Prof. Gavison at Brandeis University

April 2008

Good afternoon. Thank you for the honor and pleasure of being here and sharing this exciting and moving occasion of the inauguration of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis.
We have heard quite a lot about how natural it is for an American university named after a great jurist, American Jew and Zionist, to create within it a center for Israel studies. I want to argue that establishing such a center here is not a small matter. It is necessary and important because of certain features of Israel that I want to discuss here today. They can be collected under the title of my lecture – the vision of Israel as a state both Jewish and democratic.
I am an Israeli. For me, Israel is obviously the center of everything; it is the basis of my existence and life. It is indeed quite natural for Israel to establish centers for Israel studies. But why would the academic community of another country single out one small, faraway state, and build an academic center for studying it? Why is there a need to create a center of academic studies of Israel in the United States and at Brandeis in particular? I am sure that there are many departments in American universities devoted to the study of traditions and regions outside America. There are, for instance, departments for Islam or Christianity and Jewish studies; departments dealing with Europe and the Far East or the Middle East. But do you have centers for the academic study of France, or Poland, or even England? I think that you do not have such centers, and I do not think you need to have them. We all organize our study of the world outside our own state by civilizations and regions, not by states. Definitely not by what are for you small and faraway states, states like Israel. So there is something puzzling and special about this center.
I think it is indeed important and urgent for American universities to have such centers. I want to discuss the vision of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state in a way that will both explain why Israel is singled out in this way – and why it should be. Israel ought to be studied separately even in universities outside of Israel because of a combination of three factors: It is a democratic and Jewish state in a Moslem Arab region which is not very disposed toward democracy; it is a developed state, in a poorly developed region (despite the fact that many of its neighbors have vast natural resources which Israel lacks); and the intensely passionate ways in which it is described by its enemies make it very difficult to acquire an accurate understanding of the nuances and the complexities of its existence. All of these things have an impact not only on advocacy but on very basis of knowledge and facts and history which are required to appreciate and evaluate Israel.
The first reason for singling Israel out for study is the magnitude of its achievements. The state of Israel, now only 60 years old, is the materialization of the goals of Zionism: a movement that started about 120 years ago, a Jewish national liberation movement, seeking to re-establish the conditions for Jewish political self-determination and independence.
This national movement was the product of a very complex Jewish existence: roughly 13 million Jews were dispersed all over the world, in different communities living under the most diverse circumstances, speaking different languages, holding different citizenships. Jews also had different attitudes to tradition and to religion, and disagreed with regard to the possibility and desirability of different conceptions of being Jewish. They even disagreed over the question of whether one ought to remain Jewish at all.
These very different types of Jews were also facing different kinds of challenges. One was the very simple, long familiar challenge of being persecuted, being threatened physically. The response of many Jews to this challenge was to move from one place to the other; or - as we have heard- to sit in their own neighborhoods, in ghettos, to better protect themselves; or to try and fight for change in their communities. Others responded to these threats not by moving from one unsafe place to another place, now thought to be safe, yet potentially unsafe in the future, but by arguing that it was necessary to change the whole basis of Jewish existence. They called for the creation of a new situation, one in which the Jews would not be a minority, would not depend on the goodwill of host populations, and would control their own fate.
