Summer 2010

The Despair of Zion

by Walter Reich

Any effort to bring peace between Israelis and Palestinians must reckon with the fact that bitter experience has taught many Israelis to doubt that their foes want a lasting concord.

A family member grieves at the funeral service for eight Jewish yeshiva
students killed in a 2008 attack by a Palestinian gunman.
(Photo by Brian Hendler/Getty Images)

Meeting a friend in a coffee shop in an old Jerusalem neighborhood, once the home of Jews who had escaped Germany before the Holocaust, I asked him what he wanted most in life. One of the giants of Israel’s academic and intellectual life, my friend has challenged some of the central tenets of his country’s national narrative but is deeply committed to the necessity and justice of Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.

With no hesitation, but with obvious despair, he answered, “I want my children to emigrate.”

Just then his daughter happened to stop by with her husband, greeting her father with a warm hello before hurrying off. He shrugged, and said, “She doesn’t want to go. What can I do?”

My friend’s despair is shared, in one way or another, by many of the Israelis with whom I’ve spoken. It’s a despair based largely on what they believe is a realistic assessment of Israel’s situation in the world and of the ultimate intentions of many, and probably most, Palestinians.

To be sure, lots of Israelis don’t share this despair, don’t talk about it, or use every coping mechanism they can to set it aside and live a normal life. Yet it’s a feeling that, at some level and to some degree, permeates all things in much of the population, and that has frequently emerged in the many conversations I’ve had in recent years with Israelis.

American officials in past administrations have tried—sometimes, as one of them put it recently, religiously, and often blindly and self-deceptively—to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty. But the failure of each effort has deepened Israeli despair.

The Obama administration, too, seems intent on brokering such a peace treaty. For the administration to have any chance to succeed, it will not only have to show Israelis that it understands their despair but convince them that the kind of treaty it wants Israel to accept will be worth the cost because it will result in a real peace—one that will actually last, that’s less threatening than the situation they’re now in, and that will truly and finally end the conflict with the Palestinians. Few Israelis still fantasize that some day Palestinians will accept them with any warmth as neighbors; but they want to live—and to be, at least, left alone.

Certainly, there’s much in their country’s experience that provokes in Israelis pride rather than despair. After all, following two millennia of forced dispersions, during which they prayed three times a day to return to Zion, and during which some Jews persisted in living there, they’ve finally returned, so that today half the Jews in the world—a population much diminished by the Holocaust—live in the place from which their forebears were exiled.

And they’ve accomplished a lot there. They’ve revived a language—Hebrew—for everyday use that, throughout their years in exile, was used primarily for religious and literary purposes. They’ve created a modern country and a democratic society in a vast zone of despotic rule. Jews who were once utterly defenseless in foreign lands and repeatedly massacred—most recently in the greatest massacre of all, the Holocaust—can now defend themselves. And, despite its small population—some 7.5 million, about 80 percent of them Jews—Israel has become a dynamo of scientific and cultural innovation.

Yet the challenges that face Israel are immense—and growing. Increasingly, Israelis are convinced that no concessions they make to the Palestinians will ever be enough—that each concession will be followed by another demand, that each new demand that isn’t conceded will be a pretext for more violence, and that each response to that violence will provoke international condemnations of Israel for using disproportionate force, no matter what forewarnings are given and what precautions are taken to prevent civilian casualties. Israelis watch as efforts are made around the world to demonize, isolate, and delegitimize their country. They’re stunned especially by the successful strategy, employed by Palestinians and their allies, of having Israel labeled an “apartheid state.” They feel beset by what they see as biased media campaigns and human rights organizations that focus obsessively on Israel even as they ignore massive violations elsewhere. They feel increasingly and unfairly under attack by, among others, a Europe with a growing Muslim population, the United Nations, the political Left on university campuses and elsewhere, and even some Jews around the world, including some in Israel, who find themselves embarrassed that the Jewish state has used military force.

To be successful, those who want to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace—one that lasts more than a few weeks or months—will have to be able to glimpse the world through Israeli eyes. They’ll have to understand the beliefs and fears that are the sources of much Israeli despair—and take them into account no less than they take into account the sources of Palestinian despair. Ten of these beliefs and fears seem particularly salient:

The Palestinians will never accept the existence of Israel, and systematically teach their children that they must never do so, either.

It’s this belief, probably more than any other, that causes Israeli despair.

Israelis have grown accustomed to being pilloried in the most crude and violent terms in Palestinian mosques. And they’ve grown accustomed to media controlled by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank that regularly undermine the readiness to accept Israel alongside a future Palestinian state—that glorify suicide bombers, quote Muhammad as saying that Jews must be killed, accuse Israelis of poisoning and spreading AIDS among Palestinians, deny that the Holocaust happened, claim that Jews never had a history in the land and that there was never any Temple in Jerusalem, and insist that Jews should leave the area and go back to their “original” homelands—Europe and Ethiopia.

