A Practical Way To Defend Israel's Jewish Identity

Victor Shikhman raises a point that has escaped the notice of many--I know that I was unaware of it.

He writes about Safeguarding Israeli Democracy by Defending Israeli Identity--but he writes no only about the problem.

He writes about a possible solution that Israel apparently came across accidentally.

Something remarkable happened over the Israeli Independence Day celebrations held some two weeks ago. For the first time in recent memory, Palestinian citizens of Israel did not hold mass protests commemorating "Nakba Day". The "Catastrophe", or "Nakba" in Arabic, is a term which reflects the Palestinian narrative of dispossession and tragedy in the wake of the founding of the Jewish State in 1948. As a historical event of mass collective trauma, the Nakba began the process of consolidating a common, modern Palestinian identity from its more lose, regional-tribal-cultural antecedent. The Nakba has long inspired fervent Palestinian nationalism, including in its radical, nihilist and violent forms, while encouraging little introspection within Palestinian society on its own culpability in first instigating a civil war to dispossess and butcher the Jews of the Levant, and then losing.

Given the prominent role the Nakba serves in Palestinian cultural memory, and the seeming importance of "Nakba Day" for Palestinians in maintaining generational continuity, the lack of major processions and events commemorating the "Catastrophe" this year on the part of the Palestinian community residing in Israel is noteworthy, perhaps even astonishing, and certainly deserving of attention. To approach this development in the appropriate frame of mind, and within a context which can impart meaning, we must first tell a story, a true story.

To illustrate his point, Shikhman ties together how Natan Sharansky--when he was Minister of Housing--successfully dealt with Muslim threats of riots and violence, with how a bill recently sponsored by Avigdor Lieberman show Israel taking a similar approach and apparently achieving the same effect.

Shikhman concludes:

Fearing bloodshed and conflict, many Western intellectuals pander to and appease the demands of Islamists and Arab radicals, thinking that negotiations and compromise are the surest path to a peaceful resolution of any outstanding issues. This may very well be the case, but we should consider that Arab and Islamic societies do not always function or respond in the way leaders in Washington DC or London expect them to. Israel's experience demonstrates that compromising with radicals may very well marginalize the forces of restraint and reason within Arab societies, and further embolden extremists.

To see 2 practical examples of how to counter the impulse to pander to and unilaterally compromise
with Muslims who threaten violence, you cannot do better than read Victor Shikhman's post: Safeguarding Israeli Democracy by Defending Israeli Identity

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