Normalization Is Politics, Not Peace

After opening the sky for Israeli airlines to fly over Saudi Arabia, some people are talking about normalization. Yet, Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, who is leading his country’s reforms and modernization, stressed that normalization with Israel will come only after Israel and the Palestinians reach a peace agreement that creates two states: Israel and Palestine. I think we should make a clear distinction between normalization and peace. The former is an economic issue and depends on the will of governments. The latter is something that the people of Israel must first achieve internally, which therefore depends only on us.

Normalization, therefore, is the capitalization on a situation that can yield economic benefits to both sides. It is a political arrangement and nothing more.

I realize this begs explaining. The relations Israel has with its neighbors depend on their feelings toward us. With Egypt, for example, we have good relations. However, we have had good relations with them for a long time because despite the wars, the last of which was in 1973, the Egyptian people were never really hostile toward us.

The same can be said about the Saudis. We have never had any problems with them. I myself used to send packages by mail to a student of mine in Saudi Arabia, and they always reached their destination without any problem. Moreover, he often came to Israel and went back there, and there were no problems at all. Now that the Saudi government is becoming more moderate on Islamic issues, too, it really leaves no cause for problems with them, so I am confident that relations with the Saudis will be good.

The opposite can be said about Gazans. Even if you encounter people from Gaza on a trip abroad, the hostility is palpable. Therefore, the existence or nonexistence of an agreement is less important. What counts most is the relation of the people toward each other.

Normalization, therefore, is the capitalization on a situation that can yield economic benefits to both sides. It is a political arrangement and nothing more.

Religious extremism, by the way, is also a political decision that stems primarily from power struggles and not from genuine division between Islam and Judaism. As far as religion goes, Judaism and Islam are not contradictory. They are not the same religion, of course, but they are not entirely contradictory.

But as I said, normalization is not peace. Peace, in Hebrew, means wholeness. It is a state where two contradictory sides create a bond between them that engenders a new whole that is sustained and evolves through both sides equally. In the same way that day and night, heat and cold, spring and fall are completely opposite yet complement each other, peace between people can happen only when they are contradictory, yet both commit to building a bond between them that creates something new, which requires both of them for its persistence and development.

In Israel’s current situation, division is rife and deep, but there is no motivation to transcend it in any constructive manner. We are still in the phase of trying to impose our worldviews on the entire country, believing that only our way is correct. We still do not understand that only unity is correct, and division is wrong regardless of one’s opinion.

In such a state of division, no country will make peace with us. There is no nation with whom to make peace; there are only factions and camps that demonize one another in the eyes of the world and intensify its hatred toward Israel. To make peace with our neighbors, we must first make peace with each other within Israel. This is why I wrote above that peace with our neighbors, as opposed to normalization, depends entirely on us.

I do not blame our neighbors for hating us when we hate each other so vehemently and vilify each other in the eyes of the nations. They watch us and follow our example.

I do not blame our neighbors for hating us when we hate each other so vehemently and vilify each other in the eyes of the nations. They watch us and follow our example.

When we stop maligning one another and realize that our differences are there precisely so we will unite above them, and not so as to eradicate each other, we will create something new that the world will admire. Then the nations will make true peace with us, to learn from our example of making peace, meaning creating something new and whole above division.

Until we do this, some countries will have good relations with us, and some will not, depending on their political and economic interests. We may call it normalization, but we should not think of it as peace.

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The Specter of the Forebear of Palestinian Terrorism Lives On

A documentary series on the Palestinian Arab nationalist Mohammed (aka Haj) Amin al-Husseini was recently broadcast in Israel. Al-Husseini was the leader of the Palestinian Arabs in the years preceding the establishment of the State of Israel. He was determined to prevent its founding. During World War II, al-Husseini became Hitler’s close ally, and together they drew plans to destroy the Jewish settlement in Palestine. In the years leading up to the war, he incited to violence and led uprisings and attacks against Jewish settlements throughout Palestine, as well as against the British forces that governed Palestine. One might think that had it not been for al-Husseini, the bloody, hate-filled history of the relationships between Jews and Arabs in Israel would have been different. I am not inclined to speculate on what might have been; it is impossible to know and pointless to try.

To coexist, the vying parties must value peace, meaning complementarity, more than they are zealous about their own side of the story. Once they come to such a state, they can rise above the chasm between them. There, in the common, higher realm, they will find a completely new reality. That reality will be called “peace.”

Concerning al-Husseini, we need to realize that the world is divided into factions and groups, and everyone is in some sort of struggle. It makes no difference if the arguments of one side are correct, and those of the other side are incorrect, since no one listens to the other side anyway. Whoever has an opinion sticks to it and people rarely change their minds.

Because of it, I think it is pointless to seek justice, as the truth is in the eyes of the beholder. It is clear that an Arab leader will be against Jews, and Jewish leaders should act accordingly, meaning stand against the Arabs. In other words, each side fights for its own justice and its own people. There is no justice here; each side is right from its own perspective.

To Arabs, the fact that Jews want to settle in Palestine is a just cause for hate. As long as Jews did not want to settle in Palestine and rebuild their historic homeland, things were relatively quiet. But once the Jews began to return, the hatred began to flare up.

As this is the case, I see no possibility for peace unless we embrace the spiritual meaning of the word. In spirituality, peace does not mean absence of hostilities; it means complementarity. Peace is a situation where each side has a completely different perspective, yet understands that there cannot be a complete picture of reality unless both perspectives coexist.

To coexist, the vying parties must value peace, meaning complementarity, more than they are zealous about their own side of the story. Once they come to such a state, they can rise above the chasm between them. There, in the common, higher realm, they will find a completely new reality. That reality will be called “peace.”

Therefore, it is imperative that the Jews unite among themselves and present an equal force against the enemy that wants to destroy them. In the end, neither side will destroy the other but the struggle between them will lead to the birth of a new perception of reality—a spiritual, complementary one.

Until this happens, we Israelis will continue to have to live by the sword, as the specter of al-Husseini lives on among us and seeks to terrorize us and drive us out of Israel. We will never kill it, but we must fight against it with all our might, and at the same time fight for unity above our differences, as this, in the end, is the only thing that chases away contemporary and future al-Husseinis.