The newspaper "Haaretz" published a lengthy article written in 1999 by Israeli historian Ron Pundak, who is considered one of the architects of the Oslo Accords, which included "terrifying" predictions for Israel's future in 2025.

The newspaper said that his prediction was “painfully” accurate, and today it seemed “terrifyingly” close to being verified on the ground, a decade after his death.

As fate would have it, Pundak did not live to confirm whether his prediction would become a reality or just a pipe dream. He passed away in Tel Aviv on April 14, 2014, at the age of 59, after a struggle with cancer.

In his article, the Israeli historian imagined that in the year 2025 he would wake up one morning to the sound of a question that kept haunting him: Isn’t it time to collect what I have left before fleeing?

This question was not on his mind in a vacuum. In his article, he imagined that the conditions in Israel had deteriorated so severely that “most of my friends left” the country, as he put it, and leaving “usually begins when their children and grandchildren immigrate, as some of them immigrated to Europe, and most of them to The United States, and others further afield, such as East Asia.”

Israel has been emptied of most of its human resources in “a large number of knowledge-based industries, and in the first years of the 21st century it was a leader in this field,” says the Israeli historian.

The writer criticized the first government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak (1999-2001) for committing many mistakes when “everything was ready to sign and implement the major historic deal with the Palestinians, which could have changed the course of history.”

However, the government decided to stick to the limited and visionless plan that was imposed on the Palestinians and threw the Middle East into turmoil, “for which we pay to this day,” as the architect of Oslo says.

Ron Pundak recounted some of the circumstances that accompanied the negotiation process that took place in 2000 to reach a peace settlement with the Palestinians.

He said that the Israeli government was not prepared to allow the Palestinians to establish a state on most of the lands of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and that it aimed to reduce the right of refugees to return to their future state, and insisted on maintaining Israeli sovereignty in a large sector of land along the Jordan Valley, It refused to enable the Palestinians to be real partners in managing water in the aquifer that lies beneath their feet.

He added that discussions about Jerusalem also faltered when Israel demanded sovereignty over the entire city, including the 65 square kilometers it annexed from the West Bank in 1967, as well as full control over the city's Arab population, which at the time numbered 200,000 people.

Ultimately, it seemed clear to the Israeli government that the only way to reach an agreement was to pressure Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and force him to accept the dictates of Israeli “peace,” who “was aware that his days were numbered due to his illness, and he wanted more than anything else to He will be the founder of an independent Palestinian state,” according to what was stated in the article.

But Arafat surrendered - according to the article - to the pressure exerted on him by Ehud Barak and US President Bill Clinton, and agreed to the deal after receiving a promise that its conclusion would make it possible to resume discussion of the issues postponed in the final status agreement immediately, including the status of the city of Jerusalem, the refugees, and the lands of the West Bank. Western lands, of which Israel retained 40% as part of the agreement.

Pundak pointed out that the Israeli government began building a high fence adjacent to a road equipped with electronic monitoring equipment to detect intrusion, and the idea was to create a permanent barrier separating Israel from the Palestinian state. At the same time, Israel continued its policy of “reducing the number of Palestinian workers in the country” to a minimum. The Israeli government did not encourage joint Israeli-Palestinian cooperative projects, and “the Palestinian economy began to deteriorate.”

The writer elaborated on the main milestones that took place after the Oslo Accords and the positions of successive Israeli governments towards them, as well as the Palestinian factions, especially the two Islamic resistance movements (Hamas and Jihad), the Fatah movement, and the Palestinian Authority.

The article went on in its historical narrative to address the acts of violence launched by settlers in the West Bank against Palestinian villages “that were suspected of helping the Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements. The area between Afula and the city of Jenin, along the border, witnessed acts of violence carried out by Palestinians and Israelis alike. "Which led the Israeli government to occupy Jenin and Nablus for a few days."

The article explained that the religious parties continued to base their propaganda and marketing campaigns on texts from the Torah, similar to what was stated in the Book of Deuteronomy 2, which states, “So the Lord our God handed him over to us [Sihon, king of the Amorites], so we defeated him and all his sons and his men at that time. We captured all his cities, We destroyed every city - men, women and children - and left no survivors."

