With its central theme of atonement and repentance, Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the year in Judaism. He is talking about the future of Israel and the “abandonment” of the two state-solution. “Where do we go from here?” writes Harari contemplatively on the occasion of Yom Kippur. His musing over the core questions about the future of Palestine comes as knowledge of Israeli apartheid has become mainstream following the publication of a number of reports by prominent human rights groups and the UN. The 45 year old, who has become something of a celebrity scholar and a Cassandra like figure warning about the threat to society posed by inequality and technology, is the author of a number of international bestsellers, including the 2011 Sapians: A Brief History of Humankind. This optimistic view was reinforced by the recent intervention by acclaimed Israeli philosopher Yuval Noah Harari. It’s thus entering the third stage where the Zionist state’s practice of apartheid is accepted as self-evident. We only need to look at the response of several US states to Ben & Jerry’s call for a peaceful boycott of settlements and companies in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories to recognise the centrality of the occupation state in American power circles, and the length to which elected officials will go to defend it, even if that means undermining the US Constitution regarding the right to free-speech.Īssuming all truth passes through the same three stages, looking at the current stage of Israel’s occupation it’s safe to presume that the truth and nature of its reality is coming to the end of the second phase. Of course, we are not living in a time when opposition to the main doctrine upon which political and legal authority rests could see you hang, but that doesn’t mean that liberal democracies are immune to gross overreaction when accepted truths are challenged and questioned. In a not too dissimilar way, truth about Israel’s occupation is passing through Schopenhauer’s same three stages. Though this idea was well known in the Muslim world, in Europe - where the authority of the church rested on a geocentric cosmic order with the church reflecting on earth its centrality to the universe - it triggered a fierce pushback.
The astronomer was persecuted for advocating the Copernican idea that the earth revolved around the sun and was not the centre of the universe. When the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer made this observation some 170 years ago he had in mind historical figures like Galileo (1564-1642). Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” ( Middle East Monitor ) – Reading the reflections of one of Israel’s most celebrated contemporary public intellectuals on the apparently never-ending occupation of Palestine, I was reminded of an old saying about the nature of truth.
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