Another sort of threat, in a sense contradictory to the physical threat I have mentioned, was faced by Jews who lived in countries where there were fewer physical threats to Jews - the free western countries. There the threats related to identity. At the beginning, even before the onset of secularization,it was increasingly common to regard Judaism as merely a religion. Western Jewish thinkers reduced Judaism to a religion, privatized it, and demanded that Jews be fully integrated into the nation-states in which they lived. They were expected to be Jews in their homes and Frenchmen or Germans in the public sphere. Now, many Jews tried that, and while doing so made a huge contribution to the countries in which they lived. But they soon learned, in France and in Germany and in Austria, in a painful process culminating in the Holocaust, that the invitation extended to them was not complete and real. Jews remained different despite their efforts at integration. And these efforts, which did not save them from genocide, forced them to assimilate or at least live a very incomplete Jewish life.
Zionism was a response to both of the challenges outlined above. Its essence was the claim that Jews had to try a radical new path in order to deal with both physical and cultural insecurity, especially after religion had lost its cohesive power for many Jews. Zionism held that the only way for Jews to be able to live full and safe lives as Jews, whether religious or not, was to organize and create a place, a space, a territory where they were going to be a majority and they could have political independence. As you all know, not everyone thought that the land of Israel should necessarily be that place, that Zion was the only possible setting for Zionism. But it eventually became clear that it was. This was the case not because - as some Arabs now claim - some Jews thought that Palestine [and Israel] was an empty country. It was because Zion [and Israel] was the only piece of territory in which Jews had in the past enjoyed political independence, in which their culture as a nation and as a religion was created. Zion and Jerusalem were the places Jews prayed for and wished for. They were the places that could mobilize people to act and to move because they could plausibly think that the political independence they were seeking was not [merely] a refuge from persecution but a reiteration and revival of a long life of culture, civilization, and religion. This was the moment in history in which Jews returned to their own history in their own homeland. The achievement of making this dream come true, of gathering exiles, of creating in Israel the strongest Jewish community in the world, and making Israel a thriving democracy in a region not known for democracy is altogether unique.
The extent of this achievement is magnified by the fact that Palestine, before Zionism, was part and parcel of the region in which it was situated. It was not a distinct political unit and did not enjoy any economic or social distinction. In 60 years Israel became a developed country with science, culture, wealth that are comparable to those of the most developed countries in the world. This only happened because Israel is not just a country that happened to be in Israel. It is the Jewish state. It endorses modernity and science. It has creativity and initiative. And it is the home of political freedom and religious pluralism.
These are enormous achievements. They could and should be studied in order to understand how it happened. It is interesting to study how Israel became a democracy, and maintained it, despite the fact that most Israelis came from countries without any democratic tradition; to study the way that Israel manages to be one of the countries with the most unbridled political freedom in the world despite being constantly under siege; to see how Israel tolerates levels of disagreement and criticism from within that are not easily tolerated in any other democracy that I know. To comprehend these things one must know Israel intimately. It is not a question of agreeing with everything that Israel does or for which it stands; or of focusing only on its positive aspects. There are many weaknesses and tensions in Israeli society. But its achievements make it an interesting and an important case study, unique in its region. Moreover, it is important that these studies are undertaken in a professional manner, within an academic institution.

