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P.A.I.R. - AFTERWORD ********
But Can It Be Done?
We received many comments
from those reading the P.A.I.R. Initiative. Most
comments are favorable and encouraging, and they are very much
appreciated. Others who liked the concept were ambivalent because they
feared that it could not be achieved. We touched briefly on this
concern in the body of the P.A.I.R. Initiative, but it
clearly needs to be addressed more fully
Some critics of our plan
accurately cite the many obstacles that will confront the PAIR
Initiative’s adoption and implementation, and conclude that it is
impossible of attainment. Among the obvious objections are “The
Arabs and the Muslims will never accept this plan,” “the
Western powers will never accept this plan,” “the ‘Third World’
nations will never accept this plan,” and “The United Nations will
never accept this plan,” “even many Jewish people will react
negatively to this plan, although one of its objectives is to make
Israel secure and enable it to live in peace with its neighbors.
But history shows that
attitudes and beliefs can change with time and experience. As it
becomes clear that endless war in the Middle East is a dead end
(literally as well as figuratively) for everyone, and that the
presently fashionable peace proposals “have no legs” (i.e.,
they simply cannot lead us to peace), at some point people o both
sides of the conflict, as well as the outside peacemakers, will begin
to take a serious look at the PAIR Initiative or similar proposals. At
some point, they may realize that they have no choice. While our road
to peace may be a very difficult one, it is the only one that stands a
chance of working.
History also demonstrates
that determination and persistence have time and again overcome
strong, even overwhelming, entrenched opposition to progress, and have
at last brought to pass what was once assumed to be impossible.
One example out of many
of progress ultimately achieved despite seemingly insuperable
obstacles is the woman’s suffrage movement in America. A century ago
women were denied the right to vote. This obvious injustice against
all women, black and white, rich and poor, was deeply entrenched in
our society. The very notion that women could have equal rights with
men, including equal political rights, seemed to be an impossible
Utopian vision to many people. One historian of the women’s suffrage
movement has remarked that “Although Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth
Cady Stanton devoted 50 years to the woman’s suffrage movement,
neither lived to see women gain the right to vote. But their work and
that of many other suffragists contributed to the ultimate passage of the 19th amendment in 1920.” The struggle of the suffragettes was long and bitter and required well over fifty years of intense effort - even in a nation as relatively enlightened as America. Yet persistence in struggling for what is right, by peaceful means, ultimately paid off.
The struggle to recreate the
Jewish nation in its ancient homeland, despite all of the immense
obstacles in the way of accomplishing this, and the two thousand years
that had passed since the Jews lived in their own land with some
degree of sovereignty, is another example of how a seemingly
impossible social objective can be achieved, with enough determination
and the passage of some time. Just as the difficulties faced by the
Jewish people through the ages have been immense, so have their
achievements, despite these obstacles, been remarkable. We need to be
reminded of something that we already know but sometimes forget - and
that is the achievement, in recent times, by the Zionist movement
begun by Theodore Herzl.
For two millennia Jews were a
dispersed, persecuted, oppressed, and vulnerable, minority, with no
army and no country. In 1897 Theodore Herzl, a journalist with limited
resources, launched a movement to re-establish a Jewish State in the
biblical homeland of the Jewish People, and after an absence of nearly
2,000 years. It was an ‘impossible’ feat, never before
accomplished in recorded history. Yet fifty-one years later, in
1948, the modern, restored, State of Israel declared its independence.
And this independence was actually achieved, despite the loss of one
third of all Jews in the Holocaust, despite the violent opposition of
the Arab states, and even despite the sabotage of the Mandatory power,
Britain, that had been entrusted by the League of Nations with
responsibility for facilitating the building of the Jewish National
Home. And sixty years later, the tiny nation of Israel has developed
into a regional power with a modern economy and major achievements in
the arts and sciences. And all this has been accomplished in
spite of the multiple wars for survival forced on Israel, the
continued active hostility of many nations, as well as the
appeasement of Israel’s enemies by much of the Western world, and
even by Israel’s own misguided leaders!
Surely, if the Jewish people
have been able to accomplish this much almost entirely on their own,
how much more can be achieved by the combined efforts of Jews, Arabs,
Muslims, and people of good will in the Western countries and
throughout the world!
Established attitudes and
entrenched interests typically resist change - all the more so in the
Middle East, where murderous hatreds and an irreconcilable sense of
extreme grievance now prevail. But we can respond to this hatred by
persistence in telling the truth without fear or favor towards either
side, and by promoting a “win-win” solution for both sides.. We
are in a battle of ideas, and while we do not have power on our side,
we do have the better ideas. There is already growing evidence in the
responses that we have been receiving that many people will support
our efforts if we but stand up and lead with confidence. We will never
know what progress can be achieved unless we try. We must resist the
attitude of defeatism.
Theodore Herzl stated
in the foreword to his revolutionary book The Jewish State, “If you
will it, then it is no legend.” Some years later, another leading
Jewish statesman, Chaim Weizmann, is said to have remarked, “The
impossible always takes a little longer.” Let us be inspired by
their examples.
END