Stories for the Sake of Argument by Robbie Gringras & Abi Dauber Sterne; Williamsville, N.Y.: FSA Publications © 2022; ISBN 9798985-249507; 209 pages; $19.95.
SAN DIEGO – Almost all arguments about Israel revolve around one or more of the following themes: security, collective identity, freedom, and territory.
Authors Gringras and Sterne help us to conceptualize these arguments with a series of analogies. They challenge us to argue, in the classic sense of the word, about right and wrong in the hope that we may learn from each other. Arguments are different from fights; they are mental exercises, not physical, and they are laid out methodically, with each side trying to educate the other using such tools as logic and empathy.
In one of the stories, a couple who has lived on a beautiful piece of land with family traditions that go back for generations, considers selling a portion of it to help their son, whose situation is desperate through no fault of his own. The husband states: “We need to sell an acre of our land. Elad needs the money. Think of what a real difference in Elad’s life it would make.” However, the wife responds: “We can’t sell the land. It has so much history. Our family’s story is literally planted here.” The husband answers with a question: “But isn’t the future of our son and grandchildren more important than our history?”
Readers may debate who is correct in this family drama concerning both territory and identity, or they may consider, by analogy, the larger question of whether Israel should give up territory, including sacred religious sites, in order to provide Palestinians with a home they can call their own and perhaps usher in peace between the two peoples.
In another story, a schoolgirl takes her usual route to school, but finds it suddenly has a big fence around it. To walk to the opening of the fence takes an additional half hour. The tree where she and her friends used to play during recess is now outside the fence, unreachable in the allotted time. The school is next to a nursing home, which had its windows all broken by vandals, so the fence was constructed to protect both the school and the nursing home. The schoolgirl feels she is being penalized for the wrongful actions of others. She feels she should not be made to suffer.
Again, we can look at the story at this personal level, or we can graduate it to the situation of peaceful Palestinians who have to face barriers in their territory – security fences – because of the actions of others. For the Israelis, the dominant question is security. For the Palestinians, the dominant question is freedom. Is there any way that both needs can be met?
The book is intended to be a guide for discussions both in classrooms and in homes. It is worthwhile because it frames many of the issues that Israel faces in new, more understandable ways, which people who devote themselves to ethical choices can debate and learn.
*
Donald H. Harrison is editor emeritus of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com
“For the Palestinians, the dominant question is freedom.”? Not exactly.
There is more than one reason for the failure of the Oslo Accords, but at the basis lies a fundamental difference in how the conflict is viewed. To American ears, the meaning of “two states” is unambiguously straightforward. The struggle between Israel and the Palestinians, to them, is a struggle between two indigenous peoples fighting over the same space of land in which they share a history. A fair solution, then, would be one in which Israel is the state of the Jewish people, and alongside it will exist a separate Palestinian State.
Nevertheless, according to the Palestinians’ view, this is not a conflict between two national movements but a conflict between one national movement (the Palestinian) and a colonial and imperialistic entity (Israel). Hence, Israel will end like all colonial phenomena — it will perish and disappear. Moreover, according to the Palestinian view, the Jews are not a nation but a religious community, and as such not entitled to national self-determination which is, after all, a universal imperative.
The Palestinians’ idea of a fair “two state solution” is one completely Arab state in the West Bank and one democratic binational State of Israel that allows the right of return for descendants of Palestinian refugees. It is a “two state solution,” but not the one American Jews would recognize or Israel could survive.