Perhaps 2017 will be an auspicious year

Yair Lootsteen

In 2017, we’ll observe two important milestones: the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration – the constitutive document in which the British foreign secretary informed Lord Rothschild that “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish People” – and 50 years since Israel liberated/occupied Judea and Samaria/the West Bank in 1967’s Six Day War. It’s been five decades of IDF military governance of millions of Palestinians and decades of Israeli settlement activity in these areas. 

Given that backdrop, wouldn’t it be promising if 2017 were declared a year in which Israelis and Palestinians aspired to reach a resolution of their seemingly endless conflict?

It doesn’t appear that’s going to happen, and not only because we have no partner for such a process.

The results of our latest election don’t support hopes for an end to hostilities – not in 2017, nor any time soon. They confirmed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a political magician. But that magic came at a price: Bibi revealing his true self. In a renunciation of his 2009 speech at Bar-Ilan University, in which he voiced support for the principle of two states for two peoples, just days before the vote, he declared that if he were re-elected, no Palestinian state would be created. 

Immediately after his victory, Netanyahu made an unconvincing about-face. His comments on the two-state solution and on other important issues simply made public his core beliefs. No important concessions will be made to the Palestinians on his watch. 

Many of my friends on the left believe things will get a lot worse before they can start getting better. They’ve decided to sit by as relations with America and Europe continue to deteriorate, and they’ll let Bibi’s right-wing government rein in unsupportive elements in the press, limit financial support for NGOs not toeing the government line, control Supreme Court appointments, reverse initiatives aimed at better integrating the ultra-Orthodox into Israeli society and advancing Jewish pluralism, to name but a few. 

Those friends believe tectonic shifts within Israeli society will only take place after Israelis internalize the dire consequences of their political choices. 

Even if my friends are right, letting things slip into the abyss is too dangerous, particularly regarding our relationship with the Palestinians. 

Over the last few years, I’ve been giving “alternative” tours of Jerusalem and its environs, with the goal of exposing interested friends to the complexities of our surroundings. On one of these tours, I take people to Beit El, 21 kilometres north of Jerusalem. Established in 1977 and housing roughly 6,000 Orthodox residents, this West Bank town lies just east of the Palestinian town of al-Bireh and adjacent to Ramallah. 

In the final stages of the ride there, I turn off the main road toward Beit El, Ramallah and al-Bireh. Approaching the settlement, a huge Palestinian flag waves proudly just a couple of hundred metres away.

On a recent visit, I took an American friend to the most northerly hill in Beit El. From there we observed the beauty of Samaria to the north, strewn with many Palestinian towns and villages, and other Israeli settlements. To the south was most of Beit El, with nice homes, nice gardens and high fences, and soldiers on patrol to protect its inhabitants. And just beyond Beit El were al-Bireh and Ramallah.

Getting back into the car, my friend noted he now better understands that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is almost impossible.

Driving back to Jerusalem, I remembered the Balfour Declaration not only speaks of “a national home for the Jewish People.” It also proclaims an understanding “that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.”

A belief in a Jewish, democratic Israel implores those of us who don’t support Netanyahu to do our utmost to ensure we don’t recede into the void. 

Time is of the essence. Perhaps 2017 might still hold some promise.