Op/Ed
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October 10, 2008
A Thousand Shofars
Stuart Schoffman
Special to the Jewish Times
One week before Rosh Hashanah, in the midst of Ramadan, as jittery bloggers probed the psyche of American voters and the front pages featured the frightening spectacle of the Wall Street meltdown, a teenage citizen of Jerusalem named Qassem al-Mughrabi plowed a black BMW sedan into a group of IDF soldiers near the Jaffa Gate, injuring 19.
The usual responses quickly ensued: More soldiers and cops patrolling Jerusalem; Israeli politicians debating how to halt the rash of vehicular terrorism in the city, which began a few months ago with two deadly bulldozer incidents; security experts trying to determine if the latest would-be killer was a freelancer or from a terrorist organization; the Arab family, fearing the demolition of their home portraying him as a troubled youth and the event as an auto accident; pundits (mainly in Tel Aviv) opining that henceforth Jerusalemites would be afraid to walk the streets.
Did I mention that we are, yet again, in this soul-searching season, in the midst of a political crisis?
We need this now, as my Bubbie used to say onomatopoetically, like a lokh in kop. Ehud Olmert is out as Kadima party leader and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who defeated the ex-IDF chief of staff Shaul Mofaz by a paltry 431 votes, is in.
Livni and Olmert have been engaged in separate sets of negotiations with the Palestinians. Drat, sigh some people, if only Olmert had not been felled by corruption charges, he could have made the deal. Thank heaven he’s history, say others. Even if Livni wants to give away the store, she’ll never pull it off.
I make no predictions, except that whoever is elected in the U.S. will pledge unwavering support of Israel — and of the two-state solution as well. The clock will not be turned back. More likely, it will stand still — or lurch wildly into the future.
Three days before the BMW incident, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, wrote in an op-ed, “I continue to believe that we can achieve a lasting peace, with the Israeli and Palestinian peoples living as neighbors in two independent states.”
What does his Two-State Solution look like? “…two viable and sovereign states based on 1967 borders, including a Jerusalem that is the capital of two states and a just resolution that honors the rights of the Palestinian refugees.”
Can Israelis live with that? Some can, at least in theory. “Viable” is the big word here. Does it mean territorial contiguity? It sounds negotiable.
“Based on 1967 borders.” I take this as analogous to a movie “based on a true story” — similar, but inevitably not identical. Abu Mazen can insist he wants Israel to vacate Ma’aleh Adumim, a big commuter town outside Jerusalem, but in the end would settle for some other hefty Israeli parcel adjoining the pre-1967 old border.
The next two items are hard. Honoring the refugees doesn’t mean expanding Israel’s Law of Return to Palestinians. It can mean that Palestinians who wish to live in the new Palestinian state can, and that Israel acknowledges and helps remedy the Arab refugee trauma of 1948. (It would be nice if Jewish refugees from Arab lands were also compensated; I wouldn’t hold my breath.)
Finally, the Capital of Two States. Does Abu Mazen mean dividing Jerusalem with barbed wire or a wall, like Berlin? I think not. But if he means sharing an undivided city — flying a Palestinian flag on a second City Hall somewhere near the Temple Mount — can the Jews live with that? Depends on which Jew.
If there were a holiday referendum of world Jewry, how would you vote? (1) Never! For obvious reasons. (2) Maybe under international supervision and security guarantees, but it would be risky. (3) It would boost pride and dignity of Arab citizens who feel constricted and humiliated, lessening the likelihood of desperate youths ramming a bulldozer or BMW into innocent Jews.
“The lesson of the last 15 years,” wrote Mahmoud Abbas, “is that only a just peace can bring true security to Israel and Palestine.” This would seem pretty obvious, though some on both sides think a just peace must be preceded by a holy war.
“But if we do not succeed, and succeed soon,” he warned, “the parameters of the debate are apt to shift dramatically.” In other words, hello One-State Solution, outcome resembling not Switzerland, but South Africa or Bosnia. In the end, there may be democracy, but there will also be blood.
As this Yom Kippur went on, I hope I was excused for being distracted by the sound of a thousand shofars mixing in with the muezzins call for prayer.
Stuart Schoffman, an assistant editor at the Jerusalem Report and columnist for the JUF Chicago Jewish News, writes monthly for the Baltimore Jewish Times.