Olmert Prepares Israel for Peace According to Bismarck

As with the Annapolis conference, expectations are set reasonably low for President George Bush’s current visit to Israel.   In fact, events of the past few weeks suggest that relations between Israel and the Palestinians have taken a step or two backwards.   Optimism can be drawn, however, from the recent comment made by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in the Jerusalem Post. He is quoted as saying that the world “that really supports Israel, when it speaks of the future…speaks of Israel in terms of the ’67 borders. It speaks of the division of Jerusalem.” In other words, the “good guys,” the United States, England, Germany, and France all support a two state solution with Jerusalem as a shared capital. Olmert is, no doubt, preparing the Israeli public for what is to come.

One reaction to this statement is indignation. Israel must decide upon its own destiny and shouldn’t answer to others, even if they include the super powers that finance the Israeli military effort. There are lots of examples we can point to where Israel took matters into its own hands despite opposition from the Americans.

Another reaction is “good, someone is telling us to do what is truly for our own good.” Those of us who believe that the occupation is intrinsically bad for Israel and for a socially just Jewish state welcome this type of friendly pressure from the “good guys.”

I recently heard MK Yossi Beilin, the outgoing leader of the Meretz party, say that Olmert has been reflecting upon his family’s past as leaders and activists in the right-wing Revisionist Zionist movement. He reports that Olmert now says that his father, who opposed Ben Gurion’s support for the UN Partition Plan of 1947 was wrong.

Like former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon before him, Olmert is acknowledging that the Revisionist ideology calling for a Jewish state in the Greater Land of Israel is obsolete and is adopting the slogan “politics is the art of the possible.” When searching for the source of this quote (Otto Von Bismarck, Chancellor of the German Empire, 1869) I discovered that there was an interesting continuation. The full quote is “Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable – the art of the next best.”

Some may call the inevitable two state solution the best possible arrangement for the people of the region, while others, like Olmert, may view it as the “next best.” The inescapable fact is that Israel’s best friends in the world are behind such a solution and Israel would be wise to move with haste towards that objective, particularly in a world rife with regional conflicts.

While Israel and the Palestinians stagger down this path to peace, it is worthwhile to note that Ha’aretz reported last week that “this year, 2007, saw the fewest Israeli deaths from Palestinian violence since 2000. A report issued by the B’Tselem human rights group recorded 11 Israelis — seven civilians and four soldiers — killed by Palestinian terrorists and guerrillas in 2007. The report did not include the recent killing of two off-duty Israeli soldiers in the West Bank, which raises the 2007 death toll to 13. In 2006, 23 Israelis were killed by Palestinians, and the toll reached triple figures in years prior to that.”

This Ha’aretz report reminded me of an observation Labor MK Ami Ayalon shared with me when Ameinu hosted his visit to the United States in 2005. Ayalon served as head of the Shin Bet, the Israeli Security Services, during a period in the 1990s when Israeli deaths from Palestinian violence were at an all-time low. He credited the drop not to his and his staff’s brilliance but to two main factors: cooperation with Palestinian security forces and a sense of hope on the Palestinian street. I believe that the similar drop in 2007 can be credited to those factors, as well as to the West Bank security barrier.  Using Ayalon’s line of thinking, this trend will only continue if the momentum towards peace is maintained.   As our Arab cousins say, Inshallah, may it be God’s will.

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