Recognize Israel Now! Tear Down That Wall!

Dr. Robert D. Crane

Posted Jul 5, 2006      •Permalink      • Printer-Friendly Version
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Recognize Israel Now! Tear Down That Wall!

by Dr. Robert D. Crane

The Palestinians universally support the bargaining of one Israeli soldier for the release of 10,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israel jails.  Even if only 5,000 Palestinian prisoners would be released, including all who have been held in prison for more than twenty years, that would be a good time for Hamas to back the “prisoners proposal” for de facto recognition of Israel.

  Although there reportedly is no word in Hebrew for “de-escalate,” it seems to be a good time for the Israeli government to do it anyway.  Otherwise more Israeli soldiers will be captured as a legal substitute for blowing up civilians.  The good news may be that suicide bombings may stop now that Hamas is in charge.  Twenty years is a bit late, but better late than never.

  My advice requested for Prime Minister Isma’il Haniya’s first foreign policy speech was to recognize Israel immediately and then start bargaining, because in international law recognition of a government does not constitute approval or even recognition that the particular country has a moral right to exist.  This was too subtle for Palestinian politics at the time, but perhaps it would be acceptable now if the Israeli government wants to avoid Kahane’s “final solution” in what I would call the boomerang or blowback strategy of inevitable national suicide. 

  Israel has zero chances of existing a hundred or even fifty years from now, so the sooner some kind of Abraham federation is underway, the better, especially since the process may take a couple of decades.  I don’t know why Hamas is so hung up on the recognition of Israel.  The Muslims have the upper hand from the perspective of global history, so the Arab Palestinians should follow an appropriate long-range strategy.  From this perspective, recognition is irrelevant, and so is the exclusivist religious state of Israel. 

  Both the Jews and the Muslims better start cooperating now to undo the mistakes of a hundred years.  There are only two possible options.  Either the Jews in the Holy Land will start re-thinking their identity so that they can start cooperating with the Muslims there in fulfilling their God-given mission of seeking universal justice, or they both will be annihilated.

  Either Zionism will be perverted into worship of oneself through political and military aggrandizement, which is the descent into hell, or it will be understood in its spiritual sense of true aliya, which in both ancient Hebrew and Arabic means ascent.  Zionism indeed is a means to survival.  Spiritual Zionism means the return to God.

  The transformation of identity must be mutual, and it must be based on mutual recognition that over the centuries the Jews and Muslims have been each other’s most reliable friends.

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