very, very slowly, in an unseen, unfelt process. Only rarely, as a result of a dramatic occurrence, does it change rapidly. That happened, for example, in the 1967 war. A day before the war started, only a few of us dared to dream that the Arab world would recognize the State of Israel in its then borders. A day after, the dream had become a nightmare; anyone speaking about the "1967 borders" was considered a traitor. But that was an exceptional event. Ordinarily, the consensus moves as silently as a polar glacier.
The consensus of the Israeli-Jewish majority in the fall of 2005 rests on three pillars.
First: A Jewish state. That is the common denominator of almost all Jews in Israel. If one does not grasp the centrality of this conviction, one understands nothing about Israel.
"A Jewish state" is a state inhabited by Jews. True, it is unavoidable that some citizens will be non-Jews, but their number must be held to the absolute minimum, so that they are unable to have any influence on the character and policy of the state. This aim is embedded in the very substance of the Zionist Movement, which started with a book called Der Judenstaat. It derives its force from the hundreds of years of persecution, when Jews, helpless and defenseless, were at the mercy of all.
The Jewish Israelis want to live in a state of their own, of themselves alone, where they are masters of their fate. This desire is anchored so deeply in the hearts of most of them, that there is no chance for any contrary plan-be it "Greater Israel" or a "bi-national state." Consequently, there is no chance at all that the majority would agree to a massive return of Arab refugees to the territory of Israel.
Second: Enlarging the state. The Zionist Movement wanted to take hold of the country then called Palestine, all or most of it, and to settle in it.
This, too, is a profound desire, imbedded in the very character of the movement, a part of its "genes." But this second desire is subordinate to the first one. If there were a possibility of conquering the entire country and "getting rid" of all the Palestinian population, as proposed by the extreme right, it would certainly appeal to many. But the majority knows now that this is not a practical proposition. The conclusion is that the parts of the country with a dense Palestinian population must be "given up."92
Third: Recognition of the Palestinian people. That is a great change. It contradicts the classic position of the Zionist Movement which was adopted by all Israeli governments until the Oslo agreement, expressed by the famous dictum of Golda Meir: "There is no such thing as a Palestinian people." When, in the 1950s, we demanded the