|
Time to Decide
Dan Bar-On,
Co-Director of PRIME
|
The Jewish Israeli society has to decide now what are its goals as a
society. A decision not to decide will actually be a bad decision. A
lack of decision will lead, sooner or later, to political, economic
and social disintegration, even if we will be able to survive, militarily,
for quite a while. In that sense, the awful picture of the wedding at
the Versailles Halls in Jerusalem, in which people were still dancing
while the floor underneath was already crumbling, reflects, allegorically,
our situation as a society. We go on dancing as if business is as usual,
while the floor is already cracking and will soon vanish under our feet.
Today we are using our violent struggle with the Palestinians (and theirs
with us) in order to avoid the decisions. It is my estimate that the
main threat to Israeli society does not come from the outside: Even
a hundred explosions planted by Hamas suicide fanatics will not destroy
Israel. The threat comes from within and it has to do with its indecisiveness
as a society, accompanied by endless efforts to find a middle ground
between conflicting groups who pull the society apart.
In the current twilight the groups who have definite goals become more
visible: The Palestinians strive for independence and the Jewish settlers
try to prevent it, dragging all of us with them. The Orthodox Jews strive
for a religious state and the immigrants from Russia want more political
power. The Zionist secular Jewish public - the one that initiated the
State of Israel, stutters, is mixed up and walks as if frozen by the
devil. Since Rabin's assassination this public demonstrates signs of
helplessness that have become even more pronounced since Barak's (self)defeat
and the violent outbreak in October 2000. The present crisis can be
also transformed into an opportunity: to redefine a center based on
a Zionist secular majority. This center would then have to redefine
its goals, clearly and immediately. If it wants to maintain a role of
leadership it has to make up its mind, even at the price of a tough
struggle, which are the most important goals for the coming decades.
Which goals are essential for the State of Israel to survive from this
group's point of view. If this part of the Israeli society will not
become active in this process others will decide for them, perhaps at
the price of losing the common way. One of the characteristics of losing
the way is the transformation from a struggle over goals to a personal
power struggle, accompanied by a lack of communication between the leaders
and the wider social strata, growing gaps between the rich and the poor,
between the center and the periphery.
What are the main issues that this group will have to deal with in this
process of redefinition of its goals? First, we need a State that has
clearly definable, defensible, internationally recognized borders. The
return to the 1967 borders (more or less) is a subject for dispute not
only between us and the Palestinians, and we should not wait until they
will be ready to negotiate with us on that. This topic requires a clear
decision between the majority of the Israeli society and the settlers
and their supporters. It involves a major decision on how to use national
resources. The settlements not only need constant and massive military
protection, but also a large portion of our economic resources that
could have been invested in education, health and industrialization
within the State of Israel. Thirty-four years of occupation and control
over another national group have not made it more legitimate in any
sense, not in our eyes nor in those of the world. More so, the occupation
has corrupted us, making us indifferent to ourselves and to the suffering
of our neighbors. Looking at the slogans of last week's settlers' demonstration
"Death to the Arabs", to the way their youngsters humiliate
Arabs whenever they can, calls for the conclusion that we have allowed
among us the growth of a fascist and racist group, similar to the Neo-Nazis
in Europe or the Hamas in Gaza. The only difference is that they lean
heavily on the protection of the IDF, which was originally supposed
to defend Israel, not these groups. The picture of the smiling soldier
watching the settlers burn up Arab fields, after a baby was injured,
should have shattered us all. The fact that it was accepted indifferently
is a measure of how far we have gone astray.
Second, we have to decide what kind of State we want within the borders,
once they have been determined. I believe we want a democratic state,
with a Jewish majority that respects the minorities that live within
its borders. Therefore, Israel will not be able to absorb most of the
Palestinian refugees, even if it will and should acknowledge, morally,
its share of responsibility in the creation of this problem. Here we
have to clarify the difference between necessary moral acknowledgement
and participation in the solution of the problem, economically, and
between our need to maintain a Jewish majority in the State of Israel
in the foreseen future. When I say Jewish majority I do not necessarily
mean a Jewish State from a religious or national point of view. We have
to look for creative ways in which our symbols, languages, festivals
and institutions will reflect the national aspirations of the minorities
who live within us. Such a decision means, first of all, a major change
in our relationship with the Arab-Israeli minority, whose rights and
suffering we have ignored for decades with no serious justification.
It was mostly our attitude towards them that has made their leadership
as militant as it is today.
The third goal we have to redefine is the relationship between religious
and secular Jews in Israel. Again, it is the right of the secular majority
to define its way and needs, taking into account those of the religious
minority, while creating a common ground and shared responsibility for
the State. This should include specifically a national service for all
and sharing the economic burden by having the young study those tools
that will enable them to participate in the national product later in
their lives. Recognition of the special needs of the religious will
not come on account of the right of the secular majority to determine
its own marriage and divorce process, burial procedure, attitude to
the role of women in society and ways of celebrating its festivals and
ceremonies.
The fourth goal that the Zionist center has to redefine is the relationship
between the social center and the periphery, including a drastic reduction
of the gap between the poor and the rich in this country. I do not mean
only a geographic definition of center (Tel Aviv-Jerusalem) versus periphery,
though it partially overlaps, but mainly the social definition of the
division of political and economic power within the society. We are
a small society with few natural resources and cannot allow a gap between
rich and poor as it exists in the USA. During the last three or four
decades we have developed corrupted norms of power orientation and lack
of social responsibility that have distanced us a long way from the
original Zionist vision. We would benefit from reassuming some of the
modesty that characterized the Zionist leadership at the outset. Here
a lot has to be done in education, social welfare and openness to the
different, which will mean a reallocation of resources that will reflect
the change in priorities. We have here to decide if we want to drift
into becoming a low-level third-world country or if we want to struggle
to become part of the developed countries. This should be determined
by our deeds and not by the moral debt that the world still feels toward
us.
The is probably not the end of the list of goals we should redefine,
but it provides a wide enough basis for discussion that has to start
now and should not be delayed any further. Taking a stand on each of
these topics, creating a moral and political leadership that will strive
for the actual implementation of these goals should happen next, not
as a personal power struggle but as a widely renewed social contract.
The lack of such a new social contract will leave the social and political
scene open to extremists whose narrow goal definition may tear this
state into pieces, causing it to disintegrate within a short time. I
am especially disturbed by the current weakness of those people who
could have helped to create such a renewed social vision a long time
ago. They seem today to prefer that someone else will do the job for
them. First they trusted the Palestinians after Oslo to "behave
nicely" and thereby get rid of the right-wing radicals power positions.
Now, as they are "disappointed" with the Palestinians, they
want international intervention to settle some of the political issues
for them. Others dream of a "general war" that will end the
slow burnout they cannot stand anymore. The common pattern for all these
tendencies is the feeling of helplessness and lack of willingness to
start the necessary internal struggle for the redefinition of goals.
Those new goals should define what Zionism will be in the new millenium,
not along this or that school or heritage but according to what the
State of Israel has produced in its 53 years, for the better and for
the worse.
Dan Bar-On's book The Others Within us: Changes in the Israeli Identity
from a Social Psychological Perspective was published by Ben Gurion
University Press & Mosad Bialik in 1999.
|