On elections and fences
Israel should allow Palestinians to stand on their own two feet
Palestinian identity was created as a result of a 100-years-war against Zionism. They still need this clash in order to develop their national founding narrative.
On the other hand, many nations have created national identities on the heels of conflicts with other nations. One might even say that Israeli nationhood would break apart if freed from the fears that occupy it.
Are we preventing the Palestinians from standing on their own two feet? It would be good, not to mention just, to allow them to prove that internal splits can be healed when set aside.
Setting conditions
We have conditioned easing our grasp on the Palestinians' fate by insisting armed groups be disarmed.
It's incredible, really: The Americans are pushing Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas to push off elections in the PA, scheduled for January, but Abbas says he wants to stand by his word and hold elections as scheduled.
In other words, the standard bearer for world democracy, the United States, is afraid to give the Palestinians a true democratic voice, while the leader of the Palestinian Authority is prepared to put his job on the line and take a chance against an ever-strengthening Hamas.
He claims that if these organizations take part in political life, they will begin to act like legitimate political organizations.
Let the Palestinians choose
Abbas may or may not be right, but we would be wise to accept his argument.
We are strong, whereas the tiny Palestinian Authority, even were it to be ruled by Hamas, would be no more threatening to Israel than the other armed gangs currently found on the Palestinian street.
We frequently hear the argument that Israel "should not legitimize ay country that can't bring it to crack down on terrorist organizations."
But I will remind the reader that when the United Nations voted to partition the western Land of Israel, no demand was made for the Jewish State to disarm groups such as Lehi and Menachem Begin's Irgun.
These "rebels" soon integrated into the Israel Defense Force, but the Irgun continued insist on its right to act independently in Jerusalem.
The organization's logo - a gun held over both western and eastern Eretz Yisrael (including the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan) – was the symbol of the official Israeli opposition. And before the group disbanded, Lehi managed to assassinate UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte.
The situation today is admittedly different, as are the players involved, but together with the principle mentioned above, there is another principle worth mentioning: Let others decide their type of political rule for themselves.
A tale of two fences
Separation fences are not unique to this, eastern, side of the Mediterranean.
Out west, Spain's got a similar fence between Morocco and Ceuta and Melilla, two towns on the southern edge of the Strait of Gibralter and the last European enclave on the African continent.
It is only a short distance between poor Morocco and rich Spain; because of this, thousands of Africans try to infiltrate Ceuta and Melilla each year.
Most come from sub-Saharan countries, cross the desert and then try to cross the fence.
Most don't make it. Thousands have been caught and jailed, hundreds killed or die of starvation and/ or exhaustion.
In the most recent incident, hundreds of people stormed the fence, only to be met with the drawn rifles of the Spanish army. 15 people died.
Their deaths caused exactly two minutes of news, and then – silence. The Europeans, who paid for the fence, will not permit hungry people looking for jobs to come en masse to their territories.
Like the Europeans, we, too, deport infiltrators looking for work from our country. The difference is that our separation fence is not meant to keep out innocent people looking for jobs, but rather, murderers looking for our blood.
If 15 Palestinians looking for work were killed trying to break through the West Bank separation fence, one can only imagine the protests that would emanate from Europe.
If only our fence were built on the Green Line, as it should have been, we would be able to hold a mirror up to the Europeans to prove their hypocrisy.
But it wasn't, and so we have been denied this pleasure.
