Avraham Infeld Part III: Jewish Identity Is STRENGTHENED by a strong Palestinian Identity
A third particularly insightful and counterintuitive thought that Avraham shared:
Arab Israelis increasingly see themselves as Palestinian citizens of Israel and that can be a very good thing for Jewish Israelis. It can help heal Israeli Jewish identity.
But it needs a Palestinian culture that can flourish and not be feared, so that Palestinian citizens of Israel will be a healthy minority, proud of their heritage and able to thrive in their culture without feeling disloyal, while Israeli Jews would also be happy that their fellow citizens can be proud of their ethnicity, religion and nationality, without a necessary
inconsistency – or less of one than if there wasn’t this healthy parallel.
Both Palestinians and Jews need to each have their own State for them to develop this healthy culture that each can be tied to, and then Palestinian citizens of Israel will ideally be both proud Palestinians and model contributors to Israeli society in the very same way that Jewish Americans can be proudly connected to both Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people and to the their nation as patriotic Americans.
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comments
I’ve perused a lot of your site so far in hopes of understanding what you mean by a ‘two-state solution’, for Palestinians and Israelis. But I’m still confused. I’m all for a two-state solution, I think that the Palestinians should have their own state, (it would be great if it wouldn’t be a terrorists’ state but that’s another story…) Why not Jordan?, that’s what it was originally intended for anyway.
I just don’t think it should be in the heartland of the land of Israel, (the west bank, i.e. Judea and Samaria)
Don’t kid yourself thinking that having a Palestinian state in this region wouldn’t be an absolute existential threat to Israel. Look at all the rockets that have been lanuched into Israel since the expulsion of Jews in Gaza. Why shouldn’t it be the same if all 200,000 Jews were ethnically cleaned out of the west bank as well?
I want peace as much as any one and it’s very noble what you’re doing with this onevoice movement but I don’t see how it can really make a difference unless Israel once and for all rids the Palestinians of their terror infrastructure! And it’s not by carrying out little raids every month where two rocket launchers out of 20 get eliminated and some innocent by-stander gets killed accidently.
Do you think that your naive onevoice movement will truly make the attacks and rockets stop and make Fatah and Hamas change their charter and stop endoctrinating their children to hate Jews?
Anyway, good luck because you’ll need it.
Thank you for your comment. If you want to learn more about what a two-state solution entails, you can visit http://www.OneVoiceMovement/negotiate and get the details.
I agree that for a two-state solution to work, we need to fight, uproot, and extinguish terrorism. I agree force is a necessary – but not sufficient element. The use of force needs to be zoned in against violent elements – and in that case needs to be merciless and thorough. But the use of force to defend and even to counterattack will never solve a conflict like this one, no matter how unremitting the force.
Why? Because you have a situation where both peoples deserve freedom and dignity and security.
So the only long-term solution can come from achieving an agreement among the peoples for a compromise they can live with.
The only way to destroy terrorism is for the host community to rally against it and for the conditions that prompt support for it to disappear.
One you achieve an agreement and realign the conflict to emphasize moderate Israelis and moderate Palestinians – both of whom are the supra-majority of their populations – are on the same side, you will be able to isolate and eventually extinguish all forms of violent extremism.
PS: You cannot say you want “peace” but you want to ignore the rights of the other side and want a Greater Israel and no Palestinian State in the only place where it can arise, which is the West Bank and Gaza. Its akin to a Palestinian saying they want “peace” but they want all of Greater Palestine as their state or they want a one-state solution. Both of those cop-outs. If you don’t want a two-state solution, then at least acknowledge that your position is that Israel is destined to eternal war. Same as Palestinian rejectionists would need to acknowledge. Think about whether that is what you really want, b/c that is the only other option.
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