To heal divisions among the Jewish people, divide the land

By: Gilead Sher, Robert Mnookin
August 11, 2016

(JTA) — “If there is something that deprives me of sleep it is the fissures in Israeli society,” former Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon declared, just after he resigned in May. That same day Ehud Barak, who preceded Yaalon as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s defense minister from 2009 to 2013, accused Netanyahu of embracing a “divide and rule” approach.

The deepening divisions in Israel called out by its two most recent defense ministers are also reflected in America. They were on display at the Republican and Democratic conventions during intense debates over platform language concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

These schisms are growing both within and between the Jewish communities of Israel and the United States, which comprise more than 80 percent of the world’s 14 million Jews in roughly equal numbers. They pose critical barriers to ever achieving the kind of Jewish unity necessary to attain and sustain a two-state solution. And that outcome is critical to Israel remaining both Jewish and democratic, as well as to its long-term security, which is why the two-state solution should be supported by any American candidate claiming to be “pro-Israel.”

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