COLUMN: Losing land- and illusions - in pursuit of peace

From Ron Lin's, "Intellectual Pornography," Fall '00 From Ron Lin's, "Intellectual Pornography," Fall '00American Jews respond to the State of Israel more with their hearts than their minds. Seeing its beauty, its historical significance and its pure and undiminished aesthetic perfection, the conflicted country under the surface is obscured by the notion of Israel's moral superiority. The Zionist movement of the early 20th century espoused the notion of secular nationhood. Early Zionist leaders such as Theodore Herzl, Chaim Weizman and David Ben-Gurion embraced the notion of a Jewish nation -- a nation motivated by notions of pragmatism and secularism. These secular roots are often ignored, or overlooked, by emotional American Jews who have established a spiritual identification with the State of Israel. Many American Jews embrace Israel as the embodiment of an ideal but to me Israel is far from ideal. Israel is a paradox, a miniscule nation that has fended off repeated attacks from larger neighbors and miraculously emerged nearly indomitable. A nation flanked on all sides by belligerents, yet lulled into a state of relative stability and prosperity. A nation of people notorious for obduracy, strength and vigor, a nation characterized by the preservation of self-determination -- yet a nation where policy is dictated as often in Washington as in Jerusalem. A nation adhering to the tenets of capitalism, yet constructed upon enduring socialist foundations. A nation of contradictions. Israelis are seen as Western-minded, largely democratic foils to the image of the Arab terrorist. American Jews are proud of their Israeli brethren and fearful of the Arab cause. But Jews should consider the following parcels of history: The scene is grim. A luxurious hotel lay in ruins, leaving behind the remains of 80 British, Jewish and Arab civil servants. A year prior to this ghastly explosion, saboteurs crippled the railway system at 153 separate places. Months earlier, a pair of extremists assassinated an influential British foreign minister. This was Palestine between 1944 and 1947, and Jews, not Arabs, were the perpetrators of this severe social disruption. In fact, as early as 1938, the militant wing of the Israeli independence movement, the Irgun, exploded land mines in a crowded Arab fruit market in Haifa, killing 74 and wounding 129. The goal -- an independent state -- was and still is a familiar one. Suddenly, the means to which Jews resorted in order to win an Israeli homeland appear considerably more familiar. Jews tend to idealize the image of Israel rising above terrorism rather than the more appropriate image of Israel rising from terrorism. Rather than approach peace with the Palestinians in purely practical and relevant terms, the Arab-Israeli relationship is abstracted into an incompatible myth. Just as Jews deserved refuge in Israel prior to 1948 and after, I strongly believe that Palestinians deserve autonomy there as well. Rather than emulate the behavior of the British in dealing with the "Jewish question," American Jews should embrace the opportunity to help cultivate a Palestinian homeland. American Jews must reconcile the many flaws in Israeli ideology, and the many shadows in our own history. For American Jews, the relationship with Israel is a highly emotional and spiritual connection that disavows the idea of "land for peace" and views skeptically the notion of coexistence with Arabs. But to dismiss the notion of "land for peace" is to evince a base form of idolatry, the worship of land above human life and of idealism above pragmatism. The paradox permeates contemporary Israeli life, where a perception of a strong and resilient nation endures in the face of the state's fraying edges. The military today faces unprecedented sentiments of distrust and distaste. A family friend in Israel recently turned down the opportunity to become an elite paratrooper in the Israeli Defense Force in favor of a safer role. After military service, he wants to study computer science. Such decisions were unheard of 20 years ago. While this hardly marks a threat to Israeli security, it highlights the fact that Israeli youth are increasingly disillusioned and unprepared to make the thoughtless sacrifices that my parents were forced to make. When the British repeatedly petitioned early Zionists to halt immigration into Palestine in 1939 due to the economic and social strains it was causing, David Ben-Gurion -- later the first prime minister of Israel -- compared such an appeal to asking a woman in labor to stop birth. A Palestinian state is being born. A new Israeli pragmatism is emerging. The birth of a peace is beginning, and just as the inevitability of a Jewish nation culminated in the establishment of a State of Israel, the very same ambitions will foment a new Arab identity that American Jews must meet more than halfway. They must do this in order to prevent further injustices against a wandering people -- the same injustices once perpetrated against the Jews themselves.