It was sometime in the later 1950s years. In the modest residence of the Israeli Prime Minister in Jerusalem David Ben Gurion and Nahum Goldmann till the early morning hours led a conversation. Two personalities sat there together which had entirely passed away in spite of their common Zionist convictions: on one side Goldmann, the great diplomat and advocate of the Jews all over the world, an ironic sceptic in the tradition of the Diaspora. On the others of the certainty prophetic from an aura surrounded Ben Gurion, a man of the action who knew how to help himself of the instruments of the power without hesitating - inwards as outwardly.

The night conversation between Nahum Goldmann and Ben Gurion touched the core of the conflict between Arabs and Jews: the question of the legitimacy. That is: How do Jews and Palestinian Arabs justify mutually their claim to the country? Both self-image is narrowly connected with a religious and cultural interpretation of the history. «Narratively» they try to force this in each case own collective upon itself mutually, if necessary by force.

What concerns Israel: His legitimacy is not unequivocal, but divides in three explanatory variations. One could mention the divine assent reported by Ben Gurion the one-sided university-lateral legitimacy grounds. Such a claim cannot oblige, admittedly, other, already not at all the immediate opponents during the conflict, the Arabs. Thus this argument must be put through as it were physically - in shape of continuous settlement with reference to the Bible as a «Judäa and Samaria» of taken in area. The population policy is an argument coming through in the word sense, a projectile in the discourse of university-lateral legitimacy. The legitimately taken up divine promise of the biblical country binds in secular thinner also those Israelis who keep themselves apart for pragmatic reasons - above all, of a striven after compromise with the Palestinians because of - to the areas occupied since 1967. In the Internal-Israeli discourse about legitimacy, however, they succumb to the compulsion of the university-lateral argumentation. Since this helps herself in suggestive manner of the prehistory of the state Israel to justify one about the borders of 1948 going out settlement. Who refuses to go along Hebron, one says there, forfeits the claim to Tel Aviv. Thus it lets herself take - by the latest escalation of the conflict in their opposition strength weak - pragmatic majority by the colonists and their party follower argumentative to the hostage.

Besides, quite a lot of good argument would come up to the opponents of a continuous settlement after the «green line». The borderlines of 1948 are sacrosanct since as it were - in both directions. Besides, at least, it concerns the «Borders of Auschwitz». Thus the Israeli Foreign Secretary Abba Eban at that time called them after the overpowering military victory of 1967. However, he wanted to express with the fact that a retreat on the borders of 1948 is not possible because of their precarious military depth. Thus Abba Ebban stamped the word of the «Borders of Auschwitz» in pejorative intention. However, in another sense this picture could found a legitimacy which scoops from the atrocity of the Holocaust. Thus the year of the state foundation of Israel on narrowest is connected with the time icon in 1945 and this their preceding like following events. In the end, the state Israel is also actual in 1948, has arisen if not even causally, thus, nevertheless, in any case from the context of the second world war, with the Holocaust as its core. Thus Israel from the ultimative destruction executed to the Jew also deduces the ultimative right to defend the «Borders of Auschwitz» with the threat of the ultimative destruction by nuclear weapons. After these borders a so reasonable legitimacy has, of course, no validity.

The legitimacy of the borders of Auschwitz, borders of Israel from 1948 to 1967, is only partial-universal. Categorically the Holocaust obliges only the western world since. In the end, the Holocaust was connected with the anti-Semitism on the narrowest one, and he stands on the other hand in a negative tradition of the Christendom. Only if itself the anti-Semitism should «universalise» on its part about the west, so after the secularized Christendom, going back existence grounds of the Jewish state could also claim to the experience of the anti-Semitism universal validity. This would be possibly the case if the Arabs involved in the conflict and Muslims made to themselves the paranoid world interpretation of the anti-Semitism Too own and fought against Israel not only for reasons of the conflict around the occupying, but only, because it exists. Nevertheless, up to now they freely felt from this kind of the anti-Semitism and rejected all symbolic strange requests to let impose responsibility for it. Still in the middle of the nineties the Egyptian Foreign Secretary Amr Musa at that time with state rounds in Israel refused usually compulsory visit in the memorial for the Holocaust victims in Yad Vashem - completely for the purposes of that night statement Ben Gurions, the Arabs are not to be obliged on the Holocaust.

Beside the university-lateral legitimacy of the divine promise and the partial-universal legitimacy of the borders of Auschwitz apply still other possible being grounds of Israel. It is as easy as complicated: Israel has an irrefutable claim to existence only if only for that because it exists. Such ostensible tautology of bare factualness is founded physical-juridically - and with it universally. And exactly this does this variation of the legitimacy also the only real-politically suited. On the part of the Arabs it would require only of the recognition of the factualness of Israel - and regardless of all Internal-Israeli selfgrounds whether they refer now to the Bible or to Auschwitz. And in Israel? Such grounds could behave to the history of the acquisition of land which led to the state foundation of Israel absolutely indifferently. In the end, only that is called for the justification of the past which also intends to extend them in the future. To a recognition of the actual, to a recognition purely et simple, Nahum Goldmann might also have thought, for the rest when he countered Ben Gurions raisonnement about legitimacy with the ironic remark, he hopes, the Arabs would not think like the Israeli Prime Minister.