Israelis might feel reassured that peace is possible if it were promoted in the Palestinian Authority’s education system; even if the current Palestinian generation isn’t ready to accept the Jewish state, maybe a future one will. But they know that Palestinian students study maps in their textbooks on which Israel doesn’t exist and watch television programs aimed at young people that identify cities in Israel as being part of Palestine.

Moreover, the other Palestinian territory—Gaza—is governed by a group, Hamas, that is forthright in declaring that it will fight until Israel is gone, and that promotes this ideology in every way it can in its own media and education system. Even if the Palestinian Authority were to foster the ideal of coexistence among its students, what about the students in Gaza?

Palestinians will always demand more concessions until there is no Israel.

This is a conclusion many Israelis have reached as a result of many years of failed peacemaking.

After the Oslo Peace Accords, signed in 1993 on the White House lawn, the Israeli consensus, fragile but determined, and led by Yitzhak Rabin, was that peace would be painful, would require massive concessions involving land and the control of Jerusalem, and would require the removal of most settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. But for most Israelis, these concessions were worth the achievement of a real and lasting peace.

After years of Israeli buses being blown up, after the refusal by Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, to accept a peace in which nearly all of the West Bank and Gaza would become a Palestinian state, and after Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas, refused concessions that were even more generous, many Israelis concluded that no concession would ever be enough. Always there was an insistence that
the Palestinian refugees—including the millions of children, grandchildren, and other descendants of the original refugees from the 1948 fighting—would be able to “return” to the homes of the actual refugees in what became Israel. For most Israelis this is a strategy aimed at ending the Jewish state, and is the poison pill of Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy.

Palestinians attack Israel from behind civilian human shields, but any response by Israel, however careful, that harms those civilians is condemned, while the tactic itself, which is a crime of war, is ignored.

Israelis have concluded that this new form of warfare has undercut the effectiveness of the military strength on which they long relied. They know they have a powerful army—the Israel Defense Forces, or IDF—that faces, in the cases of the Palestinians and Hezbollah in Lebanon, adversaries that lack tanks or planes. But Israelis have discovered that their military superiority is blunted, even useless, when their adversaries are willing to use the very people whose cause they claim to champion as shields behind which to fire rockets. That’s what happened during Israel’s three-week incursion into Gaza in the winter of 2008–09, which it launched after being bombarded by thousands of rockets. And that’s what happened during the 2006 war with Hezbollah, the Palestinians’ ally on Israel’s northern border, which hid its rockets in schools, mosques, and hospitals, so that Israel couldn’t target the rockets without also destroying those schools, mosques, and hospitals—and killing civilians. Like the United States and other countries fighting in the Middle East, Israel doesn’t know how to fight such a war. And when it tries, it’s accused of war crimes. Israelis worry that the military they built to defend their country can’t do it without bringing upon Israel international condemnation.

Increasingly, the military war against Israel, in which Israel can defend itself, is being replaced by a public relations war, in which Israel invariably loses.

As frustrating as it is for Israelis to fight an enemy that uses its own population as human shields, it’s even more frustrating to fight an enemy that designs every encounter to turn into a public relations disaster for Israel. In May, when Israel tried to stop the Free Gaza flotilla—which included militant Islamist activists ready for a fight—it fell into a trap. If it allowed the blockade of Gaza to be breached, then Hamas might get more rockets to shoot at Israel. But if it tried to stop the ships, it would risk a confrontation that would further damage its reputation. It risked that confrontation, was met with violence, ended up killing activists, and created an anti-Israel furor in the world news media. Now, more such flotillas—and more PR-aimed provocations—are surely coming.

The worldwide campaign to delegitimize Israel is selective and hypocritical, but is finding increasing support.

The growth of anti-Israel sentiment around the world has left Israelis feeling increasingly isolated. Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, and a great number of Israelis see themselves as liberals. They know that, in the last century, the spasm of murder aimed at annihilating all Jews in Europe and anywhere else they could be found was carried out on the basis of a rightist ideology. So they’re amazed that so much antagonism toward Israel is expressed by intellectuals on the political left.
They don’t understand why they’re attacked for even minor confrontations with Palestinians or for
erecting checkpoints to deter suicide bombers,
while far more extensive human rights violations are glossed over. Ignored, for example, is the gross violation of the most basic human rights, to the point of enslavement, of the half of the population of Saudi Arabia made up of women, or the banning of worship there that isn’t Muslim. Ignored, too, are the populations that lack basic freedoms—in Syria, say, or Iran, or Sudan, or Somalia, as well as the victims in Chechnya, Tibet, and Kurdistan.

Moreover, some of the greatest human rights violators in the world—most recently Libya—sit on the UN Human Rights Council, whose condemnations, Israelis note, are relentlessly focused on Israel. Permanent bodies in the UN, several with large staffs, have been established solely to advocate on behalf of Palestinians, such as the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories, and the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, and the Division for Palestinian Rights.