To grasp what is unique about Israel one must know Israel in a way that Israel is not usually known at present. And why isn’t Israel known as it should be known? This is the other component of the need for a Center for Israel studies. Because of the widespread and massive hostility to Israel, it is often hard to study the country in a detached, academic fashion. Some people may say that I am exaggerating here. I hope they are right. But I am in a profession that takes words seriously. And the past had told us that it is a good idea to listen to what one’s declared enemies say. Israel is the only country in the world that other states explicitly declare should be abolished. (The international community does protest, but some of these protests sound rather hollow). When Israel is criticized for being immoral, one does not hear demands that it amend its ways; it is said that it has lost its right to exist. Furthermore, many of those who accept Israel’s right to exist claim that it will not be a legitimate state unless it gives up its role as the place in which the Jewish people exercise its right to self- determination.
As a result, Israel is usually described outside of Israel in ways that are very misleading. Often, the facts are not correct; they are biased against Israel. In addition, the picture of Israel is stereotypical and one-dimensional: a picture of the occupiers, the dispossessors, the people who are denying other people their rights. Jews are depicted as people who were victims but are now victimizers. There is this image of Israel that has become extremely popular, indeed dangerously popular. It is extremely difficult to tell people how more nuanced, how more complex, how more diversified the reality of Israel is. And how much more complicated than this is the history of the conflict and the complexity of the situation on the ground! I believe that the majority of Israeli Jews don’t want to occupy, don’t want to rule another people; and are trying hard to get where they would like to be: living independently in their own country in peace and security and letting the other people in the region have their own countries. Why this does not happen is a complex story. Many mistakes had been made. There is much room for criticism of various aspects of what Israel had been doing and in what is being done in its name. But this is only one part of the story. And at present most people do not know the story as a whole, and therefore cannot evaluate the conflict and the situation.
Israel should therefore be studied. Seriously. And one critical fact about Israel is that its vision is that it adheres to the vision of a state that is both Jewish and democratic. Part of Israel’s achievement is that, while the vision has not been fully attained – Israel is in many ways already a country that is both Jewish and democratic.
Often, critics of Israel claim that Israel cannot be both Jewish and democratic. There are many reasons given for this claim.
The first, which had been repeated by Arabs since the very early stages of Zionism, was that there was no justification for creating a Jewish state in (a part of) Palestine, thus making Arabs either refugees or a minority within their own homeland. I cannot go into the details of this argument here. But I would like to note, quickly, that there is a powerful Zionist response to it. Zionism did not fight its way to a state. The state of Israel was built on two pillars: the formation of a critical mass of pioneering and resilient Jews in British-ruled Palestine, and the recognition on the part of the international community of the justness of Jews’ claim to be granted a place of their own in (part of) their ancient homeland – without prejudicing the rights of the non-Jewish residents of the land. The factors that persuaded all of the key decision-makers - those who issued the Balfour Declaration in 1917, and the British Mandate in 1922, and the authors of the Peel Commission Report in 1937 and the UNSCOP Commission proposals in 1947 and the United Nations 29th of November 1947 resolution - that there should be a Jewish state are all still there, more so than ever. Jews will not be safe collectively or individually in the Middle East without having a state and an army to protect them. I will be very happy when the situation changes. When it does, we may try some innovative political thinking. Maybe we can have one state between the Mediterranean sea and the Jordan river. Maybe we can have a Federation, with or without Jordan. But we can only think about these opportunities when we get to the situation where Jews can be protected physically and culturally. At the moment they can’t be. So the general argument against the right of Jews to have self-determination or a state of their own must fail.
The argument at the basis of this claim is long and complex. I have tried to make it elsewhere. To make it, to state it, and to evaluate it, one needs a place that will welcome such a discussion, a place that is committed not to propaganda, not to advocacy but to learning and to fairness and to a detached approach to Israel.
I would like to argue that a detached look at Israel will show that the main challenges raised against the possibility of Israel being both Jewish and democratic are not well-founded. Here I will review some of them very quickly. A center for Israel Studies, for its part, should develop them on many levels. It should look at the conceptual presuppositions involved, and the complexities of the issues, and the realities of Israel.
So what are the main challenges? First, it is said that Israel cannot be both Jewish and democratic because ‘Jewish’ is, and must mean Jewish theocracy; and theocracy - the rule of religion and religious law - and democracy – government of the people, by the people, and for the people - don’t go together. It is really unbelievable how many people in Israel itself feel that this is a valid challenge. But it is not surprising that many who do not know Israel well believe this claim and repeat it.
Again, I cannot go into the details of the claim. Some think it follows from the very meaning of ‘a Jewish state’. Others think it is a description of the reality of the state of Israel.
But I hope that the Center for Israel Studies will teach you that neither is the case.
The conceptual claim – that a Jewish state must mean Jewish theocracy – may have become more popular since it has been endorsed – for different reasons – by critics of Israel from two different and contradictory political perspectives. The first is that of the people who use it to combat (or at least deny) Israel’s right to exist because Jews are a religion, not a people, and those who fight against religious coercion within Israel. The second is that of people who wish that Israel will indeed implement all religious commandments concerning differences between Jews and non-Jews, and a religious way of life for all Jews, like Meir Kahane and his followers.
Both claims rest on the fact that within Judaism religion and nationality are intertwined in a unique way. Most other peoples include members of different religions. Thus among Arabs there are Moslems but also Christians of various denominations. Islam has followers among most people of the world, from the Arab world, to Persia and India. In Judaism, peoplehood and religion do go together. Nonetheless, the majority of Zionists were not observant. Zionism was, and was perceived to be, a national movement. Moreover, the aspiration of that movement included the wish to create a home for the Jews, and the perception that Judaism itself was committed to universal values. Israel was described as a Jewish state by the UN resolution of 1947 in order to distinguish it from the Arab (incidentally, not the Palestinian) state that was to be carved, at the same time, out of the Palestine Mandate. It was not Jewish as opposed to Moslem or Christian.

