TO BE FAIR...

To be fair to the various theocracies of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and their secular counterparts... Each has significant humble populations that do not presume to an imminent expectation of the Ultimate Salvation. Judaism anticipates that before the remnant of Israel is redeemed to Zion as the Ultimate Redemption, Jewish exile may extend to the farthest reaches of the universe; yet, this does not necessarily preclude the day to day expansions and contractions of sovereignty over mundane life. Christianity teaches that "Only The Father Knows, when Jesus will return (Sermon on the Mount)." Islam teaches that when the Mahdi will appear, the coming of Jesus will then also be known, as well as the Day of Judgment; and, until then, nobody knows. This common humbleness regarding Ultimate Redemption is the root hope for all humanity, springing as it does from the same tree of life, speaking of God, yet presuming (at least some of the time) not to be God's mouthpiece and not to dictate God's terms, valuing the right to life of all people and all Peoples.

THE CYNIC IN ME SAYS...

EVERYBODY LOVES A FOOD FIGHT... AND SO THE ONLY MOVEMENT WE SHALL SEE SHALL BE SUCH MOVEMENT AS MAKES FOR A GOOD FOOD FIGHT... MEANWHILE, THE VAST MAJORITY WILL CONTINUE TO BE STUNNED AND STUPIFIED... ULTIMATELY THE SURVIVORS WILL PICK UP THE PIECES... SOME WILL BE HAPPY FOR THE WORK... SOME WILL SAY, "WOW... WASN'T THAT A FOOD FIGHT TO BEAT ALL FOOD FIGHTS,"... SOME WILL BE UNHAPPY AND CONDEMN THE FOOD FIGHTERS... AND SOME WILL GET INTO THE NEXT FOOD FIGHT, WHICH REALLY IS THE CONTINUATION OF THE ONE ETERNAL FOOD FIGHT... SO I ASK THE ULTIMATE QUESTION... "PIZZA, ANYONE???"

BEINART'S EQUIVOCAL REVELATION

THERE IS A GLIMMER OF LIGHT THAT SHINES IN THE DARKNESS OF BEINART'S 'REVELATION'.

The guts of the Jewish Left Wing are so twisted and so contorted that the Left Wing does not know one end from the other, only that a purging and purification is required and inevitable. There is nothing new in Beinart's ideal of a democratic Israel-Palestine, as it harkens back to the competitive days contemporary to the early formation of the modern State of Israel and of the differing concepts of Zionism, when the Left Wing sought to create a combined Arab-Jewish Palestinian State along Marxist ideals. Events such as numerous wars and terrorism, bent on the annihilation of Jews and Israel, have made a reductio-as-absurdum of such an ideal. In Beinart's article one perceives the writhing and perhaps even the last throes of a Left Wing recognition and acceptance of the death of their ideal. The death of any ideal and an awakening to reality is always preceded by denial and by great intellectual and emotional angst. The glimmer of light in Beinart's 'revelation' is in the acceptance, however terrifyingly equivocal, of the inevitability of One State.

Beinart gives a Left Wing interpretation of what that State might look like, based on early Left Wing ideals... '"back to the future", if you will. But, that ship sailed, foundered, and sank. In today's world, as Daniel Gordis and Alan Dershowitz articulated so eloquently, so strongly, so intelligently, and so passionately, Beinart's idealistic plan would bring suicide to the Jewish State of Israel and would re-subjugate Jews to foreign domination... [that is, those Jews remaining alive after such a cataclysm, as would be the inevitable consequence of any realization of Beinart's Plan].

One remembers that the brilliant antisemitic British philosopher Bertrand Russell equated the ideal of a Marxist State as being a secular realization of the Catholic Church. It would be so easy to engage here in a discussion of the historical Western conflict between the Anglican Church, as well as other Protestant forms of Christianity, and the Catholic Church. However, keeping on topic, the majority of Christian religious fundamentals have their common denominator in antisemitism... after all, according to Christianity, the only "Real Jew" was Jesus. As for the rest of us, according to Christianity, we are all impostors, to be validated only by our sacrifice (hence the Christian word "Holocaust", not SHOAH). Our sacrifice is necessary to Christianity for it is Israel's sacrifice, come the "End of Days", that makes the "Second Coming of Jesus" possible and which is why from the Christian perspective a "stump of a stump" of Jews have been kept alive in ghettoes with and without walls, including the ghetto in the Middle East that we know today as the modern State of Israel.

Israel's existence today is a conundrum for both the vociferous Left and the vociferous Right, just as it is a conundrum for the Haredim (may one think of the Naturei Karta as being the Haredi Left and the Lubavitch as the Haredi Right?). Both the Secular Left and the Religious Left respond to the problem of Western [Christian Religious and Christian Secular] domination by tortuous contortions of 'justifications' and 'obligations' found within and without the Torah. The Naturei-Karta would have us do exactly as Beinart would do (would he realy?). Both Beinart and the Naturei Karta offer us what may only be understood in both Christian Religious and Christian Secular terms as The Christian Solution. That consequence would be an Holocaust. Given that the Pope travels the world kissing the feet of Muslims, one must perceive that the Beinart and Naturei Karta Solution does not pass the smell test for a real Jewish person. For the good of both the Christian world and the Muslim world, it is imperative that Israel not succumb to the temptation to enable another Second Holocaust in our time. Just imagine the pain and suffering of the Muslim and Christian worlds, when after such a 'Second Holocaust' there will have appeared no "Mahdi" (the Muslim Messiah) nor the "Second Coming of Jesus". At least the Lubavitch give us another 220-years before the "Arrival of the Moshiach-Moshichay" in the form of Rebbe Menachem Schneerson [Of Blessed Memory].

So one must give credit to Peter Beinart for his expressed awareness, which is that a "Two-State Solution" is not possible and that a "One State" is inevitable. For one who is Orthodox and utters the Shema on a daily basis, the concepts of ERETZ ECHAD and YERUSHALAYIM ECHAD should not be so hard to grasp. Only HaShem knows, whether or not such words, conceived and spoken as is the Shema, would be spoken as last words.

The challenge facing Israel in our time is to continue the establishing of a Jewish State that is democratic in the context of Torah as the foundation of Law and Life, disallowing cultural 'imprisonment' by Theocratic Politics, while also not vying to fulfill a conception that would make Israel into a 51st State of the USA. Israel is unique. It would be madness to continue efforts towards either a Two-State Solution or an "Israel-Palestine" solution. It would be madness to enable Israeli Citizenship for the Arabs presently living in Judea-Samaria and Gaza. It may be madness to continue Israeli Citizenship for those Arabs and Jews already having citizenship, who are hostile to Israel; and, Arab devotion to "Al-Nakba" is anathema to the existence of the State of Israel. Sanity demands that hostiles be expelled (may they be granted golden parachutes). Sanity demands that such Arabs of Judea-Samaria and Gaza, who are happy to reside in the hegemony of Israel, be granted "Blue Cards" allowing special status and special privilege, but, not citizenship. Sanity demands One Israel and One Jerusalem flying the Israeli Flag from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.