We are all involved in a recovery movement from the illusions of Zionism, and the former foreign minister of Israel, Shlomo Ben Ami, undertakes that inventory publicly in Al Jazeera, in a piece called, “Israel: The vision and the fantasy.” Short version: ethnocentrism kept Israel from accepting the generous Arab Peace Initiative. Which Kerry thinks he can revive, 10 years out and tens of thousands of settlers on. Israel’s defiance began after the ’67 war, when its occupation made inevitable “a war of races.”

Ethnocentrism is bound to distort a people’s relations with the rest of the world, and Israel’s doctrine of power was drawn from the depths of Jewish experience, particularly the eternal, unforgiving hostility of a Gentile world. The role of the Holocaust as the constituent myth of the Zionist meta-narrative reinforced Israel’s tendency to face “the world”, an amorphous but imposing construct with which the Jews wage a dispute that cannot be resolved through the traditional tools of international relations…

A crucial moment in the history of Israel’s oscillation between diplomatic and military “activism” took place on the eve of the 1967 war. That crossroads exposed a deep cleavage between the young, self-confident Israeli-born generals, who were spiteful towards the older generation’s “submissive” attitude, and the diaspora-born politicians who, haunted by Holocaust memories and existentially fearful of international isolation, resisted making a break with the old politics of diplomatic Zionism….

In 1980, in a famous open letter entitled “The Homeland Is In Danger”, historian Jacob Talmon tried to share this simple lesson with Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Talmon criticised the belief of the Israeli right that one major “event” would radically and permanently change the situation in Israel’s favour, and he repudiated the “religious sanction” used to justify unrealistic policies in the Occupied Territories. He explained the Messianic illusions that were reborn with the Six-Day War as false compensation for the martyrdom of the Shoah. . . .

A small country such as Israel, lacking a serious demographic foundation or favourable geopolitical conditions, could never perpetuate its presence in occupied territories, Talmon argued. Hence, the danger to Israel lay in the Sisyphean effort to subjugate the Palestinians. “Blind is the leader who does not see that a war of races is what lies ahead,” he wrote….

The Arabs might never accept the moral justice of Zionism, but, as the Arab Peace Initiative indicates, they would consider accepting the political legitimacy of a Jewish state.

Not even Israel’s staunchest allies will risk an indefinite confrontation with the entire international community by supporting Israel’s territorial ambitions. Reasonable border modifications are one thing; legitimising a Jewish empire is quite another.

Indeed, international acquiescence to the situation created by Israel’s 1967 victory proved to be extremely short-lived. When a war of salvation and survival turned into a war of conquest, occupation and annexation, the international community recoiled and Israel went on the defensive. It has remained there ever since.