Reply #35: Thank You, Sir [View All]

[The Magistrate]

It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.

Perhaps the most important point to deal with in your comments above is this: action in one's own best interest is hardly an exclusive Western value. An Arab Palestinian state will quite likely differ greatly from the long established Western states in the character and practice of its political life, and it can hardly be required that it resemble them more than otherwise as a condition of its coming into existance. Nor is it accurate to imply, as you do above, that acting responsibly is somehow a Western value. It is a feature of any successful human enterprise, in any place or time in this world: what does not act responsibly does not long endure.

It is certainly true that, although there exists a state of national peace between Israel and such Arab states as Egypt and Jordan, a fundamental hostility continues to exist between the peoples of these states and Israel, and that this hostility is often exacerbated by their governments for a variety of purposes. It is certainly possible that this hostility may endure for a long time, regardless of what Israel does or does not do. The establishment of a Jewish state on Arab land, and the consistent defeat of Arab armies by Jews, struck a tremendous blow to Arab pride, particularly galling because they had been long accustomed to viewing Jews as a timorous, frightened, and wholly unmartial people. But so long as a condition of peace holds, so long as these governments see they can gain no benefit by a war against Israel they are certain to lose, this hostility can be lived with. Not all neighbors like each other, and some nurse long and bitter grudges, but so long as they confine their hostilities to private curses in their kitchens, and do not destroy one another's property or assault one another, it is no matter for the police.

It seems to me that you do not give sufficient weight to the possibility that removing some of the most bitter points of friction could act over time to reduce the hostility felt, not only by Arab Palestinians but the Arab and Moslem world at large. An abrasion that is continually scraped over again will certainly stay fresh, but if not continually subject to fresh abuse will at least have a chance to heal over, and grow a new skin. In my view, it is certainly worth trying such a course. The current practice, though it is certainly sustainable for the foreseeable future, cannot really offer any prospect for improvement, only the likelihood things will not deteriorate too much further quickly. That last is, certainly, a thing of some value, from an Israeli point of view.

It is certainly true that, should the leadership of an Arab Palestinian state prove so foolish as to foment and provoke hostilities with Israel, the situation would be essentially what it is today. But there would be this difference: it would have been demonstrated conclusively, to fair-minded people everywhere, that what is viewed by most as the preferable solution to this conflict really is not a workable one. It would become impossible to argue within reason that the onus in this matter lies with Israel, or to deny that a refusal on the part of the other party to accept a condition of peace is the reason the conflict persists.