Editor's Note
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September 26, 2008
Sharansky’s Latest
Neil Rubin
Editor
Natan Sharansky exits the hotel elevator into the lobby, apologizes for being caught up on the telephone and directs his guest to the adjacent dining room. It’s 10 a.m., and he has not yet had the chance to eat.
Now 60, Mr. Sharansky is chairman of the Institute for Strategic Studies at the Shalem Center, an Israeli think tank. As he nurses a bowl of oatmeal and berries, the window behind him reveals a glimpse of the White House through the trees, where a few decades earlier his fate became an international priority.
On this crisp early fall morning, Mr. Sharansky wanted to talk about his latest book, “Defending Identity: It’s Indispensable Role In Protecting Democracy.” He worries that the legitimate fight against radical identities is pushing nations to downplay who they are, which will further weaken their resolve.
“Identity is not good and bad,” he said. “It’s just an important part of human nature. It’s the desire to belong to a community, a place, a group. And there is another desire, one to be free. These are two powerful things. What I’m saying is they have to be connected and they can empower one another very positively. When they are disconnected, they can become racist, bring ethnic cleansing and all those things. Freedom without identity becomes decadent and powerless and weak.”
One always listens closely to Mr. Sharansky, for his penetrating words have always mattered. In the 1970s, before being tossed in Soviet gulags, he was a spokesman for Moscow’s human rights and Jewish refusenik communities. In 1987, less than 12 months after famously being freed in exchange for Soviet spies, he pushed American Jewry to organize its massive Soviet Jewry rally. And in the Israeli Knesset from 1996 to 2005, he pressed for Palestinian compliance with the Oslo Accords and promoted the rights of former Soviet Jews in Israel.
On top of that, his 2004 best-seller book, “The Case For Democracy: The Power Of Freedom To Overcome Tyranny And Terror,” became standard reading in the Bush White House and diplomatic circles.
On this day, Mr. Sharansky is quick to point out that he is traveling with Bassem Eid, head of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitor Group, whom he introduced to friends on Capitol Hill.
“He’s not a Zionist and I’m not a promoter of a Palestinian state, but we both believe that the only way to peace is to promote a Palestinian civil society, and that’s being ignored for strengthening dictators,” Mr. Sharansky said.
But his hopes do not quite follow the vision of President George W. Bush. While noting his support of Mr. Bush’s bringing back “a democracy agenda,” he called immediate free elections a mistake. “The first step is to build a civil society,” he said. “That’s why I was against the [U.S.-based] Road Map [for Middle East Peace]. This is what brought Hamas.
“The second thing,” he added, “is this policy has to be consistent and then you don’t have to send troops. If a dictator becomes so powerful to threaten you it’s because there was a long period of appeasement.”
How, he is asked, can Jews reconcile to the world their identity with Jerusalem at the center with a parallel Palestinian notion?
He lambasts Palestinian leaders for promoting an identity where the destruction of Israel is at the core. “These leaders want to keep Palestinians in refugee camps. What the Palestinian people are concerned with is real life and a real job,” he said. “Never in their history did the Arabs think to make Jerusalem their capital. Palestinian identity is only 40 or 50 years old. I don’t dismiss it, but the main way that identity was formed until now was to destroy Israel, to annihilate it. That way will bring only more and more suffering and no peace.”
He ended, however, on a note tinged with both optimism and realism. “Their identity should be about how to develop those things on which Palestinians can be proud of, and there are things,” he said. “Then, when their identity will be linked to a democracy, then we can talk about what we call painful compromises.”
When that day comes, one prays that the likes of Mr. Sharansky will be around to help us intelligently navigate the challenges.