In a recent guest editorial in the Jewish Week, Breaking The Silence founder Yehuda Shaul writes of the hostile behavior of the Israelis in Hebron towards the Arabs there, and opines on how the Arab violence that is being seen in Israel now is an inevitable consequence of Israel’s “one-state” vision. While I agree that it is indeed a one-state vision that is creating a problem, it is clear that he is looking at the wrong people.
While the acts of some of the Israelis who wish to re-establish the ancient Jewish community of Hebron are offensive, to blame those acts for all or even most of the Arab violence visited upon the Jews is putting the cart before the horse. For hundreds of years there has been a steady pattern of Arab violence against the Jews, some of it clearly enshrined in the Arab laws. Despite the assurances that we used to hear from Yasir Arafat that Arabs and Jews had lived in peace, one need only consider the denigration inherent in such laws as the 7th Step rule, which was a sentence of death for any Jew who went above the 7th step into the building housing the Caves of the Patriarchs, to get a sense of what that co-existence was truly like. The hatred of the Jews found in the religious scriptures and teachings of the Arab population made periodic violence against the Jews a feature of the land even when it was all under Arab and Turkish control. This is an aspect of history that we cannot ignore.
Not that this justifies the offensive behavior by some of the Israelis now living in Hebron. This kind of provocation is unacceptable, and not only inflames the situation but also endangers the lives of the Arabs, Israelis and the Israeli soldiers who are there in an effort to protect the Jewish community. However, we do have to wonder, why is it that an Arab who insists on returning to the Western portion of Jerusalem or any other part of Israel is a “refugee” and can receive international support, while a Jew who insists on returning to the Eastern portion of Jerusalem or any other part of Judea and Samaria (known as the “West Bank” due to Jordan’s illegal seizure and attempted annexation) is a “settler” and is subject to almost international condemnation? Why do we accept a two-state solution in which Arabs can live in both states and can travel over the border but Jews are limited to live in only one place and will presumably not be allowed to enter the other (judging by the failure of previous armistice agreements regarding visitation to Jewish holy sites)?
There is little reason to believe that even withdrawing to the 1967 borders will bring an end to the conflict. Hamas and its followers are committed to the total (and genocidal) destruction of the Israeli state. BDS, which may be small but is clearly not to be ignored, is opposed to two-states and sees Israel as an “unjust order” and not as the right of the Jewish people to self-govern. Even among Fatah, which purportedly recognizes Israel’s right to exist and supports the two-state solution, many continue to express the belief that two-states are just a step to the long term goal of a single Arab state. Even Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, will not promise an end to the conflict. So what basis is there for hope in that direction?
The problem is that the Arab government has never truly honored its commitments under Oslo. The U.S.A. and Israel accepted the fiction that the Arab violence which killed 250 Israeli citizens in the year after Oslo’s signing was not a violation of Arafat’s agreement to renounce violence, but was instead an attempt by others not under his control to derail the productive peace process. Nor has anyone bothered to wonder why Palestinian Arab textbooks continue to teach that the entire area is a single Arab state despite the fact that a condition of Oslo was for the Arabs to recognize Israel’s right to exist. While Israeli society may have its extremists and other failings, the government has always maintained the possibility of two-states. While all the settlements utilize just around 2% of the total “West Bank” landmass, during Prime Minister Netanuyahu’s current term any new building has been kept to within areas that have been agreed as becoming part of Israel in previous negotiation sessions, and the actual pace of building has been slower than during previous years, despite all the claims otherwise. By contrast, the Palestinian Authority has been encouraging violence against Israelis and/or Jews via the schools, religious institutions and childrens’ television. It has set up public areas and programs honoring those who have committed atrocities against Israelis, and has been paying financial stipends to those who have been jailed for such crimes or to their families if they were killed. Most recently we have seen Mr. Abbas clearly instigating violence by falsely accusing Israel of taking over the mosque compound, once again using the language of religious supremacism that has historically been used to set off violence against the non-Muslims of the region.
While I agree that the Jews living in Hebron should not go out of their way to antagonize their Arab neighbors, they should not have to abdicate their right to live in a place that has had an historic and continuous Jewish presence going back thousands of years. When Israel first declared its statehood, the promise was that all people would have equal rights in the state, and while this may not have been perfectly achieved the reality is that even the first Knesset had Arab members who had been elected by the Arab citizens of Israel. That is the Israeli one-state vision, which is still in practice within the current borders. The Arab one-state vision has at best included a Jewish population under subjugation, at worst no Jewish population at all. Even the Christians are being slowly forced out, despite their shared Arab heritage and the “recognition” of their right to be there in speeches by Mahmoud Abbas and Saeb Erekat. This is the Arab state that we see in practice in the “West Bank” and Gaza.
The problem is not about Israel having a one-state vision, it is the Arab one-state vision, with its rejection of coexistence between the two peoples, which is responsible for the ongoing violence. There is no reason, aside from Arab hatred, that an Arab state cannot have Jewish inhabitants who would be citizens of that state. The presence of Israeli soldiers and checkpoints in the “West Bank” is directly related to the Arab insistence on wiping out any Jewish presence from the area. To blame the return of Jews to those areas for the violence visited upon them and Israel as a whole is to miss the point.
