Oren answers Time magazine

Why Israelis care about peace

Given our experience of disappointment and trauma, it's astonishing that Israelis still support the peace process at all. Yet we do, and by an overwhelming majority

By Michael B. Oren

September 15, 2010

Imagine that you're a parent who sends her children off to school in the morning worrying whether their bus will become a target of suicide bombers. Imagine that, instead of going off to college, your children become soldiers at age 18, serve for three years and remain in the active reserves into their 40s. Imagine that you have fought in several wars, as have your parents and even your grandparents, that you've seen rockets raining down on your neighborhood and have lost close family and friends to terrorist attacks. Picture all of that and you'll begin to understand what it is to be an Israeli. And you'll know why all Israelis desperately want peace.

Recent media reports, in Time magazine and elsewhere, have alleged that Israelis — who are currently experiencing economic growth and a relative lull in terrorism — may not care about peace. According to a poll cited, Israelis are more concerned about education, crime and poverty — issues that resonate with Americans — than about the peace process with the Palestinians. But such findings do not in any way indicate an indifference to peace, but rather the determination of Israelis to build normal, fruitful lives in the face of incredible adversity.

Yes, many Israelis are skeptical about peace, and who wouldn't be? We withdrew our troops from Lebanon and the Gaza Strip in order to generate peace, and instead received thousands of missiles crashing into our homes. We negotiated with the Palestinians for 17 years and twice offered them an independent state, only to have those offers rejected. Over the last decade, we saw more than 1,000 Israelis — proportionally the equivalent of about 43,000 Americans — killed by suicide bombers, and tens of thousands maimed. We watched bereaved mothers on Israeli television urging our leaders to persist in their peace efforts, while Palestinian mothers praised their martyred children and wished to sacrifice others for jihad.

Given our experience of disappointment and trauma, it's astonishing that Israelis still support the peace process at all. Yet we do, and by an overwhelming majority. According to the prestigious Peace Index conducted by the Tamal Steinmetz Center for Peace Research at Tel Aviv University and released in July, more than 70% of Israelis back negotiations with the Palestinians, and nearly that number endorse the two-state solution. These percentages exist even though multiple Palestinian polls show much less enthusiasm for living side by side in peace with Israel, or that most Israelis believe that international criticism of the Jewish state will continue even if peace is achieved.

Indeed, Israelis have always grasped at opportunities for peace. When Arab leaders such as Egyptian President Anwar Sadat or King Hussein of Jordan offered genuine peace to Israel, our people passionately responded and even made painful concessions. That most Israelis are still willing to take incalculable risks for peace — the proposed Palestinian state would border their biggest cities — and are still willing to share their ancestral homeland with a people that has repeatedly tried to destroy them is nothing short of miraculous.

It's true that Israel is a success story. The country has six world-class universities, more scientific papers and Nobel Prizes per capita than any other nation and the most advanced high-tech sector outside of Silicon Valley. The economy is flourishing, tourism is at an all-time high and our citizen army selflessly protects our borders. In the face of unrelenting pressures, we have preserved a democratic system in which both Jews and Arabs can serve in our parliament and sit on our Supreme Court. We have accomplished this without knowing a nanosecond of peace.

We shouldn't have to apologize for our achievements. Nor should outside observers conclude that the great improvements in our society in any way lessen our deep desire for peace. That yearning was expressed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the recent White House ceremony for the start of direct negotiations with the Palestinians. Addressing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as "my partner in peace," Netanyahu called for "a peace that will last for generations — our generation, our children's generation and the next."

For Israelis who don't have to imagine what it's like to live in a perpetual war zone, that vision of peace is our lifeline.

Michael B. Oren is Israel's ambassador to the United States.



US Zionist Leader Challenges TIME to Debate



09/14/10

by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu



Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) president Morton Klein challenges TIME magazine’s managing editor to a debate over its cover story, “Why Israel Doesn’t Care About Peace.”



The TIME essay by Karl Vick depicted a Star of David and totally ignored the Palestinian Authority, which by all accounts outside of the Arab world has been steadfast in refusing any compromise on demands that include Israel's sovereignty over the Western Wall (Kotel), all of the Old City and opening the gates to several million foreign Arabs claiming Israel as home by ancestry.



After angry protests called TIME anti-Semitic and demanded an apology, a CNN blog stated, “Arutz Sheva… published an opinion piece [by Prof. Phyllis Chesler] on the TIME story calling it a ‘blood libel’ against Israel and evidence that the magazine and "countless other media in the Western world, can no longer be trusted to tell the truth." Vick's article drew sharp criticism from a wide spectrum of sources, including The Wall Street Journal’s Bret Stephens.

Klein called the article “wretched” and accused Vick of “falsely claiming Israel doesn’t care about peace, while ignoring the reality of Palestinians having repeatedly rejected every extraordinary peace deal Israel has offered. Not only do they reject peace offers, they also responded with terror and more incitement against Israel and Jews.”
He challenged Vick or TIME managing editor Richard Stengel to a “public debate on the subject of whether the Israelis or the Palestinians have shown little interest in a peace deal.” TIME has not responded, but the author stated on the CNN blog, the story was "meant to be provocative and intrigue. There is always debate and criticism of anything that challenges conventional wisdom. It was apparent to me that life here is really good and when security is good there is no urgency."
Klein charged, “The cover and the article are a malicious depiction of Israelis as a people more interested in making money and enjoying material pleasures than in concluding a peace agreement with the Palestinians. To prove its bogus thesis, TIME Magazine primarily relied on the words of two Israeli real estate agents, a left-wing columnist, a left-wing academic and a few others, while totally ignoring Palestinian Authority (PA) lack of interest in peace.”

Klein, in his challenge to a debate, said the journalist “unsubtly” introduced “traditionally anti-Semitic stereotypes about Jews being preoccupied with money at the cost of human virtues – ‘they’re otherwise engaged; they’re making money, they’re enjoying the rays of the late summer’ and preaches to the Israelis – ‘don’t Israelis know that finding peace with the Palestinians is the only way to guarantee their happiness and prosperity?’ The article shows picture after picture of Israelis enjoying themselves in cafes and lying on sunny beaches.
“This anti-Semitic and misleading cover and article plumbs new depths in TIME Magazine’s long-running, historic bigotry towards Israel. The ZOA demands an apology and retraction of this story which ignores all the concessions Israel has made to the Palestinians, including giving away half of Judea and Samaria, all of Gaza and agreeing to the recent 10-month construction freeze.

“During this period, there have been no Palestinian concessions, no fulfillment of its signed agreements to arrest terrorists, outlaw terrorist groups and end incitement to hatred and murder against Israelis and, until last week, a refusal to even negotiate. Meanwhile, the PA honors and lauds terrorists. But Karl Vick dishonestly withheld all this from his readers.
“On the very day negotiations between Israel and the PA commenced in Washington, D.C., the PA ambassador to Iran said that the PA will continue its war on Israel until ‘the complete eradication of the fabricated regime in due course’; another PA minister threatened war if Israel does not return to its ‘owners’ Jerusalem, which he described as ‘Palestinian … throughout history’ while another PA minister honored the families of dead terrorists and accused Israel of harvesting the organs of dead Palestinians.’
“Instead, Mr. Vick praises the PA for ‘taking a serious stab at governance, starting by professionalizing the security forces.’ ... He also didn’t tell his readers that in January, when Fatah terrorists murdered an Israeli in a similar roadside assault, the PA praised the terrorists as martyrs and heroes while condemning their killing by Israeli forces and that Salam Fayyad personally paid condolence calls on the terrorists’ families."