ONCE AGAIN ISRAEL FINDS IT HAS NO ALTERNATIVE by Daniel Finkelstein
The Gaza offensive has been a humanitarian and diplomatic catastrophe – but the other options were insupportable
My grandfather was not a Zionist. No, I should go further. He opposed the Zionists, fought them politically. He even wrote a book on the subject, A Critical Journey Through Palestine, which, within a few months of its publication in 1927, went through three editions.
Alfred Wiener had two objections to the Zionist idea. The first was simply – who on earth would want to live in Tel Aviv (or even, heaven forfend, a kibbutz) when they could live in Berlin? What sort of future was that for the Jews? Not one for him, certainly. It would be dangerous, impoverished and difficult.
The second was that he was an Arabist, a serious scholar of Arab history and culture, and thought that the Zionists were condescending to the Arabs, failing to take seriously enough their nationalist ambitions. He wondered whether it would ever be possible for a Jewish state in Palestine to live in peace.
He resented the Zionists for addressing the German Jew “as though he were in banishment”. Being a German and a Jew belonged together, he argued vehemently, and the Jews should stay in Germany. Germany, not Palestine, was their homeland. This, despite the fact that he was already adopting the role for which he is best known, as the leading archivist and campaigner against German antisemitism.
History has shown many of my grandfather’s worst forebodings to be correct. The Zionists had indeed underestimated Arab nationalism and the ambitions and rights of those people who already lived in Palestine. Life would indeed be difficult in Israel for the pioneers and peace impossible to come by.
Yet within six years of publishing his book, my grandfather had to flee Germany to live his life in banishment. The alternative to Zionism that he proposed turned out to be no alternative. Being a German and a Jew did not belong together. Six million of Europe’s nine million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, including my grandmother. In other words, he was right, but also spectacularly wrong.
This example conditions my response to the terrible events in Israel and Gaza these past few weeks.
It is impossible to view the death of so many women and children without being aghast, without seeing it as a dreadful failure. It is a moral disaster. It is a diplomatic catastrophe. Yet it is also impossible to stop there. Just as it is not enough to stop after considering my grandfather’s case against the German Zionists without considering what happened to the alternative he was proposing.
What are the choices for Israel? Let’s start at the end of one of Douglas Alexander’s press releases. The shadow foreign secretary finishes his statements on Gaza with the assertion that “Palestinian statehood is not a gift to be given, but a right to be recognised”. In so far as that means anything, I strongly agree with it. The Palestinians must have a homeland, they have a right to a homeland, in which they can live in prosperity and peace.
As most people agree, this should be broadly consistent with the borders that existed before the 1967 war. And Israel has made the creation of such a state considerably more difficult by its disastrously wrong and ill-considered decision to allow Jewish settlements to be built outside these borders.
Yet in this formulation, there lies a clue. And the clue tells you that establishing this Palestinian right, much as I passionately believe in it, will not be enough. It won’t be enough to ensure that Israel doesn’t have to wage unthinkable wars to protect itself.
The clue is in the idea of returning to the 1967 borders. Because there was a time when Israel lived within those borders, wasn’t there? It lived within them before 1967. And what happened? They had to fight successive wars, in 1948, 1967 and then again in 1973 to be allowed to live inside the borders. It was during the last two wars that it took the land as buffers against invasion. The war against Israel is not caused by the occupation. The occupation is caused by the war against Israel.
And for all that I support a Palestinian state, would its creation really mean peace in the Middle East even if it left Israel alone? The peace that emulates the internal affairs of which neighbour? Egypt? Syria? Lebanon? Iraq? Iran?
I, of course, supported Israel’s withdrawal from occupying Gaza. But unfortunately it has made things worse, not better, and has seen more innocent people die. The response to this has simply been to argue that Israel must “end the blockade”. And, naturally, anything that can safely be done to allow trade and relax restrictions should be done. It is, however, hardly possible to suggest to a country that its best response to a force that is firing rockets at it and building tunnels to allow invasion, is to remove limitations on movement of people and goods.
Alongside all this, there is, of course, another choice. That is to allow Hamas to fire rockets and build tunnels, and to do nothing. Israel would be required to put up with a few civilian deaths, the chance of many more and the need for everyone in the country to rush to air raid shelters all the time. Yet in return it would occupy the high ground and might expect the support of the international community.
To set out this option explicitly is to reveal its absurdity. No democratic government could survive advocating such a policy. And even if they could, it wouldn’t work. Let’s assume (a very big assumption) that failing to respond to Hamas did indeed seize the high ground. Would doing that help? Would the international community protect Israel, if Israel did not protect itself?
Ask the Palestinian refugees starved to death by Assad in a camp outside Damascus as we did nothing. Ask the minorities in Iraq. The West hasn’t the will to intervene and certainly wouldn’t do so before the Jews were being beheaded in the streets or being buried alive.
None of this, not one word, lessens my sorrow, my despair at every Palestinian life that has been lost. Things cannot go on like this. It is a tragedy, it is insupportable.
But Jews are always being told they should learn the lesson of the Holocaust. And yes, one of its most important lessons is that man is capable of great evil and we must struggle against that urge. Yet alongside it Jews learnt the lesson that world opinion didn’t save us. And that by the time the army liberated the camps, most of the people were already dead. Never again.