There are three ways of responding to conflict: conversation,
negotiation and force. Force tends, at the end of the day, to be
the basis of war, while the other two - modes of dialogue - are
constitutive of politics. But where the politics of negotiation
aims to resolve conflict through trade-offs and concessions,
conversation aims for genuine understanding, for learning and
progressively transforming positions so that they can be integrated
or reconciled rather than compromised.
Only in a conversation, then, does one try to "convince" someone to
change; in a negotiation, by contrast, one puts pressure on the
other and so, as with a less restricted use of force, one may be
described as aiming to "persuade" them to change instead. That is
why only conversation can be considered the basis of a politics
that is concerned with truth, with the "common good."
Since the establishment of the modern state of Israel, we Zionists
have either fought wars with the Arabs or attempted to negotiate
with them, but we have never really tried to convince them to
recognize Israel's legitimacy. Recognition requires conversation
because recognition, as both the Hebrew and Arabic words for it
make clear, is about knowledge (the Hebrew hakarah is a synonym for
"conscious of," and the Arabic i´tiraf has as its root
ma´rifah, which means "knowledge"), and knowledge is just not
something that can be offered or taken away as part of some
bargaining session.
Recognizing the legitimacy of the other, moreover, is a
prerequisite to negotiation, for one will only negotiate in good
faith if one believes that the other is, though an adversary,
nevertheless still a legitimate one. So conversation must come
before negotiation, not least in this case because many
Palestinians are devout Muslims and so cannot allow themselves to
compromise on what they believe to be the word of God.
Zionists, then, need to take on the task of changing Palestinian
minds, of convincing them that the Jewish state is not something
that they must, however reluctantly, accept, but that it is truly
legitimate. Yet given conversation's inherent fragility, this is no
small challenge.
Nevertheless, if it is to be taken, on I suggest that the
Palestinians need to be convinced of two truths in particular: 1)
that Jews are not evil but constitute a nation that, like all
nations, feels a special attachment to a particular piece of
territory (even when that territory happens to conflict with an
equally valid attachment felt by another nation); and 2) that no
nation can consider itself free without being recognized by the
state under whose sovereignty it lives. In the case of the Jews,
this means that the Jewish nation needs a Jewish state - which is,
of course, but an echo of the Palestinians' own call for
independence.
What is required for communicating these truths? Let me offer two
suggestions:
1) "I must confess," wrote Martin Buber many years ago, "that I am
horrified at how little we know the Arabs." This remains all too
true today. We Zionists need to develop an intimate knowledge of
Arab and Muslim cultures, one that would assist us in convincing
them of our two truths. Few of us, for example, are familiar with
the Qur'an, which is especially disconcerting given that the book
contains passages which provide strong support for our two truths,
passages such as:
O people! We have formed you into nations and tribes so that you
may know one another (Qur'an, 49:13).
And thereafter we said to the Children of Israel: "Dwell securely
in the Promised Land" (Qur'an, 17:104).
Something must also be done about the fact that in the Jewish
Israeli public school system today the second language taught is
not Arabic but English; indeed Arabic joins French as an equally
recommended option when students wish to study a third language.
This, in a country with a large Arab minority and which is
surrounded by millions of Arabic speakers.
2) Decrying Arab and Muslim anti-Semitic propaganda is a popular
Zionist pastime. Little, however, is done to counter it, say by
reaching out through the media. This accounts for why a recent
Israeli hasbara ("public diplomacy") budget represented a pathetic
0.015% of the total. And what did that hasbara have to say on the
few occasions that it was directed not at Americans but at Arabs
and Muslims? I once asked Gideon Meir, then-deputy director general
for public affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (who, by the
way, does not speak Arabic; indeed, when I interviewed him in 2004
there were only seven Arab Israelis among the ministry's staff of
985), what message he would like to communicate to the Arab world.
His reply: "Hi guys. With violence and terror you will achieve
nothing." This is far from adequate.
Engaging in these two tasks in order to facilitate conversation
does not mean forgoing the use of force in Israel's defense,
although it should, of course, be employed as infrequently and as
carefully as possible. We need to distinguish between those Arabs
and Muslims who are terrorists and must be met with force and those
who support them, the hope being that the latter can be brought to
do otherwise. "Divide and convince" has never been a popular
Israeli tactic; it must become so.
Changing Zionist Minds
Conversation is a two-way street. What, then, might we Zionists
learn from conversing with our opponents? One thing we may come to
appreciate is that our two truths do more than support a two-state
solution for the conflict; they also call for a genuinely
bi-national Israel. By this I mean an Israeli state which
recognizes that the country contains within it a Jewish as well as
an Arab nation, as opposed to no nations, as those such as Tony
Judt who erroneously refer to a "bi-national" model would have us
believe (their model is best described as "post-national").