The slogan that brought the next prime minister to power was: “Remember what Amalek did to you. The Arabs inside and outside the country are a threat to the State of Israel.”

The Haaretz article goes on to assert that the attempts of the Arab community to integrate into civil life in the occupying state, and for its members to become citizens enjoying fully equal rights, have failed. The Israeli political system was unable to deal with the problems and disparities that emerged, and a state of boiling arose among the young Arab generation.

The article touched on the talk about Arab autonomy inside Israel. In this, the writer says that the autonomy demanded by the supporters of this approach was not necessarily geographical; Rather, it was of a cultural and functional nature.

Some Israeli Jews supported this idea, including people on the left who saw it as the only way to normalize relations within the country “which was on the verge of catastrophic collapse,” as well as some religious moderates who simply aspired to preserve Israel. But the right-wing government strongly opposed this idea.

As a result of political and diplomatic tensions between Israel and the United States, Washington stopped transferring civil and security funding to Israel, and dialogue with diaspora Jews began to fade, according to the article, which adds that the new Jewish generation in the United States and Europe is no longer impressed by the transformation that is beginning to take shape in Israeli society.

Then things in “Jewish” Israel soon began to collapse, as the economic deterioration in the country exacerbated the phenomenon of xenophobia, “which verges on being racist in nature.”

Pundak pointed out that the number of foreign workers in Israel is increasing after Israeli employers stopped hiring workers from the “Palestinian state” and Israeli Arabs.

The writer expected that, in 2017, Israel would begin to descend into chaos, both domestically and internationally, which would prompt it to launch a call calling for “the restoration of the hope that emerged at the turn of the century.”

Perhaps worse than that - in the opinion of the architect of Oslo - is that the confrontation between the secular, liberal minority and the religious establishment in Israel has become more intense, the fragile right-wing coalition has been forced to submit to the dictates of the rabbis, and the state has become less Jewish demographically and subject to strict religious restrictions.

The writer expected that, in 2017, Israel would begin to descend into chaos, both domestically and internationally, which would prompt it to launch a call calling for “the restoration of the hope that emerged at the turn of the century.”

The next seven years will be the most difficult for Israel since its founding. Its army will wage a “difficult and complex” war against the Palestinian factions in the occupied territories.

The article attributed Israel's decline to a number of reasons: Among them is spending huge sums of money to address the ongoing tension on its borders. On the other hand, the army had to deal with thousands of people who refused to conscript, and Israeli-Jewish national cohesion gradually dissolved.

On the international level, the deterioration in Israel has reached new depths. European countries announced the imposition of various sanctions on Israel, with the European Union allowing each country to decide for itself the nature of its commercial and cultural relations with Israel.

Scenarios

The article asks: What will happen from now on? The writer answers by drawing some main “negative” scenarios, including the decline of the peace process to the point that puts the Arab countries on the brink of war “of one kind or another,” and perhaps Egypt and Jordan will return to the cycle of hostility or violence against Israel, and that the West Bank and Gaza Strip will be subjected to a “process.” Lebanon.”

Pundak predicted that an uprising would break out in various forms if Israel did not improve its treatment of its Arab “citizens.”

Nationalist forces will strengthen to the point that a government that adopts conservative or even fascist tendencies may come to power and includes extremist religious elements.

In this case, the result will be a society torn apart from within. In addition, the conflict between the "state" and its Arab minority will intensify, as will the conflict between the government and progressive and liberal forces.

Here, Israel will find itself isolated internationally, its economy will weaken significantly, and the flight of elites and businessmen will follow. This scenario could occur separately or in conjunction with the previously mentioned scenario, according to the author.

Regardless of which diplomatic process is chosen, conflict between religious and secular sects within Israeli society is likely to escalate and escalate so violently that it may lead to the emergence of pockets of civil war.

In such a case, the writer concludes, expecting a process of schizophrenia to occur within the Israeli public, and in which different “cantons” may emerge, each with a geographically and functionally separate population group based on different educational and cultural systems. This scenario may reach the point of separation, so that there becomes “Judah and Israel.”

Source: Haaretz