Some critics persist and argue that even if in theory there is a sense in which the state is Jewish but not theocratic, in fact Israel is theocratic. I think this is simply wrong, and I hope that the Center for Israel studies will help to discredit this misjudgment. For one thing, many religious leaders complain bitterly about how un-Jewish Israel is. Israel has a Jewish majority, and its public culture is Jewish, but it is not run by either Jewish law or Jewish clerics. Israel has a monopoly not of Jewish law but of religious law, over matters of marriage and divorce. For Jews, this monopoly is controlled by the orthodox. This is, I think, a bad thing; the religious monopoly over marriage and divorce should be abolished. I should mention that it was inherited via the British mandatory law from the Ottoman period with its millet system. When the British took charge they asked the Palestinian population for their preferences. While the Jews opted for civil marriage and divorce, the Arabs wanted to keep the millet system and so it was decided. I cannot go into the reasons why they did so – and why their leaders, even secular ones, continue to do so at present. This is another subject that can be explored at the Center for Israel Studies. I shall only say that in the Gavison-Medan covenant on religion and state issues among Jews that I have co-authored with the Orthodox R. Yaacov Medan, he, too, agreed that this monopoly should be abolished. (A short version of the covenant and our explanatory notes for it in both Hebrew and English can be found at www.gavison-medan.org.il.)
Other critics point to the fact that in 1970 the Law of Return, one of the major elements of the Jewishness of Israel, was amended to define a ‘Jew’ as someone “who was born to a Jewish mother, or was converted to Judaism, and it not a member of another religion”. I agree that defining a Jew in this way in the Law of Return was a bad idea, and cannot go into the fascinating reasons why it was then necessary to add a definition to the principle of that law that had been left undefined: “Every Jew has the right to ‘ascend’ (la-a lot) to Israel”. There is a lot more on this in Chapter I of the Gavison-Medan covenant. Suffice it to say that the Law of Return, despite this definition, is a law of repatriation, of the kind that exists in many nation-states in Europe, and is legitimated by international human rights law.

