I am not Israeli, nor am I a Zionist. (As an American Jew, I identify as a pro-Zionist non-Zionist, to make a distinction - a la the 1956 Blaustein-Ben Gurion agreement - that has become, unfortunately, a bit anachronistic.)
Isn't that a bit...backwards? After all, even in 1956 that was a bit out-of-touch.
And in that piece he wrote:-
...why not create space for both groups [Israelis and Arabs] to express their identities side by side, in civility, without requiring either to adulterate theirs to accommodate the other’s?
If Israel has a flag, seal and anthem that speak to Jewish history, why not allow Israel’s Arab minority to have its own symbols and standards that speak to Arab identity? If Jewish schools teach Jewish history, why not grant the Arab sector autonomy over its own educational curricula?
Sure, working out the contours of Arab autonomy would be a challenge, and this approach does come with its own attendant dangers. But it may be the best way of heading off calls for stripping Israel of its Jewish attributes. And it does so by offering a Zionist-friendly response to the post-Zionist challenge.
Why not?
Because they are not a state nor a separate autonomous entity and because they only want those symbols so as to deny them to the Jews. The Jews have been very civil in suggesting the yielding of their national homeland's territory in pre-state and post-state years. Israel has the "Peace Now" groups; the Arabs don't.
I hope The Forward's op-ed pages will be pluralistic and forward-looking. (One can hope, yes? It's Israel's national anthem after all)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment