My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel

by Ari Shavit

And yet there is always the fear that one day daily life will freeze like Pompeii’s. My beloved homeland will crumble as enormous Arab masses or mighty Islamic forces overcome its defenses and eradicate its existence.

And yet there is always the fear that one day daily life will freeze like Pompeii’s. My beloved homeland will crumble as enormous Arab masses or mighty Islamic forces overcome its defenses and eradicate its existence.

Modern Israel brought progress and prosperity to the Palestinian regions. Now our backward neighbors had the electricity and running water and health care they never had before. They had to realize that they had never had it so good. They were surely grateful for all that we bestowed upon them.

Modern Israel brought progress and prosperity to the Palestinian regions. Now our backward neighbors had the electricity and running water and health care they never had before. They had to realize that they had never had it so good. They were surely grateful for all that we bestowed upon them.

They are amazed at the notion of turning Palestine into the Provence of the Orient. They can hardly believe the sight of the red-roofed colonial houses, the deep-green vineyards, or the heady smell of the first Hebrew wine in the Jewish homeland after eighteen hundred years.

They are amazed at the notion of turning Palestine into the Provence of the Orient. They can hardly believe the sight of the red-roofed colonial houses, the deep-green vineyards, or the heady smell of the first Hebrew wine in the Jewish homeland after eighteen hundred years.

He might easily persuade himself that the Jews who will come from Europe will only better the lives of the local population, that European Jews will cure the natives, educate them, cultivate them.

He might easily persuade himself that the Jews who will come from Europe will only better the lives of the local population, that European Jews will cure the natives, educate them, cultivate them.

In April 1897 there is no Palestinian people. There is no real sense of Palestinian self-determination, and there is no Palestinian national movement to speak of. Arab nationalism is awakening at a distance: in Damascus, in Beirut, in the Arabian Peninsula.

In April 1897 there is no Palestinian people. There is no real sense of Palestinian self-determination, and there is no Palestinian national movement to speak of. Arab nationalism is awakening at a distance: in Damascus, in Beirut, in the Arabian Peninsula.

If one is a proud subject of the British Empire, it is quite understandable that one would see the land as a no-man’s-land. As a land the Jews may legitimately inherit.

If one is a proud subject of the British Empire, it is quite understandable that one would see the land as a no-man’s-land. As a land the Jews may legitimately inherit.

There is no place for the Palestinian peasants who stand by their olive and fig trees and wave hello to the British gentleman dressed in fine linen who is absorbed by the biblical landscape he sees through the train windows.

There is no place for the Palestinian peasants who stand by their olive and fig trees and wave hello to the British gentleman dressed in fine linen who is absorbed by the biblical landscape he sees through the train windows.

“There is no particular reason for the Arabs to cling to these few kilometers. ‘To fold their tents and silently steal away’ is their proverbial habit: let them exemplify it now….We must gently persuade them to trek.”

“There is no particular reason for the Arabs to cling to these few kilometers. ‘To fold their tents and silently steal away’ is their proverbial habit: let them exemplify it now….We must gently persuade them to trek.”

They don’t really represent an empire but a deprived people seeking the help of empires. They do not intend to oppress but to liberate. They do not want to exploit the land, but to invest in it. Apart from Israel Zangwill, no member of the delegation considers their mission as a form of conquest, dispossession, or expulsion.

They don’t really represent an empire but a deprived people seeking the help of empires. They do not intend to oppress but to liberate. They do not want to exploit the land, but to invest in it. Apart from Israel Zangwill, no member of the delegation considers their mission as a form of conquest, dispossession, or expulsion.

Even the remaining Arab neighbors benefit from the miraculous project.

By working the land with their bare hands and by living in poverty and undertaking a daring, unprecedented social experiment, they refute any charge that they are about to seize a land that is not theirs.

In just one month, the number of innocent Arab victims surpassed the number of innocent Jewish victims.

He who comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.

