1. Stuck in the past
Political perceptions of the Middle East and the Palestinian problem are based on an outdated model that endangers not only Israel but Europe and the entire West. The Oslo Accords were based on the premise that on both sides of the conflict were two national movements entitled to self-determination. But this assumption was held only by Israel (and the West). The Palestinians have never recognized the right of the Jewish people to self-determination. Article 20 of the Palestinian National Charter states that the Jews have no historical or spiritual connection to this land. This belief is held by many Arab organizations. The obvious resulting conclusion is that the Zionist movement was a colonialist movement that came to a foreign country and took it over. Incidentally, if the Jews have no connection to the Holy Land, then the Christians also have no roots here...
Article 20 further states that Judaism being a religion is not an independent nationality with its own identity. A religion is not entitled to a country or state. This is a genocidal clause that erases the Jewish people from the family of nations and is now an official document of the Palestinian Authority.
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In the summer of 2005, Israel did what Europe had preached since 1967 and pulled out completely from the Gaza Strip. A short time later, Hamas took control of the area, killed Palestinian Authority security forces, and began turning Gaza into a massive terrorist fortress. Since the takeover, Hamas has fired tens of thousands of missiles at Israel, which responded with several limited military operations until the October 7 massacre that led to all-out war.
The center of the country was saved from such a massacre because, among other things, in 2002 Israel went to war to regain control of Judea and Samaria. Before that, the result of the Oslo Accords had been suicide bombings that turned public transportation or going out in town into Russian roulette. Fortunately, we did not evacuate Jewish settlements in the Samarian hills, and they continue to provide security. Thus, we have two alternative scenarios: the Gaza Strip versus Judea and Samaria. The conclusion is crystal clear.
About 15 years ago, documents leaked from the office of Saeb Erekat, then the PA's lead negotiator, showed that the Palestinian negotiating team had recommended dropping the phrase "two states for two peoples," for "two states living side by side in peace." The logic presented to Erekat by his advisors was: "Mentioning the right of both peoples to self-determination may have a negative impact on the rights of the refugees, that is, on the right of return."
Video: Six facts about the Israel-Hamas war in 90 seconds / X/@idf
"Two states for two peoples" could be interpreted as "the PLO no longer seeks Palestinian self-determination within the territory of the State of Israel." Thus, consistently, the "two-state solution" means a Palestinian nation-state free of Jews alongside a state that in the meantime may be called "Israel," but to which millions of "refugees" will return. This is probably the reason there is no official document presenting the Palestinians' final demands, which, after their fulfillment, would lead them to declare an end to the conflict and an end of claims.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni recently spoke in support of Italy's "traditional position" in favor of "two states." And I had thought Meloni wanted to renew Italian traditions when she took office. How convenient it is to accept the position of the Italian political establishment, which insists on not recognizing the significant geopolitical changes that the Middle East and Europe have undergone and sticks to stale perceptions.
Some 32 kilometers east of Chigi Palace, the residence of Prime Minister Meloni in Rome, is Monte Gennaro, which towers to an altitude of more than 1,200 meters. Ramallah, which sits on the Binyamin Mountains, at an altitude of about 900 meters, is around the same distance from my hometown of Rehovot. Both Rome and Rehovot are only a few dozen meters above sea level. Try to defend your home against a fortress about a kilometer above you... Madam Prime Minister, would you agree to establish on Monte Gennaro an entity compatible with Nazi Germany, whose goal is your destruction? It's time to change your perception.
2. Man as a being governed by symbols
As I sit in a waiting room, I see a very high-ranking former officer on the TV insisting that the Gaza war cannot be won and other such pronunciations. The day before, I met with two soldiers who had returned from a long tour of duty in Gaza. They said the opposite: "We are winning, and we are dismantling them, but we need more time." I believe them. Conceiving victory, like any conceptualization, depends on the spiritual and cultural baggage – in fact, the symbolic baggage – through which reality is mediated to us.
The German-Jewish philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945) wrote that man's response to the stimuli he perceives from the outside, is delayed, due to a thought process related to a mediating process that no other organism possesses: the symbolic system. Man "lives in a new dimension of reality," wrote Cassirer, no longer in a merely physical universe, but in a symbolic universe composed of language, myth, art, religion, and more. "They are the varied threads which weave the symbolic net, the tangled web of human experience." The main mediators of our time are the various means of communication. We do not see beyond our practical existence and therefore depend on the reports of those who have seen and processed information for us.
But even mediators, advisers, and commentators depend on a system of symbols. For the most part, man does not live in a world of hard facts. Cassirer said that man lives rather "amid imaginary emotions, in hopes and fears, in illusions and delusions, in his fantasies and dreams." We must consider this limitation in the face of every analysis and hypothesis we hear.
We cannot escape mediation, but we can choose which symbols will mediate reality for us, and how we consume the information presented to us. We are an ancient and experienced people. In our thousands of years-long history, we have built a tremendous system of symbols that holds deep wisdom that can help us mediate reality. He who lives in the here and now, sees from the deliberations of his heart, and when he is desperate, may speak of loss and inability to win. Whoever is connected to our eternal sources understands that ancient wisdom is practical and relates also to the battlefield and the domestic and foreign policies of our people, and then he speaks of victory.
3."Thou shalt not murder"
The October 7 massacre occurred on Simchat Torah where we conclude the annual cycle of reading the Torah and commence again from the beginning. The "Genesis War" requires us to reexamine our fundamental perceptions (our concepts). The weekly Torah portions speak to us from the depths of the collective consciousness of the people and guide us.
This Shabbat we read about Mount Sinai and the Ten Commandments. The seventh commandment states: "Thou shalt not murder!" (Exodus 20:13). Sounds simple, but almost all translations have "Thou shalt not kill!" The later translation reflects a moral outlook influenced by certain Christian ideas. This also seems to be the world's demand of us: You must not kill, under any circumstances. I have already written about the meaning of this demand – it is a call for us to accept the role of eternal victim, to remain on the cross.
But we are the disciples of Moses, who enacted detailed laws of war. Last week's Torah portion ended with the war of Joshua and his army against Amalek. The ancient Hebrews, slaves who had just come out of Egypt, were attacked by merciless gangs of murderers and thieves. The result: "Joshua overwhelmed the people of Amalek by the sword" (Exodus 17:13). When we are forced to fight the enemy, we are commanded to kill him, because our lives come first. For us Hebrew speakers, the difference between "Thou shalt not murder" and "Thou shalt not kill" is clear. Look at Gaza; its civilian population has evacuated, and the IDF fights only terrorists. And they are killed. By the sword.
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