The Despair of Zion

This essay, by Walter Reich, writing for Wilson Quarterly, effectively and eloquently articulates Israel’s very legitimate existential fears – concerns which even the most well-intentioned proponents of the “peace process” don’t adequately address when pushing Israel to make very large, and quite risky, concessions.

A family member grieves at the funeral service for eight Jewish yeshiva students killed in a 2008 attack by a Palestinian gunman. (Photo by Brian Hendler/Getty Images)

Any effort to bring peace between Israelis and Palestinians must reckon with the fact that bitter experience has taught many Israelis to doubt that their foes want a lasting concord.

Meeting a friend in a coffee shop in an old Jerusalem neighborhood, once the home of Jews who had escaped Germany before the Holocaust, I asked him what he wanted most in life. One of the giants of Israel’s academic and intellectual life, my friend has challenged some of the central tenets of his country’s national narrative but is deeply committed to the necessity and justice of Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.

With no hesitation, but with obvious despair, he answered, “I want my children to emigrate.”

Just then his daughter happened to stop by with her husband, greeting her father with a warm hello before hurrying off. He shrugged, and said, “She doesn’t want to go. What can I do?”

My friend’s despair is shared, in one way or another, by many of the Israelis with whom I’ve spoken. It’s a despair based largely on what they believe is a realistic assessment of Israel’s situation in the world and of the ultimate intentions of many, and probably most, Palestinians.

To be sure, lots of Israelis don’t share this despair, don’t talk about it, or use every coping mechanism they can to set it aside and live a normal life. Yet it’s a feeling that, at some level and to some degree, permeates all things in much of the population, and that has frequently emerged in the many conversations I’ve had in recent years with Israelis.

American officials in past administrations have tried—sometimes, as one of them put it recently, religiously, and often blindly and self-deceptively—to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty. But the failure of each effort has deepened Israeli despair.

The Obama administration, too, seems intent on brokering such a peace treaty. For the administration to have any chance to succeed, it will not only have to show Israelis that it understands their despair but convince them that the kind of treaty it wants Israel to accept will be worth the cost because it will result in a real peace—one that will actually last, that’s less threatening than the situation they’re now in, and that will truly and finally end the conflict with the Palestinians. Few Israelis still fantasize that some day Palestinians will accept them with any warmth as neighbors; but they want to live—and to be, at least, left alone.

See full essay here.

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