The Critical Offer

by Yitzhak Nir

  “What a speech! You’re not very optimistic, are you, Adam?” Gershon threw at him.

  “Right, friends. I’ve had enough. I’ve done my evening service to Gershon. I’m going home. Are you coming, Adam?”

  “Dahlia, don’t be angry, but I need Adam to stay a while longer.”

  “Great. Continue gossiping without me. Just don’t forget, Chief, that you’re getting up tomorrow at six. We have a full day’s work ahead of us, as usual. I hope you won’t disappear on me at noon. The country is still depending on you. Good night!” She rose, leaving the empty coffee cups on the table.

  The howling of the dogs grew louder, and the crickets’ sonata rose to an annoyingly nervous crescendo on the dark lawn.

  Vector

  “Adam, since you’ve stayed behind, you know that I’m deliberating about whether or not to resign from my job.’“

  Adam stared into his empty wineglass, rolling it in his hands from side to side and finally abandoning it on the table.

  “Gershon, are you prepared to have an adult conversation?”

  “Sure, if we’re already here…”

  “Okay,” Adam began. “In my opinion, the Zionists’ moves at the beginning of the twentieth century after the Zionist Congress in Europe were a historical mistake. Herzl knew that there were Arabs living here, but his friends, the Russian Jews Lovers of Zion movement, weren’t prepared to listen. Today, after a hundred and twenty-eight years, we’re feeling the results.”

  “And what are those results, Adam?”

  “Do you remember from aerodynamics lessons what a ‘vector’ is?”

  “Of course I do! A vector is a value in physics that has magnitude, direction and a point of origin,” he declaimed like an actor imitating their old physics teacher, Tchernovitz, who generations ago had taught the principals of aerodynamics in the IAF flight school.

  “Well done! But can you compare Zionism to a vector?”

  “Sure, Adam, don’t test me, please. The Jews in Eastern Europe at the end of the nineteenth century had a point-of-origin, magnitude supplied by their vision and direction, namely, seeking a practical solution for escaping the pogroms in Russia and Poland by building a free, utopian, Jewish society in the land from which they had been exiled eighty generations previously.”

  “Not a bad summary, Chief. And what happened to that vector?”

  “Well, what happened?”

  “I’ll answer in your place: The Zionist vector has brought about the creation of the State of Israel with an ethical vision as formulated in the Proclamation of Independence. But since the Six-Day War that vision has become scattered and the vector has been obliterated. We’ve retreated from Sinai twice, from Lebanon twice and from Gaza once. We’ve undergone a hundred and thirty years of terror, Intifadas and punitive operations. But we are still divided regarding the occupation, the settlements and maintaining control over another people.”

  “Okay, go on.”

  “In my opinion, we are at the last decisive moment: maintaining one state or dividing into two states, and we already might have missed out on the second option. Another retreat, dismantling the settlements, closing ourselves inside the dividing fence and setting up a Palestine of one sort or another, with or without exchange of territories, will bring about the creation of an enemy country, wars against that country and civil war between the Jews. It will not bring peace, just as the retreat from Lebanon or Gaza did not. And our majority, as is well known, is not prepared to give the Palestinians an independent state. Banishment or voluntary transfer will not occur, so the path we are taking must determinately lead to annexation and apartheid. From there the way is paved to civil nationalism, an Arab prime minister and a state in which Jews are a minority. We and the Palestinians are like Siamese twins: it is impossible to separate us, whether economically or demographically.”

  “Agreed. So what is your solution, Adam?”

  “Tell me, Gershon, do you still read books?”

  “Less in recent years.”

  “That’s too bad. Read Amos Oz’s book Peace for the Fanatics: Three Thoughts. There he describes in clear language what I am attempting to portray in my own limited way.”

  “Don’t be modest. You’re expressing yourself very clearly. Unfortunately, I can only listen without commenting as long as I occupy my present position… I understand that you already consider the situation to be irreversible.”

  “Not yet. Only history is irreversible. The future, and definitely the future here, can still be influenced by us. But wait, Gershon. I still haven’t enumerated the threats.”

  “Which threats?”

  “The threats to Zionism,” Adam rose, took hold of a teaspoon and began using it as a pointer, as though he was briefing his pilots before a combat mission:

  “A: The Palestinians’ aspiration to throw us into the sea: their desire to free themselves from occupation and receive full equality and political independence, and not be locked inside a sovereign prison, adds tons of fuel to their ambitions. Historically there has never been a nation that ruled another one forever… maybe only in America and Canada, where the Indians were annihilated by uncompromising ethnic cleansing. There was a historical situation in our War of Independence when that might have been possible, but it has vanished forever.” Then he continued: “Palestinian aspirations rest on extremist global Islam. Fanatical religious terror will claim many victims on the road towards the destruction of culture as we know it, and such an agenda is alive in the hearts of many Palestinians. Al-Qaeda and ISIS are only a foretaste of the Great-Islamic-Revolution, Al-intifada-Kabira that is destined to take place sooner or later.”

  “So what does that say about us?”

