Hold the applause

Olmert began his speech with an analysis of the current status of the conflict, speaking eloquently about Israeli “dreams” of and aspirations for a Jewish state. Biblical evidence, he says, demonstrates that the Jewish people are “intricately linked” not only to the land internationally recognized as Israeli, but also to the present-day West Bank.

Yet, he acknowledged, Israel cannot continue to exist in its current form as both a Jewish and a democratic state. He argued that once Palestinians constitute a majority within greater Israel-Palestine, Israel will cease to be a democratic state because it will no longer represent the interests of the majority of those living under its control.

Accordingly, Olmert advocates that portions of the West Bank — determined by the pre-1967 war boundaries — be given to the Palestinian people in an eventual peace deal. Given his belief in the historical entitlement of Israel to all of the West Bank, however, he sees any land potentially allocated to the Palestinians as a “concession” rather than a compromise.

The rest of Olmert’s talk focused on the issues of Iran and the Arab Spring. For the purposes of this article, I will only discuss the previously summarized portion of his speech, as these other topics deserve their own analysis.

Mr. Olmert spoke quite compellingly about the intimate and long-standing emotional and historical ties of Israelis to present-day Israel and the Palestinian territories. Yet he fails to recognize the equally intimate, long-standing and legitimate emotional and historical ties of the Palestinian people to that same geographical region. Moreover, Olmert spoke at length about how the division of Jerusalem “kills the hearts of every Jew,” yet did not mention the significance of several of Jerusalem’s holy sites — particularly the Haram Ash-Sharif, or Temple Mount — to Palestinian Muslims and Christians.

Additionally, Olmert’s claim that Israel will only cease to exist as a democratic state when Palestinians constitute a majority in greater Israel-Palestine is misleading. The political existence of Palestinians within the West Bank and Gaza is semiautonomous at best. The Palestinian people are represented by two political bodies — Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza — which operate within territories. They have no state. Furthermore, these political bodies and those they represent are first and foremost subject in all key areas — border control, resource access and security, among many others — to Israeli control and, in the West Bank, occupation. To vote for Fatah or Hamas in a Palestinian election is not an act of participation as a member of a nation, and to live in Palestine is to live as an Israeli subject. The democratic nature of Israel, then, is already deserving of doubt.

Finally, in the question-and-answer portion of the talk, Olmert was asked by a student about the “disproportionate use of force” in 2008-09’s Operation Cast Lead, in which Israeli forces targeted Gaza’s infrastructure in response to rocket attacks by its ruling party, Hamas, into southern Israel. Olmert, who ordered the attack, contends that the amount of force used by Israel was largely permissible given the damage inflicted by Hamas. Others argue that Israel’s military actions killed 10 times more civilians than attacks by Hamas -- and that its use of white phosphorus constitutes a war crime.

In response, Olmert raised several criticisms toward residents of Gaza. “The Palestinians living in Gaza are brutal,” he said. He argued that Hamas has killed members of Fatah during conflict between the two parties “in a manner so much more brutal and cruel than anything we ever did to the Palestinians.”

Mr. Olmert’s rhetoric speaks to a larger problem within the ideology of Israeli leadership. His references to Israeli hopes and dreams, in contrast with Palestinian brutality and callousness, are simplistic and fallacious. The portrayal of the “other” as somehow less worthy or decent is certainly not unique to this conflict, but it is a pervasive theme. The idea that those who identify as Arab or Palestinian are somehow less capable of pain, suffering and greatness is one that should be combated, not promoted, if there is to be any sort of solution to the suffering this region has experienced.

I believe that the University was correct in giving Mr. Olmert a platform to freely express his views. I do not, however, believe that an invitation to speak at this University should be confused with admiration or respect, nor should the student body accept that an individual is decent simply because he or she stood on the stage in McCosh 50. Ultimately, we should take this recent talk as a lesson: to strive to know the politics behind the politician and to think before we applaud.

Christiana Renfro is a Wilson School major from Fair Oaks Ranch, Texas. She can be reached at crenfro@princeton.edu.