Israel's Basic Laws, in other words, need to be amended to declare
that the state is not only "Jewish and democratic" but also
"Arabic."
To see why, we need to be clear about the difference between two
kinds of community: the civic and the national. The former is
thoroughly political; it is the community of citizens that, above
all, is expressed by the state. Nations, by contrast, lay claim to
cultural practices that are mostly carried out within civil society
- "mostly" because, as noted above, nations also require some form
of recognition from their state to be considered free. Thus the
United Kingdom may be said to constitute a single civic community
which also includes four nations: the English, Scottish, Welsh and
Irish, as well as the Unionist religious community and various
ethnicities. Israel, then, is likewise a civic community, albeit
one that contains two national communities within it. And while it
goes without saying that the Israeli state sufficiently recognizes
the Jewish Israeli nation, when it comes to that of the Arabs, just
as official bilingualism has been inadequate for recognizing the
Québécois nation within Canada, Arabic being one of
Israel's official languages just does not do enough for the Israeli
Arab nation.
Given that the formal legal equality shared by all Israeli citizens
has not prevented the state's inferior treatment of Arab Israelis
in everything from education to building permits to garbage
removal, this symbolic issue of national recognition may seem
secondary. But I would claim that the formal legality has not been
sufficiently translated into substantive practice precisely because
of a deficiency at the level of national recognition.
What form might state recognition of the Arab Israeli nation take?
I suggest that a symbol representing that nation (e.g., a crescent
moon with a Solomon's Seal pentagram) should be added to the
Israeli flag, alongside the Star of David. I can already hear the
cries of horror from my fellow Zionists at the idea, but it must be
said that recognizing the Arab Israeli nation in this way in no way
detracts from the recognition of the Jewish Israeli nation. For it
is fully compatible with the notion that, with Israel, we Jews have
a state of our own. The only qualification would be that it is not
exclusively our own.
The recognition of nations, in other words, does not have to be a
zero-sum affair. On the contrary, it is much like what the Jewish
Midrash says of a candle, which loses none of its brilliance in
kindling another.
Zionists who reject this genuinely bi-national Israel do so mainly
for two related reasons. Either they fail to see that it is
compatible with a two-state solution, or they fail to distinguish
between the recognition of a nation by a state and the question of
who forms the majority in a democracy. The question of majorities
and minorities, however, is a matter of counting individuals, not
of recognizing communities. With recognition, the point is not the
number of a community's members but taking into account its
specific needs. That is why I would suggest that there is nothing
contradictory about combining the recognition of Israel's
bi-nationality with a constitutional declaration that the state is
responsible for maintaining a significant Jewish majority. For,
given the Holocaust, as well as the historical mistreatment of
Jewish minorities within Arab and Muslim regimes, the need for a
constitutional guarantee of this should be clear.
Affirming Israel's bi-nationality is not only a matter of domestic
justice; it can also help us communicate our two truths to the
Arabs and Muslims outside of the country. For example, flying an
Israeli flag such as the one I have suggested above Jerusalem would
(at least partly) respond to the calls of many Muslims to
"liberate" the city; it should thus make their acceptance of
Israel's legitimacy that much more likely. Furthermore, in helping
to reconcile Arab Israelis to the state, it can only make it easier
to enlist their help in reaching out to their brethren outside the
country. Finally, a bi-national Israel would lend support to the
notion that any Jewish national minority present within a future
Palestinian state itself deserves to be recognized by that state.
For that, too, is what justice demands.
Conclusion
Particularly since the demise of Oslo, the complaint has often been
voiced that Yasser Arafat never prepared his people for the
concessions essential to peace. My question is: What was the sense
in waiting for him, or anyone else, to do so? We Zionists must make
a serious effort to convince our opponents of our legitimacy. We
have not done so because most of us have arrived at our positions
prematurely, and this applies to both the belief that negotiations
are already viable and that there is no prospect of ever making
them so. For what is required is something that has been
overlooked: conversation. Only by convincing, rather than
persuading, can we get our opponents truly to accept a Jewish
Israel; only by "speaking to the rock" (Numb. 19:1-22), not
"striking it" (Exod. 17:5-6), will we ever see that Israel in
peace.
Of course, there is no guarantee that this approach will succeed.
That said, it has yet to be seriously tried. Even accepting this,
many might wish to object that it would take a very long time to
carry off. To that I can but respond with a question: How long do
you wish Israel to remain in the Middle East?
