On the very day of Independence Day, Prof. Zeev Sternhal published an article in which he argued that "the demand addressed to the Palestinians for recognition of a Jewish state" requires them to "internalize their historical defeat and recognize the exclusive ownership of the Jews over the entire land." In one sentence, he summed up the left's escape from history.
For more than a century - in every proposed agreement - the Arabs have been asked to recognize the right of the Jews to some part of the historic Land of Israel. A part, not "the whole land." Only a leftist who does not believe in the right of the Jews to their land, who despises the legal and moral validity of their historical and religious connection to their one homeland, could describe this demand as "a demand to internalize defeat.".
Who defeated the clans of Ramallah and Nablus and Hebron and Gaza? The Jews were only the hammer blow, because those responsible for their conflicted fate are the Arabs of the region themselves. They have never accepted our presence, and to this day they entertain the illusion - with the help of Sternhall and his ilk - that they will succeed in expelling us, if they only wait a little. Therefore, they will never sign an agreement for a final and definitive end to the conflict, since it is precisely their claim (and not ours, much to our shame) that is for "exclusive ownership of the Palestinians over the entire land." The professor's eyes were glazed over.
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The demand from the Palestinians for recognition of a Jewish state touches on the question that circles on the left refuse to recognize: Do Jews as a national collective have a right - legal, moral, historical and religious - to this land, at least to the land that Sternhall is willing to leave in our hands? Without this recognition, there will be no end to the conflict, because the Palestinians will see any agreement that is not final as a continuation of the "theory of stages": immediately thereafter, the delegitimization of the Jewish state within its narrow borders will continue.
Sternhall's friends will accuse him of racism and apartheid, since the 20 percent non-Jews create a binational state, while the laws of the state openly favor the Jewish majority! I can easily picture Sternhall rolling his eyes self-righteously and writing in favor of making Israel a "state of all its citizens," meaning "a state of all its nationalities," since, as he says, "citizenship is inferior to national affiliation" (oh, that nationalism).
Things are more serious. At the heart of these claims is the assumption that the eternal culprits are the Jews. To our knowledge, an important part of our degenerate elite has internalized global anti-Semitism. See how Sternhall defines the agreement: "The term 'agreement' means unconditional Palestinian surrender... The Palestinians must come to terms with their inferiority." Where on earth did this insight come from?! Only a colonialist would speak like that; after all, for him, an agreement with the masters is an acceptance of inferiority.
Apparently a "decent agreement" at best is one in which the Palestinians hold a knife to our throats and slowly push us out to sea, put us on ships and scatter us across Europe, Sternhall's mine. The Palestinian collective (if there is one) has a state in Jordan, a state in Gaza, a state in Ramallah, and more. Is this a concession?
Leftist patronage is not reserved for Arabs alone; its net is also spread over its ideological rivals. Sternhall pretends to be a minority, but as happened with Sharon, Olmert, and Livni, he suggests that Benjamin Netanyahu betray his values and his voters, and in fact - betray his historical mission: "To go down in history as a scapegoat and not as the son of Professor Netanyahu.".
De Gaulle? You made us laugh. We remember de Gaulle's anti-Semitic speech after the Six-Day War, when he questioned the very justification of a Jewish state in the heart of hostile Arab nations, and even called us "an elitist, self-confident and domineering people" (a conclusion that also emerges from reading Sternhall's own articles...).
The professor alludes to France's withdrawal from Algeria under de Gaulle's leadership. Here's the difference: Algeria was never French, while the Land of Israel, and thus the Land of Israel, has always been the land of the Jewish people. Your own people, Sternhall, would you believe it? With regard to the historical analogy, I prefer to highlight de Gaulle's healthy patriotic stance during World War II against the defeatists in the French government who surrendered to German evil. If actualization, then to the end.
• Dr. Dror Eider is a publicist, literary and cultural researcher, lecturer and columnist for Israel Hayom.'
