A Grown Up Nation

"When there is peace in the Middle East, everyone will realize that the real war is between the Christians and the Moslems and the Jews don't really matter." That quote comes from a cousin of mine. He said it as we were walking the streets of Tel Aviv on the way to the beach. It was Saturday at dusk and the cafes were full of people eating al fresco along the sidewalks. I hadn't been to Israel in a long time, thirty seven years.

A lot can happen in thirty seven years. People warned me I wouldn't recognize the country, it had changed so much. And they were right. Thirty seven years ago, Israel was an austere kind of place. Life was hard and a leisure class barely existed. Now Israel's median family income is close to that of the UK. Investments in high-tech have created a class of multimillionaires that simply didn't exist twenty years ago. And cafes with night life are aplenty.

My cousin's mother was born in Libya and his father was born in Poland. In the 1950s, Jews simply were not wanted in both countries. Israel was the only real option for his parents. When people tell me that a Jewish state isn't necessary, I have to wonder what planet these people live on.

My cousin assumes that peace is inevitable. I'm not so certain. I talked to quite a few Palestinians in Jerusalem during my visit. None of them were interested in compromise. One merchant complained to me about the lack of tourists, about how people were too scared to come to Jerusalem. I noted that if there was peace, he'd have more tourists than he knew what to do with, that he'd be rich. He looked at me like I was from the moon. "The kind of peace you want isn't possible," he said. He wanted the Jewish state to disappear. That's not going to happen.

I understand the Palestinian's pain over the creation of Israel. I understand their frustration over being under the control of a Jewish state. But it's been 60 years since the creation of Israel and 40 since Jerusalem was no longer in Arab control. Israel is not going away. Jerusalem may well be an international city one day, but the chance that Jerusalem will return to be being an Arab city is zero. Until Palestinians accept this, peace is indeed impossible.

The change in Israel over the last thirty seven years isn't just about economic comfort. The Israel I remember was full of hubris over what it could accomplish with military might. Time and time again I would run into men who truly believed they were masters of the universe or at least masters of the Middle East. You could see it in the swagger of Israeli soldiers, in the confrontational way people would talk to you even about mundane things. The country was suffused with arrogance and many men were simply unbearable to be around. The swagger and hubris are mostly gone now.

The thousands of lives lost in the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the disaster of the invasion of Lebanon in the 1980s had a profound impact on how Israelis view their military. It's no longer expected to accomplish miracles. Future wars will be hard fought. The gains from wars can at best be illusory. Instead of hubris, there is now a realism about Israel's place in the world and in the Middle East.

When I last visited Israel it was all of twenty-five years old and I like to think that it was in an ugly adolescent phase. Now it's all grown up. The view of Israel that you read in European newspapers of it being a military aggressor and the creator of an apartheid state is just a new version of the old anti-Semitism that has defined Europe's view of Judaism for centuries. Instead, the Israel I saw was one with a clear identity as a Jewish state and with a sense of calm and pride in its existence. Israel and the Israeli people have mellowed.

After I talked with my cousin, I drove up to a community farm on the outskirts of Tel Aviv for the birthday party of my surrogate mother from when I lived there thirty seven years ago. She's eighty-five now. She came from the Czech Republic. Her husband, who died a few years ago, came from Poland. Both were fervent Zionists. About twenty five years ago, they came to visit me in the US and her husband launched into a speech haranguing me for living in the United States when I could be making a useful contribution to the Jewish people.

I thought about that speech at the birthday party. Dozens of people sat around and sang songs while the birthday "girl" - radiant with joy - and her daughter played accordion and guitar. I even got up and sang a song of my own. These were delightful people to be with and yes, they were my people.

Could I live in Israel? Certainly. Do I want to? No. But I will always be a supporter of the country and its people. For me, a Jewish state is a necessity. I can find fault with Israel just as I can find fault with the US. But I will never let my ability to find flaws change my fundamental pride in the existence of a Jewish state.