Should Israel Exist?

ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER Benjamin Netanyahu was reelected, which was a surprise to the pollsters, and a great disappointment to liberals in both Israel and the United States, including President Obama. It may be that he won reelection by bringing out his base at the last moment with a promise that as long as he was above ground, breathing, and in power, there would never be a Palestinian state, which is directly contradictory to both Israeli and American official policy, which holds that there will indeed eventually be a Palestinian state, if certain conditions are met, including a cessation of terrorism. Shortly after the reelection, Netanyahu backtracked right to where he should have been all along, and where he had always been previously; there will be a Palestinian state, if certain conditions are met. His comment that the establishment of such an entity at this time would only result in its being governed by terrorists is not without merit. And just think; amid all this rancor and turmoil, there was once a time when Jews and Arabs lived peacefully together on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, and that time was before 1948, before the establishment of Israel. There are, believe it or not, well educated Jews who feel that the creation of Israel was a mistake. At least one conservative rabbi, with flowing sideburns and all black clothing, pointed out that Judaism is a religion, not a political party, a superpower, nor a political entity of any sort; but simply - a religion. At least, that was its original intention, long ago, before European imperialism and christian bigotry brought about the diaspora, and the widespread persecution of Jews. They started congregating Zionistically in the Holy Land in the late nineteenth century, Lord Balfour decreed British support of Zionism in the early twentieth century, and when Hitler's behavior in the mid twentieth century created a global sense of guilt, in comes British and American imperialism, and the state of Israel. And that is precisely the situation with which we are all uncomfortably stuck.