Israeli Election - Today
18 Mar '15 16:162 editshttp://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/03/netanyahus-vision-for-post-democratic-israel.html
“Every attempt to keep hold of this area [the West Bank and Gaza] as one political entity leads, necessarily, to either a nondemocratic or a non-Jewish state. Because if the Palestinians vote, then it is a binational state, and if they don’t vote it is an apartheid state.”
—Ehud Barak, 1999
Up until now, I (perhaps naively) still had hope for a two-state solution, although any chances have been declining steadily for nearly two decades, and I believe that has been mostly the fault of the Israelis in their increasing, and brutal, rightward drift. I have believed, and do believe, that the realpolitik—as opposed to any “idealpolitik,” no matter how grandly imagined—is that the only alternative to a viable two-state solution has been and will be a wholesale and final ethnic cleansing or genocide, a “final solution”, by one side or the other. (I do not see any sustained apartheid state as maintainable—not that that is an acceptable “solution”.) And I can neither celebrate nor make moral apologetics for such an awful outcome—for anyone; nor suffer anyone else’s celebrations or apologetics.
I now suspect that, absent some “black swan” surprise, the “event horizon” has been passed, and descent into the black hole is inevitable. Apologists for either side will likely be quick to point out past murderous behavior by the opposing side—and there are sufficient examples of that—and argue over which side has been more murderous than the other over what period (sometimes using a rather crass kind of body-count morality), who started what when, etc.. Some apologists are likely to use past murderous behavior by the opposing side as a justification for future murderous behavior by their own side. I see all such arguments as morally bereft. But I also think that past atrocities—going all the way back at least to 1948—are now likely to pale alongside what the future holds.
Those who want to continue argument and apologetics, while citing this or that “expert witness” among the “warring historians” can do so—and will. I have already opted out of such debate, months ago (largely for health reasons). This is just my attempt to put a cry of despair into comprehensible language—and I’m not sure that’s even possible. As I read back over it now, I see it as a failure, and no relief from the feeling of dread knotted in my chest. But perhaps it is no more shallow than the attempts by others to gain their foothold in the continuing game of argument-and-apologetics.
I see only tragedy, with no redeeming grace—for anyone.
“Every attempt to keep hold of this area [the West Bank and Gaza] as one political entity leads, necessarily, to either a nondemocratic or a non-Jewish state. Because if the Palestinians vote, then it is a binational state, and if they don’t vote it is an apartheid state.”
—Ehud Barak, 1999
Up until now, I (perhaps naively) still had hope for a two-state solution, although any chances have been declining steadily for nearly two decades, and I believe that has been mostly the fault of the Israelis in their increasing, and brutal, rightward drift. I have believed, and do believe, that the realpolitik—as opposed to any “idealpolitik,” no matter how grandly imagined—is that the only alternative to a viable two-state solution has been and will be a wholesale and final ethnic cleansing or genocide, a “final solution”, by one side or the other. (I do not see any sustained apartheid state as maintainable—not that that is an acceptable “solution”.) And I can neither celebrate nor make moral apologetics for such an awful outcome—for anyone; nor suffer anyone else’s celebrations or apologetics.
I now suspect that, absent some “black swan” surprise, the “event horizon” has been passed, and descent into the black hole is inevitable. Apologists for either side will likely be quick to point out past murderous behavior by the opposing side—and there are sufficient examples of that—and argue over which side has been more murderous than the other over what period (sometimes using a rather crass kind of body-count morality), who started what when, etc.. Some apologists are likely to use past murderous behavior by the opposing side as a justification for future murderous behavior by their own side. I see all such arguments as morally bereft. But I also think that past atrocities—going all the way back at least to 1948—are now likely to pale alongside what the future holds.
Those who want to continue argument and apologetics, while citing this or that “expert witness” among the “warring historians” can do so—and will. I have already opted out of such debate, months ago (largely for health reasons). This is just my attempt to put a cry of despair into comprehensible language—and I’m not sure that’s even possible. As I read back over it now, I see it as a failure, and no relief from the feeling of dread knotted in my chest. But perhaps it is no more shallow than the attempts by others to gain their foothold in the continuing game of argument-and-apologetics.
I see only tragedy, with no redeeming grace—for anyone.
Back to Top