On 2010-03-17, at 6:27 AM, David B. Shemano wrote: > Is there any evidence that there are a meaningful number of Jews and Arabs > that have any desire to live as equal citizens in a democratic secular state > in which neither Jews nor Arabs have a power majority?
Not today, but a peace settlement which resulted in a viable Palestinian state would remove the roots of the conflict and begin a process of reconciliation which could over time lead to federation based on mutual economic and political interest. When there was only the promise of a settlement following the Oslo accords, there were immediate and growing exchanges and collaboration between Israeli and Palestinian intellectuals as well as the first challenges to the notion of a "Jewish state" by "revisionist" Israeli historians which alarmed staunch Zionists. > Where is the historical evidence that such a state in the region could be > successful? Europe is the best example of a region where historic emnities, especially those which existed between France and Germany, can be overcome. > The closest analogy would be Lebanon, and we can see how that turned out. The sectarian divisions which erupted in civil war in Lebanon are considerably more muted today. The current electoral alliance between the largest Christian party headed by Michel Aoun and Hezbollah was once as wildly improbable as an alliance between a major Palestinian and major Israeli party would be today. > The fundamental problem is that the Jews want to be ruled by Jews, and the > Arabs want to be ruled by Arabs, and any suggestion by outsiders that the > solution is that Jews shouldn't care if they are ruled by Arabs and Arabs > shouldn't care if they are ruled by Jews, or they should stop thinking of > themselves as Jews/Arabs and instead simply as uni-Palestinians, is pure > ethnocentric fantasy. Inviting the Turks back to rule has a better chance of > winning acceptance and achieving success. This presumes history is static rather than dynamic. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