Israelis find the worldwide anti-Israel campaigns by other groups isolating and frightening. Critics have tried to persuade academic and professional organizations to sever ties with Israeli groups. In Britain, the University and College Union, an educators’ organization, passed a boycott resolution last year only to be warned by lawyers that such a boycott would be illegal. Others have campaigned to get universities and churches to remove companies that do business with Israel from their endowment portfolios. On a few occasions, Israeli scientists have even been denied visas to countries that were hosting professional conclaves. In June, Spain’s Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Transsexuals, and Bisexuals banned Israel from participating in its gay pride parade in Madrid—even though Israel is one of the few countries in the Middle East in which homosexuality is protected, while homosexuals elsewhere in the region face execution.

The most vicious canard of all—that Israel is a Nazi state—is, with increasing frequency, hurled against the Jewish state.

Fighting between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank in 2002 provoked a chorus of accusations by Europeans that the Israelis were doing to the Palestinians exactly what Nazi Germany did to the Jews. “What is happening,” the late Portuguese Nobel laureate José Saramago said, “is a crime that may be compared to Auschwitz.”

Later, during the fighting in Gaza in the winter of 2008–09, demonstrators carried signs with slogans such as “Israel: The Fourth Reich” and “Stop the Nazi Genocide in Gaza.” Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan president, said, “The Holocaust, that is what is happening right now in Gaza.” And a Norwegian foreign diplomat wrote, “The grandchildren of Holocaust survivors from World War II are doing to the Palestinians exactly what was done to them by Nazi Germany.”

For many Israelis, who are Holocaust survivors or their descendants, such accusations provoke horror and shock. Either these allies of the Palestinians have a profound misunderstanding of what the Holocaust was or are hurling the most vicious canard they can against the Jewish state. Some Israelis are convinced that, by accusing Israelis of being Nazis, Europeans are trying to free their continent from the burden of its history. After all, if Jews in Israel are no different from Nazi murderers, then the continent’s history can be seen as normal. For some Israelis, in fact, this European phenomenon represents anti-Semitism’s return.

Even if there is a two-state solution, what will happen the day after tomorrow?

This question keeps many Israelis awake at night. The main peace plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict aims at a “two-state solution”—an Israel behind its pre-1967 borders alongside a Palestinian state in what is now the West Bank and, if Hamas can somehow be converted or defeated, Gaza. But, Israelis ask, why would any sane person, Israeli or otherwise, believe that, two weeks or two months after a Palestinian state were to come into being—a state that would abut the length of Israel’s narrow waist as well as Jerusalem—rockets wouldn’t be flying over its border and blowing up in every Israeli city and airport?

And why not? Even if Hamas were to retain control of Gaza and refuse to participate in a treaty with Israel, meaning that the Palestinian state would consist only of what is now the West Bank, and even if that state’s leaders wanted peace at least as long as it would take to establish their country, wouldn’t there also be, in that state, Hamas members and others who didn’t want peace, who had never wanted it, and who would use it as a springboard for launching attacks so as to achieve the ultimate objective of eliminating Israel? Wasn’t that Yasir Arafat’s goal even before the Six-Day War? Isn’t that Hamas’s goal now? And if the leaders of the Palestinian state who didn’t want war got in the way, wouldn’t they be ignored—or killed?

The Israelis who have this nightmare cite a small experiment to buttress their fear—Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. This action was followed by a coup in which Hamas brutally killed members of its Palestinian rival, Fatah, took over Gaza, and continually lobbed rockets into Israel.

In this nightmare of rockets bombarding Israel from the Palestinian state, that state’s Hezbollah allies in Lebanon launch their own war of rockets against Israel. In 2008, Hezbollah’s rockets had enough range to target Israel’s north. Now that Hezbollah’s store of rockets has been vastly upgraded and expanded, it can target nearly all Israeli cities.

With tens of thousands of rockets and missiles flying out of the Palestinian state and Lebanon—and, in this nightmare, from Gaza as well—it might be impossible for Israelis to live anywhere other than in bomb shelters, and the devastation would be immense. But if Israel were to respond by attacking the sources of those rockets in the newly declared Palestine, this time they would be attacking not a territory or a faction but a sovereign member of the UN, one that would call on—and instantly receive—the support not only of its fellow Muslim states but also the world at large, including most of Europe. And since the same tactic that was used in Gaza and Lebanon would no doubt be used in Palestine—rockets fired from hospitals, schools, and mosques—any retaliation would provoke multiple critical reports, from UN bodies as well as human rights groups, of war crimes that would make the excoriations of Israel in the Goldstone Commission report, which was issued after the fighting in Gaza, sound, by comparison, like allegations of traffic violations.