  “Gershon, we’re not in America. Jews, extreme as they may be, could never carry out ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians by means of force, and nobody would dare issue such an order. We’re not Sparta. So we’re Siamese twins for eternity.”

  “Okay, I understand. It’s obvious, Adam, that you’ve studied the conflict thoroughly… so go ahead.”

  “Wait a minute Chief, I’ll just mention B -

  B: The Demographic issue threat. Within one generation, the Arab Palestinians will be the majority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. This threat alone puts the whole Zionist dream of a Jewish state in jeopardy. ”

  “Well Adam, this is common knowledge. Go ahead, it’s getting late…”

  “You are right Gersh, so listen –

  C: The Iranian nuclear bomb: Before your grandson, that adorable kid, Shalom, gets married, those guys will have enough missiles, bombs and the determination to use them to wipe us off the face of the earth. No matter how much, and at tremendous expense, we enlarge our anti-missile alignment, including Arrows, David’s Slings and Iron Domes, And maybe some high-powered laser canons like Skyguard, there will always be enough missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, which will manage to infiltrate our anti-missile alignment. There’s no such thing as an airtight anti-missile alignment. One bomb will be enough to destroy Israeli sovereignty in the region. Furthermore, although Syria is no longer an existential threat, during its civil war it became a territorial extension of Iran. With Russian support the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is situated on our northern border. Iran is here! It would be enough if North Korea launched some little plutonium bomb towards America; in the ensuing chaos, the Iranians might well try out their nuclear power on us.”

  “Yes, that’s a problem for which no solution has yet been found.”

  “So Gersh, we are coming to D –

  D: The deep schisms among us. We spoke about that at the Sabbath gathering with Professor Safran and Benny Yungerman, and also with Dahlia today: Feuds between brothers and unjustified hatred caused our two temples to be destroyed, and as is written in the Book of Proverbs: Where there is no vision, the people perish and a loss o
f values - what do you get? Internal collapse! And if you consider that there is far less motivation to serve in combat units and that our best officers are leaving the army for tempting high-tech positions, the problem is continually worsening. Thus a probable inner collapse is likely to enable the first three major threats, A, B and C to become a reality…”

  “Wow, Adam. That was short, to the point and conjures up very depressing thoughts. Is there anything that can be done about it?” Gershon asked, returning to practicality.

  “Look, in no more than two generations, all hypothetical solutions - whether two states for two nations, three states for two nations, one nation for all its citizens or two nations - one homeland, including President Trump’s recent New Deal - will ultimately bring about the end of Zionism as visualized and dreamed of by Herzl, Ben-Gurion and the authors of our Proclamation of Independence.”

  “And why is that?”

  “I have a story for you that can illustrate my point: In the old days, when complaints about the service on El Al flights threatened to bring about the airline’s collapse, the board of directors invited a senior United Airlines flight attendant to fly El Al, observe what was happening and report her findings. So for six months she flew as an observer. When the directors gathered to hear her report, to their astonishment she summed it all up in one perfect English sentence: ‘Gentlemen; There is nothing wrong with your service. But, there is something wrong with your passengers!’”

  “Yes,” Gershon laughed, I’ve already heard that one; not a bad analogy…”

  “Thanks. And also, have you ever heard about the Palestinian fusion scheme for the whole territory from the river to the sea?”

  “Not officially.”

  “That’s the main point of the deterministic process: paradoxically, the craving of most settlers to annex Judea and Samaria fits in perfectly with the ambition of the Arabs of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, to create one state with an Arab majority and equal rights, in which both peoples would fuse together in coming generations. All the Arabs of Gaza and the West Bank have learned the lesson of the Israeli Arabs. Do you know what it is, Chief?”

  “Without riddles, Adam. It’s getting late and I’m still in charge of a major national institution.”

  “Aye, aye sir!” Adam saluted briefly and smiled. “Please note: There is no better place for a Palestinian in the whole world than to live in Israel as a citizen with equal rights.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “It means that the basis of the Palestinians’ real aspirations is not the declarations of their leaders, but full integration with us! They do not want a separate state! Therefore they have rejected all proposals and will continue to do so. They understand that progress and being raised out of the cycle of inferiority and humiliation will only be achieved by one state, the magnificent state that has been built by us, the Jews. And hopefully, over the years they will be the majority in it.

  “Aha, so that’s what you think?”

  “Definitely. We are single-handedly dragging ourselves and our future in that direction!”

  “Adam, we haven’t got an alternative people or an alternative state, ‘A state to spare’ as Rabin, may he rest in peace, called it. So what do we do about it?” he asked rhetorically.

  “Like the rest of us, Gersh, you’re stuck. Climb out of the box! There’s a whole world out there; life is going on! Not everything begins and ends with ‘the Jewish people and the Jewish state’! The world is undergoing vast tectonic changes. Whole populations are being forced to wander the earth. Europe, Turkey and Jordan have absorbed six million Syrians, the migration from Africa to Europe by sea and by air has only just begun and extremist Islamists are terrifying the West, which has no clue how to deal with them. America is cutting off contact with the Middle East, Russia, Iran and Turkey are dividing Syria and Iraq among themselves, and Europe and America are falling to pieces. China is becoming the emerging world power!”

