we Israelis cannot make peace, that peace is a dangerous illusion, that we must be constantly on guard.
It is difficult to understand the Israeli reaction after the Oslo peace accords without grasping the important role of this conviction in our political life. Yet Israel is a new nation. Millions of people were transplanted not only from one country to another, but also from one culture to another, from one language to another, from one climate to another, from one way of life to another, from one geopolitical situation to another, often also from one social class to another. It would have been a wonder if nothing new came out of this.
Australia and the United States are based on British culture and British values, but they are, of course, new nations. Israel is Jewish as Canada is British, yet both are new nations.
This new nation, Israel, is suffering from great inner stresses. Today, 50 years after the official creation of the state, a deep rift passes through its middle.
We refer to "left" and "right' but these terms have little resemblance to the way they are understood in Europe. Generally speaking, "left" in Israel means the social and economic upper classes, the Jews of European origin ("Ashkenazim"), the better educated, the non- and anti-religious. This left is reinforced by practically all of the Arab citizens of Israel-a national minority of nearly 20 percent.
"Right" means the socially and economically underprivileged, the Jews of oriental descent (often referred to as "Sephardim"), the less educated, and the religious Jews of all shades. The different definitions actually overlap: most oriental Jews are religious or "traditional," and belong to the "lower" classes, for instance. That's why the various differences have become one great dangerous rift. The rift between the two camps is widening constantly. Some speak already about "two peoples," the left based in Tel-Aviv, the right in Jerusalem. When the left's Shimon Peres faced the right's Binyamin Netanyahu two years ago, the election results showed that each camp commands almost exactly 50 percent of the vote.
The rift runs through all the problems of Israeli society: state and religion (the "right" prevents any separation), the constitution (the religious don't want one), the laws, and the Supreme Court (too liberal for the religious), the education system (dominated by the religious), the Arab minority in Israel proper (equal rights on paper only), even the music is involved: the left's pop versus the right's oriental songs.
The peace process has fallen into this abyss. The right has condemned the "Ashkenazi" Oslo-agreement; a rightist religious