THE JEWISH settlers of Gaza and in the West Bank have a dream for the future of Israel. I also have a dream for the future of Israel. But their sweet dream is my nightmare, whereas my dreams look to them as poison.

The settlers’ dream is to create a “Greater Israel” with Jewish settlements wall-to-wall. In these settlements only Jews can reside, whereas Palestinians can only come for work, doing the simple, low-paid jobs. In such a state, democracy will have to bow to the rabbis. The Knesset, the government, the Supreme Court, will be allowed to continue to exist, provided that the rabbis approve of their decisions. The settlers believe that once Greater Israel becomes a religious entity and a “Holy Nation”, the Messiah will come and the redemption of the Jewish people will materialise.

In this fantasy there is no place for the Palestinian people except as humble servants and grateful labourers. Moreover, in the settlers’ fantasy there is no place for me, there is no place for secular, modern Israel. My friends and I are “out” unless we repent. At least we are not supposed to stand in the way of building more settlements and increasing the existing ones. If we, secular Israelis, erase our own existence, the settlers will shower us with brotherly love. But if we insist that we have a different vision for Israel, we immediately become traitors, Arab-lovers or even Nazis.

But we, too, have a dream for Israel, totally different from the settlers’ religious fantasy. We want to live in peace and in freedom, not under the rule of the rabbis, not even under the rule of the Messiah, but under our own elected government.

We have a dream of being free from the lasting occupation of the Palestinian territories. Israel and Palestine, for almost 40 years, are like a jailer and a prisoner, handcuffed to each other. After so many years there is almost no difference — the jailer is not free and the prisoner is not free. Israel will only be a free nation when the occupation and the settlements are terminated and Palestine becomes an independent next-door country.

For 30 years the settlers controlled Israel through various governments. They pushed forward their vision and trampled over our dreams. They were the lords of the country. These days Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister, tries to launch a kind of putsch against the rule of the settlers. This is an attempt to restore the authority of the elected government. If this works, the dream of the settlers may be blocked and the vision of the secular Israelis may be revived.

The struggle in Gaza was not essentially a struggle between the army and the settlers, not even between hawks and doves. No. It was a struggle between Church and State (to be more accurate, between Synagogue and State). This is something many nations have experienced: what should be the position and the influence of religion and of clerics in the business of running a country? Some countries have sorted this out centuries ago. Other nations have been struggling with it endlessly. The Muslim world, with the exception of Turkey, has not even begun.

During these past days in Gaza we have been witnessing what might prove to be the first battle between Synagogue and State in Israel, the first showdown over the nature of the Jewishness of the only Jewish state. Are we first and foremost a religion, or are we first and foremost a nation?

In this first round it looks like secular, rational, pragmatic Israel painfully prevails over fanatic Israel. But let us not forget that this is only the first round.

Both the settlers and the rest of us Israelis can be proud that, unlike the very bloody wars between Church and State in many countries throughout history, this first round in Gaza has so far been violent but not bloody. There was a lot of sound and fury, but not a massacre. Will it be like this in the next rounds? Will it be like this when the time comes to give up the West Bank and east Jerusalem in return for peace with the Palestinians? These questions depend not only on the Israelis, religious and secular, hawks and doves, right-wing and left-wing. These questions depend very much on the Palestinians’ response. Would Palestine regard all of this as a bold Israeli step towards an historical compromise with them? Will they reciprocate by taking bold steps against their own fanatics? Or will they regard the clashes between Jews and Jews as a first syndrome of Israel’s disintegration and try to inflame the situation by launching a fresh wave of terrorism?

The old Arabic proverb goes: you cannot clap with one hand. A lot depends now on how the Palestinians interpret the struggle between Jews and Jews in Gaza.

Amos Oz is author of Help Us to Divorce: Israel & Palestine, Between Right and Right

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