Allow me, now, to sum up this point. Israel as a Jewish state does not have to be a theocracy; the Jewishness of Israel in fact is not tantamount to a Jewish theocracy. Israel was founded and conceived as the nation-state of Jews. The Jewish people today has many members whose attitude to religion and tradition are different. Israel can and must be the national home for all of them. It also can and must grant equality to all its citizens, Jews and non-Jews alike.

So we come to the second challenge. It is raised by those who concede that ‘Jewish’ is not theocracy. ‘Jewish’ is a Jewish nation state. Their argument is that Israel cannot be both Jewish in this sense and a democracy, because democracy requires full equality and a Jewish state cannot give full equality to non-Jews generally, and specifically to the native Arab minority. They also say that the idea of particularistic nation-states is in any event obsolete. All states should be liberal and neutral and globalized.
Again, evaluating this argument requires a long discussion and a long study of history and of comparative politics. Here let me say simply and clearly: the argument is not valid. The claims are superficial and simplistic and they single Israel out in unacceptable ways.
The people who deny the right of Jews to their nation-state usually argue forcefully for the right of Palestinians to their nation-state. So the problem does not seem to be with the idea or the contemporary relevance and justification of nation-states. Nationalism and the principle of self determination are strong forces recognized by international law. Only recently they have led this country to recognize the independence of Kosovo! Conceptually, most Western nation states are democracies. Many of them have within them national minorities. This fact does not undermine their democratic nature if the members of the minority enjoy civil and political rights.
In a very important sense, Arab citizens of Israel enjoy these rights. They do have the right to vote and the right to be elected. Many exercise these rights. Arab MPs sit in parliament and challenge Israel freely every day of the year. They have that. Yes, they don’t fully belong. It is true; they don’t fully belong. Minorities don’t fully belong in countries where the public culture, the language, are not their own. It is harder for the Arabs who used to be the majority in the country. So the burden is there, and it is a serious one. But I do not think it means that Israel is not a democracy.
I am aware that in a full democracy the ideal is that all citizens, irrespective of religious or ethnic origin, will have a shared civic allegiance to the state. Ideally, this shared civic identity should co-exist with permission for different groups to develop their distinctive group identity. Arabs at present usually do not have a thick sense of a shared civic identity. In part it is because of the fact that Israel is still in conflict with the Palestinians over the land. In part the Arabs themselves resist this civic identity because they do not want to do civic or national service. So the reality is that Arabs do have formal political equality. It is true that they do not have social equality, and there are economic and educational gaps between Arabs and Jews. In part this is because of the conflict, and in part this is because of the nature and the mission of Israel as a nation-state. Let me concede this clearly: Israel is not a neutral state, which officially privatizes all non-civic characteristics of its citizens. It is not like official America in this sense (America in fact is not neutral in either language or religion. Culturally, it is a Christian country which speaks English. But it has a neutral ideology). Israel is a country with a mission. The mission is to be the one place in the world where Jews have political and cultural self determination. I want to stress this: not only to the Jews in Israel; Israel is that place for the Jewish people, which includes the Jews in Israel and every other Jew living in the world. It provides Jews an opportunity to live a full Jewish life of the kind that only a place in which the private and the public are both Jewish and Hebrew can give. Any Jew who wants to do that can come to Israel because that is Israel’s mission.

Now, Israel can be Jewish in this important sense and also democratic only if there is a stable Jewish majority in it. At present it does have that majority. This permits it to provide a Jewish public space for all Jews. Jews who want to live in Israel are welcome to do so via the Law of Return. Other Jews may enjoy the fact that it exists through visits or through benefiting from the fact that such a state exists.
This mission, as we saw, does impose a burden on non-Jews, especially the Arabs. Israel can, and it should, and it must give non-Jews living within it equal civil and political rights.
Now the question is - does Israel in fact do so? Some people prefer not to address this question. They point to the fact that Arabs in Israel enjoy levels of welfare and political freedom much higher then in all other Arab countries and they think this should be enough. I disagree. Israel should take this commitment to equality seriously, and should strive to improve its record and work against discrimination. This is not only a general moral principle that we invoke in favor of Jewish minorities everywhere. It is a very Jewish principle: We believe that we should not do to others what we did not like done to us. We should not do to Arabs who live with us what we suffered when others were trying to do to us. Again, I cannot go into details here. But Israel’s promise to grant non-Jews within it full political and social equality should be taken seriously.
There is no real debate on this principle concerning individual rights, but the reality still falls short of the ideal. We should note, without this being seen as an excuse, that there is still discrimination against African-Americans in this country, despite the fact that the principle of equality is recognized and despite the fact that there is no ongoing military conflict with any African country. These are long and complicated struggles, and they need to be fought slowly and with determination by both Jews and Arabs. I am pleased to say that individuals, groups, and NGOs are carrying on this joint struggle on many fronts.
There is more doubt about collective rights. The important “vision documents” published recently by leadersb of the Arab minority in Israel illustrate the complexity: They all claim the right of Arabs in Israel to be recognized as a national minority, while denying Jews any collective rights whatsoever. Despite this I think Israel should, and to a large extent does, recognize collective rights of the Arab as well. The only collective right that Arabs cannot have in Israel is the right to a state-level national self determination. This is an important sense in which Israel is and should remain a the nation state of Jews.
There is another, very serious, challenge that must be addressed here. Some claim that while Israel itself, within its pre-67 borders, has a stable Jewish majority, the fact of the matter is that Israel in fact controls all the land between the Med. Sea and the Jordan River, complete with a Palestinian population of millions who do not enjoy civil and political rights within Israel. These critics conclude that Israel is not, and cannot be, a democracy. Indeed, irrespective of the debate concerning the exact number of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, Israel would not have remained a democracy if it had annexed these territories without granting citizenship and rights to their inhabitants. If the de-facto reality of the region remains Israeli control over these territories and their population – this may indeed weaken the democratic basis of Israel. I believe this is a very strong reason why it is an Israeli interest to do what it takes to maintain borders within which it does have a stable Jewish majority. Moreover, I believe that a substantial majority of Israelis share my view on this point. Again, one cannot analyze and evaluate these issues without detailed studies of the history and the prospects of the conflict, and the internal divisions within both Israel and its neighbors. Such studies are usually missing from popular discussions of these issues.

