South Africa’s chief rabbi, Warren Goldstein wonders: What if the conventional wisdom about Israel is wrong?
In today’s world any attempt to explain the Arab-Israeli conflict in terms other than “Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land” and the “denial of Palestinian nationalist aspiration” is often regarded like a declaration that the earth is flat and the center of the universe. But what if this view is wrong? What if, in terms of understanding the Arab-Israeli conflict, we are living in pre-Copernican times? What if the Jewish State that is considered to be the root of all evil in the Middle East were instead the victim?
SOUTH AFRICA’S apartheid history is often invoked against Israel both internationally – by former president Jimmy Carter among many others – and in South Africa by trade union leaders and politicians. But what if the real apartheid of the Middle East is the one directed against the Jews? And what if Israel is more akin to the African National Congress (ANC) – the famous South African liberation organization led by Nelson Mandela and now the governing party?
In South Africa the conflict was caused by a white racist apartheid regime. The ANC was always ready to talk peace, but the regime refused to talk and so the conflict could not be resolved, and the ANC was forced into an armed struggle. Like the ANC, the Israeli government has always been ready to talk peace but has been forced since the birth of the Jewish State into an armed defensive struggle because the anti-Semitic Arab world has not been prepared to talk peace.
The ANC had to wage an armed struggle for many years until finally white South Africans were ready to talk, and then the long-standing conflict was resolved relatively quickly. Unlike the ANC, Israel has not found genuine negotiating partners. And so its struggle continues, and peace remains a distant dream.
WHAT IF Zionism is not colonialism but rather an ancient people’s deep connection to their native, historical and covenantal land? What if the real colonialism is Arab expansionism, which contests a Jewish state on even 1/520th of the area of Arab lands?
