I disagree with just about everything Samuel Freedman, a parochialist, writes, but boy is he smart and sensitive. He knows which way the arrow's pointing, as we say in college basketball. Writing in the Jerusalem Post:
The two-state solution, to the degree it has any salience, now qualifies as the conservative position. The
liberal stance is the vision of a unitary state. No longer the property
of river-to-sea settlers, it has returned after 60 years to its leftist
parentage, now intermingled with Islamists.
And when it comes to the rhetoric about a unitary state,
American Zionists (and perhaps Israelis, as well) do not fully grasp
the potency of the South African analogy. They spend a lot of energy
and verbiage making the case that Israel does not practice apartheid,
but they haven't come up with nearly as effective an answer for why the
South African model of peaceful transformation, full enfranchisement
and majority rule shouldn't be applied to Israel and the Palestinian
territories as well. It is easier to answer to the cynicism of the
apartheid analogy than the optimism of the Mandela-DeKlerk compromise.
So consider the current divestment activity at such colleges as
Hampshire, Haverford, NYU, Macalaster, and Columbia as just the start
of a new phase of struggle. Pay close attention when someone like the
author Naomi Klein, a rock star to young activists, endorses
divestment, because she matters a lot more on campus than alter kockers like Noam Chomsky. And don't assume, this time, that our side is destined to win.
OK now Freedman: your job, from the incredibly privileged position you have as a minority in the U.S., is to try and imagine democracy between the river and the sea halfway across the world, to try and save bloodshed.