Prime Minister Menachem Begin has betrayed the Land of Israel, he insists, by returning the Sinai. The Israelis of the plains are not standing by the Land of Israel. Retreat is in full motion, and it seems clear that Judea and Samaria might fall. Americanism is the new Hellenism and it is making Israel un-Jewish, weak, hollow, and rotten. Israel can only be saved by a new idea or a deed or an event that will transform history.

American and European concepts had to be done away with. We needed to embrace concepts that followed directly from the Torah of Israel. We had to leave democracy behind and go back to the source.

There will be war, no doubt about it. Because of 1948 and 1967, and because of Ofra, there will be war. But war will not save Ofra or Israel.

Ofra’s colonialism makes the world perceive Israel as a colonialist entity. But because in the twenty-first century there is no room for a colonialist entity, the West is gradually turning its back on Israel. That’s why enlightened Jews in America and Europe are ashamed of Israel. That’s why Israel is at odds with itself. Although the founders of Ofra wished to strengthen Israel, in practice they weakened it. So when the great war does break out, it will meet an isolated, ostracized, and divided Israel—an Israel that will hardly be able to defend itself.

from the beginning, Zionism skated on thin ice. On the one hand it was a national liberation movement, but on the other it was a colonialist enterprise. It intended to save the lives of one people by the dispossession of another.

And in the Europe of the 1930s there was no existential conflict between two peoples. Germany, with its racist doctrine, was organized evil. The Germans were in no real danger whatsoever. But then I realize that the problem is not in the similarity—no one can seriously think there is any real similarity. The problem is that there isn’t enough lack of similarity. The lack of similarity is not strong enough to silence once and for all the evil echoes.

This is what the Palestinians have brought upon us by means of uprising: they deprived us of the illusion of bearable occupation. They have told us that if we are to occupy Gaza, we must have a Gaza Beach prison.

I am haunted by the notion that we hold them by the balls and they hold us by the throat. We squeeze and they squeeze back. We are trapped by them and they are trapped by us. And every few years the conflict takes on a new form, ever more gruesome. Every few years, the mode of violence changes. The tragedy ends one chapter and begins another, but the tragedy never ends.

Could we not have come to Hulda? And then, when war came, could we not have fought for our lives in Hulda? Could we not have sent our soldiers to conquer the neighboring Arab village of Hulda? Could we not have taken the village’s houses and fields? Could we not have hardened our hearts and treated our neighbors brutally and brought calamity upon them? Their side, too, is clear. Could they not have protested our penetration into their valley? Could they not have attacked and burned and destroyed our colonial agricultural farm? And then, a generation later, could they have prevented the brutal attack on the Hulda convoy that was part of an inevitable war? And after their catastrophe could they not have hated us for conquering their village and taking their fields and sending them into exile? And can this hatred ever be overcome? Can the Palestinians be expected to give up the demand to see justice done for the village of Hulda? Can anyone expect the children and grandchildren of Jamal Munheir ever to accept the fact that we build houses on their ruined homes and grow six varieties of grapes in their pillaged fields?

What is needed to make peace between the two peoples of this land is probably more than humans can summon. They will not give up their demand for what they see as justice. We shall not give up our life.

Zohar Argov.

We Oriental Jews didn’t bleed enough into the river of belonging. We were not murdered in the Holocaust. We did not get killed in the War of Independence. We did not participate in the formative saga of Holocaust heroism revival. We were imported here and we were imported late. We were imported only because European Jewry was exterminated and there was no other way to grow the state. That’s why there is always a shadow hovering over us: this place was not really meant for us.

Farid al-Atrash

He symbolizes our modern Palestinian pride. He is the icon of the modern generation, a generation that did not experience defeat and expulsion, a generation that does not fear Israel precisely because it knows Israel. This generation has learned from Israeli chutzpah, impudence, cheekiness, and therefore it does not beg but demands. It does not defend but attacks. It doesn’t think like a minority and doesn’t feel like a minority because it realizes it’s not really a minority. The future is ours,”

Netanyahu was recalcitrant. Like the zealots of Masada, he preferred to fall on his sword in a final act of defiance as he stuck to his absolutist and destructive beliefs.