Meanwhile, Iran is readying its nuclear warheads.

This is, for Israelis, the most frightening scenario of all. They have no doubt—and intelligence services around the world tend to confirm—that Iran will have one or more usable nuclear weapons within a couple of years. Reportedly, Iran already has enough nuclear material to enable it, once the material is purified, to make two weapons. Israelis take seriously the Iranian argument that it’s worth being damaged by an Israeli counterstrike if, in the process, the Zionist entity, as well as all or most of its Jews, are destroyed. They consider the probability of such an attack significant, especially if Palestinians and Hezbollah are firing rockets into Israel, and Israel is responding.

The idea is spreading that U.S. support for Israel is the root cause of America’s problems in the
Middle East.

In the years after 9/11, the most common American explanation for Islamic terrorism was poverty. Even after numerous studies proved that this wasn’t true, this reason continues to be cited by politicians and academics.

Now, Israelis fear, their country’s conflict with the Palestinians is becoming the simple—and false—explanation for America’s unpopularity in the Middle East. When they heard President Barack Obama remark at an April press conference that regional conflicts such as that in the Middle East end up “costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure,” they assumed from the context that he was referring to America’s support for Israel. In the view of these Israelis, no one who understands radical Islam imagines that America would cease being its target even if the United States were to cut off all ties with Israel—indeed, even if Israel were to disappear.

As some Israelis see it, the naive notion that their country is a root cause of the problems the United States is experiencing in the Middle East has been adopted by a large number of Americans—and America might, as a result, abandon the Jewish state.

Not pursuing a two-state solution leaves only a one-state solution—an alternative that is profoundly anti-Zionist.

If a two-state solution is seen by most Israelis as existentially dangerous and possibly unattainable, then all that’s left is maintenance of the status quo. And Israelis understand that an endless status quo could result in a one-state solution—a state in which they would be politically dominant but demographically a minority. The Zionist dream of a democracy of Jews in the land of their people’s birth would be destroyed. The vast majority of Israelis I know don’t want to have power over the lives of Palestinians. But deeper than their empathy with the Palestinians is their desperate hope to survive. What Israelis see before them is a choice between the physical destruction wrought by war and the moral destruction wrought by forever dominating a people that, if allowed, would destroy them. For these Israelis, it’s a choiceless choice.

* * *

Which makes it easy to understand why my Zionist friend, who believes in the justice of a Jewish state, wants his children to emigrate.

Which makes it necessary that the Obama administration address my friend’s despair if it hopes to broker a real and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

And which leads me, as his friend—and as someone whose murdered family in Europe probably would have remained alive had Israel existed seven decades ago—to my own state of Zionist despair.

The United States’ attempts at making peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have failed for many reasons. If the Obama administration really wants to broker a treaty—one that has any chance of yielding a lasting peace—then it will have to understand Israel’s nightmares even as it recognizes Palestinian yearnings, and find ways of addressing them. And it had better do so soon.

Read letters from Ilan Pappe, Ruchie Avital, Charles Greenbaum, Yossi Alpher, and Hillel Cohen received in response to this article.

Full text PDF available here.

Walter Reich, a psychiatrist, is the Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Professor of International Affairs, Ethics, and Human Behavior at George Washington University. He is also a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center and former director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
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COMMENTS (21)

The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and in no way represent the views or opinions of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. This section is moderated by Wilson Quarterly staff.

Aggressors & Victims

Mr. Reich, let me ask you one question - only one! In the last 10 years, give me the statistics of casualties: Israelis vs. Palestinians. With respect to your photo, for every grieving Jewish mother, there are 50 grieving Palestinian mothers! I'm dismayed at the biased tone and tenor of your article - and that from such an education man - a psychiatrist, no less! Feh!

Posted by: Catherine Houghton | 7/19/10

Wrong Questions

I too have to agree with Ms. Houghton, the impartiality of this article cannot reasonable be denied, and I have come to expect more from the WQ. Why is the question whether or not Palestinians will accept Israel. The founding of Israel, although much debated, cannot be denied to have taken place at the expense of and under the necessary expulsion of hundreds of thousands of indigenous people (call them what you want, most of their descendants live in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank). How peculiar that you did not ask why the newly arriving Jews (future Israelis) have any justification for insisting on a state of their own in these peoples' midst. I always say this - no matter where Israel would have been founded, there would have needed to be a population that was displaced (in fact, Ben Gurion and his peers considered a few locations for the state of Israel, not just where it ended up being). No, I am sorry Mr. Reich, you should aspire to a much higher standard and the paranoid tone of this article reminds me of Haaretz.

Posted by: Sherief Raouf | 7/21/10

right

I wouldn't use the word despair, it's just a moment of reconsidering tactics. The muslim population is a problem all around Europe, and their omnipresence in media is just a result of their numbers - their women just make more children. Adding to this no other occupation than writing on the internet, here comes the PR. But times are changing and the arabs are becoming the main treat for the western world, like historically they have always been. And they have always lost.

