Yitzhak Rabin's Moral Answer to the Israeli Dilemma of Peace and Survival - US News

11/5/2015 Yitzhak Rabin's Moral Answer to the Israeli Dilemma of Peace and Survival - US News times in your history been deserted. All Americans could take pride in President Clinton's splendid eulogy; in the uniqueness of America's compassion and friendship that extended beyond a calculation of narrow national interest; in the honor of the hand outstretched at a time of need to an ally and friend. The president rose to the moment. The hundreds of thousands of people who lined the roadside and saw the American delegation were clearly moved, Of equal significance was the roll call of certain Arab countries (excluding Saudi Arabia) and H l [ th ft especially the emotional speech of King Hussein e a one, a e me, of Jordan. His words referring to Yitzhak and e Leah Rabin as “my brother" and "my sister," h d th fi which Muslims usually reserve for one another, a e capaci O and the tears shed by both the king and his ie a queen, made a deep impression on the Israelis d th d d d for their humanity and ability to overcome the persua e e wl € past. Here, clearly, were keepers of Rabin's flame of peace, continuing a line that began with Egypt's and wary Israelis to late president Anwar Sadat. Itis hard for outsiders to appreciate the effect on accept a compromise. Israelis of the worldwide outpouring of sympathy and condolence, with some 80 nations represented at the funeral. The Israelis are a traumatized people. They have for so long been alone, so long believed they could not rely on anyone but themselves, so long expected the world to stay silent in their times of trouble, The extensive response resonates for a people who remember how the world closed its doors to millions of Jews in the 1930s. Their deaths in the Holocaust were but an obscene multiple of the deaths endured in the crusades and pogroms of earlier centuries when the Jews were betrayed by those who had the power to save them. Israel was to be the end of that vulnerable status of perpetual minority, an end to exile and alienation, and a beginning of a normal and natural form of national existence. Israel was home, the new home in the old country, proclaiming that the Jews had formed a self-reliant community and did not need others to fight their battles for them. Now they had their future defined by their own family; the farmer, the kibbutznik, the jet pilot, the shopkeeper, the schoolteacher could coalesce with a traditional language, with their own bible, their own culture. This self-reliance is a matter of great pride. Jews could look after their own family. When the Jews were kidnapped in Entebbe, Uganda, it was the Israelis who took care of it. A Jewish majority could eliminate Jewish vulnerability, and with their own state, the Israelis could, they thought, be like alll other nations and like everyone else. The passion for wanting to be normal extended to the notion that to be accepted, Jews did nat have to justify themselves by winning the Moral Man of the Year Award every year — at the cost of their own survival. To be 10 percent more moral than other nations would make them a light unto the world; if they were expected to be 50 percent more moral, they would be dead. [READ: One State Over the Status Quo] And yet Israel cannot be just another secular country. This very land forces the Jews into a dialogue with their religious past. The land was defined through religion, through the divine promise to Abraham, the covenant with the Father and the covenant with the people of Israel. For many religious Zionists, the victory of the Six-Day War, and the subsequent opening to resettlement of the greater land of Israel, were clear signs that God was guiding the secular Zionist revolution toward the ultimate realization of the prophetic vision of history. That is why, for some religious Jews, admitting the existence of a Palestinian nation whose homeland is the Holy Land is tantamount to violating the integrity of the Jewish people's covenantal identity. But the Jews faced a dilemma. They had come home to find peace and safety, only to find that their neighbors also claimed this tiny piece of land as their home. Even worse, how do you share a home with someone who says: "You have no right to be here"? Itis the great contribution of Yitzhak Rabin that has brought a moral answer to this dilemma. There are those Israelis who emphasize self-reliance and remember Rabbi Hillel's saying, "If | am not for myself, who is for me?" Rabin understood Rabbi Hillel had a second part: “When | am for myself, what am I?" He saw that the Jews could not control 2 million Arabs without frequent resort to a violence that would erode the moral and Jewish character of the state and, with that, its support in the world. He sought a new definition of Israeli strength and normalcy that incorporated not just military power but also moral and economic fortitude. He decided to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine and any pretense that Israel could become a http:/Avww.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2015/1 1/04/yitzhak-rabins-moral-answer-to-the-israeli-dilemma-of-peace-and-survival HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_010755 2/4