‘Nation of Destiny’ Notion a Sensitive Issue in Israel

The stormy response to the U.S. secretary of state’s attack on the “vision” of a greater Israel was due in part to his questioning, in unusually blunt terms, of the notion of Israel as a country of destiny.

The view taken by Secretary of State James A. Baker III that it is unrealistic for Israelis to retain the West Bank and Gaza Strip forced Israelis to look inward and to consider whether, by forgoing control of these occupied lands, they are surrendering some immutable part of the national character.

In essence, the question has been posed openly: Is Israel a God-given place where no challenge is too great to overcome, or is it a country like any other with limits on its resources and resourcefulness?

Even observers who agree with the substance of Baker’s remarks believe that he may have been too forthright. Israel, they say, has not yet separated its dreams from realistic possibilities and needs to be brought along slowly.

“The language he used was unwise,” said Yaron Ezrahi, a peace activist and political theorist at Hebrew University. “It insulted Israelis at an emotional level. It is hard for anyone, Israeli or Palestinian, to give up his dreams. The question is not one of dreams. It is one of armies. We have to come to terms with limits.”

Political columnist Aryeh Naor, a frequent critic of government policy, said: “It (Baker’s speech) was hard to accept on an emotional level. These feelings stem from deep within.”

Defenders of Baker’s approach said the stakes had to be expressed clearly, lest Israelis, and Palestinians as well, be left to nurture destructive aspirations.

“We resent it when Palestinians say that Israel is all theirs,” Israeli philosopher David Hartman said. “Why should we do the same? We have to begin to celebrate the presence of the other.”

Hartman said the challenge on both sides will be whether the national movements depend on an absolute claim to the land.

“Is the only way of ensuring loyalty to claim exclusivity to the land?” he asked. “Are we de-legitimized because we can’t have it all?”

On Israel’s side, much of the difficulty in accepting limits depends on the view that the creation of Israel is the fulfillment of an ancient and divine pledge--that Jewish exiles should some day be gathered into their ancestral home.

The swift and spectacular victory over Arab armies in 1967 reinforced the feeling that Israel’s creation and continued existence was special, that only a miracle could have wrought such a triumph as occurred in the 1967 war.

Much of the messianic euphoria has been eroded over the years, first by the trauma of the Arab-Israeli War of 1973, the Yom Kippur War, then by the uproar over the war in Lebanon and now by the Arab uprising, in which Israel’s well-equipped and motivated army is in the position of fighting off ragtag gangs throwing stones.

In Israeli politics, the wear and tear on the image of Israel as destiny’s darling has left a key split in the nation’s politics. The two main political parties, Likud and Labor, are divided mainly over the question of whether Israel can--by force of will if not just force--digest the West Bank and Gaza Strip, along with the 1.7 million Arabs living there.

Likud, the party of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, says yes, that Israel can in one form or another digest the land and its people. Labor says no, that keeping the land will force Israel into the endless, uncomfortable role of oppressive occupier.

With the split unreconciled, each side has shied away from forcing the issue of whether to give up the land. A decision either way could bring down the laboriously constructed coalition government that embraces both parties.

“This kind of government cannot take up existential questions,” theorist Ezrahi said. “At best, they can move forward ever so slowly.”

The element of the Likud Party that takes the hardest line has already taken Baker’s comments as a weapon to attack the effort to reach an accommodation with the Arabs. Ariel Sharon, the fiery trade minister and architect of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, is campaigning among Likud politicians to reject Shamir’s peace plan.

The Shamir plan calls for elections among Palestinians to choose a peace delegation. The delegates would negotiate a five-year period of autonomy under Israeli rule, and the question of the land’s final status--the existential question--would be left for later.

Sharon views the election plan as a wedge that will separate the West Bank and Gaza Strip from Israel. In a showdown that may shed light on how much life is left in messianic politics, Sharon is expected to challenge Shamir’s leadership next month at a meeting of the party Central Committee.