Hope and turmoil

Last year I also wrote a summer column from the Netherlands, “Look for hope.” Then we were here for a few weeks, mostly on an extended family visit, but now it is five months because of my wife’s sabbatical. As a result, we have had a much more in-depth experience of the state of this country. Re-reading my text from last year, I am happy to find that the reasons I gave for being hopeful still hold up.

I then wrote that history provides sources for hope, especially the history of European recovery after the Second World War. That is still true. Undiminished also are the joys that come with parenting an eight-year-old in a country of trains, museums and art clubs. The Christian Democrats even seem to be close to a revival, although sadly, other Christian politicians are not doing so well. Many are squeezed into a corner by the ongoing horrors in Gaza.

Hope and faith remain undiminished, but reality is putting them to the test. The Dutch government, a coalition with authoritarian populists, recently collapsed; public anger may provide the extreme right a better chance. Worse, however, is the general state of Dutch society. Online debates I follow are marked by frustration, recklessness, insults and intense polarization. In fairness, this is a limited view based on the cross-section of opinions that I consume, but what I read scares me.

There is no shortage of homegrown Dutch problems, but the most unsettling discussions for me are those about Israel-Palestine.

This requires a bit of personal context. As a student of Arabic in the 1990s, and of Jewish Studies in the 2000s, I carry the burden of being aware of decades of historical background, scholarship, political manipulation, lawfare and religious involvement. The most admirable text I know about the absence of peace in Palestine is still one written in Arabic to Arabs in 1997. There is good scholarship about Hamas as well, and an excellent new book by Peter Beinart, Being Jewish after the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning. But little of this knowledge plays any meaningful role in the current information wars, in which, if I may, the current Israeli government unjustly delegitimizes all who stand in the way of its policies. Democracy, law, peace, development, and the poorest of the world suffer. Jewish people everywhere are put at grave risk.

Behind the politics

This is not an easy message, so let me elaborate. My personal view is not simply that the pro-Palestinian side is right, or that the Israeli side is wrong. I do believe the setup created by the Oslo accords is wrong, including the chimera of a two-state-solution. It is a secular liberal fallacy. Since the West Bank mostly overlaps with the ancient heartlands of Judea and Samaria, any proposal that Israel would sign those off to Palestinians will never ever be accepted by the religious. Better ways must be found to deliver and compensate the Palestinians, who are after all an indigenous population of the Holy Land if there ever was one.

Too many Christians are on the wrong side in this conflict. Our desires mislead us. Even the likely collapse of American freedom, the general devastation in the Middle East, and the threats to Dutch democracy are tied up with Israel’s politics and Christian support for them. The one earthly consolation I have is that Israel continues to have incredible resources of technology, memory, art and skilled people for healing the Middle East. Its contributions cannot be missed. Rational people will see that; some Palestinians certainly do. We will need them.