The tone of this piece is not one of celebration, and not because there is not much to celebrate. The foundation of Israel only several years after Jewish life in Europe was worthless was a stirring event. And there is much to admire about Israeli society, with its thriving culture, absorbing literature, and enviable everyday-life joie de vivre.

But the issue is finding the right historical perspective to make the anniversary meaningful today. Sugar-coated celebration stands in a dissonance to the grim reality of Israeli society as a house divided against itself about the most fundamental moral and political issue of the day, and of Zionism since its inception: how to live with the Palestinians, who share with Jews the same homeland. Israeli society is now stranded in the present because of its inability and unwillingness to decide this issue. As a result, a sense of permanent disquiet is hovering over life in Israel: disquiet over the potential consequences of inner disunity and of the narrowing of horizons of expectations.

Since 1967, Israelis are unwilling to decide what to do with the Occupied Territories. Of course, the story is not one-sided. And one can always blame the Arabs, Arafat, and others for the current situation. But I do believe that one has some agency in history and therefore some responsibility as well. This indecision is a decision in itself. Forty years of occupation have become a way of life, they are not a minor historical accident (although the occupation itself is a result of the contingency of the 1967 war). This special institution is now linked to all facets in Israeli society. The pattern of Israeli policy that has emerged since 1967 (with some twists and with the exception of Oslo) is the creation of a Palestinian people without rights while controlling the territory. Post-1967 Israeli history is dominated by the occupation, even if this has not made it yet into the mainstream of Israeli historiography, which writes about “Israeli history” as if the occupation never existed. And Israelis must face the unavoidable moral consequences reserved for those who in the modern world deny others the universal right of self determination.

At sixty, Israel is at a historical deadlock with respect to the Occupied Territories. An Israeli house divided against itself can stand, of course. It has stood since 1967, and it can stand longer, because any price seems small for many Israelis compared to the disunity entailed in a decision. But in the meantime, a rendition of Jewish nationhood based on xenophobia, conquest, and anti-democratic values persists. History will not wait forever for those who oppose this rendition, and soon they may find that terrible repression or a bi-national state remain the only options.
And even if the house can stand, what kind of a legacy does it leave behind? For Israelis, even if stranded in the present, do continue to write their history. The occupation—together with other significant events such as the Holocaust, independence, the Nakba, and the fantastic creation of Israeli culture—now defines modern Jewish and Israeli history. Ours is an era of memory, and of national repentance over repressed pasts. In the current global memory culture, where nations are called to come to terms with their past, Israel created in the occupation its own past that needs to be morally owned. And, this, too, is a legacy of Israel in its sixtieth anniversary.

The territories stand here for greater decisions about the future of Israel: will it be democratic or theocratic, based on universal rule of law or on ethnic discrimination? “A house divided against itself,” as the readers of Tikkun know well, is a term associated with a different historical case in American history. The two cases are not the same, but they are good to think with. And I do not refer to the Civil War as the consequence of the house that did not stand in 1860, but to the dilemmas on the proper way to live. Occupation is simply morally wrong and not among the choices available to a free and honorable people. The road to normal life is to end the occupation. Those in Israeli society who oppose it should find the inner, cultural, and political power to overcome those who believe in a rendition of Jewish nationhood that is based on territorial expansion and inhumanities against others. They should not fear the disunity (that is, standing their own ground) that necessarily underlines many a great historical and ideological decision. This liberating decision will come not through unity, but through conviction in doing the right thing.