Rhinocrisy

Jon’s post this morning got me thinking about Israel again. I find much of the discussion about its conflicts to be irrelevant. I don’t think the abrasion between Israel, Palestine and their neighbors can be solved by trying to assign blame for specific actions and wars. It’s much more useful to look at the structural conflict and to seek ways to resolve it.

Maybe the problem is that Israel is an ethnically based state — and one imposed on a region where its dominant ethnicity was a minority at the country’s founding. Ethnic states are archaic. Ethnic states run by a minority fell out of fashion before I started humming “Free Nelson Mandela.”

It’s fashionable for peaceniks to push for a 2-state solution. I think this is doomed to fail. Who will be in which state? Who gets the airports, seaports, fresh water? Will the world keep dissecting into smaller units, each devoting its best and brightest to defending a border?

Why not a 1-state solution, with Israel accepting full human and civil rights for all those who live there? It’s sad that even here in the U.S., which was the first country based on the notion of inalienable rights, this is a controversial view.

I believe such a state would be more stable and healthy for both Palestinians and Jews because of improved prosperity. More minds working on problems, less money spent on internal security, more food security for all, and if other prosperous but historically torn societies are any gauge (England vs. Ireland?) fewer people feeling the passion of a blood feud. Israel could live up to its moniker of being the only democracy in the Middle East.

There is a reason why there are more Jews in the U.S. than there are in Israel — it’s a more prosperous place. Our prosperity is largely because we have eschewed the 16th-century ideal of being an ethnic homeland (despite some people’s efforts).

Many Jews and Zionists think full rights for Arabs would betray Israel’s mission of being a Jewish homeland. The country could soon revert to being minority-Jew, and the Knesset could be dominated by people who oppose Israel’s very existence.

This risk is real. On the other hand, being a more peaceful and prosperous place, perhaps more Jews would move there. And more importantly, making it a better country could help save the religion. I was born a Jew but if I’m supposed to identify with that homeland, I’ll stick to atheism and stay out of shul. The U.S. is the Jewish homeland for now, and I think it will remain that way unless Israel backs off and figures out how to be a functioning part of the modern world, rather than, like its Islamic Republic neighbors, a relic of a more tribal time. As is, it is driving some of us away from the religion without creating paradise on earth for itself.

(Cross-posted from Tiny Revolution.)