Israel and Palestine: A Viewpoint from a Former Zionist

Gunnar Wolf is Debian Developer, a Mexican, and is a former member of a Hashomer Kibbutz. He has written an essay on his blog entitled “About the recent events and possible outcomes in Israel and Palestine”. I strongly encourage people to read it, since he talks about the historical roots of the conflict (going back all the way to the roots of Zionism) in a way that while it is definitely not pro-Zionism, neither is it as unfair as some of the pro-Palestinian accounts of the period 1947-1949. It’s about as balanced an account of the roots of the whole mess in the Palestinian areas and Israel that I think you can find, although he definitely has a point of view:

All in all, even if I won’t live there again, [Israel] is a country I learnt to love, a society I have long studied…And yes, I keep the political stand I had 12 years ago: The only solution is to dialogue, to treat the current enemies -and not only their governments- with respect, recognizing their dignity and right to life, to self-determination. Only then we will change the status quo.

On this day when we will finally see the back side of George W. Bush’s presidency, I can only hope and pray that more people will be as thoughtful as Gunnar Wolf was in his blog posting. Even if we disagree (and there will be disagreement), it’s only by encouraging more people to learn about all sides of such tragedies such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that we can help make decisions that might bring peace to this shattered world. May that day arrive soon!