Jewish naivete
Now, when the Arab Israeli sector's distinguished public institutions present plans whose not-hidden goal is practical separation from the democratic Jewish state (like return to villages destroyed in the War of Independence and the demand for "cultural autonomy"), Education Minister Yuli Tamir orders the Green Line be redrawn in textbooks. She attributes the decision to three reasons, all of which she calls educational: "the fact there was once a border there cannot be denied," in education "we must begin with the facts" and the education system cannot "ignore international lines."
The education minister is permitted to err, but not to mislead. The Green Line, after all, was never a border. It was, at most, the cease-fire line between Israel and Jordan (and Ehud Olmert, back in the day when he still touted, "Liberated territory shall not be returned" was fond of declaring that very correct claim). The Armistice Agreements noted that the sides viewed the lines as temporary, something to be changed in peace talks slated to take place shortly after the cease-fire.
If the Arabs were to agree that these lines would become the permanent border, Israel would take to the streets dancing with joy. But the Arabs, who did not agree to a Jewish presence in the "Arab space," weren't willing to convert the Armistice Agreements into peace agreements. These facts, to quote Professor Yuli Tamir, "cannot be denied."
It also "cannot be denied" that there are not and never were "international lines" between us and the Palestinians. With Jordan, like with Egypt, Israel agreed on "international lines," and those are drawn on maps. The Green Line, in contrast, is nothing but wishful thinking on the part of the minister and her supporters. And hence, the controversy.
There is a camp, much larger than Tamir's camp, that does not see Judea and Samaria as occupied territory, but as the birthplace of the Jewish people, in which it forged its identity and national, religious and cultural heritage. From where the Jewish people set forth "exiled from our land because of our sins" to a long and difficult exile. That camp cannot agree - certainly not when the conscious concession of parts of the birthplace comes at the initiative of the education minister - to the visual/educational expression of that concession.
Tamir's supporters in academia provide "research" as proof that most textbooks - pity the eyes that read this - say "Judea and Samaria" instead of the accepted "West Bank." The researchers, such as Professor Yoram Bar-Gal, even express academic concern regarding the damage caused children's souls by this "mental map."
And what kind of border is it when the Green Line is marked and the maps read the "West Bank"? Won't that be a "mental border" rooted in ideology? And what damage will be done then? How will those markings advance Tamir's ideology?
After all, the leading forces in Arab Israeli society - like the Islamic Movement and secular intellectuals interwoven in the fabric of Israeli academia - do not recognize the Jewish identity of the state even within the Green Line.
The 1967 lines, we are told, are the lines of Israeliness. So long as we squeezed inside, we were able to build a new, lively, progressive society. Indeed, there were small movements that hyped up the idea of disengagement from the Jewish people and of making its birthplace "Israeli." But the people of the land didn't want the Jews even in the detached form of being "Israelis". And the secular Jewish public, the only place "Israeliness" could come from, also rejected the hybrid.
It is enough to read literature and poetry from those days to know that - exceptions aside - Jewish and Zionist continuity was entrenched and dominant not only in the writings of S.Y. Agnon, Nathan Alterman, Haim Hazaz and Esther Raab. The writers of the Palmach and its poets, S. Yizhar, Moshe Shamir, Haim Gouri, Amir Gilboa and others, like their heirs, the statehood generation, expressed in their writing the desires of all generations of the Jewish people, including support for Zionism and the struggle for sovereignty and political independence. And so it was in academia.
The "Israeliness" of the Green Line lacks the cultural span, and certainly stable national roots, to create an alternative entrenched in Jewish national identity, even in secular dress. The "Israeli" element, if it exists at all outside narrow intellectual borders, is also not built (and not just because of its diminutive stature) to launch a battle for survival when it becomes clear, that despite returning to the Green Line, a battle is still necessary.
In order to have a state in the face of Arab opposition to any non-Arab sovereignty, an indigenous identity lacking a unified national basis will not be enough. If native-born is the key to your right, the Arabs will claim: It is ours first and more just than yours.
An educator, especially the education minister, is supposed to understand these things.
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