Posted by: Ionesco | 7/24/10

Cheer up !

Paranoia, nightmare, despair, distrust, choiceless choice.. - A deeply gloomy outlook, but, - in view of your very true and sharp analysis, - understandable. However, - your conclusion : "it's a choiceless choice" , is where you go wrong. It is crystal clear, that Israel's security is of paramount importance and THE "x"-factor that would win over the majority of Israelis to sacrifice at least some settlements, and / or East Jerusalem. A peace-agreement, therefore, should involve the disarming of Palestinians / Hamas, - the UN, Nato, US, - whoever it takes. - As for Iran, I see no other option than an attack on nuclear facilities, and when it comes down to it, Iran really has no friends, so no reason for nightmares there either. In 2000, a peace-agreement seemed within reach, but as you rightly point out, there is always a "poison-pill" : the refugees. - In various peace-proposals, the idea of "compensation" is vaguely mentioned, and personally I would define this as THE key to unlock the current stale-mate. My idea is, that money, - A LOT OF MONEY, - can assure not only the recognition of Israel, but get 4.5 mio. Palestinian refugees out of their misery ! - In return, they must give up on the right of return, the key-issue. If you care to read my complete peace-plan-proposal, go to http://transhumanisten.wordpress.com/2010/05/30/middle-east-peace-plan-proposal-a-draft/ Your extremely gloomy outlook reminds me of this tragic-comical statement by.. anomynous.. : "IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO GIVE UP" !? - As a psychiatrist, you ought to be able to come up some kind of therapy, or - if not - an "anti-poison-pill" perhaps.. { ; - ) - Such a pill then, in my view, is called MONEY ! Here's another anti-gloom "pill" for you: Israel / Jews have many more friends and supporters than you think. However, many are afraid of coming forward, due to intimidation from hatefull muslim immigrants. - In the US, the Obama appeasement policy towards the Arab world must be seen in the same light : FEAR - of terrorist attacks and never-ending war(s). - What I'm saying to you is this : Israel has far more support than you think ! - ( Majority of European journalists are left-wing, and not in line with the general public ). So.. CHEER UP ! Warm regards from Denmark Joern

Posted by: Joern | 7/26/10

Catherine, you need to zoom in a bit to see who was killed by whom and in what way. Half the grieving Palestinian mothers' children were killed by fellow Palestinians. More were killed by themselves (suicide bombers) with the approval of their mothers, and who murdered far more people than themselves. Sometimes their suicide bombs murdered fellow Arabs as well as Israeli Jews, since 20% of Israel's population is Arab. Others were killed yes, by Israelis, because Palestinians continue to aggressively make war on Israel, and see that as a holy cause. Someone added up the demographic info back in 2003 and found that a much larger percent killed on the Israeli side were children and old people - in other words people who are civilians by any measure - and a larger percentage on the Palestinian side were male: teens and men through the prime of life, people much more likely to be active combatants who put themselves in harms way. Sherief, Jews are among the indigenous people of the Levant, and it is one of the pernicious lies of the anti-Israel crowd that they are not. In terms of culture, language, ritual, sacred texts, mythologies - any measure of a people you can think of - there is an unbroken line via the archeological evidence, from at least the 2nd Temple Period to today. For part of that time Israel was the independent nation of the Jews. Everyone knew that from the Babylonians to the Persians to the Greeks to the Romans to the Muslims to the Europeans, until about 50 years ago when it suited the nascent Palestinian movement to spread the lie that Jews were not indigenous, and it suited the Left to perpetuate this. Jews were all over the Levant, the Maghreb, and Babylonia and Persia, before Jesus' time, much more so way before the Arabian conquerors showed up. It even says in the Koran that Mohammed tried to convert the Jews of Medina before massacring them, so Islam acknowledges they were already an established population in the area. Europeans certainly never saw their Jewish populations as European, they were dark foreign Orientals who didn't belong there. Genetically Jews and Levantine Arabs are the same, even after 2000 years. Jews were ethnically cleansed from Israel by the Babylonians, the Romans, the Muslims, the Crusaders, and the Ottomans, but some remained, and others kept returning. In all that time no other group claimed to be indigenous, no city was made into a capital. Jerusalem was majority Jewish since 1850, but the ancient Jewish quarter was destroyed by Jordan in 1948 and the natives driven out. Now "east Jerusalem" is supposed to be the capital of Palestine. Hebron was a Jewish town since Biblican times, until an Arab massacre drove them out in 1929. Now Jews who live there are considered "settlers" displacing the "natives." However, at the same time, there were others besides Jews who were also displaced and now see themselves as a conhesive ethnic group and want their own nation. Fine, then let's make a deal. let's figure out compensation for all the "population displacements." But as long as they perpetuate the lie that the Jews are interlopers, and spread that all over the world, they shouldn't get bupkis. If they promote such a Big Lie, why should Jews trust them for anything?

