"Where There Is No Vision, The People Perish…"

You cannot jump over an abyss in two jumps - thus said David Lloyd-George, the Prime Minister who made the historic decision to liberate Ireland after centuries of British rule. He jumped.

Yitzhaq Rabin wanted to cross the abyss in many little jumps. He fell into the abyss. Ehud Barak approached the abyss resolutely, but stopped at the brink. He demanded that Arafat meet him "halfway". Each one should jump to the middle.

Barak has adopted "resoluteness" as his slogan, the mother of all virtues. So why did he hesitate? Why was he afraid? There are many reasons for that - a political system that went haywire, the utter irresponsibility of the Knesset, his own character. But beyond all these factors there lurks, I believe, one decisive reason: the lack of vision.

In Israel, "vision" has nearly become a dirty word. Old people had vision. Ben-Gurion had vision. Shimon Peres had visions (which changed from time to time). But what has vision to do with the age of high-tech? Nowadays one has to be pragmatic, practical. So they say. Is it true?

Vision is the ability to foresee a reality that does not yet exist. That is very difficult for a normal person who lives in a given reality/ He cannot imagine another. Especially if the present reality has existed for generations. Theodor Herzl, the creator of modern Zionism, a master of fantasy, was aware of that. When he realized that the Jews were not impressed by the sober blueprint presented in his book "Der Judenstaat", he wrote a novel, "Altneuland", a fictional presentation of the reality he imagined. On the title-page he put the by now famous motto: "If you will it, it is not a fairy tale." The vision was inspiring, and without inspiration it is impossible to make a revolution.

In Israel there is no enthusiasm for peace. On the contrary. Barak himself does not like to use the word. He talks about a "permanent settlement". When he cannot avoid the word "peace", he always couples it with "security". Peace and security, security and peace. Security is good, everybody longs for security. So perhaps, thanks to sweet security, the bitter pill of peace can be swallowed.

All the arguments for making a "painful" peace (another favorite expression) are negative. If there will be no agreement, there will be war. The graveyards will be filled. Our best boys will fall. And besides, if there will be no "separation" from the Palestinians, Greater Israel will be full of Arabs. An agreement is needed, so that (in Barak's often repeated words) "we shall live here and they shall live there." In other words, get them out of our sight. To achieve this, it is worthwhile to "give up" some Arab quarters in Jerusalem.

Many people can be convinced by such arguments, although they smell heavily of racism. (One could, perhaps, found a movement called "Racists for Peace".) But such slogans do not generate enthusiasm.

The opposite camp lives in a permanent state of ecstasy. People there are always excited. They sing, they dance. "Love of Eretz-Israel", "Eternal Jerusalem", blood and soil. The mixture of extreme nationalism and religious fanaticism make a potent brew. Right-wingers may be ready to die for their belief, they have already proven that they are ready to kill.

In the "peace camp" there is no such excitement. During the days of Camp David, it did not succeed in mobilizing even ten thousand demonstrators to encourage Barak and spurn him on. Most Israelis are somehow ready for a settlement, but enthusiasm there is none. Indeed, where should it come from, if in all the "peace camp" there is hardly a voice that evokes the glories of peace as a longed-for reality, which will enrich our lives and carry our state to new heights?

Even left-wing intellectuals cringe when they speak of peace with the Palestinians. They nearly always add some negative remarks about them. Much as a good Christian crosses himself, a leftist Israeli, while speaking about peace, will add some derogatory words about Arafat, just to prove that he is not, God forbid, an Arab-lover. When Arabs now compare Arafat to Salah-al-Din (Saladin), because he did not betray Jerusalem at Camp David, the writer Amos Oz, a certified leftist, heaps abuse on the legendary Muslim warrior. Yet Saladin, who vanquished the Crusaders, is celebrated not only by the Arabs, but by European literature too, as a truly noble and humane leader. Maimonides, by the way, was his personal physician.

But peace can be inspiring. In a reality of peace, Damascus, Baghdad and Khartoum will be open to us. Our new president will visit his birthplace in Iran and speak with his colleague there in his mother-tongue. Israeli contractors will build housing projects in Riyadh, Hebrew university professors will teach Judaism in Beirut, Professors from Damascus will teach Islam in Tel Aviv. Our enormous military budget will gradually shrink, as peace takes hold, and the money saved will allow us to reach economic and social heights yet undreamed of. The same will happen on the other side. Peace will enable the Arab peoples, and especially the Palestinians, to move from the Third World to the First World, so that our relations will reach the level of equality necessary for relaxed bonds of friendship and mutual cultural fertilization. That will not happen in one or two years, but it is a vision about which we can say again: "If you will it…"

But the vision is not there. Peace is still considered a bitter pill. That is what the author of Proverbs (29, 18) meant when he wrote: "Where there is no vision, the people perish!"