There was an article in last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine titled “Israel’s Extremist Takeover”. Did you read it? If not, I think you should, unless reading about all of Israel’s problems and shortcomings just make you sick. Then you should skip it.

Israel, like all countries, is made up of many countries. Or, to put it another way, there are many Israels. The Israel I like to think of, and the ones that most of my Israeli friends live in, is a beautiful country, with open, generous, intelligent people doing amazing things, with high rise buildings and fields of flowers and desert views with camels and mountains, with buildings from the biblical period and from last week, and beaches, and museums, and extraordinary universities. A mix of religious Jews and secular Jews, religious Arabs and secular Arabs. But it’s also a country surrounded by enemies. And a country that has occupied external territory now for 57 years. And a country filled with zealots, none of whom I have ever knowingly met personally during my ten or so visits to the country, but who in many ways are now in control.

This is not the time to go through the history of Israel, but a few points might be helpful. As a political movement, Zionism started around 1900. Towards the end of World War I, in 1917, the British issued the Balfour Declaration supporting a homeland for Jews in the area now called Israel. This declaration was adopted first by the League of Nations, and then by the United Nations, and in 1948, by a vote of the United Nations, the State of Israel was created, and the State was immediately attacked by five (I think) Arab armies. While Israel won the war, there was no treaty, simply an armistice, with temporary armistice border lines, but no formal agreed upon borders.

And the war in 1948 resulted in thousands of Palestinians fleeing from, or being forced out of, their homes in Israel proper, and becoming refugees, stateless refugees whom surrounding Arab states refused to absorb, except on a temporary basis. The United Nations, for the first and only time, created an organization (UNRWA) to serve the Palestinians refugees, not to enable them to resettle elsewhere, but to maintain them as permanent refugees with a hope to return home.

Another war occurred in 1967, with Israel coming out on top again and quickly, and finding itself occupying the entire city of Jerusalem, the Sinai, Gaza and the West Bank of the Jordan River. Again, no peace treaty, although later treaties were worked out with two of the parties – Egypt (in return for Sinai), and Jordan. But Israel occupied the remaining areas – Gaza (because Egypt, its former occupier, wouldn’t take it back), the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

While the original Zionists were by and large secular, after 1967, a group of religious Zionists began to plan for the eventual inclusion of the West Bank in the State of Israel. After all, most of the biblical events occurred in the West Bank, not in Israel proper. And they began to argue for Jewish settlements in the occupied territory. Others thought there should be Jewish settlements in Gaza, not for religious reasons, but basically for security (as well as access to additional land for agriculture and sunbathing). Although the Israelis withdrew physically from Gaza under Ariel Sharon, they maintained control of Gaza’s borders.

Although Israel has remained in control of East Jerusalem, the Palestinians still maintain that East Jerusalem (and perhaps all of Jerusalem) should be theirs. Neither of these areas are analyzed in the Times Magazine article, which is devoted to the West Bank, which now has hundreds of thousands of Jewish Israeli settlers. And while most of those settlers are ideologically inactive and live in highly urbanized ares, there are groups of radical settler leaders who are out to make the West Bank Palestinians disappear.

The article goes through the history of the West Bank since 1967, focusing not only on the radical religious Zionists, but on their allies in the Israeli Defense Forces, the Israeli Shin Bet (security service), the Israeli police forces, the Israeli courts, and the Israeli government in general. And it focuses in particular on the current Israeli government, and on ministers Ben-Gvi and Smotrich, who were some of the most radical of the radicals in the West Bank.

I am not going to repeat what is in the article now. I really think you should look at it. It confirms what you have probably already been thinking, but adds more than you realized. And, of course, under the camouflage of the Gaza war, the radical settlers in the West Bank have been emboldened, and unrestricted.

What to do? I go back to what I have said before. Israel can’t help itself, and Palestinians can’t help themselves. They are unable to work out an arrangement between them. The United Nations, as an organization, is compromised, and governed under an archaic structure. Only the moderate Arab nations, with the help of the United States and like-minded countries, can bring about, police, and control a fair peace in the area, and set the stage for long term progress and reconciliation. And this to-be-formed coalition cannot let Israel’s government, nor the Palestinian leadership (whoever that may turn out to be), stop it from working towards a solution.

And this means that, here in the United States, the polarization must stop. There needs to be a national policy on the subject. Without that, we will be part of the problem, as we have been. We cannot abide either knee-jerk Palestinian supporters, or knee-jerk Israel supporters. There must be a solution as fair as possible to everyone.

And what do I feel about the ICC possibly indicting Israelis as well as Gazan leaders. You know….the Israeli leaders are not worthy of adulation. Maybe they are committing war crimes, or other crimes outside the borders of their country. If so, I am not going to defend them. Any more than I would defend Donald Trump and his gang if they faced similar charges.

I am strongly for the security of the State of Israel, and today that is far from assured, as there seem to be more and more people who question Israel’s right to exist. That position should be off the table. But how do you remove it from the debate? Not the way we are going about it now.

OK, onward. Time for the rest of my day.