Like her family, if sometimes more subtly, Pelham too inclines towards sympathy for the Arabs. Hence, although her ethnicity may make her "unlikely", she is nonetheless a "settler" in their land. And this description is revealing, for she is hardly a raving Zionist ideologue living in a West Bank hilltop caravan. Instead, she lives in a comfortable house on Jerusalem's swanky Emek Refaim, a street decidedly on the Israeli side of the armistice line. Yet she still views herself as a settler, the implied analogy being that just as she is a foreigner in this land, so are the Jews — and not just the settler Jews on the other side of the armistice line, but also those Jews on the Israeli side, where she lives. Hence her anxious fixation on the fact that an Arab family once lived in her house, and her detailed account of how the regular tours of foreign Arabs descended from those displaced from the neighbourhood routinely harass Jewish locals who now reside there. Judging by the mentality of the tour leaders and participants, they do not seem likely to be appeased by the establishment of an Arab state limited to the other side of the armistice line. If anything, such a state would just encourage further Arab designs on that and other Israeli neighbourhoods.
Why is this? Because the fundamental disagreement is not over Israel's presence in the territories — it is not a 1967 problem. It is, instead, a 1948 problem: the very establishment of Jewish sovereignty itself. Due to a war initiated by the Arabs to prevent that outcome, 1948-49 brought about the displacement of several hundred thousand Arabs who now reside in the territories and abroad. Of course, just as Israel absorbed hundreds of thousands of Jewish migrants (including many pressured to leave Arab lands in the wake of Israel's birth), so the Arabs should have absorbed their brethren. Instead, they have, in part for anti-Israel propagandistic reasons, left them to languish, encouraging them to keep up their demand to return to the Israeli side of the armistice line, destroy the Jewish state and thus win the 1948 war, which the 1949 armistice, by definition, only paused.
For Avi Shavit, a longtime journalist for Israel's liberal daily Haaretz, this 1948 problem is Zionism's original sin, a curse on his "promised land". His book, My Promised Land, is a personal reflection on the history of the pre-State Jewish Yishuv and of the State of Israel, relying on diaries and accounts of deceased individuals, such as his British great-grandfather, and interviews with living personalities, including politicians, writers, Tel Aviv nightclub owners and successful businessmen.
Shavit shows a degree of pride in Zionism's many achievements. But for all of Zionism's triumphs, the naqba (the "catastrophe", as the Arabs refer to Israel's founding) also makes Zionism a tragedy: the Jews needed somewhere to go but, this narrative explains, the destination was already occupied, so justice for the Jews was an injustice to the Arabs. Consequently, Shavit is also fixated on the Arabs and, like most liberal commentators, deprives them of any agency whatsoever, causing him to distort elements of Israeli history and rendering many of his interpretations dubious. However, to his credit he recognises this tragedy to be a 1948 problem and not a 1967 problem. Therefore while he affirms his longstanding opposition to Israel's presence in the territories on moral grounds (it is "illegal, immoral and irrational"), he nonetheless acknowledges that a withdrawal to the 1949 armistice line will not actually bring peace and that therefore the Oslo Accords were fated to fail.
Why is this? Because the fundamental disagreement is not over Israel's presence in the territories — it is not a 1967 problem. It is, instead, a 1948 problem: the very establishment of Jewish sovereignty itself. Due to a war initiated by the Arabs to prevent that outcome, 1948-49 brought about the displacement of several hundred thousand Arabs who now reside in the territories and abroad. Of course, just as Israel absorbed hundreds of thousands of Jewish migrants (including many pressured to leave Arab lands in the wake of Israel's birth), so the Arabs should have absorbed their brethren. Instead, they have, in part for anti-Israel propagandistic reasons, left them to languish, encouraging them to keep up their demand to return to the Israeli side of the armistice line, destroy the Jewish state and thus win the 1948 war, which the 1949 armistice, by definition, only paused.
For Avi Shavit, a longtime journalist for Israel's liberal daily Haaretz, this 1948 problem is Zionism's original sin, a curse on his "promised land". His book, My Promised Land, is a personal reflection on the history of the pre-State Jewish Yishuv and of the State of Israel, relying on diaries and accounts of deceased individuals, such as his British great-grandfather, and interviews with living personalities, including politicians, writers, Tel Aviv nightclub owners and successful businessmen.
Shavit shows a degree of pride in Zionism's many achievements. But for all of Zionism's triumphs, the naqba (the "catastrophe", as the Arabs refer to Israel's founding) also makes Zionism a tragedy: the Jews needed somewhere to go but, this narrative explains, the destination was already occupied, so justice for the Jews was an injustice to the Arabs. Consequently, Shavit is also fixated on the Arabs and, like most liberal commentators, deprives them of any agency whatsoever, causing him to distort elements of Israeli history and rendering many of his interpretations dubious. However, to his credit he recognises this tragedy to be a 1948 problem and not a 1967 problem. Therefore while he affirms his longstanding opposition to Israel's presence in the territories on moral grounds (it is "illegal, immoral and irrational"), he nonetheless acknowledges that a withdrawal to the 1949 armistice line will not actually bring peace and that therefore the Oslo Accords were fated to fail.
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