O People of Israel, the time has come to loosen up and play some jazz.

When you immigrated to the holy land, when you were just a tiny fraction of the people there, you could have come with an open hand, ready to share the land with the indigenous people there.

But no. You came with a closed fist.

Yes it was a tough neighborhood; you were not welcome; wars were launched against you. But even still, you could have done it differently. In those all-important early days, when trust is forged or fractured, you drove Palestinians out of their villages, massacring many. That was your original sin — your Nakba.

And then in the years that followed, you closed borders, built walls, expanded settlements, set up two-tiered land and water and justice systems. You persecuted and jailed those who resisted . . . "mowed the grass" in Gaza whenever it grew too high. You ignored international law, the Geneva convention and UN Security Council resolutions. And you refused to ever consider the right of refugees to return.

Admit it, O people of Israel: you failed to respect the humanity and dignity of generations of Palestinians. you treated them like subservient, second-class citizens — never as equals.

With the insight of a people persecuted for millenia, exterminated in pogroms and mass-murdered in a Holocaust, you could have found, in your wise rabbinic tradition, a way for Arabs and Jews to live together.

But you didn't want to share the land. You wanted it all. And in the process, you turned your Zionist project into a nightmare; the West Bank into a patchwork of disconnected enclaves surrounded by your settlements; Gaza into an open-air prison — and now a killing field.

It's too late to rewrite history. But you can change the script you're holding in your hands.

Show us. The world waits for you to conquer your fears and, in the years to come, emerge as a shining example of peaceful coexistence for the people of the 21st century to emulate.

O People of Israel, the time has come to loosen up and play some jazz.

—— Kalle Lasn — from Adbusters 171: Terrorist or Freedom Fighter?