21 september 2009, we failed

Monday 21st September 2009

At some point in my late teens, I was shocked to learn that there were almost 100,000 settlers living the west bank. Like all like-minded friends, I fought the good fight and argued the case that never mind the poor old palestinians, israel’s own survival as a democratic, secular state depended on a negotiated two state solution. Talk with arafat ? Hold your nose: no need to make peace with your friends. A few days ago I read an equally chilling statistic, that very same count – yes, including east Jerusalem – has just topped 500,000. That’s not far off the entire jewish population of the state when it was founded. That growth, my friends, that movement from containable, reversible stream to gushing, generational facts-on-the-ground permanence took place on our watch. When the mainsteam left was more in government than out. Not only is there no peace, we’re further away from it now than we were then. There’s no way to dress that up other than utter failure, yours and mine. Ani ve ata, it seems, did not change the world.