Heinrich Boell Stiftung, the Open University and Tel Aviv University held a conference to mark 60 years of the establishment of the State of Israel. More about the conference»
The opening event took place at the campus of the Open University on November 4th, the day of the Presidential elections in the U.S., and the anticipated victory of Barack Obama featured prominently during the evening. The keynote address, Israel at 60 – Elements of a European Perspective,
was delivered by Mr. Daniel Cohn-Bendit, member of the European Parliament. The evening was moderated by Prof. Dan Diner, Dept. of History, Hebrew University, and Director of the Simon Dubnow Institute for Jewish History and Culture, Leipzig.
Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Dan Diner referred to the deep changes taking shape in the United States while in Israel, a stalemate seems to prevail concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Cohn-Bendit noted that the neo-conservatives in the U.S. will be gone and neo-liberalism is over – with whom and about what will Benyamin Netanyahu talk, he wondered.
The necessity of an “Arabization” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as the need to secure an Israeli-Palestinian agreement with the help of international troops, among them troops from Arab countries and Turkey was underscored. Dan Diner said the involvement of Arab states and the international community was essential in the current atmosphere. In Israel, the one-third that does not want to give up territories is stronger that the two-thirds that are ready to give them up, they opined.
Cohn-Bendit said that not just the dream of Greater Israel but also Sharon’s notion – if Greater Israel is not possible anymore, at least it should be "bigger" Israel – has to be overcome. The same would be true for the Palestinian dream of a Greater Palestine.
There was a discussion on the role of the EU and a possibility for joint foreign and security policy. For Dan Diner it was clear however that nothing would happen without the U.S. The EU could assist, but not initiate.
The conference continued on November 5th at Tel Aviv University. The first session was on the obligations, rights and privileges embedded in majority-minority relations. Panel participants were Prof. Hannah Herzog, Prof. Sammy Smooha, journalist Lily Galili who spoke about the Russian immigrant community in Israel and Dr. Yousef Jabareen, Director of Dirasat: The Arab Center for Law and Policy. Prof. Herzog began by noting that traditional definitions of majority-minority relations create an inflexible dichotomy that does not assist in new ways of addressing the needs of different identities and cultures in a society.
The second session was on the "social contract" between the State and its citizens. Prof. Zvi Schuldiner from Sapir College said that both the left and the right in this country are in the socio-economic middle. Journalist Ruth Sinai from Haaretz Newspaper claimed that there is no true public discourse around the economy, but rather remains a realm only for the heads of the marketplace, which is problematic. The panel also included Prof. Yitzhak Saporta from Tel Aviv University.
The third panel was on the topic of environmental justice, sustainability and the development of the State. Panel members included Ms. Carmit Lubanov, Coordinator of the Environmental Justice Committee through Life & Environment and Prof. Dan Rabinovitz who said that nationalism contradicts environmental sustainability. Prof. Arza Churchman and Dr. Thabel Abu-Ras rounded out the panel. Dr. Abu-Ras opined that there must be an integral social justice focus in environmental values.
Click to download an article based on Daniel Cohn-Bendit's keynote address at the conference on November 4, 2008. The article, titled: "We Need a European Position on the Middle East", was published in the Palestine-Israel Journal's issue on "The Refugee Question".