fails, then they must persuade the world of their resolve to insure that nothing holy remains. A demonstration of purpose and resolve to assure that if Israel cannot exist, then destruction must be wrought on both sides, without favour. Surely such a religious war is unwinnable, and not worth fighting?

Where would Moslems be without their Mecca? Where would Roman Catholics be without a Vatican? The disappearance of Jerusalem along with these other places of religious worship would be the tragedy of the human race meted out by madmen in their insatiable thirst for power that can only be met by similar atrocities, as the whole world suffers from its lack of reason, as this conflict has proven time and again.

DRL