An Israeli who understood the Palestinian problem

The Israeli linguist and scholar, Tanya Reinhart, has died at the age of 62. Ms Reinhart was a former professor of linguistics at Tel Aviv University and wrote articles for several Israeli newspapers. She finished her distinguished career as Distinguished Global Professor at New York University.



Her Emeritus Professor when she received her Doctorate of Philosophy from the MIT in 1976 was Noam Chomsky, who remained a close friend and political ally for the rest of her life. He commented, on news of her death that "..she would be remembered not only as a resolute and honorable defender of the rights of Palestinians, but also as one of those who have struggled to defend the moral integrity of her own Israeli society, and its hope for decent survival."

Ms. Reinhart was the subject of much opprobrium in her native Israel for her continued criticism of Israel's retention of the territories occupied in the 1967 war and argued that Israel should abandon the West Bank and Gaza. She said:-

"Israel should withdraw immediately from the territories occupied in 1967. The bulk of Israeli settlers (150,000 of them) are concentrated in the big settlement blocks in the center of the West bank. These areas cannot be evacuated over night. But the rest of the land (about 90%–96% of the West bank and the whole of the Gaza strip) can be evacuated immediately. Many of the residents of the isolated Israeli settlements that are scattered in these areas are speaking openly in the Israeli media about their wish to leave. It is only necessary to offer them reasonable compensation for the property they will be leaving behind. The rest — the hard-core "land redemptions" fanatics — are a negligible minority that will have to accept the will of the majority."

She pointed out that such a settlement would still leave between 6 and 10%, plus Jerusalem, in Israeli hands and these territories should be the subject of serious negotiations.

In 2002, Tanya Reinhart was heavily criticised in Israel for signing a petition which was heavily critical of the Israeli government's Palestinian policies. In the same year she published a book Israel/Palestine: How To End the War of 1948, in which she analyzed what she saw as the breakdown during the preceding three years of constructive engagement over the Palestinian issue and the hardening of the Israeli position.

Tanya Reinhart was only 62 and I think the world has lost an intelligent and compassionate woman, and the state of Israel (though she was resident in America), has lost a genuine patriot, a woman who was not prepared to take a myopic culturally insular view of a complex and difficult problem. She was prepared to take a lot of hostility and criticism in outlining a future in which she believed both Jewish and Palestinian peoples could live side by side within a political framework that was fair and just.