I’m agnostic on the one-state solution. I think those people over there hate each other so much it might be good to keep them apart. The Balkans. India/Pakistan. But I sure do want to hear people talk about one state, and therefore I appreciate the LA Times piece explaining why Israel should begin to treat its minority with respect, because it’s one state right now.
Compare that to this Politico piece on Shamai Leibowitz, the former FBI translator who has pled guilty to leaking documents to an unidentified blogger:
The radicalism of some of his positions have put him on the fringe of the left-leaning Mideast peace camp.
Last year, Leibowitz wrote a letter to the Washington Post advocating a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Most Jews, even those on the left, recoil at that idea.
That’s true. Most Jews do recoil at that idea. Also: most American Jews have never been there. Most American Jews have a fantasy on top of a delusion (Tony Kushner’s words) about what is happening there. Also: Most Jews would not want to live in a place where state officials say that minorities should not be able to buy land in certain areas.
I wrote once before that the greatest gift that American Jews can make to Israelis is to open our hearts to them and tell them, What kind of nation we like to live in. What kind of freedoms we expect for minorities. How we would feel about separate roadways on a largely-religious basis. Would we recoil?
