This morning Michael Oren was on NPR’s "Morning Edition," speaking of Israel’s achievement, and Renee Montagne asked him what he hoped for in the next 60 years. Oren said, he wants an Israel at peace with its neighbors and at peace with itself. By peace with itself, he said he meant that it contained considerable diversity and that he hopes that it can reconcile that diversity with its own identity as a Jewish and democratic and Middle Eastern state. (That’s pretty close; I’m paraphrasing because I don’t want to have to listen to him a second time.) Montagne asked whether that meant a Jewish state. Oren said, Well I would "prefer" a Jewish state, as would most Jewish Israelis.
Two things leap out at me from the interview. First, Oren, who works at the Shalem Center in Israel, said he preferred a Jewish state, i.e., he was not absolute on this score. This seems to me a significant reflection of where things are going today. Even this Zionist, who moved from the U.S. to Israel, who has fought for Israel, as has his son, who has helped confuse the borders between Israel and the U.S. with all his work, and who has distorted U.S. history with a superficial book claiming that the U.S. has been religious and pro-Israel from the start, thereby claiming that these two countries are joined at the hip–even Oren is reduced to saying, I prefer. This is the Obama Effect. The world is moving past tribal distinctions, the western world is.
The other thing that leaped out was, Not a word about Palestinian self-determination in all his hoping. Not a word about a Palestinian state, not a word about the dignity of the Arabs under occupation, not a word about the futures of the people living in Gaza. No, Israel has not had peace for "a nano-second" since its founding, Oren said; and so presumably anything that befalls these people is their own fault. His indifference to Palestinian statehood was so stark in these comments it suggested that he still hopes for a Greater Israel.
The other day a pro-Israel paper (Canada’s National Post) likened Israel/Palestine to India/Pakistan in historical terms–partition and bloodletting–and then stated that, Ha!, there was far more bloodshed and ethnic cleansing in India/Pakistan than during the Nakba. Maybe this is true; I should study that question. But as I have said before here, for 60 years Pakistanis have had a state, and for 60 years since the U.N. called for statehood, the Palestinians have had none. They’ve been disqualified for countless reasons, even as Israel gobbles land. What do I hope for? I hope that a stateless people who have no meaningful political representation be represented democratically, in a state that respects minority rights. Without that, there will be no peace.
