by Dror Eydar
Under the guise of political correctness, the architects of the Oslo Accords tried to render the Jewish people's religious, national and historical connection to their country hollow, peddling the illusion of attainable peace by focusing on the minutiae of the Israeli-Arab conflict.
Scene of the 1995 Beit Lid suicide bombing
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1.
It has been 25 years since the Oslo Accords, and here we are again talking about security being forsaken. The discourse surrounding the defense of our country is dominating the media and obscuring a far more important debate. At a time when the old cultural elite is hanging on to concepts that have lost their moral relevance and are now actually harming the welfare of the state and lowering its moral and spiritual standards, it is the duty of cultural figures to re-examine the values of the current era and rid them of the filth that has clung to them by way of political correctness.
Initially, the aim of political correctness was to protect the public discourse from the ills of racism and chauvinism and allow minorities (and women) to express themselves freely. But with time, the system of political correctness became a kind of thought police – a draconian monitoring of language (telling us what we can and cannot say or even think).
Thus, political correctness eviscerated the dynamics of thought and the freedom to doubt everything. For example, look at the social and media lynching attempts being leveled at writer and historian Gadi Taub (and not just at him), only because he dared deviate from the accepted chorus line and used his intellectual and rhetorical prowess to deconstruct the conceptual underpinnings of institutional power centers (chiefly the Supreme Court). For every maverick who dares speak his mind, there are hundreds who are yielding to social dictates and remaining silent.
Free speech and a language free of the political correctness shackles is a prerequisite for freedom of the spirit and freedom of thought, even if the cost is a minor insult to a minority group here and there. Ultimately, minorities, too, will benefit from open, boundless discourse that dares to honestly examine the ideological and moral norms that guide their society.
I have a theory as to when the language and idea policing began here in Israel. But for now, it is important that we understand that the ones who set the moral and political norms and defined the fundamental beliefs that have become so deeply entrenched in our culture were not deities. Their intellect is not superior to anyone else's and their experience is not exceptional. Their qualifications don't justify the nearly religious reverence that is often applied to issues such as: the occupation, land, purity of arms, peace, democracy, nationalism, two-state solution, the Diaspora, the legal system and other key issues that touch every aspect of our daily lives.
2.
The fundamental thinking behind the Oslo process begs a closer look. We can continue arguing about which ideology is best suited to guide us, but the reality has clearly shown us the answer to this argument, in blood and smoke. Over the last decade, the Arabs have been consistently unwilling to compromise with us. We've always opted to speak for them and to listen only to the pleasant words, making us complacent and ill-prepared. The fact is that they have never agreed to sign any agreement that would permanently end the conflict and permanently put an end to their demands.
Peace was marketed under the assumption that the conflict over the land was between two national movements – the Zionist movement and the Palestinian movement.
This assumption was based on nothing but the fact that we wished it to be so. We saw it as the "normal" thing to want. We believed that just like us, the Arabs want to share the land so that we could all live a "normal" life. In any case, the disillusioned among us realized that while we characterized our Palestinian partners as representatives of a a national movement, they never accepted our national status, viewing the Jews as merely members of a religion, not a nationality.
At best, they viewed our nationality as a fabricated nationality, invented no earlier than the 19th century. Members of a religion are not entitled to a homeland. The current backlash among the Israeli Arab leadership against the nation-state law is not about equality – civil equality exists regardless of the law and has existed since the inception of our democracy. The resistance stems from the Arab objection to the national aspect of the Jewish people.
3.
The fact that we generally avoid discussing this important issue, which we should be addressing before anything else, is typical of our, and the Oslo authors', escapist tendencies. They said that we should start with the issues we can agree on, and with time, after we practice diplomatic and peaceful dialogue, we will arrive at the more contentious core issues readier and more open to compromise. This was a terrible strategy and it cost us too much blood. The issues of Jerusalem and the Palestinian right of return should have been addressed first. The focus on minor issues created an illusion of a peace process. We harnessed this illusion and created a volcano, which, very soon, erupted and covered the Israeli reality with malignant lava.
We ushered criminal gangs into parts of Israel with our own hands, and at first, they cruelly abused their own people, but then, using the weapons we gave them and the international legitimacy we granted them, began fighting against us from within our homeland, closer than ever to our most populated areas.
The violence is easy to understand. They want to kill us, and we defend ourselves, and, at times, attack. The worst part, however, was that the Oslo Accords accepted the Arab assertion – which parts of Israel and global Left also believe – that we stole land that wasn't ours, land that had been populated since "time immemorial" and that we are responsible for the Palestinian refugee problem and are therefore responsible for resolving it. In other words, our right to this land was completely ignored. This right was the engine that drove the Zionist movement from the beginning.
The Oslo Accords "proved" to our enemies that we don't entirely believe that we have exclusive rights to this land. At most, the Oslo supporters argued that the Arabs and we share equal rights to the land. But when the Israeli side says everything belongs to both of us and the Palestinian side says all of it belongs only to us, the reality is what it is. The Palestinians and their collaborators are using this fundamental disparity against us to this day, especially at the U.N. and in Europe.
4.
There is an even deeper layer to the debate than the issue of rights. It is not about the external dispute with the Arabs but rather to the internal dispute among ourselves.
Judea and Samaria, with Jerusalem at the center, are not just geographical areas. They are the "signifiers" of the "signified," to borrow terms coined by Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, that are inherently linked to our identity.
Our return to our history and our resurrection as a modern people required us to cut the apron strings and disconnect from the religious aspects of our collective personality. We focused on the secular nationalism, seeking to become like all the other nations. The last thing we needed was biblical sites and territories that could awaken the messianic, religious demon within us – particularly Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.
Ostensibly, we returned to Zion so that we could finally be "normal" and leave behind the religion and the faith – those individual issues that have nothing to do with our renewing national identity and the national entity we have erected.
The attempt to hand over to the Palestinians this core of our religious-historical identity, and be content with national "normalcy" was devoid of spiritual and religious aspirations. It was viewed as killing two birds with one stone – arriving at a territorial compromise that would bring the peace we longed for, while simultaneously ridding us of the volatile messianic volcano that these territories represented. No third temple – we were destroyed twice before because of the temple. But it was an illusion – an attempt to repress the deepest root of our existence as a people.
The illusion is the belief that it is possible to separate the national and religious aspects of our identity. It is incredible how quickly we forgot that our "secular" resurrection rested on 2000 years of religious history that revolved around the very real memory of Jerusalem and the land of the bible. There is no Zionism without Zion.
In that regard, the idea of dividing the land would mean artificially splitting the religious part of our identity from the national part. But everything that is repressed, especially if it such an important thing, is bound to resurface. Even if we lock it behind a million locks. "I will extend peace to her like a river, and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing stream … and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem" (Isaiah 66:12-13).
Dror Eydar
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/2018/09/14/the-danger-of-sterilized-normality/
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