Posted by: Yehudit | 8/3/10

Demography

This opinion: "Israelis understand that an endless status quo could result in a one-state solution—a state in which they would be politically dominant but demographically a minority. The Zionist dream of a democracy of Jews in the land of their people’s birth would be destroyed." was addressed in Chapter Four in a book entitled "A Stranger in My House". That book was published in 1984, over thwenty-five years ago. Essentially, none of the data and statistics have changed in a dramatic way. Jews will not be a demographic minority. Democracy will not be destroyed. Of course, if Arabs increase their recent propensity for spying for Israel's enemies, engage in terror-in-support-of-"Palestine", seek status as an ethnic autonomous group, proceed to undermine Israel as a Jewish, Zionist state, there may be negative demographics for Arabs. This view is backed by studies, by the experience of the past 25 years and indeed 43 years. It is a starwman argument. And that book, "A Stranger in My House"? It was written by William Reich. I know. I am the person quoted in Chapter Four.

Posted by: Yisrael Medad | 8/8/10

demographic despair

Dr Reich, in your ivory tower you may not be aware that Jewish women too are capable of having babies and that the birthrate among Jews in Israel is rather high for a fairly developed, a member of the OECD. On historic points I largely agree with Yehudit. I would add to her breakdown of the statistics for deaths in the ongoing terrorist war on both the Arab and Jewish sides that a much higher proportion of women, of females of all ages were murdered on the Israeli side, than the proportion of females among the Arab dead. I think that Yehudit's explanation holds up. The Israeli dead were "people who are civilians by any measure - and a larger percentage on the Palestinian side were male: teens and men through the prime of life, people much more likely to be active combatants who put themselves in harms way." Note also that many Arab teenaged boys of 14 to 17 years old were maliciously identified in media reports as "children." But a boy of 15 can be as tall and strong as a grown man. I reached my full height at 13 or 14. In size, I was no longer a child at that age.

Posted by: Elliott A Green | 8/8/10

You don't know your history!

Mr. Reich: You state that "They know that, in the last century, the spasm of murder aimed at annihilating all Jews in Europe and anywhere else they could be found was carried out on the basis of a rightist ideology. So they’re amazed that so much antagonism toward Israel is expressed by intellectuals on the political left." It is an absolute shanda that you are a former director of the US Holocaust Museum with such extraordinary ignorance. NAZI stands for Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei - i.e. National SOCIALIST German Workers' Party. Hitler was a national SOCIALIST; Mussolini was a proud SOCIALIST. This is all heavily documented. Where they diverged from the Marxist-Leninism is in the fact that the Soviets had international aspirations (hence Comintern). The struggle between the Soviet Communists (and their adherents in Germany, etc.) versus the Fascists was an internecine struggle among socialists. The NAZI genocide of the Jews could ONLY be characterized as "a rightist ideology" if one is referring to the political spectrum among socialists, positing National Socialism as "right" versus International Socialism as "left". For someone in your position to continue to perpetuate the intellectual fraud of the contemporary Western Left which has knowingly and purposefully mis-characterized the Fascists and the NAZIs in particular as a phenomenon of the Right reveals either shocking ignorance of the intellectual history of these 20th century movements or overt misrepresentation on your own part. Feh!...

Posted by: Winston | 8/9/10

Houghton's egregious numbers game

"Proportionality" is used as a way to effectively limit Israel's right to defend itself. It is a propaganda tool foisted on Israel by its enemies, accepted by well-meaning people, and encouraged by the uninformed. In defending itself against foreign armies or terrorists, can Israel stop its defense when the number of enemy combatants has exceeded Israeli losses? Should Israel then wait for more of its citizens to lose their lives before starting up its defense again?

Posted by: Alfred Klein | 8/10/10

Beyond Despair

There are clearly two peoples in despair and there is great and largely well founded hesitancy on both sides to believe the diplomatic gestures of the other. In such an environment the only way forward is for the international community led by the United States to require both peoples to take part in a national educational program that includes a conversation on the goals and meaning of peace promoting increasing understanding and relations between the two peoples. This program must be marketed so that it involves all segments of the Israeli and Palestinian public and is underwritten by the Quartet, and its members as a necessary vehicle to help create and establish the positive new synergies necessary to encourage the publics and their politicians to move knowledgably beyond all that has and hasn't been accomplished in the name of peace to a new a better place where both peace and securirty are achievable.

