Prof. Paul Eidelberg

A syndrome is a group of symptoms that collectively indicate or characterize a disease, psychological disorder, or other abnormal condition.

Israel has been suffering from the Oslovian syndrome for more than twenty years, since its Government concluded the Oslo or Israel-PLO Agreement of 1993, an agreement based on the concept of “land for peace.”

Unknown to most observers, this concept of “land for peace” is non-rational because “land” and “peace” are incommensurable. Whereas “land” is tangible and quantifiable (you can stand on it), “peace” is intangible and non-quantifiable, since it’s essentially a state of mind.  What is more, in the present case, “peace” involves a relationship between two ideologically antagonist entities: the relationship between a Jewish and democratic entity (Israel) vis-à-vis a Muslim and despotic entity, the PLO, or its successor, the Palestinian Authority, the PA.

Stated another way, to attain “peace” Israel must give the PA land, something concrete, for which land the PA must give Israel “peace” which is nebulous. The land Jews must give is Judea and Samaria, two ancient Hebraic words which have been stripped of their Biblical significance by being called the “West Bank.” In surrendering this land, the Jews would be sacrificing the religious as well as strategic heartland of their 4,000 year-old heritage.

In contrast, the Muslims, by giving the Jews peace, must undergo a fundamental change of mind. They must renounce the most distinctive principle of their 1,400 year-old religion, “Jihad,” which requires Muslims to wage war against non-Muslims. The concept of “land for peace” thus entails a fundamental if not traumatic transformation in the mentality of both parties. However, unlike the Jews, the Muslims must not only modify their beliefs or ideas, they must also change their behavior by renouncing Jihad.

Probing further, despite the incommensurability of land and peace, “land-for-peace” has been the central concept of Israel’s foreign policy since Oslo 1993, and thus it has been regardless of which political party or party leader has been at the helm of Israel.

Unfortunately, conventional critics of Oslo have been as intellectually stagnant as have its supporters. Their countless articles, brilliant as well as monotonous, convey the impression that Israel’s political leaders need to be enlightened, hence, that their failings are basically intellectual. Hence the critics deal only with symptoms, with Oslo as a flawed policy. They ignore (1) the philosophical underpinnings of Oslo, and (2) the character of a regime whose leaders would yield Israel’s heartland to an enemy committed to Israel’s annihilation, as stipulated in Islam’s Qur’an!

That Oslo represents (1) a flawed mind-set in Israel and (2) systemic flaws in the nature of the regime is indicated by the fact that the lethal policy of “land for peace” persists regardless of which party leads the government. Moreover, since “land for peace” is a home-grown policy that may be traced to the ideas or mentality of Hebrew University academics, namely, professor Shlomo Avineri, Director-General of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and professor Y. Harkabi, Director of Israel Military Intelligence (known as the mentor of Shimon Peres), this policy can’t be explained away, as superficial commentators are fond of saying, as a consequence of American pressure resulting from U.S. dependence on Saudi oil.

Although the flawed character of the “territory-for-peace” policy is now widely but superficially recognized (after 15,000 Jewish casualties), no critic of that policy, whether he or she is a political scientist or journalist, has ventured (or dared) to expose the causal connection between said policy and the (1) flawed mind-set of the aforesaid academics and (2) the flawed character of the regime.

The flawed mind-set is the academic doctrine of moral and cultural relativism which places the claims of the Jews and of Arabs to the land of Israel on the same moral level. This is “moral equivalency.” It was represented by Israel’s academic elites, primarily by the world-renowned German-educated Professor Martin Buber. Influenced by Hegelian historicism, Buber wrote, “There is no scale of values for the [world-historical] function of peoples.  One cannot be ranked above another.” (Israel and the World, p. 223.)

This moral equivalency even appears in Buber’s testimony to the Anglo-American Inquiry Commission in 1947. Speaking for himself and Dr. Yehuda Magnus (the first president of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem), Buber declared, “We do not favor Palestine as a Jewish country or Palestine as an Arab country, but a bi-national Palestine as the common country of two peoples.”

We see here the seed of the “two-state solution” to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. This “solution” was made official by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on June 14, 2009 when he endorsed the creation of a Palestinian state. Note well that this morally neutral endorsement was spawned by the moral relativism or equivalency manifested by the most influential founders and professors of the Hebrew University before the modern State of Israel was established!

In fact, Mr. Netanyahu’s moral equivalency surfaced again on November 23, 2014 when he defended the “Jewish State Bill” in the Knesset, saying: “Israel is a Jewish democratic state. There are those who want democracy to take precedence over Judaism, and those who want Judaism to take precedence over democracy. In the law that I am bringing, both principles are equal and must be given equal consideration” (Jerusalem Post, November 24, 2014, my emphasis).

Netanyahu’s shallowness or disingenuousness can be exposed by any intelligent high school student who need only ask: “Suppose Muslims become a majority of the Knesset’s membership and vote to transform the Jewish state into a Muslim state. What then?”

This impossible or insane dilemma is the result of the Oslo Syndrome.