There is also the immense relief we will feel once we are released from the state of occupation itself. I believe that even most of the Israelis who wish to control “Greater Israel” do not want to be occupiers. They want the land, but they do not want the state of occupation, certainly not the contact with the occupied people, which arouses in any normal person — even one with extreme opinions — a sense of injustice and guilt. I have no doubt that most Israelis, even if their political views align them with the center or right, are aware of the moral dilemmas posed by the Occupation. Even if they justify the Occupation with sophisticated arguments, even if they efficiently sweep it under the rug of their awareness, they still feel the unease of the moral dilemma. They live in a continued state of conflict, not only with their enemy but also with themselves and their own values.
Because somewhere deep inside, every person knows when he is committing or colluding with an injustice. Somewhere deep in the heart of any “reasonable person” of sound mind, there is a place where he cannot delude himself regarding his acts and their implications. The burden created by the injustice — even if it is repressed — is there, and it has effects and it has a price. And what a relief, what a feeling of repair — of tikkun, in its deepest spiritual sense — there must be in a release from the state of occupation and from the open and hidden conflicts it engenders.
Perhaps it is pertinent to recall some of the disruptions not often mentioned when discussing the price Israel pays in its current state of occupation, with no peace and no hope for peace. There is a huge sense of missed opportunity, which is becoming increasingly widespread among those for whom Israel was a dream, those who had hoped to build a moral and just society, a society with a humanistic, spiritual vision, a society that would manage to integrate modern life with the ethics of the prophets and the finest Jewish values. I should also mention the disappointment with the fact that we, the Jews, who have always regarded power with suspicion, have become intoxicated with power ever since it was given us. Intoxicated with power and with authority, and afflicted with all the diseases that limitless power has brought to nations far stronger and more stable than Israel. Unlimited power brings unlimited authority and a virtually unhindered temptation to hurt the helpless, to exploit them economically, to humiliate them culturally, and to scorn them personally.
I must also talk of the price of life without hope. Of the rise of a fatalistic, defeatist frame of mind that has caused many Israelis to feel that the situation will never improve, that the sword shall devour forever, and that there is some sort of “divine decree” that dooms us to kill and be killed for eternity. Fifty or sixty years ago, the new Jewish settlement movement (the yishuv) in young Israel was prepared to make any sacrifice, because it felt that its purpose was singularly just. Whereas now, for significant components in Israel, the purpose no longer seems just; at times, it is not even clear what the purpose is. This lack of meaning, this lack of faith in our leadership and its ways, slowly gnaws at the heart of the matter: at the faith in the just existence of the State of Israel. This internal loss of faith strengthens the view, among certain circles, that the entire State of Israel — not only the settlements — is an act of colonial, capitalist injustice, carried out by an apartheid regime, detached from historical, national, and cultural motives, and therefore illegitimate.
Ending the Occupation could begin to heal some of these internal wounds. I do not believe that a decisive change will happen quickly, but even if it occurs in a generation or two, it can start to bring Israel back from the digressions it has taken from its own ethos. If this happens, there may also emerge a new possibility for the creation of a fascinating synthesis between two fundamental models of the Jewish people: on the one hand, the Jewish Israeli living in his own land, embedded in the earth and the landscapes, the rooted man whose daily reality encompasses all the contradictory layers of reality; and on the other hand, the universal, cosmopolitan Jew who aspires to fulfill a spiritual, moral mission, to be “a light unto the nations,” to be the voice of the weak and the oppressed everywhere, to represent a clear, firm value system that derives its strength from ideas, from contemplation, from ethical commitment, who sees in every person a great creation, unique and unrepeated, in the spirit of Isaiah’s prophecy and the prophecies of modern thinkers such as Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, and George Steiner.
Think for a moment of the possible merging of these two models! Think of an Israel that manages to create for itself a new, unique place in the family of nations, becoming a self-confident sovereign state whose identity, heritage, and power derive from a universal human commitment, participation in the troubles of the world, and an insistence on taking a moral stand on questions of society, policy, and economics — an Israel that offers humanitarian aid anywhere it is needed. In other words, a State of Israel that fulfills the Jewish people’s historical and moral destiny within human history.
Sometimes a thought steals into one’s heart: What would have happened had Israel been able to emerge and live on as a unique national creation rather than, with remarkable speed, turn into a clumsy and awkward imitation of Western countries? What would have happened if Israel had made a national and social choice far more daring and far-reaching than the one in which it is currently stagnating? A choice that combined what is often called “the Jewish genius” with the loftiest universal and Jewish ideals, together with a humane economic and social system that centers on people and not on capital and competitiveness; a choice that had some unique, even genius spark — as did, for example, the kibbutz idea at its inception, before it eroded and crumbled, and as did the contributions of Judaism to many varied areas of human existence, in science and economics, in art and moral philosophy.
I know that these ideas sound utopian, perhaps even naive. But there is a shred of utopian thought and wishful thinking in everything I have said. It is certainly possible that part of my own private healing process — perhaps not only my own — from the almost-chronic disease of the “situation” is to once again believe that it is possible to escape from the shackling, desperate day-to-day, from the great mistake that looms over our every step and gradually stifles our souls, from the cynicism that tramples every hope.
I must also admit that I am a great believer in “acquired naïveté,” by which I mean a conscious and determined decision to be somewhat naive, precisely in a situation that is all but rotting away with sobriety and cynicism, that for years has been leading us astray. It is a naïveté that knows full well what it faces and what it contends with, but it also knows that despair creates more despair, hatred, and violence, while hope — even if it is the product of this “acquired naïveté”—may very slowly bring about the mechanisms of prospect, of faith in the possibility of change, of extricating oneself from an eternal victim mentality.
I have mentioned the sense of identity, and of being at home, which Israelis might derive from a peace agreement. But one cannot talk of a home without mentioning its walls, the borders. In the fifty-six years of Israel’s existence, there has not been a single decade during which the country had permanent and stable borders. In 1947 an international border was established, and immediately moved as a result of the 1948 war. In 1956 the southern border was altered following the war with Egypt and the occupation of the Sinai Peninsula, and its subsequent evacuation. The Six-Day War in 1967 expanded Israel’s area fivefold, unrecognizably altering its borders to the north, east, and south. The war of 1973 and peace with Egypt in 1977 once again redrew Israel’s borders, severing it from the Sinai Peninsula. The 1982 Lebanon War brought the Israeli army deep into Lebanese territory, and essentially pushed the border a few dozen kilometers to the north for eighteen years. The Oslo accords in 1993, and peace with Jordan in 1994, changed Israel’s eastern border with Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. This eastern border is utterly breached, illusory even, because of the massive presence of settlements in the heart of the Palestinian areas.