En route is the absence of the Palestinian villages that were erased since 1897: Tel el-Kabir, Yazur, Bayt Dajan. The freeways have many lanes, the intersections are heavy with traffic. Between what was an orange shipping port and what was the first Jewish colony in Judea, there are no more wildflower fields, no pastures or meadows. There are no camels or flocks of sheep, no nomad Bedouins. Palestine was replaced by a great mass of housing for immigrants, endless ugly housing estates that stretch out to the south and east of Jaffa.

The Palestinians might say that when Herbert Bentwich arrived here in his Thomas Cook carriage he was carrying with him a virulent bacterium. Like the conquistadors, he wasn’t aware of it, but it devastated the Palestinian immune system and Palestinian civilization, and laid waste to old Ramleh. I would not argue, but I would add that eventually the same virulent bacterium attacked the original Zionist dream, too. In 1897 it was still possible to imagine a master plan that would turn the dream into reality, but by 1950 there was no feasibility for any such plan. Need chased need. Pressure chased pressure. Danger chased danger. The naïve conquistadors were caught up in the whirlwind of the consequences of their original deed.

the question is whether Israel will end occupation or whether occupation will end Israel. The same question arises all around Nablus and in the Valley of Dotan. Will the Jewish state dismantle the Jewish settlements, or will the Jewish settlements dismantle the Jewish state? There are only four paths from this junction: Israel as a criminal state that carries out ethnic cleansing in the occupied territories; Israel as an apartheid state; Israel as a binational state; or Israel as a Jewish democratic state retreating with much anguish to a border dividing the land.

two factors make Israel different from any other nation: occupation and intimidation. In the twenty-first century there is no other nation that is occupying another people as we do, and there is no other nation that is intimidated as we are.

But if the present status quo continues, and Israel keeps ruling over millions of Palestinians (who make up approximately half the population of the land), we face two equally dire choices: either we grant them political rights and Israel ceases to be a Jewish state, or we continue to deny them these rights and Israel ceases to be a democracy. A status quo vis-`a-vis our immediate neighbors menaces us from within.

Ongoing occupation, ongoing conflict, and the disintegrating code of humane Zionism are allowing dark forces to menace the nation. Semifascist ideas that attracted the right-wing fringe of the 1930s are now being endorsed by some leading politicians.

The preoccupation of most Arabs with the internal Arab malaise temporarily neutralizes their capability to endanger Israel’s existence. Some of them are actually looking to Israel to save them from radical elements that now pose an immediate threat to their future.

Now there is no hope for peace: no moderate Arab leader has the legitimacy needed to sign a new conflict-ending agreement with the Zionist entity. Now even deterrent-based stability is difficult to maintain: no Arab nation is stable enough and strong enough to guarantee quiet borders and long-term tranquility. Now the risk is growing that eventually Israel will become the Arab world’s scapegoat: if political Islam fails to fulfill its promise and the masses rise up against it, the easy way out will be to turn this rage against the infidels living their outrageously prosperous and permissive life next door.

If the Israeli Arabs will be woven into our social and political fabric and given the equality they deserve, they might prefer what democratic Israel has to offer over what is offered by Islamist Arab nations and radical Palestinian political movements.

We Israelis face a Herculean mission. To live here we will have to redefine a nation and divide a land and come up with a new Jewish Israeli narrative. We will have to restore a rundown state and unify a shredded society and groom a trustworthy civilian leadership. After ending occupation, we’ll have to establish a new, firm, and legitimate iron wall on our postoccupation borders. We will have to replace Ben Gurion’s first republic—and the political chaos of recent decades—with a second republic that will be a true home for all Israelis and a genuine pluralistic union. Facing the regional tide of radical Islam, Israel will have to be an island of enlightenment. Facing seven circles of threat, Israel will have to be moral, progressive, cohesive, creative, and strong. There is no other way for us but to renew what we launched here when we founded a daring project of modernity on the Yarkon estuary. The battle for our existence rages on.