Posted by: Larry Snider | 8/10/10

Israel's bitter experience

I enjoyed Walter Reich's analysis thoroughly. Indeed, Israel has suffered grievous wounds solely because of its determination to preserve innocent life. It could easily have bombarded Gaza with a deluge of artillery shells and indiscriminate bombing, but, rather, risked the lives of its soldiers to avoid unnecessary casualties. This is typical of all of Israel's battles against hostile and ruthless enemies. Yet, it is Israel that is reviled world-wide and compared to the Nazis, whose atrocities affected millions of Jews. The world bodies, in particular the U.N., are now trying to deprive Israel of any defense. As Reich pointed out, Hamas and Hizbullah are placing rocket installations within their respective populations-within or near hospitals, schools and residential buildings. They have no concern for life, even their own. Their hatred of Israel and fervent will to bring about its destruction reigns supreme. How is Israel to defend itself? Condemnation of Israel under any situation is quick and universal. Israel is in a difficult battle. Warfare looms close and any peace appears distant. May G-d sustain and preserve the Jewish nation.

Posted by: Don Straub | 8/10/10

Factual Correctness vs. Political Correctness

The fact that Palestine was neither a country, state or nation throughout the entirety of this planet's lengthy history indicates there being no possible nationality; ergo any "Nationality" is a-historical. A myth predicated on the Hadrianic anti-Jew murderous agenda. It is just terrible that this mythological non-entity was not stamped out in the mid 1960's when it first attempted to rear it's ugly head. Jew: Judean: Judea: Judah/Israelite vs. Arab: Arabian: Arabia: Ishmaelite. Due to "Palestine" and Israel biding for the exact same piece of land if there is a "Palestinian" there is NO Judean: Jew.

Posted by: MarZutra | 8/11/10

Not despair - realism

As an Israeli I take exception with your diagnosis of despair. The only people in despair in Israel, the only ones who would wish their children to emigrate rather than to live in the greatest national miracle the world has ever seen, are members of the starry-eyed left, who believed the Palestinians' and their own rhetoric about peace, who refused to listen to what the Palestinians were really saying to one another, and most importantly, teaching their children, who were blind to the reality that every single Israeli concession - without fail - led to further terror and bloodshed. Those who insisted on seeing reality as it really is, and not as a result of wishful thinking, never expected the so-called peace efforts to bring anything but failure, and ergo, are not disappointed or in despair. We know that we are here to stay, and only that realization on the part of the Palestinians will lead to any form of peaceful coexistence with them. As for despair - how can a developed country with one of the highest birthrates and fastest growing economies, a country that contributes more than any other country per capita to world knowledge, that is finding cures for cancer and numerous other diseases, be considered to be in despair. Israelis - with the exception of the lunatic left fringe - are for the most part happy with life in Israel, and numerous studies and surveys bear this out. Instead of pontificating on the basis of the sad comments from your intellectual academic friend, why don't you go out into the street and speak to the real people, the ones who live real life on the ground, rather in a self-hating academic ivory tower.

Posted by: Ruchie Avital | 8/11/10

This is not a body count game

Catherine Houghton, this is not a body count game, death is death, grief is grief... the statistics are higher in Gaza because most of the statistics were terrorists themselves not purely innocent, and the innocent ones that remained are pre-warned to leave unlike the Hamas who does not warn at all when firing directly into civilian population... There is no need to compare statistics and if you want then lets compare the statistics of Gaza versus most of Africa and parts of the Arab world! Then perhaps you, like everyone else, should focus in the real world issues and leave Israel alone! Israel Muse

Posted by: Israel Muse | 8/11/10

We Reasons for Fear but also Responsibility not to Drown ourselve in it

I feel writer is sincere in his constructive desire to describe the "israeli mindset" although some readers seem to feel it is just a way of rehashing Israeli excuses for not dealing with the challenge of co-existence between Jews and Arabs in this region. That being, it would be enlightening to see a "sister article" by Walter Reich showing how our (Israeli) mindset can be (and has been) an obstacle that we too must overcome if we want to function rationally on the ground. So much of Israeli policy (and lack thereof) is due to being locked into this mindset which all too easily couples with our nationalistic and religious desires making us blind to how it effects the dynamics of the situation. Having reason to fear/to distrust does not free us from opening our eyes to our responsibilities and to the way we contribute to the very atmosphere of mutual distrust that pervades our area.

Posted by: Myron Joshua | 8/12/10

Uncle Sam needs Israel no more

The root of the troubles described by the author, is that the US needs Israel not any more. The Jewish State has survived because of the American support. Presently, the American elites would prefer the islam chain-tiger to the Jewish chain-dog, hence they play nice to Muslims. The real trouble is China, and a huge Muslim world would be more helpful with it than the tiny Israel. Israel has done its job of securing American interests in the Middle East against the Soviets. Thank you so much, no more job for you. However, for a complete satisfaction of the new ally the chain-dog should be fed to the chain-tiger. Not a big deal. Serbs have been effectively daemonized in the media and butchered because American elites needed so. Why should Jews be any better?

