PR/ISRAEL: "JERUSALEM POST", OCTOBER 18, 1988
The borders of Israel could become the borders of the United States of Europe (and of the Mediterranean area). Citizens of Israel could become citizens of the United States of Europe in the European Economic Community.
Israel's defense and security, integrated with defense policies the United States of Europe could adopt and are currently adopting, could be shared by three hundred million people. Peace for Israel could be negotiated in this context - exclusively within this context -providing a strategy for the withdrawal of her occupying forces. Any other solution would be misleading, and worse, precarious. At the dawn of a new century, it is senseless to fight to build and/or to defend a national state, especially a small national state. Not only is this politically and idealistically mistaken, it is strategically impossible. Germany, France, Great Britain, and Italy have experienced the error of such illusions. Israel, and those fighting for a Palestinian State, must understand this error.
Nevertheless, all political parties - and the whole world - seem transfixed on this misunderstanding. They are caught in a tragedy with no way out. Experience shows that practically anywhere in the world - in Africa, South America, the Middle East, the Far East - struggles for so-called "national liberation" have turned into catastrophic and dictatorial regimes. Liberation and independence - the concept of "non-alignment"- are illusions founded on a lie. How can there be independence, freedom, liberty for a small, new country with a limited market potential when it must categorically subsist by depending on other states? This is not freedom. The democratic process, where it is championed in these nations, sustains no effective link with decision-making, with real power, on the historical (traditional) - political level.
Zionism, a highly-principled concept, matured at a time when generations of intellectuals were focusing their energies on the establishment of National States. Today, this concept, and the values and hopes it embodies, must be rethought and reformed to regain its former vigor and to endure.
New political ideas, new attitudes towards history, are required to sustain such a reorientation. New transnational political forces and organizations are required to establish tradional ideals of freedom, justice, peace and tolerance to confront real problems of the human condition and of the planet in order to control upheavals erupting everywhere.
Furthermore, it is imperative that we avoid a "non-aligned" pacifism which cannot respond to decisions taken on the political-historical (traditional) level. The useful nonviolent position demands an alert and active response to violence per se and to violent regimes. The democratic view insists that the enemies of Israel do not so much fear her weapons as they fear her ideals, just as they fear the ideals of political and social democracy. These ideals are the most dreaded enemies of the other political regimes of the Middle East, without exception, because these are the ideals which will free their citizens, their peoples.
In Israel, an old, established ruling class, enslaved to the past, seems incapable of properly understanding that the best guarantee of Israel's survival is a State of Rights, which protects civil and human rights for every individual. On the ideological and administrative levels, the ruling class has shown itself incapable of controlling and preventing violence in a new, efficient way. Israel's old, rusty strategy inhibits Israel from resolving the challenge of world indifference to the demagogic threat presented by totalitarian regimes on the right and on the left.
The Radical Party intends to fight to promote Israel's full participation in the European Community, an essential objective for the defense of democracy and peace in the Middle East and a necessary and compulsory step towards the democratic liberalization of all the peoples and individuals who live there.
It is possible that the European Parliament will favour this initiative, if the battle is joined and actively supported by Israel Herself.
The Radical Party will hold its Federal Council at the Intercontinental Hotel in Jerusalem from October 21-24, 1988. This meeting is extremely important both for the Radical Party and for the State of Israel.
The Radical Party does not compete with any national party or any nation state in the world. As such, the party will never present itself in any elections and as such it will never play a role in any "national" government, on the contrary, the party is concerned with broadcasting objectives and ideas.
The Radical Party urgently requires members, subscribers and active volunteers to consolidate and affirm its existence in Israel. The "refuzniks" are well aware of our struggles for their cause and for their rights and for the rights of all minority groups and all oppressed and persecuted individuals. But if the "refuzniks", their families and the Israelis trying to find a solution to the tragedy surrounding them do not speak out and take an active role in establishing this Transnational Radical Party; if they do not "vote" in this way for a better future and for new and different ideals, for themselves and for everyone, we shall all be overcome by- instead of overcoming- the immense conflicts of our times.