![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Knafe-at-DCity-scaled.jpg\")
<\/a>The Jerusalem Post\u2019s<\/em> Zev Stub reviewed the new developments east of Ma\u2019aleh Adumim. The headline<\/a>: \u201cIsrael\u2019s newest amusement park brings \u2018magic\u2019 to Jerusalem outskirts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The headline<\/a> in Haaretz<\/em> took a different tack: \u201cIsrael\u2019s shiny new theme park and mall that aren\u2019t technically in Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n While Stub\u2019s article is a personal review of the amusement park, the Haaretz<\/em> piece by Jonathan Shamir leans heavily political. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s part of the efforts to normalize Ma\u2019aleh Adumim to the Israeli public,\u201d Shamir quotes Hagit Ofran, executive director of Peace Now\u2019s Settlement Watch program. The area is \u201ca huge problem for the development of a Palestinian economy, let alone a state.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But one of the pictures included with the article subverts Shamir\u2019s agenda: It\u2019s an image of an Arab family taking a selfie and enjoying the park alongside their Jewish neighbors. If that\u2019s normalization, I want more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The contrast between Shamir\u2019s critique and the photo chosen to go with it illustrates exactly why this part of the Middle East is stuck in a status quo that no one really wants but, at the same time, no one can figure out how to get past: Israel, to much of the world, is a symbol rather than an actual place. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n This Israel-as-a-symbol is not filled with real people who strive to make a living and who mostly eschew politics. Instead, the country has become a talking point used by both sides to virtue signal to like-minded individuals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, I\u2019m hardly pro-settlements in my personal political views. I would have preferred that most had never been built.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But let\u2019s step back for a critical reality check: The settlements aren\u2019t going anywhere. Certainly not the big ones like Ma\u2019aleh Adumim, Ariel and the Gush Etzion block. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Not the smaller ones either. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After 2005\u2019s Disengagement and the subsequent Hamas coup in the Gaza Strip, few in Israel have any interest in taking risks that could launch another terror wave. There\u2019s scant political will for making a deal on the Palestinian Authority\u2019s side, either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If, however, we take as a starting point that the settlements \u2013 whether you believe they were established in sin or are the flourishing of Zionism 2.0 \u2013 are here to stay, then you are compelled to think out-of-the-box for a solution that will allow us to live in the same space. Maybe not together but neither on the constant verge of violence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Symbols, by contrast, don\u2019t allow for innovative ideas; they push people to dig their heels in further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the most interesting approaches I\u2019ve seen comes from the Hartman Institute\u2019s Micah Goodman. In an article he wrote<\/a> for\u00a0The Atlantic,\u00a0<\/em>based on his book\u00a0Catch-67<\/a><\/em>, he reviews a proposal developed nearly 20 years ago called \u201cKeep it Flowing.\u201d It\u2019s based on the idea that traditional borders ensuring contiguous territory simply won\u2019t work here.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, the plan calls for a network of bridges and tunnels to connect Palestinian cities and villages, eliminating checkpoints and allowing free movement below, above and alongside entirely separate Israeli highways. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt would not be cheap to implement, because it involves tunnels and bridges, but it would create transportational contiguity for Palestinians,\u201d Goodman writes. \u201cIf Israel were to pave this network of roads \u2014and more important, give the Palestinian Authority autonomous control over it \u2014 the reality on the ground would be completely transformed. Israel would be able to abolish the main source of friction between the [Palestinian] civilian population and the [Israeli] military authorities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n (A related plan to build<\/a> a 37-kilometer bridge from Gaza to the West Bank was mooted in 1999 by French-Jewish architect Mark Mimram.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n To be sure, Goodman is not proposing a Palestinian state \u2013 at least not yet. This is not \u201cpart of a perfect, redemptive project\u201d \u2013 for either side, he notes. Rather, \u201cthe occupation of the Palestinians can be shrunk without also shrinking Israelis\u2019 security.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Is this what activists on either side want? Not really. But compromise comes in many colors. For Goodman, this kind of \u201ccreeping segregation,\u201d as he calls it, could be a good thing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Compromise has proved to be beyond the scope of the Israel-haters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n