How the zealots are killing a dream

An excellent piece by Will Hutton in the Observer left me very little  to rant about in the anti-Israel bias dept but much to despair about as we seem further than ever away from peaceful coexistence.

Some food-for-thought snippets:

…no more room for visionary ideas about building an Israel that will be a beacon for humanity whatever their faith. Israel is engaged in a fight to the death…

…walls may look like the act of the strong; in fact, they are the last throw of the weak. Israel has come to a desperate pass if it clings to this as a solution to anything…

…the liberal Israel, which might have offered a different vision, has been engulfed by Israel's religious zealots…the liberal secular traditionalists within Palestine, and with whom a genuine peace bargain might have been struck, are also beleaguered by fundamentalist religiosity…

…Arafat's alleged corruption sparked the violent protests in Gaza last week, but it is not just about his personal failings; it springs from the deep factionalisation within Palestine, as terrorist groups grounded in extreme fundamentalism insist on no quarter, suicide bombing and permanent intifada...

…The objective is the annihilation not just of Israel but all Jews…

…in Israel…liberals face a double whammy: they have to negotiate with uncompromising Islam to secure recognition of Israel's right to exist, while their religious right is engaged in a project of overt colonisation, oppression and systematic abuse of human rights. Unable to make any advance on the first, they can offer no alternative to the second…

…the decline of Kibbutzim is mirrored by the political disarray on the left. At the last elections, Labour won only 19 seats in the 120-seat Knesset…Israeli liberalism is wilting to the point of extinction…

…The religious fundamentalists on both sides of the divide want to extinguish their own secular, liberal traditions and those of their opponents because they are the peaceniks…

…Ultimately, both communities will look one day to their secular liberal traditions to broker peace…Europeans must try to keep that flame alive…The Israeli liberal left, however bleak it may look now, must do the same. ..

…At its best, Israel is a noble idea, but it will never flower as a society of religious zealots behind a wall.