A third claim concerning tensions between Jewishness and democracy relates to the internal Jewish debate about the cultural significance of the Jewishness of the state and the debate about the relationships between religious and cultural aspects of Judaism. In addition to tensions among various religious and non-religious varieties of Jewishness, some claim that Israeli democracy is moving in the direction of globalized individualism, and that it is losing the depth of its distinctive culture. This debate is usually much less audible in international forums, but it is serious and important. It has implications with regard to issues such as curricula and organization of public education etc. It also relates to the question of how Israel can maintain its Jewishness without discrimination and without religious coercion. I cannot do justice to this claim here – but the full appreciation of its significance requires, again, an intimate knowledge of many aspects of Israeli life – cultural, social and economic as well as political – that are usually not known or discussed outside of Israel’s borders.

Let me then close the circle. Israel defines itself as both Jewish and democratic. This is a sincere and important vision. There is no inconsistency between the two descriptions, but there are tensions between them. Israel’s record in dealing with these tensions is mixed. Some say that Israel is a democracy for Jews, and Jewish for the Arabs. I hope I have persuaded you that this is not the case. It is both Jewish and democratic for both. Others say that secular Jews want Israel to be only democratic, while only religious Jews want it to be Jewish. Again, I disagree with this statement as either a description or an ideal. Israel is in fact both democratic and Jewish in many ways. Most religious Jews value its democratic nature (even if they think Jewishness should be given more weight), and Zionist secular Jews live in Israel only because it is the only Jewish state in the world.
So the record is mixed and complex. There are strong points and there are weak spots. As with all visions, Israel needs to identify the tensions, and seek to work them out.
When Israel fails to meet its ideals and the ideals shared by humanity, it is important that voices from within and from without draw its attention and encourage it to do more. Criticism is an important aspect of democracy. But it is equally important to distinguish between criticizing policies and de-legitimating the very right of Israel to exist as a state struggling to identify and to define its Jewish identity and its commitment to democracy and human rights.

