Akiva Eldar, always certain the Arabs are eager for peace and the Israeli Right is against, interviews West-Bank Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. As you'd expect, it's all nice and positive. True, Eldar asks no hard questions except one ("what about the incitement"), so Fayyad has no need to respond to them (and his response to the incitement question is, how to put it, inadequate).
Still, were it possible to have a peaceful sovereign Palestine in less than two years, alongside Israel, who'd argue? If, mind you.
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A recent article by JTA news service (sort of like an American Jewish version of the AP) actually compared Fayyad to David Ben-Gurion in the first paragraph, which talked about how Fayyad is building the institutions of statehood just as Ben-Gurion did during the pre-state era of the British mandate.
This comparison--for me--shows exactly what is wrong with the mainstream, organized American Jewish community. In an effort to place hope over reality, and to see a commonality amongst all people, including peaceful and neighborly relations between Israelis and Palestinians, the Jewish writer is putting the two groups on the same moral and historical plane. In casting a powerless figurehead of a corrupt political party that glorifies violence as the equivalent of the founding leader of the Israeli state is to debase and diminish our own history. What's next? Fayyad as George Washington?
I know many American Jews dream of a functioning, stable and prosperous Palestinian state as the key to Israel living in peace. But whatever the merits of Fayyad's accomplishments, we are a long way from that dream being fulfilled, especially since so many Palestinians in Fayyad's own party and government prioritize the dream of destroying Israel as their top desire for the region.
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