Israel-Palestine: For Human Values in the Absence of a Just Peace | Page 50

Israel-Palestine: For Human Values in the Absence of a Just Peace

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Statements that the Palestinians do not recognize Israel are thus inaccurate, though recent efforts to have
Israel recognized as a “Jewish state” appear to add an exclusivism to Israel not present in its founding
documents or negotiations prior to the current Netanyahu administration.
iv
The Middle East Study Team discussed the contest of traumas with Avram Burg, former Speaker of the
Knesset, who has written on this in books such as, The Holocaust is Over, We Must Rise from its Ashes
(London: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2008). A more recent discussion of the overcoming of trauma by taking “the
psychological position of the moral third,” capable of acknowledging the pain of the other and one’s own
capacity for evil as well as victimhood, can be found in Jessica Benjamin’s “Acknowledging the Other’s
Suffering,” Tikkun magazine, 30:3, Summer 2015, pp. 15-16, 60-62. The role of this third position
resembles the place of the Spirit in confession, forgiveness, and freedom from anxiety.
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For example, Thomas Friedman’s Op Ed in the NYTimes, ending his former advocacy for the two-state
solution. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/10/opinion/the-many-mideast-solutions.html?smid=nytcoreipad-share&smprod=nytcore-ipad&_r=1 Even as we quote several leaders below, Juan Cole’s analysis of
Friedman’s arguments is a caution against personalizing the causes of the situation: “an Israel determined
to permanently occupy all the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea…”
http://www.juancole.com/2016/02/israel-friedman-of-the-ny-times-surrenders-to-one-state-solution-seesme-apocalypse.html
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/10/opinion/the-many-mideast-solutions.html?emc=eta1
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The report does not repudiate a two-state solution. In fact, it offers a values analysis of efforts toward a
two-state solution following the Oslo Accords. Any political solution entails compromises; values analysis
shows who pays the price for those compromises, who is rewarded, and whether there is reciprocity. A
given set of values does not translate to a fixed result. Thus the Church, for its own moral clarity and
freedom of action, cannot tie itself to a specific policy outcome, even as its principles and values remain
constant.
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See the transcript from President Obama’s March 24, 2015, Press Conference after the end of his second
attempt at a peace process (first with George Mitchell, then with John Kerry):
http://forward.com/opinion/israel/217422/watch-obama-on-bibi-palestinians-reevaluation/
“We’ll continue to engage the Israeli government and the Palestinians and ask them where they’re
interested in going and how they see this issue being resolved. But what we can’t do is pretend that there’s
a possibility of something that’s not there. And we can’t continue to premise our public diplomacy based
on something that everybody knows is not going to happen at least in the next several years. That is
something that we have to — for the sake of our own credibility that we have to be honest about.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu has at times committed to a very limited Palestinian entity, but more frequently
he has stated “no concessions” “no withdrawals.” For instance, from March 14, 2015: “I think that anyone
who is going to establish a Palestinian state today and evacuate lands is giving attack ground to the radical
Islam against the state of Israel,” he said. “This is the actual reality that has formed here in recent years.
Anyone who ignores this is sticking his head in the sand.” Asked if that meant a Palestinian state would not
be established if he were prime minister, Mr. Netanyahu said, “Indeed.” (The New York Times previously
translated this as “correct”; the words are very similar in Hebrew.)
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/03/20/world/middleeast/netanyahu-two-state-solution.html An
October reiteration of his opposition: http://www.huffingtonpost