Three kinds of the legitimacy - the Israeli-Zionist Israeli-Jewish and «Israeli-Israeli» - appear, of course, not in pure form, but in differently stored, mixtures in counterheat now and again. Which variation dominates in respective alloy, follows political economic situations and ideological constellations which are not least also influenced by the Arabian opponents of Israel with. Remarkable proofs remain they, nevertheless, unspoken. The more with lasting effect their codes and signs determine cryptic the political agenda; yes, they deeply penetrate into the pores of political action. Thus pulled fence can be also understood presently between Israel and the occupied areas along the line of 1948 as an expression of a postponed discourse, as a spare action for the avoided Internal-Israeli controversy around own national self-image. Indeed, the fence is justified also with arguments of the safety before Arabian posters and attempts as earlier (and with reverse direction of attack) the ideologically motivated arrangement of settlements helped itself in the occupied areas of of more security-political grounds. However, the fence is not only a safety measure. He pulls before all things a line between two essential justification discourses of the Jewish state - between the university-lateral legitimacy as it is complained by the colonists and their party follower, and the partial-universal legitimacy which appeals to old Israel of 1948 and with it to the borders of Auschwitz. Instead of fighting out politically the rank order of those legitimacies in the Internal-Israeli debate, this discussion is shifted by means of the fence in the area of a security debate. Besides, different ranks are marked by safety - a higher valued safety of the Israelis in the heartland and an inferior safety of the colonists in the occupied areas.

Who did not think like Ben Gurion - or rather: so might not think, were the Israeli and Palestinian envoys negotiating in 1993 in Oslo. To you it had become rather quickly clear that a talking about historical legitimacy and with it about past had to lead only to a collision of the respective self-images and to the abort of the conversations. In the end, the past is a virtual time, basically only one text which can be read for the purposes of the respective selfjustification differently and be interpreted. However, only in the present compromise-willing Israelis and Palestinians can meet. To get to a conclusion of peace, it was a matter of neutralising the past. This happened, while both sides imposed themselves a momentary amnesia. The last questions of the conflict - the problem of Jerusalem and the temple mountain as well as the problem of the Palestinian «Right on Return» - one wanted to push open around the price of the failure. Namely very long - so that both nations could be calmed by the blessings of itself the feature around feature of putting peace. Bit by bit, so one hoped, the symbolic and nuclear salary a little capable of compromise of the conflict would be took away from the politics with it.

This calculation did not rise. It became from opponents of the Israeli-Palestinian compromise on both sides crosses. The attacks of Hamas and the Islamic class=linkTextInt href="Jihad destroyed illusions in Israel. On the other side the continuous settlement policy provided for the fact that the Palestinians were reminded over and over again of the origins of the conflict.

Ehud Barak, a stated opponent of the negotiations strategy smashed in Oslo, put invested it, therefore, in Camp David in summer, 2000 on a comprehensive, on a final solution of the conflict. However, such a plan had to rouse the recollection{memory} of all historical phases of the Israeli-Palestinian contrast{opposition}. The negotiations ended thus in the dead end more vitally{existentially} and, in principle, with each other not more compatible « of the last questions » from affiliation and legitimacy. Camp David failed because of the question of Jerusalem, in particular in the sovereignty in the temple mountain, just as because of the question of the Arabian refugees of 1948 - more exactly said in the Palestinian complained «Right on Return». Besides, it concerns central issues of the legitimacy - for both sides.

With the question of Jerusalem or the sovereignty in the temple mountain the biblical university-lateral legitimacy of Israel combines. This not always was in such a way. Early Zionist, even the a little squeamish state founder Ben Gurion, had been anxious for decades away to keep apart itself from the holy places. They knew the apocalyptic dangers which can go out from them. However, with the June-War in 1967 the legitimacy discourse had moved in Israel. Now the temple mountain became an icon of the political self-image - and this, although all Israeli governments from well-considered considerations had left the status quo in this sanctum untouched in the care of the Muslims. With Baraks negotiations strategy of the final solution of the conflict pouting sovereignty question in the temple mountain did a decision unavoidably. The successions were dramatic.

Dramatically also affected the Palestinian demand for an Israeli recognition of the «Right on Return» for the Arabian refugees of the War of 1948 - at least one principal item of the Palestinian self-image. After the admission of a quantity to be negotiated of Arabian refugees and their descendants to Israel such a concession of an Israeli debt acknowledgement would compare for escape and expulsion of the Arabs of Palestine. This would touch on the other hand in the self-image of the prevailing majority also of those Israelis who would be ready to resign themselves with the borders of 1948, the borders of Auschwitz. The Palestinian «Right on Return», but would bring the Jewish community if possible around its demographic conditions.

In Camp David questions of the affiliation and legitimacy had become two years ago the object of negotiations. The civil war threatened in case of the drawback in the quintessential points of the respective collective self-image both negotiations leaders - Arafat and Barak. They wished him, of course, only with the in each case other. However, the alternative to the potential civil war inside the war is outward.