For Jews who have settled in the Golan, Judea, Samaria and Gaza, a PLO state signifies betrayal by their own leaders. There is now a generation of young people who were born and grew up in these places. They are among Israel's best, most loyal, patriotic, devoted and courageous citizens. Psychologists consider any major move a source of stress; thus simply moving from city to city, from kibbutz to city, from city to moshav, would be considered sources of stress, even although they are normally voluntary choices. Uprooting in war, fleeing danger from an enemy, as has recently been experienced by populations in Yugoslavia, is an extreme and awful trauma.

Consider, then, the degree of trauma implicit in a forcible uprooting brought about not by an enemy, not by some cataclysmic event, but by one's own brethren. There is an overwhelming feeling of incomprehensible betrayal. The uprooted "settlers" will be forever alienated. Life, as they knew it, shall have come to an end. They will be refugees, forcibly "transferred" by their own sons and brothers.

For secular Zionists, the establishment of a foreign state in the Land of Israel will be a mark of failure. What the original Zionist fathers dreamed of, what the pioneers built and fought for, what five generations since Herzl fought for, shall have been given up by those too cowardly, too pleasure seeking, too short-sighted to continue the fight.

Those on the left, too, even though they pushed for a PLO state, will experience painful fallout. Because they had positive expectations, they will experience enormous dissonance as they grapple with the consequences of their efforts, try to deal with the unreasonable and endless demands of an implacable enemy, an enemy never grateful for, or even acknowledging what the left "did for them," an enemy relentlessly pressing for advantage, working to fulfill the articles of their Covenant.

For Jews in the diaspora, the world will never again be the same. For diaspora Jews came of age with the establishment of the state of Israel. For fifty years they witnessed--and many gloried in--the growth, flowering, and development of a state that even from afar they could call their own, a state that, even if they did not plan to move there, gave them the legitimacy that having a choice provides. They saw Israel as the homeland of their people, a guarantor of safety, an anchor in what had been a raging inclement sea. They saw it as vindication, validation, a voucher of normalization.

Once that safe harbor is in question, that patrimony denied, the Jews of the diaspora will become again strangers in their lands of exile, on suffrage, unsure, insecure, aspiring at best to tolerance. We could then expect not only greater readiness to assimilate but something more: wilful denial of Jewish roots and be-ig. We can expect the withering of the diaspora, the disappearance of what some saw as a "support system," and also, sadly, the disappearance of the extended family that was the Jewish people of the diaspora. For it would cease to be Politically Correct to be a Jew.

There is an additional psychological fact that requires emphasis because it has repercussions throughout the body politic. This is the paradox that the leadership of the right in Israel has disappointed not only those on the right, but those on the left as well. Obviously, those who had hoped Netanyahu would terminate the "peace process" were disappointed by his performance as Prime Minister. However, what has been overlooked is the fact that many on the left were disappointed to no less a degree. Albeit covertly and unacknowledged, many leftists hoped that the right they fought and criticized would stick to its guns, stick to its ideals, pull the chestnuts from the fire, save the homeland, vindicate it against all odds. They hoped against hope that their tantrums would not succeed, that the "real parents" (idealists/authorities) would put a stop to their behavior and would manage to exercise control--to force the enemies to surrender, to assert our rights, to wave the flag again, to achieve glory

Those on the left, too, even though they pushed for a PLO state, will experience painful fallout.

Netanyahu's failure, I suggest, caused a great deal of unconscious anger amongst the left, explaining at least in some measure the intense irrational extremes Netanyahu-hatred took among them. This anger at the leader for his failures can be taken as a sign of things to come. With a PLO state in the ascendant, it will be clear our political leaders took us to disaster and dissolution. Our rabbis failed us; our prophets did not appear. As was said earlier, there will be a turning to false gods, escapism of all kinds, to cults, to drugs, to suicide. With nothing to live for, many more will choose not to live.

For two thousand years, Jews dreamed of a national rebirth in the Land of Israel. In this sense, ours was the first national liberation movement. And it was successful. After the long forced exile, Jews returned to their homeland and with sweat, toil, tears, and application, made it again their home. Having risen like the proverbial phoenix from the ashes of the Holocaust, we rebuilt ourselves and this land. When the Arabs tried to destroy the state at its inception, the Jews fought--even the skeletal remnants of the death camps fought. We won, we declared a state. We ingathered the exiles. We were a nation in the ascendant. We were attacked again in 1967 from all sides. Against all odds, we won. The world was ready to accept us as heroes, ready to see in us redeem-

June-July 2000               - 5 -               Outpost