I want to conclude with a claim often heard in recent years, which is a version of the first claim I discussed above, and is the political formulation in the international arena of the principled objection to Israel’s right to exist. This is a dangerous formulation because it does not deny the peoplehood of Jews or even their historical connections to the land of Israel. It does not talk about the internal structure of Israel, about tensions between Jewishness and democracy within it. It concerns the very conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and it does not address the historical debate about the establishment of the state of Israel. Rather, it is formulated in terms of that powerful ideal of Justice and the need to rectify injustice. This argument simply says that the only way to end the conflict is by reaching a ‘just’ peace. Justice means that we recognize the rights of Jews who are already in the area to stay. We even concede that they are now a nation – Israeli Jews. But Justice requires that all Arab-Palestinian refugees and their descendants be allowed to return to their homes and that Arab lands be returned to their original owners. Once this is allowed to happen, the inhabitants of the region will choose the political structure that suits them.
This, I think, is something that many Jews don’t take very seriously. They think that this is not a serious challenge; that not many people make such arguments. Everyone understands, they imagine, that implementation of the right of return would mean the end of Israel as the nation-state of Jews, since it would deprive Israel of its Jewish majority, and hence this will not happen. The Arabs will have to give up on the right of return. I beg to differ.
I think it is a very serious challenge, and that it needs to be acknowledged. For Israel will not last if we do not think that our cause is a just one, and if we believe that the state is founded on a serious injustice. And this goes beyond the very important question whether Israel can be, or is, both Jewish and democratic. It addresses the deeper question of whether Zionism, and the Jewish state, are just. Some people tell me that no country should have to argue for its own existence. I understand and agree. But if many people within a country believe that its cause is unjust – it is hard to live in the country and celebrate it and be proud of it. It is even harder to fight for it and be willing to die for it. And this is what Israel will require of its citizens for the foreseeable future.

So let me return to the history and to the reality of the conflict, to the facts and processes that need to be studied and understood, and which are often unknown to those who participate in the debates. Yes, the establishment of Israel was a great loss to the Arab population of Palestine. Their objection to Zionism and the Jewish state was very understandable. However, we did not have a choice. The Jewish state was the only way for Jews to obtain what was and remains critical for their survival. It was a question of necessity.
This was the case in the 30’s and in the 40’s. The Arabs miscalculated and tried to prevent the creation of Israel by going to war. They lost the war and with it their chance to have then an Arab state in part of their homeland. Now they want to return not to the status quo ante of 1967, but to the status quo ante of 1947. They call this justice. I am sure some of them believe strongly that this is what justice requires. But I am concerned that people who are not very well informed about the situation may agree with them. After all, now they do not deny Israel’s right to exist. They just want to return to the partition decision and the situation that would have obtained had it been implemented.

We do not indeed know how things would have developed had the Arabs not gone to war in 1947-1948. Yet when we weigh the justice of situations we need to distinguish between the evaluation of the war and its immediate aftermath at the time, and the way we should think about the conflict, its management and its possible resolution at present.
The partition resolution was based on the hope, intention and demand that the two nation-states would be both national and democratic. The borders were carved in order to secure a Jewish majority in the Jewish state. The purpose of partition was to give Jews control over security and immigration in their state. I discussed earlier the reasons why this was necessary. The assumption was that the Arabs would control these, and prevent additional Jewish immigration and settlement, in their state.

Today the community living in Israel is the largest Jewish community in the world. To return to a situation where this large Jewish community does not have a safe haven for the lives of its members and for its culture and identity is to deal the Jews of Israel and the Jewish people the kind of blow that no historical judgment of justice can demand. And this is something that everyone, including the greatest critics of Israel, should accept. No claim of past injustice justifies causing a huge injustice now. This is why Israel and its neighbors must move into the future with the firm understanding that Israel is there as a fact and as a Jewish state for all times. Once this is accepted, we can look at the past and at the present and at the future and think about how to make our life together better. Once this is truly accepted, I am sure Israel will be able to show much more generosity in both tangible measures and in recognition of past suffering. But so long as people believe that what has happened and what was done in ’47 can be undone, that the state of Israel can be undone, its enemies will not rest until it is undone.
In this sense it is important that we are assembled here today, because for this Israel needs the alliance and the help not only of Jewish communities all over the world, communities that would suffer from the loss of Israel as a Jewish center. We - Israel and all Jews- are entitled to the alliance of anyone committed to objectivity, to detached academic inquiry, to truth, to universal values, to self-determination. This is a universal claim of justice on behalf of Jews. It should be presented by showing Israel not as a one-dimensional actor but as a vital state of a people seeking self-determination.

Thank you.