  He got to his feet and turned to face the crickets on the lawn:

  “And what are we doing? We’re continuing to jerk off after fifty-eight years, endlessly bickering about two states for two peoples, blah, blah, blah, and waiting for Clinton from Lewinsky or Bush from the bush or the black man from Hawaii or Donald from Twitter or whoever their next president will be to save us! And the fact that it’s clear to everyone that America, which no longer needs oil from the Middle East, is still licking its wounds after two unsuccessful wars in our region and is cutting off its contact, as it no longer has any real interests here, beside selling weapon to the whole region in order to keep its economy alive!” Adam said heatedly.

  “Continue.”

  “Look, if the question is how to preserve the Jewish people from assimilation, that’s another matter. But if you think, like I do, that the best solution would be absorption and assimilation, as is already happening in the United States, and our clerical government in its stupidity is causing that trend to become stronger, then we’re talking about something else altogether.”

  Adam sipped some wine, filled his lungs with air and continued: “One way or another, burying one’s head in the sand in the ‘indifferent way of thinking,’ as we used to say, annexing the West Bank and naively hoping for good - will ultimately play into the hands of those who support a state with an Arab majority: democratic in the best case, steeped in blood in the worst, and an end to the Zionist vector in either case! There are enough fanatics on both sides… If Herzl was resurrected and saw what was happening here, he would definitely say: ‘This is not what I intended...’”

  “Alright, so that is the bad news. What about some glad tidings?”

  “As it says in the well-known joke, ‘In the meantime everything is fine.’ But you like quoting Albert Einstein, who said that ‘making the same mistakes time after time and expecting different results is total madness.’ At the moment the balance is still in our favor, but the bubble is liable to burst in our faces, and not necessarily in the far distant future.”

  “And where do you stand, Adam?”

  “Who, me? I’ve decided. I no longer have expectations: Assimilation! My daughter is already not Jewish. I intend to join the million Israelis, their children and grandchildren who’ve left, descended, if you wish. For them the Zionist vision is finished. But you, Gersh, you want to save Zionism. So go for it! And for that purpose I have a spectacular vision for you.”

  “A spectacular vision?”

  “Something a bit futuristic…”

  “Come on, tell me!”

  “Well, try to imagine this scenario: a huge spaceship, a kind of extraterrestrial Noah’s Ark, lands in central Tel Aviv. All the Israelis who choose to leave climb aboard. It takes off in a whirl and flies to the planet Restart Two in the Ordon Galaxy. There they rebuild the Jewish utopian entity without resistance. It will be a real light to the nations… And that light will only be visible via the Hubble Telescope.” He smiled.

  “A bit far-fetched, isn’t it?”

  “The world is turning and we’re at a crossroads. If we don’t do something to save ourselves from the swamp we’re sinking into, we’ll either drown or be transferred to a different swamp by somebody or other. But, if we continue like this - crawling towards a binational state, destroying internal unity and getting involved in violent wars for survival, with a possible civil war on the horizon - it’s a losing battle.” He bowed his head, stared fixedly at his hands and added, “Me? I’m about to pull my yellow-black ejection seat lever. My Zionist train is like the line that appears in your favorite Hebrew song, ‘Against the Wind’: ‘…I don’t know if she’s real or a dream; at times she’s heaven and at times she’s a train to hell…’ That train is rushing towards the abyss and the driver is staring into the mirror instead of looking straight ahead and changing course. But meanwhile, in the carriages there’s a wild party going on! Eating, drinking and making merry
, while taking over one carriage after another.”

  Adam might be extreme and sharp-tongued, but he’s nobody’s fool. Facts are facts… Gershon mused. But could I continue serving this government if I agreed with his opinions?

  A cool breeze began to blow. In the distance the howling of the dogs slowly faded and the crickets quieted down in the wet grass.

  “So what’s to be done, Adam?”

  “The question is not ‘what’s to be done’ but ‘who do we want to be?’ as Jean-Paul Sartre once said. Until when will you continue to be a servant to a master, Gersh? Until when will you wait to emerge from your comfortable lair and take the lead? As the prominent Zionist leader, Yitzhak Ben-Aharon, once wrote: ‘Have the courage to change before a calamity.’ That’s your story, Chief. You’ve got to decide!” he concluded softly, looking into his friend’s eyes.

  I’ll defer my deliberations and decisions to a later date. At the moment I have Dr. Zimmerman on my mind…

  “Listen, Ben-Ami, it’s not so simple ‘to wake up in the morning and declare that you’re a nation,’ as the song says. But I’m retiring at the end of the year, and until then…”

  “Gersh! Adam stopped him. “It’s simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. What’s needed here is a serious and keen ‘suicide’ that has the passion, the vision and the leadership qualities. Think about it! You, Gershon, are one of the very few who are causing things to happen...”