Telling Our Story Recent Essays on Zionism, the Middle East, and the Path to Peace Einat Wilf Edited by Ayelet Kahane and Batsheva Neuer Copyright Ó 2018 Einat Wilf All rights reserved. 3 Zionism has a story to tell that is not only about Jews or for Jews. Zionism has a story to tell that, when properly understood, has the power to inspire people and peoples to great acts of daring and sacrifice. Zionism tells a simple story: Victimhood is not destiny. A history of marginalization, humiliation, discrimination, persecution, massacres, and even genocide can be transcended. A people, no matter how downtrodden, can find within themselves the power to change their future. The inspirational power of Zionism lay not only in its call to action, but in its vocabulary of human equality, liberty, and dignity. Zionism called upon the Jewish people to take action to achieve their rightful place among the nations as equals—nothing more, nothing less. This was a simple, but compelling, argument: In a world where nations and peoples were increasingly considered to possess a universal right to sovereignty in states of their own, where they could enjoy liberty and dignity, free from the oppressions of empire, the Jewish nation possessed that right as well. The Tower December 15, 2016 4 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr. Einat Wilf is a leading intellectual and original thinker on matters of foreign policy, economics, education, and Israel and the Jewish people. A member of the Israeli Parliament from 2010-2013 on behalf of the Labor and Independence parties, she is considered one of Israel’s most articulate representatives on the international stage. Dr. Wilf has a BA in Government and Fine Arts from Harvard University, an MBA from INSEAD in France, and a PhD in Political Science from the University of Cambridge. Born and raised in Israel, Dr. Wilf served as an Intelligence Officer in the Israel Defense Forces. Dr. Wilf’s past experience includes service as Chair of the Education, Sports and Culture Committee, Chair of the Knesset Sub-Committee for Israel and the Jewish People, and Member of the influential Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in the 18th Knesset. She served as the Baye Foundation Adjunct Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Senior Fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute, Foreign Policy Advisor to Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres, and a strategic consultant with McKinsey & Company. Dr. Wilf is the author of four books that explore key issues in Israeli society: “My Israel, Our Generation,” about Israel’s younger generation; “Back to Basics: How to Save Israeli Education (at no additional cost)”; “It’s NOT the Electoral System, Stupid”; and “Winning the War of Words.” 5 Table of Contents I. TELLING OUR STORY ................................................................................................................................... 7 NO, MAESTRO, THE HOLOCAUST DID NOT CREATE ISRAEL .............................................................................................. 8 JEWISH ACTION – NOT BALFOUR – CREATED ISRAEL .................................................................................................... 10 ANTI-FEMINISM AND ANTI-ZIONISM ........................................................................................................................ 12 INTERSECTIONAL POWER OF ZIONISM ....................................................................................................................... 17 AHEAD OF THE CURVE: ISRAEL’S NATIONALISM IS A MODEL TO EMULATE ........................................................................ 19 SHIMON PERES AND THE DREAMS THAT LIVE ON ........................................................................................................ 22 II. ON WHY THERE IS NO PEACE ................................................................................................................... 24 ISRAEL WILL STAND FAST ....................................................................................................................................... 25 THE WAR ISN’T OVER YET ...................................................................................................................................... 29 THE ISRAELI LEFT WANTS THE PALESTINIANS’ DEFEAT TOO ........................................................................................... 31 ONE STATE VERSUS TWO STATES ............................................................................................................................. 33 ALONGSIDE OR INSTEAD OF ISRAEL: WHICH PALESTINE IS THE U.N. IN SOLIDARITY WITH? .................................................. 37 III. ON WHAT ISRAEL SHOULD DO ................................................................................................................ 40 HOW TO FIGHT JEWISH MAXIMALISTS AT HOME AND ARAB MAXIMALISTS ABROAD .......................................................... 41 PEACE NEEDS CONSTRUCTIVE SPECIFICITY .................................................................................................................. 43 YES TO THE OCCUPATION, NO TO THE SETTLEMENTS .................................................................................................... 47 A LEFT-WING ANNEXATION PROPOSAL ..................................................................................................................... 49 THE SUCCESSFUL DISENGAGEMENT .......................................................................................................................... 51 THE SPEECH EHUD BARAK SHOULD GIVE ................................................................................................................... 53 WHY JERUSALEM WOULD BE BETTER OFF DIVIDED ..................................................................................................... 55 ISRAEL’S NATION-STATE BILL NEEDS BORDERS ........................................................................................................... 57 IV. ON WHAT THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY SHOULD DO .................................................................... 59 OSLO | STAGING THE ‘WHITE MAN’S BURDEN’ .......................................................................................................... 60 A VERY BIG DEAL TO SOLVE A VERY BIG PROBLEM ...................................................................................................... 63 THE U.N. CAN FIND BALANCE IN THE MIDDLE EAST .................................................................................................... 65 THE GREEN LINE STRIKES BACK ................................................................................................................................ 67 A HOW-TO GUIDE FOR MOVING THE U.S. EMBASSY TO JERUSALEM .............................................................................. 69 FINALLY, A PRESIDENT WHO LOOKS AT JERUSALEM LOGICALLY ...................................................................................... 72 ALIGNING POLICY WITH PREFERENCE ........................................................................................................................ 74 V. POSTSCRIPT ............................................................................................................................................. 96 THE BATTLE FOR HEGEMONY IN THE MIDDLE EAST ...................................................................................................... 97 6 I. TELLING OUR STORY The right of the Jewish people to have a country in its own homeland is a universal right, which is reserved for every people – the right to stand on its own authority and to control its fate. As long as the world is divided into some 200 countries, on the basis of the principle of self-determination for peoples and nations, the Jewish people have a right to this. The Palestinian Arabs also have a right to self-determination in part of the country between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. However, their right does not supersede the Jews’ right, just as the Jews’ right in the country does not supersede that of the Arabs. Haaretz June 13, 2017 Zionism was a rebellion against Jewish passivity. To the Jewish people, Zionism carried the message that they need not wait for the Messiah. Rather, they should be their own Messiahs. Zionism, born of the enlightenment, embodied the idea of human agency. Rather than wait for God or Messiah to bring about their salvation, Zionism called upon the Jewish people to be the vehicles of their own redemption. Zionism demonstrated that, even when dealt some of the worst cards in history, humans were active agents, capable of changing the course of their private and collective futures. The Tower December 15, 2016 The idea of Jews as active players in history — as masters of their fate — still grates on the consciousness of peoples and civilizations that were structured on the presumption that the Jews should have headed to the dustbin of history. For too many, the story that Jews could attain something for themselves by operating, as all peoples do, on multiple fronts — diplomatically, economically, militarily — is still so fanciful that to some, the story of Israel only makes sense if presented as a series of handouts by foreign powers with shady motivations. To the chagrin of those who want to put the Jews back “in their proper place,” the State of Israel came into being precisely because Zionist Jews were done entrusting their fate to others. The Algemeiner November 2, 2017 7 No,