Isreal: Let the adults do our work for us

That is more or less how Israel looked this week, as well, in relation to the London summit - an important political ball, which in effect laid the political foundations for the establishment of the Palestinian state, with the support of the Western nations. It was such an important ball that we preferred to be conspicuous in our absence, due to a migraine, but we hoped that the squire who was hosting the party, Mister Blair, would be willing to mention to those present, in our name, the magic words "war on terror." They would be sure to understand.

And if not - what difference does it make? Had we been there, would we have been capable of saying anything other than "war on terror?" After all, our entire political vocabulary has shrunk in recent years to this expression. Aside from "war on terror," we simply have nothing to offer and nothing to say: not to Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas), not to Europe, not to America and not even to ourselves. That is our policy, that is our position, and in recent years that is the very definition of our identity.

Not only that, but we are demanding that the "war on terror" also become the very raison d'etre of the Palestinian state. In the Sharon era, there is no official Israeli spokesman who doesn't parrot the demand that the "Palestinians must fight terror." And listen carefully: not "stop terror," and not "we will create political conditions that will end the excuse for terror," but that "the Palestinians must fight terror." In other words, we demand that they turn into a country of Shin Bet security services and Border Police and Police Special Patrol Units, like us. It's not that we've been all that successful in this war; but in a kind of strange reduction of our entire policy, and even of our identity as a nation, dependence on the next terror attack, or on preventing it, has turned into something like the state's sole vision of its destiny, as though it was established for that purpose.

The demand for "war on terror" is, of course, elementary, essential, and self understood in a country that has lost more than 1,000 of its citizens in terror attacks. However, somehow terror has also been victorious in the fact that it has pushed everything else to the sidelines, including weighty arguments and considerations, which constituted a foundation of Israel's policy for an entire generation, both on the right and on the left: the question of borders, security considerations, the eastern fence, the distribution of water resources, demilitarization, the essence of the Palestinian state, its orientation and its infrastructure, Israel's path on the day after the disengagement - all these issues seem to have evaporated, as though they won't be realized in any case. Because, after all, all we want now is only one, very small thing: "Quiet! A little quiet!" as Sharon said.

In vain will we lend our ears and try to hear the message of a panoramic vision, an incisive political thought regarding the real future of Israel and its future neighbor. Sharon simply "isn't dealing with that," and that is the secret of his continuing popularity, the popularity of a community leader. Since nobody better than he embodies this existential reduction, in which - from a certain point - the entire reason for our existence in this country began to be expressed in negative terms: not the sum of all our hopes and ambitions, but the sum of all the fears and threats.

And thus, it was only typical that while at the London summit they were speaking in lofty terms about the establishment of states and about hopes and opportunities, Israel was playing with its old toys: threats to Iran by means of silhouettes of Israel Air Force pilots; making the case against Syria because of the terror attack in Tel Aviv; theories as to what will really stop the "political process" ("an explosion in a settlement by means of a booby-trapped tunnel" - that, for example, was the guess of Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz); an expression of "grievance" at the fact that "the war on terror was not mentioned" at the London summit after all; "satisfaction" at the fact that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice shared the suspicions against Syria; and an autistic disregard of her no-less-insistent demand for a Palestinian state with territorial contiguity.

A Middle Eastern vision? Lofty politics? That's the business of the adults - the Americans, the British, the Europeans, even Abu Mazen. Let all those windbags keep talking, and we will adhere to our petty vision: to return home safely; to try to get through another day without a terror attack; to accumulate days of quiet as in a savings plan - the one that will yield two hours of political and propaganda benefit at the embarkation point of the next terror attack.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/547824.html