Insist that liberal democracy and shining economic success – even with constant threat of war – are the chief virtues of Israel, a state where six former heads of its security agency, Shin Bet, can appear in a documentary (The Gatekeepers) and criticise Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, a state where its own Supreme Court can overrule its government on use of torture or the direction of a wall opposed by Palestinian villagers, where historians freely challenge their country’s own foundation myth. Where, as Four Corners showed, its military personnel can speak out against the occupation.
In all these respects, Israel presents a benchmark of pluralism and democracy – a formidable one – for a future Palestinian entity. If Palestinians achieved it, they would set off a challenge to Arab dictatorship and theocracy everywhere and realise their own greatness.
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