Posted by: Paul Tea | 8/18/10

Dispair of Zion

The prospect for peace does seem grim. The advance of missle technology makes the prospect of hostile neighbors more frightening. I'm afraid that the central goal of more and more Palestinian groups in not just the reversal of the the 1967 war ( ie a return to the Green Line ) but to undo the war of independence and either by military or political means turn back the clock and correct the " mistake " of the State of Israel itself. It is commonly stated that the only way Israel can remain a Jewish democratic state is withdraw from the West Bank If it tries to remain in the West Bank it can only do so by opressing the Arab majority, becoming non-Jewish majority population and non-democratic. So if the concept of two states for two people seems more distant and a binational state is unacceptable what is left to do ? I have begun to re-think the idea of a bi-national state. Not in the most common form - ie one person, one vote, but in a modified form. Israel retains the entirety of the West Bank. Jews are free to settle in all parts of it. Israel maintains the borders and airspace. In exchange it offers true economic equality - with the same commitement to the educational, economic and infrastructure needs of the Arab population as it does in Israel proper and for the settlements areas. And to prove its intentions, it starts by reducing and eventually eliminating the existing discrepencies in the Arab majority cities within the Green Line. And for those on the left or at least think of themselves as liberals - take a short test on what values you think are important to you 1. Do you support a democratic form of government, where political parties are free to form and have elected representatives in the government ? 2. Do you support the rule of law, where politicians are investigated for wrong doing ( criminal and financial and no matter how infuencial can be charged and tried in courts of law ? 3. Do you support a free press that investigates and exposes instances of government corruption and misconduct ? 4. Do you support equality of opportunity for women ? Do you oppose violence directed toward women based on " the honor of the family ' ? 5. Do you support tolerance for homosexuals ? 6. Do you support a military that investigates wrongdoing by its soldiers and tries and imprisons those that commit crimes, even in the course of warfare ? 7. Do you support a government that allows freedom of religion ? If you are in favor of these rights - do a simple test in the Middle East, make a list of nations and place a check of those governments that meet these thresholds, and the only one will be Israel.

Posted by: David Eisenberg | 8/23/10

Peace For Each Of Them

-So we come to September 2nd, 2010 and we shall try again for peace for each of the parties involved. Seemingly, if you ask the average person they all state, rather perfunctorily, the same thing, "That this has been tried before. Supposedly, to no end." Yet if the values are always/continually pursued for peace -towards peace- then the trying is already a portion of the accomplishment and thereby becomes valuable in and through every incidence that we can bring forward discussion(s). ...For _that_ is what we are all trying to do isn't it? Move forward...?

Posted by: James Graff | 8/29/10

peace

Israel's request for peace is not universally accepted in the arab world. Therefore, even if Hamas etc., reach and agreement with Israel, the rest of the arab world will still be at war with them. How will Israel be able to defend against them in the UN,at Trade Conferences, various world affairs matters etc? no, even if they reach a local agreement it will take another 100 years to be accepted , if itcan be done, before the muslims outpopulate the israeli's in israel.

Posted by: mort goodkin | 9/7/10

what Peace !!

More utter and complete lies from Mr. Reich & what should I or we have expected from Zionist supporters!!!! Again, as we are used to see from the American & Israeli propaganda machines the Palestinians are being blamed for everything that has happened to Zionists even when the entire world knows that the Palestinians are the victims and their land has been stolen by force and yet no remorse what so ever to what have happened to the Palestinians. Mr. Reich either does not understand history or prefers to ignore it when he mentions nothing of the atrocities of the Zionist militias and the British Army who supported them in 1947-1948 as they went on to destroy almost 500 towns and villages throughout Palestine and killed/terrorized the Palestinian population in order to make room for the Jews of Europe. Mr. Reich, being a European or wherever you are from with a Jewish faith does not give you the right to take someone else’s land because of your faith. This utter nonsense and lie narrative does not have a place in this world. Palestine is home Muslims, Jews and Christian Arabs who are from this land and belonged to this land for 1000’s of years and not because you are a convert of a monotheistic religion it entitles you to invade the land and disposes its indigenous people. You are completely denying the suffering of the Palestinians and the loss of Palestine on the hands of the Zionists and the Europeans who aided them in this disastrous conquest and yet you expect them to welcome the Israelis with open arms!!! It is writers like you that must be held responsible for the distortion of facts that they write about and must be boycotted at every event possible to stop spreading nonsense and lies like this one.

Posted by: w nammari | 9/24/10

What to Do?

David Eisenberg in "Dispair of Zion" [sic] makes a compelling analysis of Israel's situation. I appreciate his insights and tragic conclusions. It is beyond human abilities, it seems, to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, as it's euphemistically called. How in the world can you make peace w/an entity/country/person--who's avowed intention is to kill you???

Posted by: Lita | 11/9/10

The Despair of Zion

Israel Through Other Eyes

Israel at 62

What Next for the Start-Up Nation?