Israel

In a recent essay in the New York Review of Books, Zadie Smith explained that racially homogeneous societies were no more peaceful than racially diverse societies.  She looked at Northern Ireland, “an area where people who look absolutely identical to each other, eat the same food, pray to the same God, read the same holy book, wear the same clothes, and celebrate the same holidays have yet spent four hundred years at war over a relatively minor doctrinal difference they later allowed to morph into an all-encompassing argument of land, government, and national identity.”

So we have Israel, a land where groups of people fight over the words of 800 to 2000 year-old tribal prophets, either Jewish or Muslim, who actually believed that some god spoke to them directly and laid down some rules for them to follow.  An atheist like me can only look at the dispute over the “holy city” of Jerusalem and be awestruck that groups could even concern themselves over who gets to rule it.  I mean, it’s not like we are talking about Paris, or even Los Angeles.

Let me point out something.  Since its inception, Israel has been a democratic Jewish state.  If there is no two-state solution and the fanatics keep building settlements in Palestinian territory, Israel will be either a Jewish state or a democratic state.  It cannot remain both.  Secretary of State Kerry gets this.  Prime Minister Netanyahu either doesn’t get it, or doesn’t care, or is putting his short term interests above the long term interests of his country.