Meron Benvenisti Has Gone "Soft" - "Soft" Borders, That Is

Meron Benvenisti, Meretz person, former Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem, initiator of the West Bank Data Base Project has this to say about the future:-

All I'm saying is this: even for the sake of argument, let's try a different paradigm. I'm not saying I'm right, but if you try to see the reality not as one of occupation, rather as one of domination, where one community, the Jewish, dominates another, the Palestinian, in a form that is quasi-permanent and that cannot be erased by lowering an iron curtain, then you must begin addressing day-to-day problems that are much more difficult.

As for the Left, the realization that you could have reversed the process, and now it's too late, is hard to bear. As a result, a big part of the Left is unwilling to face this fact. And then it becomes convenient to hide behind the old concept of occupation. So in the 40th year, which is nine months away, we need someone who will stand up and say, "Hey, pals, you know what? Let's look at the possibility that this concept only strengthens the status quo, and let's try 'changing the diskette.'" But I don't succeed in this undertaking, to my great sorrow. It's too difficult.

I'm for what are called "soft borders." Hard, international borders are the most rigid things in the world, and if you undo them you create problems. For example, if you make hard borders to form a Kurdish state in Iraq, you at once create problems in Syria, Turkey and Iran. My philosophy speaks of soft borders. This is a situation where borders do exist, but they don't define sovereignty, don't obligate you to make an absolute distinction between what is done here and what is done there. In a situation of soft borders, you obligate people to create a balance between the interests of one group and those of another. But today all this is just dreaming.