Except that this point of view never wavers, even when the trend of Muslim conquest is reversed. After 9/11, the late Bin Laden’s second in command, Egyptian doctor Ayman al-Zawahiri, opened his videotaped statement to the world with: “We will never accept the tragedy of Andalusia.” And by the “tragedy of Andalusia” he meant the 1492 conquest of the last vestige of Muslim rule in Granada, Spain, the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella.
It was the most traumatic moment in Islamic history, as a trend that had lasted 700 years, give or take, was reversed. You may not know it, but 9/11 – that was payback for the Christian takeover of Spain and Portugal, which began the decline of the Arabs as a culture and as a political entity.
In Al Qaeda’s stated doctrine, as in the Muslim psyche everywhere, it is a given that some day, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but some day the Arabs will take over Spain once more, and continue their glorious conquest of the rest of Europe, and then the New World.
Again, I don’t begrudge them their aspirations. We, Jews, have been holding on to our aspirations about returning to Zion for an even longer period. Aspirations are fine.
But if the Arabs are still licking their wounds from Andalusia, 500+ years ago, you know they haven’t given up hope to take back all of Palestine, lost to the great, albeit imaginary, Caliphate a mere 66 year ago. And so, if Israel is about to hand them back a piece of that territory, it is well within its rights to expect recognition in return.
Israel wants the Arabs of the new, God forbid, State of Palestine to declare for all the world to hear: We no longer have designs on Israel, it is not an Arab state, it is the state of the Jews.
As to the merging of two seemingly contradictory values: being Jewish and being a democracy, Gideon Levy has a lot to learn about what our Torah teaches in this area. Our Jewish law, which always emanates from the ground up, from the individual to the leadership and not the other way around, is grounded in a communal system. It’s a federalist system, in which the major responsibilities of defense and foreign relations are assigned to the executive, but everything else, including law enforcement and the judiciary, are locally appointed and maintained. If the State of Israel ever followed the laws of the Torah, we’d have the first truly free country on the planet, without the slavery of financial institutions and political fiefdoms.
In that context, a self-ruling, local Arab community cannot by definition pose a threat to the state at large. It will be permitted to thrive and prosper as much as it can and wants to. But when it comes to voting rights, the state will have certain prerogatives intended to maintain its Jewish character.
And before you jump at me with the one-man one-vote thing, take a look at the American democracy. Back in the 18th century, the United States was looking to find a balance between the larger and smaller colonies, so that the smaller ones won’t be swallowed up by New York and Pennsylvania. The solution was the creation of two houses of Congress, one based on population size, the other awarding two senators to each state, big and small.
The result is that a voter in North Dakota has at least eight times my voting power in New York, when it comes to senatorial elections. Why, by numbers alone we in New York State should have at least 10 senators. We don’t, because that’s how all of us have decided to run our democratic system. In a Jewish State of Israel, we’ll be able to maintain the non-Jewish population’s ability to influence the budget based on their numbers—like the House of Representatives, while the other house, Israel’s Senate, will be in charge of the national issues, including international relations. Just like the U.S. senate.
The difference here is that Haaretz and Gideon Levy want to get rid of the Jewish part of the Jewish State, because it offends their leftist ideology and culture. But they can’t sell that message to the vast majority of Israelis, and so they mock it and call it a sickness.
Well, it may look sick to some, but it’s all I’ve got.